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Posted on March 3rd, 2012 by in Healthy Living, Life Lessons

What should you be doing with your life?

In this excerpt from her book The Prosperity Plan: Ten Steps to Beating the Odds and Creating Extraordinary Wealth (and Happiness), life coach and sought-after speaker Laura Berman Fortgang offers her interpretation of right livelihood, along with suggestions for discovering what it is you’re meant to do.

I don’t believe there is only one form that your right livelihood, passion, or purpose must take. There are many ways that it can be expressed. What has become clear to me after years of working with people so that they may recognize their purpose and right work is that it is not a matter of one project, passion, or job; rather, it is a way of being, a talent, a unique attribute you have that cannot be repeated by anyone, because no one else can be you. And that quality or strength expressed through you can fit into a myriad of job descriptions.

Ultimately, it is not what you do that will make you happy but how you feel when you are doing it. Who it allows you to be is the secret to the joy.

Chances are, there is a theme that has followed you throughout your life and through different jobs. Until it is discovered, named, and brought into your awareness, it will never register with you as being important. When you identify it, name it, and see how it has always been a part of you, you will have confirmation that you are supposed to amplify that part of yourself and allow it to be the criterion for your choice of work.

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Posted on March 1st, 2012 by in Healthy Living, Meditation, Nutrition

How to Deal with Stress

Taking charge of your stress means taking a holistic view of your health.

Jane, a 45-year-old holistic health worker from Rhode Island, was having trouble dealing with stress—stress about deadlines, stress about her workload, stress about being newly single after the end of a long-term relationship. She also carried a weightier worry about the innumerable things she felt she couldn’t control. “My sense of not knowing—of not having answers to some of my questions about my future—was especially stressful, because I wasn’t sure how to address something that intangible,” Jane says.

She’s hardly alone. Susan B. Lord, MD, who teaches Kripalu’s popular Healthy Living immersion program called Transforming Stress, sees dozens of men and women who come to her program with concerns about their levels of stress. Some people, like Jane, are looking for ways to free themselves from anxieties, while others are seeking solutions to stress that causes emotional anguish as well as serious physical health concerns.

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Posted on February 28th, 2012 by in Ask the Expert, Meditation

Ask the Expert: Sitting in Stillness–Mantras, Metta, and Meditation

In this edition of Ask the Expert, meditation teacher and senior Kripalu faculty member Bhavani Lorraine Nelson answers questions from readers like you.

My mind races when I sit. Can mantras help?

The reason I cover five or six different techniques in my Introduction to Meditation program is because not every type of meditation is effective for everyone. Some people thrive on simply sitting with the breath; for others, the breath is very ephemeral, so the mind has free rein to wander. Some concentration practices can be more engaging for the mind and help it to quiet down. Mantra is one of those—it can be helpful for people who find it difficult to sit simply with the breath.

Recent scientific research on mantra practice shows that it is very soothing to the nervous system because of the repetition. Setting an intention when repeating a mantra adds to the power of the practice. There are different mantras for different goals; practitioners can create a “family” of mantras to use at specific times and for specific purposes. It’s important, though, to have a primary mantra, just as you have a primary yoga practice. To find one, you might start with Thomas Ashley-Farrand’s book Healing Mantras. Choose a mantra that you’re drawn to and can imagine wanting to repeat often.

Is it “cheating” to visualize pretty patterns and concentrate on those, to stop “thinking”?

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Posted on February 27th, 2012 by in Healthy Living, Yoga

Welcome to the Kripalu Blog!

Welcome to Thrive, the Kripalu blog! We are thrilled to launch this blog to serve the Kripalu community with posts that are informational, educational, and, we hope, inspirational. We chose the name Thrive since it’s a cornerstone of the Kripalu mission: encouraging people to prosper and grow. We also like how the word evokes a sense of awakening, transformation, and renewal—concepts at the heart of the Kripalu approach.

In keeping with Kripalu’s goal to teach the art and science of yoga and healthful living, we’ve created Thrive as an extension of the Kripalu experience. We’ll be featuring some regular series, sharing stories with you—guests and readers—and keeping up with topics and trends in the worlds of yoga, health, conscious living, and wellness. But it’s really all about you. This blog is a platform for the Kripalu community to share ideas and experiences with our faculty, expert staff, and one another. Check back daily for stories, share your inspiration, and connect to new ways to thrive in your life.

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