Feeling stuck? Love to write but aren’t sure how to get back to it? Spring, a time of renewal, is the perfect time to reaffirm your intention to write more.

Many of my students mistakenly assume that “real” writers don’t get writers’ block. But getting stuck is a normal part of the writing process. Inspiration comes and goes. The trick is to keep writing even when it’s not flowing easily. In my years of teaching, I’ve found that the key to Getting Unstuck is the ability to Begin Again. No matter how long you’ve been away from the page, you can always start anew.

Just as a runner might be a bit rusty if she hasn’t put on her running shoes in a few months, the practice of writing requires routine, patience, and warm-ups before diving back in. Sometimes all you need is to start.

If you haven’t written in months, or perhaps years, it might not be pretty the first time you sit down to write. Let go of your expectation that it has to be perfect, or even good, and let yourself enjoy the act of writing itself. Remember, we write because we want to, or we feel we need to—how it turns out is out of our hands. Like the weather, some writing days will be sunny, others cloudy, others downright stormy. In order to get unstuck, we have to let go of trying to control the outcome.

When my students are stuck, I advise them to set the bar low. Try writing for 15 minutes or filling a quarter of a page to build your writing muscles back up. You might want to get off the computer and grab a pen and a favorite notebook, curl up on your couch with a cup of tea, and have some fun!

As is true with any creative practice, you can’t be a productive writer without having an understanding of your own habits. Thus, knowing where we like to write, when we are most inspired, and how to create a routine is just as important as having something to say.

If you feel stuck, here are some questions to ask yourself to find out what kind of writer you are:

• Where do you like to write? (at home? at a cafè?)
• When do you like to write? (morning, night, mid-afternoon?)
• How do you like to write? (pen and paper, computer, old-fashioned typewriter?)

At its core, my method comes down to the Buddhist approach of letting go of perfection—looking at writing practice as you would a yoga or meditation practice. The real work starts when we can be okay if the writing doesn’t show up exactly as we want it to, and still keep coming back to the page day after day.

New Year’s is a time when we reflect on our goals for the year ahead—better health, losing weight, a new job, travel, or finding a relationship.

But change is hard. It requires a real commitment, planning, and follow-through.

A 2007 research study by psychologist Richard Wiseman found that 88% of people fail to achieve their New Year’s resolutions. The reason: Setting and reaching goals isn’t strictly about self-discipline or willpower; it’s about intention and finding pleasure in pursuing what matters to you.

In fact, Wiseman’s research found that humans have a fairly limited reserve of willpower, so trying to change more than one thing at a time tends to be overwhelming for most of us.

Intentions

Kripalu Lead Nutritionist Annie B. Kay, MS, RDN, LDN, RYT, recommends that this year, instead of setting a resolution, you could try setting an intention. You might get better results.

The first step is to clarify that intention. Ask yourself what you want to cultivate in your life.

Let’s taking the example of losing weight, one of the most common New Year’s resolutions. Instead of telling yourself, “I want to lose 10 pounds,” your intention might be “I want to have a healthier relationship with my weight.”

Annie says that, while the first approach is about sacrifice and depends on self-control, the second is based on acceptance. Yes, you still have to put in the work, but it’s coming from a very different mental place.

Try visualizing your intention. Imagine what that better relationship with your weight would feel and look like. How would it show up in your life?

Affirmations

The next step is to develop an affirmation to help realize that intention. Affirmations are clear, positive statements, in the present tense, that encapsulate what you want to create. Write them down, be succinct, and repeat them out loud. Here are some examples:

Intention: “I want to be able to digest my food more easily.”

Affirmation: “I digest my life with ease.”

Intention: “I want to be more in the moment.”

Affirmation: “I am fully present to what life brings.”

What are your New Year’s intentions?

Originally appeared at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health

The essays are a testament to the healing power of asana and illustrate how “yoga is an approach to life” for many of the contributors.

Sad, poignant, and always honest, the writers share how they came to yoga, often in times of crisis. For celebrated Power Yoga teacher Bryan Kest, that moment came after a few stints in jail, when he was sent to live with his father in Hawaii. The only house rule: “Do yoga every day or move out.” Yoga gave Bryan a way to redefine his own masculinity after a childhood spent emulating his angry father and trying to fit in with a crowd of tough kids in the suburbs of Detroit. It offered an alternative path to the one he was on.

Professor Audrey Bilger reveals how her morning practice helped steel her against the drama unfolding on her small college campus. Virabhadrasana, the warrior poses, helped her reclaim her power on the mat, giving her the courage to speak up against an attack by a group of colleagues. She came to see the warrior series as a way of allowing herself to be vulnerable, even in the face of “rejection, judgment, and hostility.” By confronting her antagonists in an open-hearted way, she humanized her workplace and forged new relationships with co-workers.

In an interview with Melanie Klein, rockstar Alanis Morissette confides how fame and public scrutiny of her body at a young age contributed to twin eating disorders, bulimia and anorexia, and how a deeply spiritual yoga practice has helped her recover and create a more balanced life.

Joni Yung, an athlete and self-described “short, middle-aged, average looking Asian woman,” writes how she found yoga accidentally, after tearing a ligament in her knee in a ski accident.

While Yung embraced the practice, she quickly felt out of place in a sea of thin, beautiful, white people at her local studio.

“Yoga isn’t about looking your yoga, it’s about living your yoga.”

Yung describes feeling self-conscious about her body and inadequate in class—a sentiment echoed again and again in the book. Through her longtime practice, she eventually concludes, “Yoga isn’t about looking your yoga, it’s about living your yoga,” a message that perhaps best sums up this collection.

What makes this book different and particularly refreshing is its diversity of voices and the honesty with which each contributor takes a look at his or her own life. We hear from men and women, gay and straight, white, black, Asian (and other ethnicities), and practitioners with and without disabilities.

Through their diverse backgrounds and experiences, a common thread emerges: Not only does yoga have the power to transform lives, its reach in America extends far beyond what most people realize.

See original article at Yoga International

Ninety percent of all food-related allergic reactions in the United States come from just eight foods. They are milk, eggs, wheat, soy, fish, shellfish, peanuts, and tree nuts. Out of the eight, there has been a new focus on wheat (more specifically the protein in wheat called gluten) as an increasing number of people seem to have trouble digesting it.

When I was first diagnosed with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) in my 20s, extensive allergy testing found that I wasn’t allergic to wheat or gluten, though my “gut” was telling me otherwise. Around that time, I noticed that I would feel exhausted and bloated after eating pasta or pizza, or drinking a beer—so I was surprised that the tests didn’t back up my hunch.

Kripalu nutritionist Kathie Madonna Swift, MS, RD, LDN, recommends paying attention to what your body is telling you. She says that even if tests don’t show you have a full-blown wheat or gluten allergy, you can still have a reaction to eating gluten. Some have what’s known as non-celiac gluten sensitivity and this can cause the same symptoms as someone with full-blown celiac disease. Either way, Kathie says, you’ll benefit from a gluten-free diet.

In her program Digestive Health: A Holistic Approach, Kathie explains that there’s growing evidence that gluten and even some dairy intolerances are related to not only abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and constipation but also a host of autoimmune diseases and medical problems not necessarily associated with the gut. Those include acne, thyroid issues, osteoporosis, and, surprisingly, neurological conditions.

Kathie and Kripalu Lead Nutritionist Annie B. Kay, MS, RDN, LDN, RYT, advise those who think that they may have a gluten sensitivity to try an elimination diet during their stay at Kripalu. There’s no “one size fits all” approach to going gluten-free, Annie says; she suggests keeping a daily food journal to record how you feel after a meal, so that you can start to notice if your digestion is improving.

If you’ve thought about going gluten-free or want to know more, here are some helpful guidelines.

What grains can you eat on a gluten-free diet?

Amaranth, buckwheat, corn, millet, quinoa, rice, and teff.

What foods contain gluten?

One of the challenges of cutting out gluten is that it’s is in far more than just wheat products. Did you know that couscous, matzoh, spelt, pumpernickel, and malt beverages all contain gluten? Here’s a guide to gluten-containing products:

• Wheat: bulgar, couscous, cracked wheat, dinkel, durum, einkorn, emmer, faro, farina, graham, hydrolyzed wheat starch, kamut, matzoh, orzo, seitan, semolina, spelt, sprouted grains (wheat), wheat bran, wheat germ, wheat grass, wheat starch, wheat berries, Wheatena, whole wheat.

• Rye: all forms including rye, whole rye, rye flour, pumpernickel, or triticale (a cross between wheat and rye).

• Barley: all forms of barley, malt, malt beverages, malt flavoring, malt extract, malt syrup, malt vinegar.

• Oats: all forms of oats, steel-cut oats, oatmeal, oat bran, oat flour (however, you can look for certified gluten-free oats).

• Flour: plain flour, white flour, wheat flour, whole wheat flour, whole white flour, self-rising flour, enriched flour, durum flour, gluten flour, bromated flour, unbleached flour, graham flour, barley flour, rye flour, oat flour.

A final word to the wise: Annie recommends avoiding “gluten-free junk food”—highly processed snack bars, cereals, and gluten substitutes, which are often loaded with sugar. Instead, opt for whole foods—a piece of fruit or cut-up vegetables. A lot of gluten-free products are highly processed and can irritate one’s digestion and cause other health issues.

See original article at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health

Mindfulness meditation, traditionally done sitting cross-legged on a cushion, uses the breath to help us redirect our awareness to the present moment. Instead of just letting the mind get derailed in a spiral of stories and worries about the past and future, the practice helps the mind pay attention to what is actually happening now.

For a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science, a group of researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, enrolled 48 undergraduates in an experiment. Half of the subjects practiced mindfulness four days a week for two weeks, while the other half took part in a healthy nutrition program.

Researchers found that in the group that meditated, the students’ working memory actually improved, while their habitual mind wandering started to decrease. They also had higher GRE verbal scores, which jumped on average from 460 to 520 in only 14 days.

“We had already found that mind wandering underlies performance on a variety of tests, including working memory capacity and intelligence,” UC Santa Barbara graduate student Michael D. Mrazek told The New York Times.

In short, the meditation group was better able to focus on ideas and remember facts without getting distracted as easily.

Angela Wilson, a Kripalu faculty member and Project Leader for the Institute for Extraordinary Living’s Front-line Providers program, says, “One of the ways yoga and meditation helps with the ability to focus or take tests is that stress-reduction practices help to regulate the autonomic system. Someone who is going to take a test is [often] a bit stressed. Too much of that will make it more difficult to concentrate and remember things.” If we are calm, it’s easier to recall information and be at our best, and that’s where mindfulness practices come into play.

“A lot of people will tell you that meditating for performance misses the point, but I think meditation makes you far more productive,” says CEO coach Peter Bregman, author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.

“When you are meditating, you are better able to separate the noise from the static and focus on what matters—making decisions and having conversations that can help you achieve what you want,” Peter says.

What we are called to do in everyday life is what we are called to do when we meditate. Meditation can strengthen our resolve to make intentional decisions, which in turn can better help us tackle an overflowing email in-box, getting our work done on time, and navigate complex interpersonal relationships.

On the flip side, our mind’s natural inclination to wander can get in the way of our working memory because when the brain is more distracted, it has a harder time deciding what is important to remember.

One common misconception about meditation is that the goal is to have no thoughts at all. Actually, the practice is to allow the thoughts to flow but not get absorbed in their narrative.

“If someone screams at you and you have a meditation practice, it might be easier to take a few breaths and not go to the place where the yell is taking you,” says Peter. “Whereas, a person who doesn’t have a practice, well, it might be very easy for that yell to knock them off balance.”

If you train your mind not to get swept up when faced with distractions, you will be better able to deal with common stimuli like e-mails, texts, phone calls, and arguments and react to them skillfully.

“The practice you are doing on the cushion, when your mind wanders and comes back to a one-pointed focus, helps you to learn how to avoid the distractions of the other stimuli that comes into your mind,” Angela  says. “And that will have a translatable effect to other areas of your life as well.”

Ever find yourself working hard on your computer only to find suddenly you are watching a YouTube video of a very cute kitten? It’s easy to get off track. Well, that is symbolic of how our minds work.

Peter discourages checking email when it comes in. Instead he checks his every three hours and replies to all of them at once, which is faster. He says if you keep switching tasks, like constantly checking email, you lose valuable time and focus which leads to memory loss and mind-wandering.

Peter’s last tip: “The best way not to be distracted by email is not to look at it, unless that is the thing you are doing — and then do it and then move on.”

So how does that translate to your yoga practice? Even if yoga is your passion, you might feel enormous resistance to getting on the mat some days. So what do you do when you find yourself avoiding what you love most? Kripalu presenter and clinical psychologist Arnie Kozak, who has been meditating for 30 years, says that there are days when even he struggles to sit on the cushion. What’s different now is that he doesn’t make a big deal out of it.

Arnie suggests looking at the resistance with kindness and genuine inquiry. Ask yourself, “What’s going on here?” What is it that you really fear, and what are you protecting yourself against? Sometimes what we most fear is simply being uncomfortable—either physically or emotionally.

“I think we’ve been sold on this belief that we should be comfortable all the time, so we fear discomfort,” Arnie says. “Instead, we can see these moments as something to explore”—an opportunity for mindfulness and self-inquiry. When we avoid doing things that are a bit more difficult or uncomfortable—whether that’s a hot yoga class or an hour away from e-mail—it makes us less likely to try new things, and that’s when we get stuck.

Meditation teacher and Kripalu presenter Sally Kempton says that when this happens, try getting out of your head and finding the place in your body that’s calling for attention. Maybe it’s a sore shoulder or butterflies in the stomach. Pay attention to the body, and the mind will take note.

So what’s the best way to maintain a new practice or jump-start an old one? “Both mindfulness and right action are essential,” says Aruni Nan Futuronsky, Senior Life Coach and Program Advisor for Kripalu Healthy Living programs. “One without the other will not sustain behavior change.”

Moving forward, the key is not to dwell on it when you take a misstep. Instead, see it as part of the practice. Next time you skip yoga or choose a chocolate bar instead of an apple, remember that there’s always tomorrow.

“If you’re not failing, you’re not trying anything.” —Woody Allen

Nobody likes to fail. But whether it’s falling out of a headstand in yoga class, or trying a new recipe that ends up in the garbage, failure is inevitable—and it’s how we learn. We may not always enjoy it, but failing on and off the mat teaches us how to navigate through life.

“Life doesn’t offer rubber gloves,” says career coach and Kripalu invited presenter Tama Kieves. In her new book, Inspired & Unstoppable: Wildly Succeeding in Your Life’s Work!, Tama urges readers to give themselves permission to fail, because she wants them to “dare to succeed”—even if that means being sloppy, taking risks, or slipping up. Tama says excellence comes from experience, and experience often comes from failure. It’s a lesson she’s learned personally.

“Recently, as I’m growing my ‘creative empire,’ I have made a bunch of mistakes with people I’ve hired,” Tama explains. “It’s been painful, mucky, [but] I don’t think I could have learned another way. You could have told me these things. But I wouldn’t have believed it until I walked into it with my own two feet.”

Failing at something—whether it’s a job, a marriage, or a close friendship—can be devastating. And the more attached we become to a particular outcome, the greater the disappointment when things fall apart. But if you stop trying new things, or only allow yourself to do what you’re good at, the life you lead may not look like the life you want.

Senior Kripalu Life Coach and Healthy Living faculty member Aruni Nan Futuronsky says that “living yoga invites us into the practice of passionate non-attachment” so that after we take action, we can let go. “In this paradigm, there is no failure,” Aruni says. “It becomes less important what happens and [more] important how we learn to mindfully respond to what we are given in life.”

It’s important to remember that failing at one thing, no matter how big, doesn’t make you a failure and that learning how to cope with smaller disappointments—doing poorly on a test, getting a bad work review, or having trouble meditating—can help us in truly difficult times. Failing can also encourage us to reflect on whether we’re on the right path regarding work, love, spirituality, and family. It can be a time to sort out what’s working and what isn’t.

Aruni says she struggled for a year after losing a job she was deeply identified with was changed—her salary was reduced and her role minimized—and with that came shame and guilt. “But I held the posture. I continued to breathe. I did not leave or run, as much as I wanted to,” she says. “As time passed, I recognized that the new job was actually quite good, and [it] became the doorway through which I walked into a deeper knowing of myself.”

Have you been wrestling with a fear of failure? Share your experiences!

For those who find meditation difficult, kirtan, which has varying effects for different people, offers the possibility for the same stillness of mind, without the struggle or striving to concentrate. This practice is one way to focus the mind. By simply repeating mantras or words, you can release your mind from its daily chatter. For some, the practice has a powerful heart-opening effect as well.

What Is Kirtan?

In the Yoga Sutras, one of the ancient, foundational yogic texts, Patanjali says the eight-limbed path consists of hatha, karma, bhakti, tantra, jnana, guru, mantra, and raja yogas.

Kirtan is a form of bhakti (BHAK-tee), the yoga of devotion; jnana (gyah-nah), the yoga of wisdom; and mantra, the yoga of sound. Mantras are words, phrases, and syllables that are repeated until they become integrated into the chanter’s consciousness. Today, many yoga students are discovering that this sacred, traditional practice allows them to access inner peace, calm, connection, and non-thinking.

This act of devotion originated some 2,500 years ago in India as a way for yogis to commune with God by chanting the names of the Divine, specifically Hindu gods and goddesses, such as Ram, Kali, Rama, Shiva, Durga, Krishna, and Lakshmi.

Kirtans were originally written in Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language. The Sanskrit alphabet has a strong energetic and vibrational component—it is said that the words, when chanted, create a powerful vibration in the body, affecting a person’s mind and spirit. In other words, no knowledge of Sanskrit is needed to receive and experience the yogic benefits of kirtan.

Perhaps you’ve experienced a taste of chanting in its most basic form: a group “om” at the close of a yoga class or the invocation prayer at the beginning of an Ashtanga or Jivamukti practice. These classes are often a yoga student’s first introduction to the power of mantra and can serve as an entryway into a deeper practice.

The Practice


Traditionally, kirtan is sung in a group with the kirtan walla, or chant leader, calling out words or phrases, which the audience repeats back in kind. The singing is often accompanied by a harmonium, a freestanding keyboard instrument that sounds similar to an accordion; drums, including classical Indian tablas; and additional rhythm instruments like bells and finger cymbals. Everyone is encouraged to join in.

While a gathering normally lasts a few hours, each song can last from 10 to 30 minutes, and unlike a musical performance, there is traditionally no applause between songs. Instead, a period of mindful silence follows each chant to allow the effects to settle in. The kirtan walla can deepen the experience by modifying the length of the chant, speeding up the pace or slowing it down. They sometimes build to ecstatic heights—similar to classical Indian ragas—bringing participants to their feet.

Perhaps the most famous American kirtan leader is Krishna Das, who is credited with introducing this transformative practice to the West. Many others have contributed to making kirtan what it is in the United States, including Deva Premal, Jai Uttal, Bhagavan Das, Russill Paul, Wah!, and Dave Stringer.

Deva Premal, who performs internationally with her partner Miten, was first exposed to chanting mantras while in her mother’s womb. “My father chanted the Gayatri Mantra to me through my mother’s pregnancy and during my birth,” she says. “I sang them daily for the first 10 years of my life. I rediscovered them when I was in my mid-twenties while singing with Miten.”

She says chanting is a spiritual practice for her: “Mantras carry intrinsic healing qualities . . . [something] you can only experience—words will always fall short.”

That sentiment resonates with kirtan-lover Alexandra Woods from Palm Coast, Florida. “I always tell people it’s like going to church. But what it really gives me is a sense of belonging with myself—not only with the world.”

Alexandra stumbled upon kirtan by accident. “I had a housemate in California who, every time I would ride in her car, would play kirtan songs. We would drive and sing along with her daughter Katrina. Then, when I went to the Satchinanda ashram is where I really got exposed.”

The Effects: Feeling the “Buzz”

Like other forms of yoga, kirtan is best understood through direct experience. People often say they feel bliss or “buzzed” after chanting. Justin Green, a massage therapist says, “I get so joyful…really blissfully happy, because it changes something. It opens me up. I think there is something inherently hypnotic about sharing voice, sharing breath, and moving, if we happen to be dancing. I think it breeds a sense of connection. It’s like praying together.” Justin adds, “At first I thought, ’What is this ridiculous stuff?’ I had a lot of resistance to it, but after the first one I was high. Then, I was hooked.”

“To someone who has not chanted before I would describe it as the very best way to become peaceful, to have a direct experience of the stillness inside,” says Paul Coggins, a movie-set designer. “It simply makes you happy and that can’t be bad, eh?”

Bhavani Lorraine Nelson, who leads chanting and meditation workshops at Kripalu says, “The most important thing when chanting is to have an intention, perhaps a personal intention of what you want to let go of in your life…if not, chant for the world.”

Whether it’s a sense of community, the joy of devotion, or the pure love of singing that draws you to kirtan, consider it another kind of yoga to explore this coming year. This celebratory practice allows us to go deep inside and connect to the divinity within us all.

Jennifer Mattson is a journalist, writer, yogini, and kirtan junkie. A former volunteer resident at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, she us a former broadcast news producer for CNN and National Public Radio. Her reporting and writing have appeared in TheAtlantic.com, The Boston Globe, USA Today and the Women’s Review of Books.

I should know. For the past week, I’ve been listening to it first thing in the morning, which has inevitably led to a spontaneous dance party around my apartment. (If you’re wondering what that looks like, check out this girl getting her groove on at work to Kanye West’s “Gone.”)

“Happy” is 3 minutes and 53 seconds of inspirational, upbeat music which repeats to create “the world’s first 24-hour music video.” It features various seemingly ordinary people dancing, skipping, clapping, and singing along to the tune.

If you watch all 24 hours, you’ll find some nice surprises. Along with Pharrell, who appears at the top of each hour, there are a number of celebrity drop-ins, including Steve Carrell (5:08 pm), Jamie Foxx (5:28 pm), Miranda Cosgrove (5:40 pm), Kelly Osbourne (1:28 am) and Magic Johnson (5:36 am).

The song is an important reminder that, while the yogic path and contemplative practices like silent meditation can sometimes feel serious or austere, getting grounded and feeling centered can actually be fun.

“Happiness can be contagious when we are really in the moment,” says Kripalu faculty member Maria Sirois, PsyD,  who leads programs in the science of happiness and resilience. “There really is no separation between body, mind, and spirit—how we participate in one arena impacts the other. Joyful, spontaneous dance leads to happier emotions and calmer, more positive thoughts.”

Maria says that watching the video while sick in bed, a few weeks back, brought her out of her misery and back into the larger world: “It reminded me that we have a choice at each moment about what to focus on.”

In other words, what we choose to pay attention to creates our reality, and that helps us build resilience (the ability to bounce back).

Studies have found that dance can lower the level of stress hormones and redirect negative thought patterns. Another powerful reminder of how body-awareness and movement can initiate resilience and play a vital role in our health and immunity is Deborah Cohan’s spontaneous dance party in the operating room at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco right before her double mastectomy.

“We can choose at any moment, even just before an operation, to make choices that enliven our mental, emotional state and our immune system,” Maria says.

Ready for your dance break?

What does happiness mean to you?