Tag: 15 spices

Corpse pose or Shavasana is a great way to reset new intentions for the rest of this year, so you can enter your new year with a bang! 🎉 I share my thoughts below…

And today’s fall daylight savings (happy fall back hour!) preps us for additional rest. Now is a good time to rest up, store up the acorns 🐿 and spices for the winter holiday weeks.

Or make warm soup and spice blends if you have oposable thumbs… like I did with this healthy plant-based potato based black bean soup with tofu and 15 spices (that’s good for us and the planet).

As part of the weekly R&R, I made a mini bite-size chocolate cake. This one has a gooey dark chocolate middle in a chocolate cake made from cocoa, peanut butter (that’s always a good flavor), and seasonal pomegranates.

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While making this, I’m reminded how often we stand stationary with some kind of tool in front of us, whether it’s a standing desk computer or a kitchen tool like a mixer.

And to mix it up, it’s a good idea to lay flat back and consciously awake on a mat, that’s different than reclining or napping in a recliner. Remember when you saw those often in older homes?

Take a few extra minutes to not rush around. Those moments are enhanced when there’s no distraction like a computer or a television.

Laying down, you’re looking at the ceiling or sky above you. This is actually a productive yoga pose.

You would’ve done this in a Hatha or more relaxed yoga class. It’s called Shavasana. And maybe even the teacher came around with a lavender spray to get you in the mood of laying still and quieting the mind.

Laying stretched out without moving on a mat anywhere helps melt the stress away into the floor. And gives you a few moments of peace to get your second wind and ground you for the rest of the day.

Your blood pressure and heartbeat slow down. And this healthy mind-body cycle reset can help bring many more healthy new years. 🗓

Keep in mind, you are not your body. And your body is on a different clock than you are… with a different ticker than what’s on your agenda or to-do’s. So it’s good to remind yourself to slow it down.

Besides sleeping at night, daytime Corpse Pose lets your body rest from overdrive ❤️‍🔥 You give your systems a midday break, so any one of them doesn’t break one day.

There are more heart attacks in the winter than in the happy-go-lucky summer, so now durng this season is a good time to try out the Shavasana pose habit. Try to fit it in, in between your daily activities or from morning to afternoon activities

And with a short rest break, your mind has a chance to reset.

When you’re in an activity for a little while, when that first negative or worry thought enters or you stop thinking productively, that’s when it’s good to take an adult timeout and get into your Shavasana or Corpse pose.

And of course, keep your phone off your mat! 😉 That’s one of the rules that will help with your balance of 80/20 real life vs. virtual world digital life.

We learned that from the post-dot com eras in the early 2000s when it was common that adult Americans worked over 50 hours per week, rarely took a vacation, and slept less, burning the candle on both ends to get more done. That often led to burnout.

Back then in the corporate world that I was in, that was called Life. And why work and life needed a balance.

And today we know when we get enough sleep, we feel better and are more productive the next day.

Corpse Pose (aka resting pose) practiced awake didn’t come into daily society until at least a decade later. It’s different than napping where you could be curled up.

I once practiced Corpse Pose on a mat on a cold catering office floor. And the warmest time was on the beach sand catching some rays before the pose had a name 😉. You too? 

…What are your interesting resting pose memories?

These are good reset reminders for our busy lives where we forget to slow down often. It’s not an automatic response.

It’s like when our phone needs to be reset but we don’t automatically choose that option. We’d rather wonder why our phone is slow and we keep trying the same task over and over, instead of rebooting, saving us minutes and frustration.

And while we’re there, maybe we just keep it off for a few minutes and remind ourselves how our society and some of us used to live without our devices that I’d add: today have become more important to us than our keys.

We often use our phones more than our minds. Shavasana can help bring back some of those mindful minutes.

And we can take a few gratitude moments and appreciate what we have and the era we’re in…

These days vs. 2020 and in real life (vs, digital life), we’ve gotten better at doing what matters to us and less with just mindlessly following the pack.

We have more opportunities to change and choose different paths. And in my opinion, our society is less competitive and more collaborative as a whole. We need it for our world!

And these days we’re challenged to adapt quicker. Trends are made in milliseconds and then forgotten the next day whether we like it or not.

Metrics aren’t what they used to be. But despite these changes and life disruptors, one thing hasn’t changed… we still get to make choices.

And slowing down our tempo gives us advantages so we can keep up.

We can make better lifestyle choices to live longer, happy quality lives. That’s a good optimal goal to set out for.

And with that thought, I’ll leave you with two questions to think about:

At this point, what would make your year optimal? Idea: you can make an appointment with yourself in Shavasana to think about this.

And, what would help you to make your next year brighter? Think of what change or improvements in you would make things different and better.

Oh, and finally… if there is a topic you’d like me to cover more of, or a category on the right column of this blog that you would like to see more posts about, send me a message… I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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