Yoga Archives - Page 2 of 7 - Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Frog Pose Life Metaphors In Wet or Dry Transitions

Frog pose is an inspired pool yoga pose, and maybe one you’re inspired to do because it’s hot outside… or reminded about an aqua blue Olympic size pool… or pool blue and frog green strokes…

Blue and green painting strokes are meaning and metaphors for life. — Strokes on a painting

Where the frog stroke is one you can do in the cool pool water without exerting much energy (unlike the crawl or breast strokes). 🏊🏻‍♀️

But in frog pose strokes you are getting exercise like in water polo that look effortless on the water surface, but OH MY! is a workout.

…I remember when I was younger, I was invited to play water polo for fun and was wondering why the net wasn’t on the shallow end.

Then I quickly learned that half the sport is done under the water, keeping the body afloat while trying to score points… it’s not a leisure sport.🏐

You need your team athletic mojo and active frog legs.

And if you want to keep it easy on yourself and score yoga points today… you can do the active solo frog pose on dry land on your mat.

It’s one you could have discovered in a Hatha yoga class along with the classic frog yoga pose where your legs and arms are laying on the mat in traditional frog layout.

It’s also one pose that resembles the name and you won’t mistaken for another identity. 🐸

We all know what a frog looks like.

As amphibians, like us primates, frogs have a backbone.

Amphibians in human form would look more like Spider Man ♥️💙climbing up a building. 🕸️

But frogs have been around way longer than modern super heroes.

They were named creatures that plagued our nations back in Biblical times.

And as part of our sustainable environment, frogs help to clean up our food chain. Frogs eat pesky insects so we can stay anti-annoyed, helping us keep our Pitta cool and calm. 😌

And in gratitude, doing a yoga frog pose helps you get a good stretch up your mid-back.

Most of us can use a good daily reminder to take care of our backs that will long-term take care of us.

You’ll know if you need a dose more of healthy back stretching if you feel tension in the pose.

You can easily start off in a Downward Dog or a Dolphin pose.

Then lift arms or keep arms lifted off the floor, so that palms are flat on the floor. Check your fingers. Usually one or a few are not flat unbeknownst to you. 😉

…Sometimes we don’t know what our body parts (like our right or left hand) are doing, but when we use our eyes 👀 they’re off doing their own thing.

🌟 That’s a metaphor for aligning ourselves in our mind and body that are part of us.

Next bend your knees slightly and let the soles of your feet lift off the mat so only the toes and palms of hands are on the mat.

Your knees are bent and can be as high as somewhere between your palm and elbow height, to whatever feels good to you… because yoga is about feeling good in the stretch!

When you’re in that proper swimming frog pose form, move your bent knees in toward each other and then swim or move them out away from each other (without lifting your planted palms and toes off the mat). Do that a few times.

That’s active or swimming frog pose.

You can do this anywhere without getting wet… or breaking a sweat!

🌟Transitioning from wet to dry is a metaphor for changing seasons of life. And specifically, your leap changing seasons.

We go from summer to fall, even if the weather hasn’t changed, so we can feel off because of our internal Ayurvedic balance signals… where our bodies are feeling one way and our minds are in another place.

But often we roll with the punches and move along, adjusting as needed. Sometimes that’s what we need for our healthy growth and sometimes that can drain us and cause stress.

Most of us know what it’s like to go from relaxing seasons where nothing is happening… to EVERYTHING is happening all at once, like starting a new dynamic job or going full-throttle back to school. 🤹

…Once it starts, it’s a whirlwind until the end of the season.

The art of living in balance as I know it, is going in and out of these two opposing seasons with ease and peace.

…I remember the days in my over 2-decade long corporate work when I wished that I could take summer holiday vacation time off, and when event planning was counting down the days until the winter holiday event season ended. You may have a similar grind.

And when those work seasons ended, I got all my time back. It was all or nothing with no balance in between.

Work life balance was what you made it… and 40 hours a week was the best there was in that world. But your head was still spinning full of the busy go-go-go work theme, even on the night and weekends with an emphasis on work busy.

While in those corporate work seasons, I couldn’t see that start-and-stop seasons were good and helpful.

I was looking for a type of work-life-balance that didn’t exist. 🤔

But over time and wisdom gained, I could see that Life was actually doing me a favor…

Work heavy one season and life focus in another season IS Life balance.

When looking back, there’s a blend of both that’s all the past…

Both slow and fast paced seasons are useful and where growth is.

In the slow season, you can get clear headspace, catch your breath, and catch up on needed sleep. 💤

You recharge and reflect back to find what breakthroughs you’ve made on your journey and experiences.

And slow seasons are where you discover what growth you’ve made, lessons learned, and want to keep growing and pivoting.

And the hard charging, fast seasons with busy schedules is where you’re productive, gaining skills, and experiences that’ll be useful for the next leg of your future journey or next transitions.

💡Transitions are simply next steps… and nothing more or less.

Looking back.. I still remember picking out a first-day-of-school outfit. Funny because no one remembers what you wore and even the outfit you wore on school photo day that’s captured on camera.

…None of that ends up mattering as you get further away in time, even though at that time it feels like the most important thing in the world (in mindfulness).

And for my breakthrough, it was these accumulated small nostalgic memories and feelings that served as metaphors for this day and moment as fleeting… here today, gone tomorrow.

So don’t worry about what happens so much… and try not to worry at all (as worry is a time suck, and it sucks as a past time, yes?)❗️

Replace worry with trusting the future using your past as proof that all things do pass. And replace worry for bold living.

You can wisely pause and ask yourself: what did I do boldly today? Remember that old adage: life is not a dress rehearsal.

Life is about today, so no need to be crushed if your plans don’t work out because they will be the past soon enough.

You’ll transition into the next step that turns into your better step.

I know this in my life because most (…and maybe 99%) of my half-baked plans never panned out the way I thought or hoped.

…And I’m thankful for that.

🧡…Because that taught me that the hidden gem is in the process of what you’re doing and who you’re growing into that’ll create your life of meaning and purpose.

Meaning and purpose is the dream that’s not easy to describe or manifest quickly, but are the highest worth pursuits… and you’ll know inside when you’re on the right track.

Because you’ll feel good inside for starters.

And that’s all that’s needed to keep you balanced and growing… and that’s how life is healthy productive, happy, and meaningful.

It’s usually not the life you thought you wanted in your 30s, because everything changes and wanes in excitement, and the biggest change is: you change.

So frog leap forward in your day and life (with frog pose as a metaphor)

Make your today transition steps about:

…making myself better than yesterday

…improving older habits

…keeping healthy patterns even with schedule changes

…loving myself

…finding joy

…making new healthy supportive friends

…And staying true to what I know I can do and be. And trusting what I’m doing, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it (among the endless number of other options I could be doing).

Maybe that’s where you are.

And if so, while you’re there, keep going and growing with where you’re at.

In my daily wheelhouse where I’m at, an anti-inflammatory healthy food list is a helpful must and maybe for you too in your busy growing season. 😎

Dolphin Pose Yoga + Water Animal Flexibility

Dolphin pose yoga is a common pose like Downward Dog. Both animals are enticing to pet and add joy to our celebration of life.

But if you can’t get your hands on petting a dolphin, today is National Strawberry Parfait Day.

You can celebrate a simple moment of joy with a summertime strawberry lemon parfait you can make that’s healthy and 100% delicious!

…You can also get in your Dolphin pose right where you are! 🐬

For inspiration, dolphins are one of the friendliest animals to us out there… and we think of them as our happy, summer ocean friends we can pet.

…Next to our dog land friends. And maybe that’s why the yoga Dolphin pose is similar to Downward Dog… and both poses are done on dry land.

In Dolphin pose yoga moves, instead of your arms fully stretched out, your elbows bend while your forearms and palms are laying flat like pancakes on the mat.

Because of this, your nose in awareness is also a lot closer to the mat.

…Like dolphin beaks called rostroms that are in placement where noses usually are on mammals.

This gives dolphins their appearance that they’re smiling and then when they show their pearly whites, we smile… and maybe that’s partially how they charmed their way to Hollywood as celebrities in Dolphin Tale with Florida home perks. 😉

But back to noses, dolphins have blow holes at the top of their heads where air is connected to their lungs.

This is where they breathe like us (and not like fish with gills)… and we can remember them in our daily Ayurvedic yoga breathing.

On the mat (…maybe you’re there now?), our Dolphin pose yoga fins and palms are also flat on the mat for good yoga form.

You get a good stretch in your entire body from head-to-toe in Dolphin pose yoga moves.

What you may notice that’s different is your body formation.

Your top half of your body may not be the same length as your bottom half.

If you have long legs and a shorter torso, then you won’t be as high peaked.

Your upside down “V” in the air will look different if that’s your body description. So you get to play around (or splash around 💦) in your Dolphin pose.

…You’ll be more like a hill than a mountain by design.

And that helps you to embrace your unique body and special creature that you are!

…You look more like a dolphin swimming instead of jumping hoops in dolphin show formation. 😁

Like us, dolphins are social and intelligent creatures with abilities.

To get more of their vibe, you can swim with a dolphin and not be afraid that you’ll be thrown.

Well, I take that back…

Once upon a time I swam with dolphins… or a better description is I was thrown from a dolphin’s beak landing into a pool of water.

That was a dolphin ride! Even though in the beginning I wasn’t sure what to expect 🤔

But I did know dolphins are happy and friendly creatures, so I knew we’d get along great in the end. And we did that day.

So all was good…

And I got my Vata anti-worry and cool and simple Pitta balancing self-therapy day in.

In that spirit, you can try these other water animal yoga poses that help with flexibility, and you can do on dry land without a splash.

Water Animal Poses

You can use Dolphin pose as a transition break pose before ending in Fish Pose (that’s an opposite position pose on your back), reminding us that dolphins aren’t fish.

And if you’re starting in Dolphin, you can then transition into a Turtle Pose, turning and facing sideways on the mat.

This way you can use the length of the mat and get a new perspective of your surroundings.

💡This is a good metaphor in life to change your perspectives for good outcomes.

Turtle Pose is especially good for shoulder streching and tight hamstrings where you’ll feel a good stretch in those parts.

In the pose, your shoulders are a bit hunched over forward to give that turtle back look. 🐢

Turtle is a low to the ground pose where you’re seated and legs are ideally in “V” formation laying flat on the mat, or with slightly bent knees until you get more flexible.

Yoga is a journey.

Then you span your wings (that were fins in Dolphin pose) as far from one end to the other underneath your legs.

Maybe you bend forward with body closer to the mat if you can.

You can challenge yourself daily to bend forward as much as you can in the pose, and then build up your flexibility with knees straightening and legs flattening down toward the mat.

Then after you’ve spent enough time as a turtle, you can turn into a frog.

…Which btw, turtles are reptiles and frogs are amphibians even though they both live on land and water.

And in your land-water abilities, still optimizing the length of the mat, you can flow your legs that were positioned forward in a “V” previously… and move them behind you like frog legs.

Your arms can rest on the mat and floor in front of you.

Frog Pose is exceptional for inner hip and thigh flexibility.

🎉Between turtle and frog, you’re getting full upper leg stretches. Your legs are in the largest muscle group in the body.

You optimize your legs in Frog pose that looks just like the yoga pose name, so it’s easy to remember and get into the position.

If you’re a swimmer and know frog swimming strokes, then you’ll be a natural. 🐸

This is a good pose to challenge yourself and see how low you can go eventually, but if you can’t get there just yet (and still feeling a bit like a turtle), blocks are good to rest your forearms on.

For any yoga pose, don’t hurt yourself by overdoing it the first go-round.

Let yourself open up slowly like a lotus 🪷 and that way you protect your joints and tissues from injury.

💡It’s better to start up high and easy and then work your challenging way down, down, and more down to the mat over time.

In a good way, yoga can take you out of your regular norm and reset your mind because usually going down references in your day are easier than getting up and going.

You can pause and think about that one in the pose. And the longer you spend in the pose, the better! 😊

If you spend 5 seconds in a pose, that counts for total time. If you spend 30 seconds in one pose, that’s 6 times the amount for total time.

Not that you’re playing a game of keeping score, but the point is the longer you spend, the greater the daily benefit… and for next time.

Yoga flexibility is all about gradually stretching further each time.

The longer you hold the pose, the more flexible you become in your body’s abilities.

So don’t expect it to happen the first time.

And if you take a break or a season off from yoga, you’ll start over in flexibility. BUT, the your body cells don’t forget so you’ll likely get there quicker than the first time you tried.

Like dolphins that have good memories, body cells also have good memory.

And like the turtle fable metaphor, slow and steady wins the race.

If you’re naturally super flexible, you can rest your forehead on the back of your hands in front of you for both poses.

Then to round out your water poses, you can finish by going into a seated position and laying back into Fish pose. You can do a Dolphin pose yoga move before your transition if you like.

Fish Pose is a great stretch for your neck.

You lay back with your elbows resting on your mat behind your shoulders like you’re catching some rays. ☀️

Then you let your neck rest backward behind you.

Your neck could be wound up as we spend most of our day with our heads and necks leaning forward especially if we work most our day on a device.

So a counteracting reverse pose like Fish Pose helps our neck unwind.

Before you try it full on without prep, it’s good to stretch your neck looking up first to get it more ready and flexible.

Our necks are delicate because they have such small muscles that also have to hold up our heads that weigh like bowling balls.

Like other areas of injury, necks can take weeks to fully heal so be gentle the first few times.

For precaution, a good pre-stretch for the stretch can be practicing looking up toward the ceiling at least 15 seconds several times a day.

I micro-habit stack this move while I’m filling up the filtered water pitcher that takes about that amount of time.

You can also do head circular motions wherever you are and turn your neck from side to side. Those are good if you spend a lot of time car seated.

Hope this keeps you encouraged in your yoga moves and instruction. Stay cool! 😎

Butterfly Pose – Metaphor for Opening Up

Butterfly Pose is a much needed pose for tight inner hips and hip opening. This article is about how to get the most out of the pose to open your spirit and welcome in a new mind and body healthy season.

Plus, good exercises you can do daily to help open your butterfly pose hips when they don’t want to fully (or you simply want to keep them flexible). 🧘🏻‍♀️

…Which btw, our bodies are natural wonders and so is the total eclipse that gave solar chills and happy tears this week, that I’m still reeling over and you can too days later.

When you have tight hips, you know it immediately when you move around. And I didn’t know about this because I didn’t feel it until one day.

And like the Butterfly name implies, the Butterfly pose looks like opened butterfly wings.

Or if you speak in chef language like I often do, you know what butterflying means on a plate.

Butterfly pose looks also like an open lotus flower. 🪷

Opening your hips this way is a metaphor for opening yourself up and while you’re sitting still in patience and peace.

In life, butterflies wait before they can flutter about. It’s one of the fascinating creatures out there in nature I think and a symbol of transformation. They are fragile like we are. 🦋

Similarly, we start out as caterpillars in life crawling along and hopefully like most, make it to adulthood.

Then we transform into our adult butterfly bodies in new seasons.

As sweet reward, we get tastes of honey along our journey and feed back honey nectar to our community.

We contribute to the environment we’re in where we spend time. And this is a metaphor for making our individual impact in the world that’s one of our highest callings.

A fuzzy caterpillar that hasn't grown into its butterfly pose yet! — Caterpillar on a leaf beside a butterfly (parent?)… can you see the butterfly in the photo? 🦋

Butterflies are unique in colors and design patterns like the Peacock Butterfly commonly found in Europe or Asia, or a Monarch Butterfly that I see often in North America.

They are something we can globally appreciate like the sun, the moon, and the solar eclipse.

Butterfly Pose As a Metaphor For Opening Up

Phyiscally, Butterfly pose helps to open in tight hips. You’re a lotus flower ready to blossom and sometimes your mind-body can get stuck. 🪷

Giving it time to open up and bloom when ready is part of patience in Life.

In your Butterfly pose, if it’s not easy, do it gradually. Don’t force it along.

Pain is never good in yoga. Unlike physical sports and fitness, that says, “no pain, no gain.” Yoga is completely opposite: pain means no gain.

Because you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing to your body.

Pain is a warning signal from your body.

In yoga, it’s good to challenge the body with stretching further and higher, but only when it’s in tip-top shape.

And with all the muscles, tendons, joints, and crevices in our bodies, sometimes there are places that need broken mending.

So we want to add stress to those parts. We want to work on other parts while our weak spots heal. And with Butterfly pose, you know whether or not you have a weak inner hip injury.

If you’re feeling tentative, then be gentle.

One thing I like to do is raise myself off the mat.

You can use a block or a towel to raise your thigh above the mat until your hip loosens up (one side is usually tighter) and you can get to your ideal Butterfly pose.

So you can still do a modified version of the Butterfly pose without stress and repairing your bottom wing. 🦋

And then when ready, maybe someday your knees and top half of your leg touch down on the mat, or they don’t.

Either is great.

For beginners, it doesn’t matter how cool it looks.

All that matters is you feel good. Maybe that’s why my Vata loves yoga for the comfort reasons. 😊

You’ll find what you’re comfortable with and then you’ll have a baseline for what your body can do in those areas, and what the limitations are.

The limitations are there to help you lean in on your unique body and SELF. Create goals that are good for your body. 🎯

In Butterfly pose, a good goal would be to not feel any tension or pain in the hip muscle, inner hip, or groin areas.

Both men and women seem to have this common issue.

If you sit a lot this could be a reasonable cause. And if it shows up one day, it could be a new habit position you were sitting in that simply needs to be adjusted so you can restore.

In the meanwhile, you can complement Butterfly Pose with Triangle Pose and Pigeon Pose that are other yoga poses that will help open up in slightly different angles.

Also try the Seated Spinal Twist.

As usual in yoga, one side is usually tighter than the other for different poses, so workout a little longer for the side that needs more TLC.

Balance and alignment comes from asymmetrical efforts. So if for balance ⚖️, this means intention or laser focus on the side or area that needs attention.

Another yoga pose that can really help is a 5 star yoga pose on the mat with your legs straddled open to each side, and arms under and through your legs.

If you’re not familiar with the more common star pose, your head arms and legs make up the 5 points.

Doing this stretch faced down on the mat will also give you a good stretch through your legs and arms.

And combining physical therapy type exercise that you can do at home will help. These often use repetition vs. weights. And repeated repetitions.

One of the best exercises I found is the side hip abductor exercise that you can do on your mat.

You turn to one side and bend your knees and then lift the top leg up and down for 10 repetitions or more at a time.

This helps the inner hip to open.

And should feel good. It’s also a killer butt toning exercise!

A second exercise is: sit on the side of a regular height bed or a chair that allows a hip-leg to anchor straight down on the floor either straight up perpendicular or slightly shifted to the back while the other hip-leg (the tight one) is on the bed or chair.

Take the tight hip-leg (on the bed) and bend, so that you can see the bottom of your foot. You should feel a light stretch (that does not hurt) in the tight hip area that’s slightly different than on a mat.

If there’s any pain, you should stop as you may have injured the area somehow.

Remember, we’re fragile like butterflies. 🦋 We’re also resilient.

And if you don’t feel anything in your hips, that’s something to be grateful for.. and now you’re more aware of what to do and what people (aka older people) are talking about when they say they have tight hips…

Not feeling your hips is something else to celebrate. And Butterfly pose is a gratitude pose 🎉

Vinyasa Yoga Common Mistakes and Creative Flow Moves

Vinyasa yoga flow is good for getting movement and activity flow through your systems. Learn some of the common mistakes below.

healthy chocolate mousse dessert gluten free. — Creative expression flow from winter to spring in a healthy (gluten-free) chocolate mousse dessert. 🎉Recipe below…

Vinyasa was introduced a few years after I started regular yoga that was just starting to grow in America. We were slow to catch on, immersed in our busy Western ways.

And the Vinyasa series was repeated.

Classic Vinyasa yoga includes 4 parts: Downward Dog, Plank, Chaturanga, and Up Dog.

vinyasa yoga flow. — Start at Down Dog and end in Up Dog.

These poses help your arm strength and back flexibility. All are great for flexing your back if you’re having back tension issues.

Vinyasa flow is good for life balance rhythm especially when you’re having a tough season and wanna work out your Pitta frustrations on your mat. And of course, yoga helps your body balance in the process.

The Vinyasa front down, on-the-mat poses complement your Plow Pose restoring your back.

We can easily need a tune up. And learning good form in the beginning helps to use as a guide.

When we don’t know any better, we choose the easiest form for our bodies.

To start, get into your Downward Dog pose. Feet are firmly grounded on the floor. You’ll then transition into Plank, Chaturanga and then Up Dog (Up Dog vs. Cobra vs. Sphinx).

Note: by the time you get to Up Dog, your tops of feets will roll transition and be on the mat vs bottom of feet. So your feet position is evolving as you move into the Vinyasa yoga pose.

And is often forgotten about.

On that topic, these are some of the common Vinyasa Yoga mistakes:

We forget to flow our feet. In Down Dog, our heels are not on the floor. Or our toes can be curled under on the mat in Up Dog, like in Plank Pose.

We forget to pause. You can slow down (as also a metaphor in life) and insert in a Child’s Pose from the Up Dog to Downward Dog transition if you would like a rest.

Another common mistake is in the hands. Hands are partially flat relying on finger strength on the mat (when it’s good to have full hands flat on the mat). Ideally, hands and fingers are flat on the mat that also helps to protect your wrists and awkward arm bends that could send strange sensations to your hand parts.

In Up Dog, often the position of hands are too low beside the body as you shift the top half of your body forward. Try to align with your shoulders.

And while we focus on hands and feets, we forget about our mid areas, where:

The buttocks are not peaked high enough in Down Dog for a higher pronounced “V.” If you’ve been to a class and received individual instruction, often the teacher will pull your mid-section body up. And that feels lighter and totally different than in a comfy “V” where the body feels weighted toward the ground.

Using a body mirror can help you better assess if your form is good.

Then naturally as we just hiked ourselves up: when we move into Plank pose, our Buttocks are too high in the air resembling a hill in Plank pose. Lower just a bit, so in a mirror you look more like a down sloping seesaw. There aren’t bumps in the middle.

And then in Chaturanga, don’t be in a hurry. Stay there longer for a few breaths and gain the arm strength building benefits. You feel control over your body.

Then Up Dog if you choose is your last part of the flow. There are slight differences between Up Dog, Cobra, and Sphinx. Up Dog is the one with the highest energy vibes.

Then before you get back into Downward Dog, pause into Child’s Pose if you like a rest.

And this is also a good place to insert other inspiring creative poses for Vata especially if you need more energy in your life (feeling Kapha tired).

Your Creative Vinyasa Flow

When you feel comfortable with the basics, you can also add your own yoga spin. Just like each yoga class is different, you can make your own yoga pose moves with your basic Vinyasa Yoga flow series. And these movements will benefit your body.

Yoga is about feeling good and getting the kinks out. And being physically creative can do just that!

One instructional move is that yoga is different than other forms of exercise.

For one, many of the yoga up moves are inhale breaths and down moves are exhales. It’s the opposite in many other forms of exercise.

Like, in weight lifting, when you lift up, you exhale and let go of the air. So switching up your breath inhale and exhale for yoga can be helpful and tricky. The most important point is just to breathe naturally and then let the rest follow. It’s more important to follow good breathing habits in weight lifting where you can unintentionally hyperventilate if you overexert yourself.

Give yourself grace in yoga!

Another move that’s fun to do (if you see it that way) is when you’re in Chaturanga: shift your toes and arms forward and backward on the mat where your height or plane distance on the mat doesn’t change. You’re constantly moving. 😊

What makes Vinyasa special is it keeps you flexible and moving and this helps your creativity. As you use your breath in flow, you get in touch with your deeper senses inside you. And this can help you tap into your creativity that can be missing in your life.

In modern life, unless we surround ourselves in creative environments and inspired, we can get out of touch with creativity.

That’s my story (and maybe yours) in corporate where creativity is as far removed as personal expression unless you have intentions to improve those areas in your day.

One easy way is create your own Vinyasa yoga flow. Maybe you add a Pigeon pose in between your Downward Dog and Plank pose. Or a Hare pose coming out of Up Dog. Or you add a Mountain pose after your Plank pose and then step or take a jump back.

You can reach your Mountain with just a ‘lil creativity and nudge. Sometimes you just need the suggestion or permission and then you’ve enhanced your day with a few more calming breaths and moments without breaking a sweat.

And if you’re feeling energetic, you could get into your hands up Tree or full Dancer poses. And then come back to your Mountain, fold down and jump or step back to Plank. And from there get back to Chaturanga.

The possibilities are endless in your creative day of activities that take just escape break minutes away from your work and devices.

Healthy Chocolate Mousse Dessert Recipe 💕

Print Recipe

gluten-free chocolate mousse dessert recipe

Chocolate Mousse Dessert - Almond Flour Healthy and Gluten-Free

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

2 oz Dark chocolate
1 tbsp Coconut oil
1-1/2 one egg and one yolk
1 tbsp almond flour

Instructions

Prepare baking vessel. Brush coconut oil and dust with cocoa.
Melt chocolate in bain marie with coconut oil.
Beat egg and any flavors (optional)
Add eggs to chocolate.
Fold in almond flour.
Pour into baking vessel. Bake for 12 minutes on 350°F. Do not overbake for a soft, gooey center.
Zhugh with healthy ingredients: raspberries, coconut shavings, mint leaves, pistachios, other chopped nuts, or orange zest.

Plow Pose For Stress Ease and Back Pain

Plow pose yoga is one of the best stretches for releasing stress and back pain. You don’t have to love yoga to love what this pose can do for you! And when you have surrounding healthy inspiration in your life, then you breathe in balance.

Do you have a healthy inspiration board? I think it’s a fun way to bring more of that intentional energy and balance into life. 🌱

And Plow pose fits right in. Like the name “plow” implies, Plow pose loosens your body up. In farming, plowing is essential prep-work so seeds can be planted. And in your back’s case, plowing for a loose and limber back will support your daily movements…

If any of these apply, you may just need some restoring Plow Pose love in your life 🧡:

✔️Sit in a chair most the day

✔️Hurt your back doing daily activities

✔️Are as tall as a baby giraffe that towers over most of us

…And in those cases, doing this pose often, you may never cry again to go see a back specialist. The easy pose may be all you need in your wincing daily back pain that can come from accumulated tension.

Some of us already do this pose regularly to restore our backs.

And below I get down to the nitty-gritty of how to get in the pose with ease… and not hurt yourself, that’s a point not to miss!

Because warning: you can hurt yourself. And I’m emphasizing that because people think yoga is just light movements, but some of those movements come with intensity.

That goes for other yoga poses too, but in Plow Pose especially because you’re carrying most of your body’s weight with your upper body half. It’s pretty cool-phenomenal when you think about it.

Yoga is awesome in this way because you don’t need equipment or weights to do weight lifting that’s also good for building strength.

Body weight is self-equipment and you want to use what you have! And like any weights, you want to use good form.

That’s not to scare you away because yoga does good for your body, health, and wellness. And it’ll only help you on your journey!

Sometimes “use it or lose it” can be a good motivator.

Or one I heard recently was that if you don’t make time to exercise (or do yoga), then plan to make time for illness. Sad, but true. And you have a chance to use that mantra as a gentle reminder. 🧡

…We all need reminders to take action today.

Sometimes a new perspective or healthy kick in the pants, works (as it has for me, ha!).

I look at it as investing in yourself now, so that you can have lasting healthy habits and good results in later years that creep up and you start to feel your joints and parts you never felt before. 😭

You have a chance to Plow now for benefits tomorrow..

For starters, I’ll begin with… in one of the first few times I did Plow Pose, shifting my neck in the pose taught me an unforgettable lesson you can avoid in aches.

But done properly, the pose is a life saver!… Just keep your mind focused on good form and you’ll be in great shape. 😊

And if you have ceiling exposed beams or a ceiling fan you can stare at one spot easily, that’ll do the trick.

Or turn your popcorn ceiling into a positive feature.

…And more recently when I relocated and had to sleep on a floor mattress for a month before my bed furniture arrived, Plow Pose saved me and my back.

I had used the lessons I learned from Plow Pose yoga years back to revive my back… and restore me back!

The simple restorative move over the course of a week provided the much-needed relief. It was very little effort that’s always a crowd pleaser plus.

So if you tend to get the lazy Kaphas or consider yourself a tired Kapha, Plow Pose can be a huge problem solve. You can restore yourself without leaving your digs.

The area where the pose feels best is in the mid-back and some lower back if you dig deeper into the pose when your toes and parts of your feet are planted on the mat.

You can use that as a metaphor for getting deeper in your life. Even just a few seconds feels sooo good.

The other benefit is you can do this pose anywhere. If the travel bed you’ve slept on gave you trouble, you can lay a towel down on the carpet-padded floor or yoga mat on floor or flat ground.

You could even do this on the therapeutic beach sand. 🏝️

…So, ready to get your plow-on?

You can do this while waiting for your easy recipe to come together.

This is an easy and healthy oat blueberry waffle great for weekends and brunch. Recipe below. 🫐

Always start with a warm-up move to loosen you up and also get in the mood.

Do a stretch before the stretch. If you’re feeling lazy, you could rest a block behind your mid-back and another block or folded blanket under your head if you’re at home or at a yoga studio.

This stretches your verterbrae without much energy.

But the one move I like that’s portable is…

Seated, and with arms wrapped around bent and tucked knees like a tight ball of yarn, roll back down to the floor and then back up.

Keep doing this several times to warm up your vertebrae so you’re more back limber.

…I like to call it the roly-poly move (…would make a good pose name, yes?).

That’s actually a protective interior move for isopod insects that have the nickname. And you can look at it as protecting your body from any snaps from not warming up.

And then when you had enough of that, lay flat back on your mat or towel. Scoot down on your mat quite a bit, leaving just enough room on your mat above your head where your feet will land on the mat (if they do).

If your buttocks is about at the 1/3 mark of your mat, you’re good.

It can be hard to imagine if you’re new to the pose, but you’ll be glad you did when you’re in Plow. When you’re new to yoga, figuring out space on your mat is interesting.

….The good news, it’s not that important as everywhere you land is flat and you’re low-grounded already.

So if you don’t care so much, you can let your free spirit lead you!

What’s a universal agreement is you don’t want to have your devices or anything else damageable around you, so you can relax!

…Now you’re ready and on your mat, can go into a pause pose like Shoulder Stand that grounds your shoulders and keeps your legs straight

Or, a hugging Upside Down Child Pose like a Happy Baby for a few breaths.

Or go into Bridge Pose before. You could use yoga blocks on the middle setting to transition and help you throw your legs back.

Or go straight into Plow Pose by gently throwing or lifting your legs straight up in the air and then slowly lower back them behind your head. Try and get your legs over with mindfulness and control, one verterbrae at a time.

But however you get there is good. You can use your hands to help guide your buttocks and body.

And in good form, stare at one point on the popcorn ceiling 👀 or above. And maybe you have a nice view so that lowers your blood pressure to look at in addition to the release in body tension.

Avoid shifting your neck.

Do keep your shoulder blades down on the mat helps. You can move your eyes. but if you want to keep your focused gaze (Drishti) still 😳, that’s up to you.

Just remember to keep your neck still. And remember to breathe naturally and not hold your breath.

I think those last points are worth remembering. 📝

And then you’re doing your pose!

You can decide if your toes or parts of your feet touch the mat. Those moves are the deeper pose that’ll stretch parts of your upper back.

But if you don’t go that far back (on your back), you’ll still get a good stretch in your lower and mid-back, that works in the beginning. And that’s where most of us have back pain in the mid-lower area sitting in a chair.

Plus, there’s always next time to practice…

Next time will be when you’ll be more prepared and your body cells will remember the pose that makes the pose easier as you do it more times. And that’s why you can go deeper and further with less effort as you get more comfortabe.

Enjoy yourself and let time melt in your mat. Even a few breaths is beneficial for your back… and adding moments longer is good for de-stressing.

When you’ve been in the pose long enough, then slowly roll and unwind your spine, vertebrae-by-vertebrae. You may have done that with self-control getting into the pose and balancing the move out of the pose. This time use patience as your mantra.

That’s another point to not miss: yoga teaches us good lessons in character alignment we need without long trials and hard lessons.

And right away you’ll feel rewarded with a better feeling back as you roll out of the pose. And when you sit back up, you should feel less back tension.

If you feel the stretch in a good way, then that means you need to do it again more often. When you don’t feel the stretch, that’s when you can focus on other best yoga poses. There are hundreds to choose from on our planet for the amazing creature you are.🧘🏻‍♀️🐶🐬🐪 🐗🐱🐦‍⬛🐇

If you’d like you can pair your yoga with these aligned waffles… and even better make these waffles in the time it takes to get in your Plow Pose. 🧇

Oat Blueberry Waffles - No Egg

Short on eggs, you can make this easy recipe in 3 minutes.

Course Breakfast, brunch

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 tbsp blueberries, frozen
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup milk or plant-based milk for dairy-free
1 tbsp whole wheat flour, plain flour, or gluten free flour
1 tsp neutral oil

Instructions

Mix ingredients and add to your medium hot waffle maker. This is a liquid-y batter. Add more oats to fill in if it becomes too liquid in spots. This is a very forgiving recipe and great for lazy weekends!
Cook for about 3 minutes or until easy to pull in one piece off the waffle iron with a fork.
Flip the bottom for the top as often that's better cooked.
For healthy version, dust collagen powder on top instead of powdered sugar.