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Making-Healthy-Choices e-Zine #034 - This One Thing can Change Your Life! July 18, 2014 |
| Hi,
In this month's e-Zine ...
The Importance of a Morning PracticeWhat is a morning practice? For me, at this moment in my journey, my morning practice consists of yoga followed by meditation. I have dedicated a 30 minute slot of time each morning to engage in this practice. This is the most important part of my day, because if I don’t do my morning practice, the rest of my day doesn’t flow as well as it could. I titled this e-zine ‘This One Thing can Change Your Life’ - I truly believe that. I have seen first hand how my life dramatically changes when I engage in my morning practice and how things slow down, stagnate or even regress when I neglect these precious morning moments. How do I know this? From countless days of experience. Days of doing my practice and days of not. What I experience over and over again is that on the days when my practice has been neglected I just don’t operate as well; I am more tired, restless, irritable, less patient, lower tolerance for just about everything and everyone, I am more moody … basically my day has far less joy in it and I am often just not in a good place. It is true that we only make quality decisions and choices when we are in a good state of mind and my morning practice is a great way to assist me in being in a good state of mind throughout the day. My morning practice is a precious time of re-balancing and re-connection. Through breath and stillness I reconnect with my inner self, my higher self, my innate joyous being. Through breath and stillness I allow my entire system to move towards its balance. 
A beautiful sunrise meditation at the beach in Thailand The way I think of my morning practice is that it is a way to hit the reset button. Throughout our day, throughout our lives, we can become muddled with all sorts of irrelevant conditioning, thought patterns, belief systems, habits, etc. These things detract from our true joyous self and often have us caught up in drama that take away from joy and health. These things take us away from our balance and have us going through our day (or our life) in an unbalanced and skewed fashion. My morning practice grounds me and really does feel like I am hitting the reset button. Like I am cleaning the slate of anything irrelevant to my joy, growth, connection and love. And from this place I begin a new day! It doesn’t get better than that!! I decided to write about this today because this past week there were several days when my practice got neglected. Those particular days were quite challenging for me and in those challenges came the powerful reminder of just how important this practice is. It reminded me once again of what I have already been shown over and over again in my life: that there is a HUGE difference in the days that I meditate as compared to the days that I don’t. Many things can get in the way of this morning practice and it is always a choice to make it a priority and, no matter what else is happening, to carve away some time to do my practice. I never regret it and it always adds something positive to my day. However you do it, find a way each morning to start your day with something that grounds and balances you. For me it is movement (through yoga poses), stillness (through meditation) and breath (through it all). I try to do this soon after waking up although it doesn’t always work out that way. 
While travelling I found this beautiful place outside our motel room to lay down my pink mat and do my morning practice. This is a lifelong habit that I am cultivating and I know my practice will change and adapt as I do but what will remain the same are the precious moments spent each day tuning in and resetting my balance so that each day, each connection, can be more authentic, more genuine and more full of love and joy. It’s called a practice because it is always evolving and it doesn’t have to be perfect or exactly the way someone else does it. Just start practicing and keep at it. Play and find out what feels great for you! If you would like to read more about how I started meditating, click here.
Oil Pulling - Have You Heard of it? Oil pulling is an ancient technique of preventative health and one that many in the modern world have never heard of! It is very easy and inexpensive to do and the benefits can be outstanding. When I do this I notice whiter teeth, cleaner feeling mouth and a general sense of great wellbeing that is hard to describe but often includes greater mental clarity and focus and more energy. I have talked to many that have given this a try and I hear testimonials from many that say it is amazing on many levels to some that say that they don’t really notice much of a difference. Give it a try and let us know how it works for you. Basically oil pulling involves putting a tablespoon of good quality oil in your mouth, swishing it around for 10-20 minutes and then spitting it out. Click here to read the full low-down on how to do this and what it can do for you.
Pictures of Our TravelsAs many of you know, John and I have been travelling for quite a while now. As we go, we are posting many pictures to share with family and friends. If you are at all interested, click the links below to see some of where we have been and what we have been doing. I realize that not everyone enjoys looking at other peoples’ pictures and if that is the case for you just ignore this last section of this month’s newsletter. If you do like this kind of thing, reply to this email and let me know - we would love to hear from you! The most recent albums are at the top of the list; YELLOWSTONE PARK - LANDSCAPES
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Nadia Harper RHN
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