Monthly Digest- March 2018

Easter Rituals to try this year!  

 

Hello! Welcome to our  Yamala Yoga Monthly Newsletter for March!

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Term 1: Term 1 is well and truly underway….with the last class for the term finishing on Wednesday 28th March (just before Easter!) We have loads of opportunities for you to jump on your mat and practice some yoga, including general yoga and specialised Mums & Bubs Yoga classes:

✽ General Yoga at the Paddington Annexe. Our classic Yamala Yoga style class with plenty of flows, deep stretches and meditation suitable for everyone (including beginners, children and advanced yogis!). A reminder that Casual Classes are $15 or $100 for a 10 Class Pass. As always, please try to arrive at least 5 mins before the scheduled class time. This means we can start on time, and with less disruptions for everyone when the class is underway.

 

• Tuesday evenings @ 6:15-7:00pm

• Sunday mornings 7:45-8:30am

 

✽ Mums & Bubs Yoga at The Soul Pantry: Continuing until the 28th March, our Mums & Bubs Yoga on Wednesdays @ 9:30am at the Soul Pantry are a real hit! Prices for the Mums & Bubs Yoga is $20 for a casual class or $150 for a 10 Class Pass (which has a years expiry!). Tell all your mumma friends, kids from 0-5 years old welcome (but don’t fret! If your kiddies are in care…we would still love to see you!!) It’s a lovely class, with coffee and chats to follow. **Parking at Soul Pantry has been a challenge the last few weeks! Hopefully it eases up as the term continues. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused!!

Just a reminder that unfortunately we don’t have eftpos facilities available at this time. So please remember to bring cash or do a bank transfer for your passes. Just ask us for bank details if you don’t have them already.

THIS MONTH’S

TOP STORIES

Healthy Easter Traditions and Rituals.

Fun family traditions to start with your tribe this year.

What does Easter normally consist of for your and your family? Perhaps you dig into some freshly toasted Hot Cross Buns and sip steaming hot cups of coffee, as you catch up with family and friends. Perhaps you head to the Church with family and friends, if you are religious. However, no matter how you choose to spend your time off….with kids hanging around it usually revolves around gorging in huge amounts of chocolate, with a visit from The Easter Bunny!

It’s lovely to indulge with family and friends over this fun season…but why not try some including some fun alternative traditions with the kids this year, instead of ladening them up on highly refined sugars. We can all agree that there is no better way to spend the holiday than with loved ones, listening to the laughter of kiddies around you having fun!

Why not give some of these a go this year, and who knows….maybe they will become a new family tradition:

 

• Easter Hunt: Nothing screams Easter like an Easter Hunt. So exciting for the adventurous in your house. Why not try a little treasure hunt using  little dinosaur figurines, colourful boiled eggs, some crayons or chalk instead of the traditional foil covered eggs (because let’s face it…they will melt anyway in Queensland.)

• Easter Crafts: Find some colouring in or craft projects online, and give these a go over the holiday season.

• New PJs: With Winter just around the corner, why not get a new set of Winter Pyjamas or Slippers from the Easter Bunny instead of a huge bundle of chocolate.

• Indulge in some Chocolate: It’s just not Easter without some delicious chocolate. Why don’t you try going for Dark Chocolate this year? Dark Chocolate contains large amounts of flavonoids, which act as powerful antioxidants and can help to lower blood pressure. Try to find one that’s more than 70% (meaning it contains less sugar and saturated fat). Or you can make your own Chocolate, using Cacao (full of magnesium) and Coconut Oil (which helps to boost your bodies immune system and protect against viruses and bacteria). Plus its a quick and fun activities to get the kiddies involved in! Yay!

 

 

 

 

 

DIY Sugar-Free Chocolate for Easter (thanks to I Quit Sugar.com)…**so easy to make and an absolute treat to make at ANY time of the year!!!

• • Dark Chocolate: Combine ½ Cup Coconut Oil, 1 Tbsp Rice Malt Syrup, ½ Cup Raw Cacao Powder, 2 Tbsp Coconut Cream in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until melted and well combined.

 

• White Chocolate: Combine ¼ Cup Coconut Oil, ¼ Cup Cacao Butter, 1 Tbsp Rice Malt Syrup, ½ Tsp Vanilla Powder, 2 Tbsp Coconut Cream in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until melted and well combined.

 

Now get creative and add in some flavour:

• Raspberry Ripple: add in a few frozen raspberries and coconut flakes
• Nut Cluster: Throw in a few chopped nuts and a sprinkle of sea salt
• Coconut Rough: Add shredded coconut
• Turkish Delight: Add a few drops of rosewater and chopped pistachios
• Peanut Butter and Jelly: Replace Coconut Cream with Peanut Butter, and add a few frozen raspberries.

Something a little extra….

The reasons we LOVE savasana

Corpse Pose or Savasana…a pose considered the easiest to perform and the most difficult to master. Why?! Well, it requires less physical strength and flexibilities than many other asana’s- but its the challenge to our mind and body in many different way that brings the difficulty.

This asana (or pose) is a great place to practice engaging in mindful awareness without too much effort or exertion, a perfect way to seal your practice and relax into a deeper state of being.

When we engage in savasana, sensory stimulation and external distractions are minimised- which allows the body to completely relax. A grounded body means our mental energy is channeled inwards, allowing our mind to explore our body from the inside. The more we practice this, the more we increase our body awareness- increasing the ability to notice our breath and our heartbeat, allowing us to come into a calm and more relaxed state of mind. This lovely state of bliss has been known to decrease signs and symptoms of anxiety and depression (an added bonus!).

Savasana is a great way to calm our mind, reduce stress and fatigue, lowers our blood pressure, release headache or tension pain and improve our sleep!

But it’s not all mental….savasana provides our physical body so many wonderful benefits as well! The pose allows the body to relax and unwind after practicing asana flows, relaxing muscular and skeletal tension (all in the one pose! Amazing!).

So next time we ask you to drop into savasana, give yourself permission to flop. Relax. And really feel connected and grounded as you drift away…..and feel that “Yoga High” at the end of class.

A Final Thought

New month, new season, new mindset!

The start of March brings not only a new month, but also a new season. If you’re anything like us, you might find this change brings a little more energy into our daily routine. A little less heat, a little more sunshine (less rain, hopefully!), a cool change in the temperature. You can almost feel the shift in the environment around you.

This time brings us a perfect opportunity to reset our mindset – update our daily activities, revisit our goals, and go for our dreams! We encourage you to take a moment over the next few days to just sit quietly and do a mini stocktake of those activities and routines which are filling your cup and those that are draining it (metaphorically speaking!). Identify what you love – What fills your soul with sunshine? What makes your body sing? What brings that gorgeous smile across your face instantly? Simply try to work more of these activities into your daily routine.

Start now. Make a promise to yourself that you will do what you can to bring more love, more sunshine, more happiness, and less stress into your life.

Remember that you have the power to control your world. You have one life, one opportunity to live an incredibly fulfilling and happy existence. Now is the time to make it happen!

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❝The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams❞ — Oprah Winfrey