Manifesting Mindfulness - My Journey Through Life

Observation of Interpersonal Interactions During the observation of interpersonal interactions I found that I enjoy listening to people and their stories. However, it always depends on the person. So if the person is just going on and on and on about something that is sooo stupid in his or her life, I may reach a point where I stop listening very closely. I still try to comfort the person and try to find a solution to the situation. This happened with two friends in the last week and I feel they got some good input from our conversation. I enjoy helping out friends and I look forward to helping people through yoga. Because yoga is also about interpersonal interactions, just not by words but by spending quality time together. Course Goal Assessment My course goal was to get into a more regular practice of yoga, that is 3 times 30 minutes a week. To be honest, as I took this course during the last 6 weeks of my assignment in China, I could not stick to this rule all the time.

In the last couple of weeks I learned many new things in the YogaMOOC on edx.org. Asanas I learned a new way to approach chair pose, which has always been rather hard for me. I tend to lean forward to much with my upper body, so now I am trying to stretch/lean more up and not forward. I love the sun salutation and the repetitions. The more you repeat the sequence, the easier it will get. My goal is to incorporate the right breathing more into sun salutation. Well-Being Well-Being has been a concept in my world, but it was good to hear what this well-being actually incorporates. It was a reminder for me to focus more on what I love, get in more physical and mental exercise and connect with people who have a positive impact on me. Anatomy So far I have not had much to do with anatomy except for when I was in school. During the summer in the yoga TTC I learned so many interesting things about the human body and how it works, the YogaMOOC was a great addition to that. It

I can't believe it's week 5 already. Where has time gone? There is one really good thing about this: Week 5 of the YogaMOOC means, that I have successfully spent 5 out of 6 weeks in China already. The end of the course means that I will have finished my last 6 weeks' assignment in China and I am going back home to Austria!! How am I holding up with my goal to practice yoga regularly again? Well, this week has been a challenge . We are having visitors from headquarters here in China right now, so the evenings are packed with dinners and staying out late. To be honest, I have been so tired lately, that my number one focus was to get enough quality sleep. HOWEVER : I practiced more yoga on the weekend. I did plan a lot of things for my last weekend in China, but what's also part of this plan was yoga. I ran around in old town Suzhou and enjoyed some great time on my mat. Lately I have been enjoying slow yoga practices more than energetic practice. So I tend to

This is a little summary of what yoga is in connection with the broader concept of "well-being". I could go on and draw so many more lines because almost everything is interconnected, so the lines you see are the most important connections for me :)

This past week I actually stuck to my goal. I practiced yoga regularly and it made me feel really good about myself. I had some problems with my left wrists, so I took a little break. But it's been good to have yoga back in my life more. What I also rediscovered: My love for music. Throughout my childhood I almost lived in the music school next to our house. I played the cello, the electric bass, took singing classes and was in dance. After that I learned to play the saxophone and was still part of many orchestras. 1,5 years ago there was a major cut - no more music in my life except for my ukulele that I took on one of my business trips. Last week I started to listen to various Amazon playlists again. There are so many good songs out there that make me want to go back to music. The plan is that before Christmas my boyfriend, two friends and I will do a jam session. I am VERY excited for that. I hope we really carry through with that! Yoga and music also match perfectly. Whe

This week involved a lot of thinking about myself. I am currently at a point of my life where I have to make some decisions. Decisions about my future. Even though my job is not very stressful at the moment, there are some things that stress me currently. One of them is the pressure I feel that I have to make the "right" decisions "now" otherwise it could be too late. Deep inside I know that's not true but still. It's something I think about a lot. I started a journal in which I answer a lot of different questions: What am I good at? What am I bad in? What gives me strength and power? What sucks the energy out of me? Who are my good friends? Who is not a good influence for me? What is my goal in life? I combined the journal work with our off-the-mat assignments and did some deep thinking about life. I have not come to a conclusion and I could not answer all of the questions above. But I do feel like thinking about me and my life is really use

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A couple of days ago I stumbled across a Youtube video about "Jobs for Highly Sensitive People". In the beginning, I did not think much about it, but the more I heard the more I was aware. Aware that I might be one of these highly sensitive people. When I was a kid, I was often told "don't take everything so seriously", "don't get angry so easily" and "you are just too sensitive". I tend to overthink things I said and did. I have a lot of interests and hobbies and therefore I am having a hard time to find out what job I want to do. My eyes sometimes cannot cope with all the visual triggers in front of them. Sometimes I sit in the office and everything just turns super bright so that I cannot see anymore. In the last few months, while living in China, I found that certain noises can totally make me go crazy. Answering some of the questionnaires that I found about HSP opened my eyes. There is a name to how I have been feeling in the la

How can this be so complicated? To just stick to one single goal that I set myself? This past week was not good for me. Something very valuable was stolen out of my hotel room. I have been living in the room for 5 months now and nothing ever happened. But on Monday it was gone. I spent most of the week trying to find it. but I was not successful. I also came to the conclusion that I will soon quit my job as it makes me very unhappy. But when it comes to yoga, I have not been as successful as I wanted to be. BUT: I did manage to include some active breathing exercises before going to bed. So I think that this was some kind of success. Now that things are hopefully calming down more here in China, I will make more time for yoga practice. Yesterday I went for a run because I needed to get out there and "run for my life". It felt really good. And it made me realize how much I miss yoga. So today I will practice yoga again and take it really slow. Just like we did in the sh

This week in the YogaMOOC, we learned about the science behind yoga. It is really interesting to read about the effects yoga can have on the body and mind. Even though it is not scientifically proven, what effect yoga really has, there have been studies that showed: Yoga is good for the heart and can lower blood pressure for example Yoga can help with pains like lower back pain Yoga helps with fatigue and improves Balance and mobility When it Comes to mental health, positive effects of yoga have also been reported. Yoga helps against stress, anxiety and depression. I know that not everybody will feel the same effects of yoga on the body and mind. I also told the students that I taught in October, that not everyone will feel comfortable doing some things, but never try - never know. It is important to keep an open mind and maybe eventually you will experience the positive effect of yoga on your physical and mental health yourself.

My phones go everywhere with me. Yes, my phones - plural. I have an Austrian private phone, an Austrian company phone and a Chinese phone. I feel like I am very good about using my phone when I am around people. I enjoy the time talking to friends and I am lucky to have friends here in China who are not on their phones all the time either. In the last two weeks I was on my phone a lot more than usual because I had visitors here in China. We spent the weekends traveling so I was the one guiding everyone with my Chinese phone. Plus I started to play a very addictive game called "Homescapes". Apparently I go through phases: one month I read 6 books, another month I was a TV show and yet another month I get carried away by some weird phone game. My goal for the next week is the following: I will turn all my electronic devices off 1 hour before going to bed. During this time I will either read or practice yoga. My aim is to get back to regular yoga practice now that m

In this weeks class about "well-being" I had an eye-opening moment. The instructor introduced the four keys to well-being: Attention Outlook Resilience Generosity Attention is about staying focused on the task at hand. Outlook is about seeing the positive sides in other people. Resilience is about how quickly we recover from hardship. Generosity is about giving to others (not only money, but also time, help and conversation). I would say out of the four, "Generosity" and "Outlook" are the hardest for me. As we should not set too many Goals at once, I decided to set a goal for me to work more on "Outlook". Here is a little bit more information: Outlook is the "ability to see positive in others, the ability to savor positive experiences, the ability to see another human being as the human being who has innate basic goodness". This is definitely a hard one for me. I don't have a hard time to get in touch with other people