Many people find that pursuing the societal image of success does not yield a sustained level of happiness. Wealth, relationships, and prestige, though temporarily satisfying, do not significantly elevate the experience of joy.
The daily forces that make your life less than peaceful are magnified during the holidays. Holiday bustle is a nice way of referring to added stress, family conflicts, overeating, and enduring winter’s blast.
This holiday season, we may find ourselves torn between eating nutritious foods and sharing in holiday treats. Ayurveda can help us do both at once, while including one of Ayurveda’s Four Aims of Life: enjoyment. These are some simple variations on holiday recipes that will satisfy your sweet tooth and appetite, as well as your agni.
Do you love the long nights of winter, or do you dread the early sunsets? Our mindset has quite a lot to do with how much we enjoy this time of year, and trading resistance for gratitude can change everything about how we experience it. It is colder, darker, and wetter in winter, and that can be seen as a gift.
The journal was sturdy and thick with a long, brown silky ribbon for a bookmark. Its pages boasted inspirational quotes I had never heard of before (“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings” – Eric Hoffer) and provided space for the eye to breathe. The font was modern, blue, cute. And on its sturdy fluorescent orange cover, it hollered “Okay Fine, I’m Grateful!”
Breakfast is quite possibly my favorite meal of the day. I enjoy the calm and peacefulness of the early morning hours. It is a time of the day in which I enjoy writing, and feel creatively inspired. I often wake before the sun rises, and like to ease into the day. While we have our usual go-to breakfasts, it’s also fun to venture outside of those from time to time. For us, this usually means waffles.
I have been listening to different guided meditations for several years and focusing on breathwork. I have always enjoyed it, looked forward to the quiet time to turn off my mind, and recently decided it was time to enhance my practice by enrolling in the Chopra Meditation Enrichment Program.
Just as the chakra system maps and encourages the balance of our Root chakra, and Crown chakra energies, Japanese energetic anatomy also depicts the balance of Earthly and Heavenly energies coming together at the heart center for harmony and balance.
For many of us, ringing in the new year with fresh resolutions is a great opportunity to bring awareness and attention to our aspirations to break free from our current unhealthy habits.
In many parts of the world, winter is an auspicious time as we find ourselves deep in the darkness of the longest nights of the year, and the daylight hours begin to increase with the winter solstice. We can honor and appreciate winter as representative of a much-needed fallow time to nourish ourselves and plant seeds for our re-emergence in the spring.
Over the past few years, my husband and I have become the hosts for holiday gatherings. This is a bittersweet passing of the torch so to speak. I have many warm memories of my parents hosting, but it is now very meaningful to be able to share our recipes and home with family and friends.
When you recognize that something or someone is valuable to you so much that you cannot put a monetary value on it, you are filled with a sense of gratitude. You feel grateful for being a part of that experience. It is an affirmation of all that is good in your life.
