All posts filed under: Self-Care

[VIDEO] 5 Reset Poses to Welcome Freshness

Published by DMCBlog

By De West // Finding time to refresh can be challenging. Take just five minutes to welcome freshness with De West. You might also consider joining De and Brian for Fresh Start: Joining the Movement of Yoga with the Stillness of Meditation March 10-12, 2023. About De West De West, Certified Yoga Therapist and a Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher is a leader in the Boulder, Colorado yoga community with over 29 years of teaching therapeutic yoga. She has developed a movement practice that allows people of all ages and abilities to experience a positive, relaxed, and transforming experience in both body and mind. Observation, listening, and respect of one’s unique anatomy contribute to her passion for helping students create more peace and freedom. De is the founder of Be Center in Boulder, CO. You can reach De at www.Be.Center

5 Keys to Health, Happiness, Self-Worth & Peace

Published by DMCBlog

By Blake D. Bauer I never learned how to love myself. And then I did a lot of things in my life that I didn’t like or love about myself, and I ended up doing a lot of damage. I would really love to help you understand how to stop hurting yourself and how to stop letting yourself get hurt. Figuring out how to love yourself practically today and every day is the key. From the moment we wake up in the morning we are either hurting ourselves with our habits or healing ourselves with our habits. I’ve broken down self-love into five specific key steps which are habits that we need to practice on a daily basis to be truly healthy and happy and shape the life we want. Key 1 for Loving Yourself Every Day—Express yourself honestly and kindly A lot of us are living in a way where we internalize much of what we feel, need and want. Because we never really learned how to understand what we’re actually feeling, what we …

Women’s Aura Clearing Meditation

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In this women’s aura clearing meditation by Sara Avant Stover, you’ll be guided through cleansing your personal energy field to restore a state of inner neutrality, followed by removing others’ energies. Last, you’ll call back any of your own energy that you may have left or leaked out in other times or places. The result is landing fully back in yourself, grounded, present, and clear. This is a great way to start or end the day or to simply hit the “reset” button when you feel disconnected from yourself. Join Sara at Drala Mountain Center About the Author: Sara Avant Stover Sara Avant Stover is a teacher of feminine spirituality, bestselling author, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) Practitioner. After a cancer scare in her early twenties, Sara moved to Thailand, embarked on a decade-long healing and spiritual odyssey throughout Asia, and has since gone on to uplift tens of thousands of women worldwide. The creator of the world’s first Women’s Yoga Teacher Training, Sara has also been featured in Yoga Journal, the Huffington Post, Newsweek, …

Live as a Free and Full Expression of Who You Really Are

Published by DMCBlog

by Blake D. Bauer What if all our suffering is a cry from our soul, from our body and our subconscious mind, asking us to love, value, and take much better care of ourselves? What if our suffering is waking us up to what matters most, to the reasons we were actually born? We experience so much pain and suffering throughout our life. You were not born to suffer. You came here to enjoy your life, to learn about love, to grow. The question that’s really important to answer is “how do I create less suffering for myself and for the people I love?” A lot of our suffering is the result of us betraying ourselves and trying to please other people all the time. I’ve been tortured mentally and emotionally. I’ve struggled with drug addiction, and suicidal thoughts. I’ve gone through periods of not wanting to be here. I feel really lucky that I found some insights that helped me heal my heart and find deep health again…and I want to help you …

Autumn and Cultivating Equanimity

Published by DMCBlog

As Mother Nature changes with the seasons, human beings also experience transition. Everything from the activities we participate in, the foods we eat, and the time we go to bed, to our external/internal reflections change. With Fall right around the corner, we thought it was a good time to share Sara Avant Stover’s podcast “Reflection for the Autumn Equinox” to understand how Autumn asks us to change. Come Home to Yourself with Sara and Drala Mountain Center

Bringing Together East and West, Meditation and Movement

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By Michael Sandrock Leave it to German novelist Herman Hesse to give some great insight into the life of men and women. Hesse, the Nobel Prize winner who influenced many in the 1960s in the era of consciousness-raising, wrote in his 1922 novel “Siddhartha:” Most people are like a falling leaf that drifts and turns in the air, flutters, and falls to the ground. But a few others are like stars which travel one defined path; no wind reaches them, they have within themselves their guide and path. How to find your guide and path? For many of us in the West, it is through athletics and a focus on the body, specifically long-distance running in recent years. In the East, the path included a meditation practice as exemplified by the journey of Siddartha, the future Buddha. Over the Labor Day weekend, the Drala Mountain Center will once again host a retreat that brings together East and West, meditation and movement, in its “Meditation and Yoga for Runners & Hikers,” one of many DMC programs …

The Gift of Attention

Published by DMCBlog

By Melissa Lago When we feel calm, we have more options about where to place our attention. One of the many gifts of yoga and mindful movement is that it can help us to calm our sympathetic nervous system designed for fight, flight or freeze, which causes stress, and activate our parasympathetic nervous system responsible for rest, which promotes an experience of relaxation, inner peace, and well-being. Since we are wired for survival, it’s natural that when we are overwhelmed or stressed, our negativity bias turns on, which is designed to keep us safe. In these moments we often notice what is out of balance in our bodies or challenging in our lives rather than what feels supportive or is working. Many of us have had the experience of noticing when our back is sore, and then barely noticing it once it’s healed. This can be true in our relationships too. We might find ourselves focusing on the one thing that we find annoying that our partner, friend or family member is doing rather than …

Why Meditation and Yoga for Runners & Hikers?

Published by DMCBlog

“I drove myself with an unconscious motivation of fear. Afraid that I am not special unless I prove I am special.” ~Marty Kibiloski In our upcoming Labor Day Weekend program, Meditation and Yoga for Runners & Hikers (formerly Running with the Mind of Meditation), you’ll learn how to enjoy the journey — not just the finish line. “The people that, I think, are drawn to running are used to hard work and pushing themselves and tend to be goal-setters,” says Marty. “We start to compare ourselves to other people.” This is where mindfulness, which employs the same principles used in yoga and meditation, comes in. Mindfulness is the basic ability to be fully present. It’s a mental state achieved by calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations without judgment. There are sound evolutionary reasons why running and walking have surged in popularity in the new millennium to become the exercise of choice for reducing stress, bringing us greater perspective, and connecting us directly to the wisdom of the body. The practices of …

Yoga Heart Opening Work

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Most people are aware that yoga improves heart health by increasing circulation and blood flow. Research shows that practicing yoga can help lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose levels, as well as the heart rate. All these benefits can add up to a lower risk of hypertension, stroke, and heart disease. In this practice video, De West shares another benefit of Yoga for your heart. The heart open practice is noticing what is happening and then being very kind to it. You’ll use your body to help you be more in touch with what you feel. About the Author De West, Certified Yoga Therapist and a Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher is a leader in the Boulder, Colorado yoga community with over 29 years of teaching therapeutic yoga. She has developed a movement practice that allows people of all ages and abilities to experience a positive, relaxed, and transforming experience in both body and mind. Observation, listening, and respect of one’s unique anatomy contribute to her passion for helping students create more peace and freedom. De …

Healthy Selfishness

Published by DMCBlog

Excerpt from the international bestseller You Were Not Born To Suffer by Blake D. Bauer A person who seeks help for a friend, while needy himself, will be answered first. ~The Talmud If you’re honest with yourself, would you say you’re a selfish person or a selfless person? What do you think of the assertion that everyone is in fact selfish, regardless of how well it is masked? Could you entertain the view that some of us are healthy in our selfish tendencies while most of us are quite unhealthy and destructive, which is what gives the topic of ‘selfishness’ a negative association and leads us to deny it as a fundamental attribute of human nature? If you really analyze it, you will eventually see that we either take good care of ourselves – which enables us actually to have time and energy for others – or we neglect our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, and therefore live in the world with stress, resentment and a lack of joy. Our metaphorical cup is either overflowing …