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Do you struggle to find balance in your life? I know I have. In the past, I have found myself busy from morning until night rushing from here to there, “getting stuff done”, crossing off items off my “to do” list, yet not really feeling like I was living the vibrant and balanced life I wanted to be living. It hasn't always been easy to balance my responsibilities of raising and educating my kids, teaching yoga and wellness, engaging in community activities and finding time for myself. Despite my many years of being a yogi (25 +) and despite all the practices I know and teach, I have struggled a lot in life to feel balanced.
My days involve household work (cooking, meeting the kids' needs, car-pooling), my wrok (teaching, administrative tasks, and personal studies) and personal practices. It's a lot, andI'm sure you can relate to your own circumstances. There are more times than I’d like to admit that in trying to do it all, I have worked too hard, stayed up too late, slept poorly, consumed too many crunchy salty snacks or sweets, wasted time on low-level activities, suffered from poor digestion and neglected my own self-care and fun! Being in peri-menopause doesn’t help either! Ask my husband and kids. They’ll tell you a stressed-out, cranky yoga mom is not a fun person to have around! For a long time I didn’t know what to do to make my life feel balanced. I wasn’t about to give up my family duties and dedication to raising my kids in the way that I most believed. I wasn’t going to give up the work I love. And, I certainly wasn’t going to give up my yoga!
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 A fundamental principle of Ayurveda is that our habits, routines, and dietary choices should align with the seasons. Ayurveda views our physical bodies, along with everything in the Universe, as being made up of the five primary elements; earth, water, fire, air, and ether or empty space. These elements are expressed in the physical body as qualities of stability/support (earth), feeling/fluidity (water), heat and metabolism (fire), respiration and circulation (air), and space and lightness (ether). Characteristics of Summer: The characteristics of summer are heat, long days of bright sun, and sharp intensity. These are all attributes of pitta dosha, which is why summer is considered a pitta season. While the summer weather is welcome after a long cool, wet season, it can be too much of a good thing. When the fire and water element are out of balance, it creates an excess of the pitta dosha. To help create balance, consider one of the classic Ayurvedic sutras that says, “like increases like and opposites balance.” This wisdom is extremely helpful when considering your physical activities in the summer. Summer often motivates us to up our game with physical fitness, especially in the Pacific Northwest where we experience many rainy months and are waiting for summer! The summer months to be active provided you exercise at appropriate times and at an appropriate intensity. Here are some tips for enjoying yoga and other forms of exercise in the summer while not getting overheated.
Check out the audio practice below: ALL LEVEL PITTA REDUCING YOGA PRACTICE - 24 MINUTES Share it with a friend!
XO Annie  I’ve been back in Peru for a couple of weeks now and enjoying reconnecting with my community. Since I haven’t been teaching local classes for a couple of months, I decided to reach out to plan a little gathering to reconnect with my Maple Grove Yoga and Vibrant Living folks. I hosted an outdoor yoga class followed by a potluck. It was so fun that I plan to do it again and invite all my yoga peeps, so stay tuned - I have a big backyard! The women that came to the gathering are all long time yoga practitioners. Most of them have been taking classes at my home studio for many years. Over the years, they have become a strong community. They support one another in learning, growth and life transitions on and off the mat. I dedicated the yoga class to the power of community. We don’t evolve on our own. Humans evolve best with support and guidance. Whether you are working on strength building, committing to a meditation practice, eating better, improving self-care, parenting better, or aging more gracefully, having community support makes all the difference. Since we were practicing yoga outside surrounded by forest, I felt inspired to also invoke the elements of nature. I offered a guided meditation on the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, space), how these live inside us, and how different individuals serve as support and guidance to us via embodying these elements. Try this exercise: Read the musings below and spend a few minutes in quiet reflection or journaling. Consider how each element is embodied by different individuals in your life who serve to support you in growth, development and inspiration. Earth – GROUNDEDNESS. Who in your life serves to ground you, anchor you and stabilize you in times of upheaval? Water – FLUIDITY. Who in your life helps you flow, encourages you “go with the flow”, and assists you when you are stuck? Fire – POWER + PASSION. Who in your life ignites you, empowers you, and gets you focused on taking action? Air – MOBILITY + CREATIVITY. Who in your life inspires you to think outside of the box and gets you into your creativity? Space – EXPANSION. Who in your life helps you expand beyond your limited constructs of yourself, and helps you step into your Big Self? Are you looking for a supportive community to help you deepen your yoga practice? Are you looking to find other thrive-seekers to join you and support you in creating habits for a more balanced life? it’s not fall yet (no, not yet please!), now is a great time to make plans for joining a fall class or program with me (many of these classes fill quickly). You can check them out here. xo Annie  I’ve just spent 6 weeks in Peru and I’m on my way back to Olympia, WA. But my summer travels don’t stop here. We’ll be packing up and heading to visit family in the Midwest and in the Inter-mountain states, and then at the very end of the summer, the kids and I are headed to music camp in the Redwoods.
I have spent most summers on the go for as long as I can remember. By foot, plane, train, bus, car, taxi. Sleeping in airports, hotels, homes, cabins, and cabins. I’m a pretty darn good traveler, but it hasn’t always been this way. I truly love the stimulation of traveling – taking in new landscapes, meeting new people, tasting new foods, etc. Yet, I also struggle with transitions. Change isn’t always easy for me. Traveling tends to stress the body and mind. Traveling can be very un-grounding. In the past, traveling has tended to exacerbatedigestive and sleep issues for me. That’s where yoga and Ayurveda come in. Now, no matter where I am on the planet, I have solid routine, effective travel tips, foods and remedies that keeps my body-mind healthy and happy. In this blog, I share my best travel tips:  Greetings from the Andes! I am spending six weeks in the Sacred Valley of Peru and my most recent blog posts are snippets of the lessons and experiences from my time here.
For much of my life, I have been a student, traveler and explorer of many cultures and spiritual traditions. As such, I deeply appreciate this quote by ethnographer, writer and filmmaker Wade Davis: “Every culture is a unique answer to the fundamental question: what does is it means to be human and alive. When asked that question, the peoples of the world respond with 7000 sources of knowledge and wisdom, history and intuition which collectively comprise humanity’s repertoire for dealing with all the challenges that we’ll face as a species in the coming centuries. Every culture deserves a place at the council of the human experience.” I have spent a good portion of my adult life as a student and explorer of the traditions of Latin America, particularly the Andes, and the spiritual traditions of India, particularly yoga and Ayurveda. I appreciate the diversity of the human experience and expression, and I love it when I find intersections and common ground between different cultures. Over the past seven years that our family has been spending time in Peru, I have been interested in exploring the intersections between yoga philosophy and the Andean cosmo-vision. I am fascinated with the notion of sacred landscape and ritual offerings in both cultures. As I write this blog post from my home in the Peruvian Andes with a majestic view of the mountains of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, I ask: What does it mean for a culture to believe that the earth is alive, and how does one act when one has a sacred relationship to the land? |
Hi. I'm Annie. I teach vibrant + soulful living through yoga and Ayurveda.
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