Pursing a graduate degree: my process

 a celebration, an offeringMy Master of Arts degree?

The hardest question to answer about my Master’s Degree is, “So, what are you going to do with your degree?” It's as if I’m a nomad until I can answer this with precision. However, I have been utilizing my degree all along—for the past seven years as a part-time student—one semester and one class at a time. When I began in August 2008 I was already teaching yoga and I already owned my own business as a writer and digital marketer.

What turned into seven years of one class per semester in East-West Psychology turned into the best type of graduate experience I could have ever imagined. It was, in some ways, like self-led psychotherapy as I put my entire life into each one class, especially the final papers. Each semester I evaluated where I was at in life and it was always changing. I evolved at my own pace and could not imagine seven years ago being where I am now.

What I intend to do with my degree and with my professional life is to enhance it with the knowledge, credentials and confidence I've gained, which will bridge into my writing and yoga teaching. I'll go beyond private yoga lessons and posting my written version of passions on the internet as I've become accustomed.

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what's up with "moon days" in ashtanga Mysore yoga?

Blood Moon in OctoberI practice Ashtanga Mysore-style yoga every morning lately. I love its blissful effects on my entire life. From the intensity of the poses to the self-led regimen to the specific sequencing, it's the real deal. 

no yoga on moon days

I wonder though about the classical necessity to not practice on the Moon Days. This means, there is no class held on New Moon or on Full Moon. Typically, you practice 6 days per week in general, and also take breaks on the Moon Days.

the moon's cycle gives us special energy

With all of my experience with yoga and moon energy and its watery nature

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You transfix me: You are my chakras

you are balanced. i live with you.

You are a work of art. It’s not easy but you do it. You live true to who you are and know it. When you are open, chakras, in my yoga practice, I don’t question it. 

dear chakras, you help me walk with strength, enchanted. i’m open to each of you as you arrive, speak and feel. i know who you are…

-->> chakra article moved to here.

Surrender to your heart: Let go of anger, sadness and stories that cover up your love

find your peace

Maybe it doesn't seem like it at times, but there is peace within you. Sometimes it's hiding on purpose, so that you cannot find it easily. Let's say you find the source of a problem and throw it out the window. But your inner chaos returns. Why?

Surrendering is a process. You need to believe that it relieves you. And then know that this action needs to be repeated.

But what does surrender even mean?

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I'm a rebel… I close my eyes in Bikram Yoga sometimes because it helps me see

eye closed and seeingDo you hear me now? Probably not if your eyes are opened, focused in the mirror in your yoga class.

I am here, eyes closed yet wide opened. I am listening to my own chakras, which speak louder with colors through darkened eyelids.

Yoga brings me there, not my own eye contact with myself in the mirror.

© 2013 Yoga Robin® 

Nurturing your body by taking it easy in yoga vs. being lazy: How do you know the difference?

Is your yoga sometimes an escape? Do you go to class when you are feeling bored or escaping life, and therefore give life its purpose through your yoga practice? It doesn't matter if it's hardcore or not.

take it easy some days

It's not necessary to expend a 100% effort during every yoga practice. Some days your body needs more tender loving care, and it's better that you show up on your mat than not at all. These can be the most transformative days that rewire your brain, in fact—the days when you are not motivated to go to class and you go anyway.

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Yoga brain while driving to class

it's all in the intentionDriving to yoga is part of yoga. I got the chance to notice its power just this morning on a long distance drive to class on this Sunday morning. 

it's all in the intention

Not getting into the class because it was full is a bummer, but this event has become part of my yoga too. As I search to find the reason for missing another life-changing class and for wasting up to an hour in the car, I realize that the meaning is in what I experienced on the way there that was inspired by the energy of the class I'd been to countless times—and knew that the long drive justifies the effort. Although missed, I physically and emotionally lived it in advance.

It gave me my personal power. I still have it as I drive home. 

© 2013 Yoga Robin^®

Are you more right-brained or left-brained while you practice yoga?

Right-brain? Left-brain?

Do you associate more with the right side of your brain while you practice yoga or the left side of your brain?

The two hemispheres of the brain have fascinating connections (Photo credits: Simeon Schatz)

Creative vs. logical

The right-brain/left-brain theory grew out of the work of Roger W. Sperry in the late 1960s, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981. The cerebral cortex controls rational functions and is made up of two halves, connected by masses of nerve fibers which pass messages between each other. These halves, or hemispheres, are commonly referred to as right-brain and left-brain.

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