How to apply to get yourself into an Adopt a Home Practice yoga coaching program?

How to create a home-base zone that supports your inner-most needs as a human being?

You can do it from your own home via Internet chats, Skype, video and media access!
Fill out an application and I will get right back to you with more information:

Look forward to working with you!

…Is Not the Right Thing   One Step at a Time April 16, 2012 In This Issue: Blog of the Week from Beth – Waning Moon is New on the 21st The 12 Week Spring Yoga Challenge is On Coming Events, Online Programs Yoga Tip of the Week What’s Beth Up To? Beth Recommends Blog of the Week from Beth Clear Directions – Last Quarter Moon Waning to New Moon on Saturday Personally, I love life.  I fought for it, and I never stop feeling compelled by its demands upon me.  At a point in my life when I was totally pushed up against the wall with my health and the thin wire of life, I bought into what is almost a spiritual cliche: Not my will, Thy will be done….[read more] And it is a continuous turning over of my desires, my personal will and my ego’s version of how things should look and unfold – to this more surrendered position, “Thy will be done.” It became clear that my main job is to listen – and then to act on what I hear – without condition.  This is, I know, a tall order for many people.  And it never stops being that – tall order – for me either, but during my health crises I became clear for myself that there is no other choice. If you’ve been in my zone for some years, then you’ve watched me go through many doors, take many big turns and changes and generally not hesitate to shake it up. Every time I do that, however, it is tempting to lose my faith in the direction that speaks with such a clear, steady and often demanding voice.  And in fact, with the last change I’ve made to my yoga schedule, and the launch out into providing some high tech yoga options, I’ve received some feedback about disappointments and sense that people aren’t even clear about the change I’m making. This is not your fault! And I’d at least like to clarify for me what my process is, and how I’ve come to the conclusions I have about the work I’m doing, and the form my calling to teach and share music is taking. This is a move that has me walking in faith.  Not seeing clearly the ground beneath each step as I take it.  There is a sense of falling with every single step.  And yet, if I look retrospectively back at all the steps I’ve taken, I see there was a ground – that there kept being the ground – even when by all logical standards and common sense, the ground was missing. I am called to teach, do music and be my own high tech pioneer. That is clear to me, and the form of how that’s going to manifest, is always changing, as I attempt to answer the voice of the Divine Will. As you know I have slowly cut back on doing evening yoga classes, workshops and concerts.  If your career is cause for you to work at night, then you know there are certain hazards that come along with that timing, with respect to your circadian rhythm.  There are natural times for rest, and the night is one of them!! As I’ve dove headlong into what I’m calling Moon Yoga – a subject I’ve always wanted to explore in depth – it very quickly made me lucid about a major life point that I believe we are all destined to get: Timing is everything. And if we do the right thing at the right time, it is not the right thing at all! So I know I am destined to teach, yoga and lifestyle health, but am so clear that a relentless night work life is costing me many things, most importantly a view of the sunrise! Since the last 12 Week Challenge ended last week, I’ve begun a new practice of getting up before or with the sunrise and getting to bed earlier. I’m using using the evenings to wind down, be with family, and prepare methodically for the next day.  Less and less is the Divine will supporting my night owl tendencies of the past years since I had my son and was engaged with work nearly every night! Also, I’ve shifted my emphasis from teaching classes (which I love, don’t get me wrong) to working more personally with yoga coaching clients. I am so clearly meant to work with people in this way, and am so moved by the experiences shared there, and the risks clients take in the privacy of this forum. And I welcome you to explore this with me when you feel ready to take your Next Step, and to take a bigger risk in becoming self-actualized, tying yourself into the vision you hold for yourself and for getting someone in your life to hold you accountable to the things you want with respect to health and fulfillment. What is This Week’s New Moon About? Time to set intentions about moving forward… Moon Yoga Online will explore the ways you can use lunar energies to guide life and practice, so you can live a yoga life that works with the forces that be. 12 Week Spring Yoga Challenge Starts Today! click here to book now Mondays 10 AM until the end of June – Cloud 284 Tuesdays 8:00 PM until the end of June – Lindenwoods Community Centre Moon Yoga Online – Live in the Flow of Natural Cycles! For women and yogis who need to make the most of their time, so they can get their best stuff done and the time when nature favours it! If you’re on my email zone, your investment is $147 – for 12 Weeks of Video Downloads, You Get to Keep Forever!!! Coming Events Summary (as above, so below) April 16, 4:45 PM – CBC Radio 1 Up to Speed with Larry Updike – on healing music! Moon Yoga Online – TBD details to sign up for one free class! 12 Week Yoga Challenge Starts this week! Yoga Tip of the Week Which pose to do when you’re too wired: There is nothing quite like a simple child’s pose, balaasan, for calming an over-wired nervous system. What’s Beth Up To? ~Still breathing. ~Basking in the light of the Body, Mind And Spirit Show, gathering of local cosmic souls.    I Recommend Reading Care of the Soul, by Thomas Moore. This is a timeless version of a spirituality that includes the human element  – with grace, respect and humility – reflecting the complex and beautiful depth of soul that lay in each life experience. Sending you warm wishes for the week, until we meet again. Kind cheers and namaste, Beth

yoga@bethmartens.comIf you’d like to remove your email address from this list, you can click here to unsubscribe.

A cool photo:
 

Yoga for Creative Manifestation (And for People Who Can’t Sleep)

Follow Through With Creative Urges

Energy coils at the base of the spine, and this is experienced to us as a strong, active – and persistent over a lifetime – desire to do something.   If this coiled energy has no channel or path through to which to travel and manifest as a creative force of some kind, then it will irritate you to no end until you have the wherewithal to follow through with the undeniable urges that accompany every human being on their journey through life.

The longer we deny (and delay!) creative and ultimately life purpose energy, what yoga calls our dharm(a), the more difficult it becomes to undertake, and some are left tragically realizing the meaning of their life only after the threat of losing, and compelling forces that once enable us to act on these divine urges becomes less and less.

How to Live Daily with Your Heart’s Desire

This part is simple, but extremely difficult and requires daily practice. The benefits to your life satisfaction, and therefore better sleep, are enormous:

Each time your helpful mind tells you some little thing to do, to focus energy towards a great good, do it.  Your great good will be something different every time along the way, and will flow through different cycles and seasons.  Everything big is a bunch of little things across time, and that never stops being the case.  Every teeny little gesture of conscious awareness focused into the things you love, is assisting everyone around you and is an act of follow through.

You are looking for results…but because the healing is increased bit by bit, proof that our effort is yielding the impact we want often shows up seeming random and unassociated. As if on some sort of “time” delay.

However, we have to keep our awareness subtle enough to catch the signs of creative growth and infinite potential.  Being in the flow of this is very soothing and stimulating at the same time. You are not left wired and stressed out, but rather energized and inspired and ready to be of service to others.

Excert from Yoga for People Who Can’t Sleep

As I sit to write this week’s blog, I’m looking for the ergonomically perfect position to write and do work on my lap top…and to find the perfect pose, for my body at this time.  It is in the name of service.

“The more comfort in which I can find myself, the better people will feel when I give to them of what I am gifted.”

But it’s tricky.  Especially in a world that is ergonomically duh, stupid.  A world that just says the word ‘ergonomic’ and then builds the same dumb chairs and environments where we can do nothing but stand or sit out of good alignment in a chair.

Notice how hard it can be to hold your body in a way that genuinely supports your life force.

Support your body enough, and in the right way, for your body to relax unnecessary tension, using rolled blankets, cushions, books and other household items.  You know it’s working because it is soothing to the nerves and healing to the soul in its feeling of being free and weightless.  Proper ergonomic support reduces some of what gravity I call a “gravity stamp” on your body.

Service comes easily to some it seems.  There are those that naturally do nothing but give of themselves, care for others, and generally spend their time contributing to people’s well being.  These days I have friends and colleagues that come out of the wood work, and do a great deal of service for me.  Back over a decade ago, it was service to help save my life from cancer.  Today it is so that we can work together to bring people a higher quality of health, greater social consciousness and more expanded circle of care for each other.

Low and behold, by taking the leap of faith that would draw us deep over our heads into the ocean of service to others, I’m seeing many supports appearing from every unexpected corner.  Why is that?  In my own words, because people recognize when there is a train already going –  on a lifeline that doesn’t just connect two people, but connects many along lines that are genuinely rich – with the inspiration of nourishment and the food of inspiration that will really satisfy and make us, potentially all, feel full.

We find this subject of service come up in Step 3 (of my 6 Steps to Growing Full (in a) Circle system) in the 12 Week Yoga Challenge that is half way finished this week.  This step, focused on the means for healing, is for digging deep into the power and energy we need to fuel the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, and never mind electronic, train of healing through the means of service.  This week we will learn how to use yoga to practice healing and be in service to humanity at the same time. Why is healing considered an act of service?  And vice versa?  Here’s some of my theories:

To the extent you have healed is the extent to which you can assist others to do the same.

Because giving of yourself, in the ways you are gifted, feels like a relaxing spa for the mind and graces you with unexpected energy infusions.  It’s healing for people to receive your gifts and it’s healing for you to give them (but it is always a surprise how and when the healing happens!).

Living in some dark days of humanity’s fall from power-and-control leadership structures, who only understand how to lead by force, have never learned from women how to cooperate and sustain life within the web of community.

But that shouldn’t stop you from trying to infect everyone with the joy of putting yourself in a role where you give the excess away, where it truly lives in your heart and lifestyle.

It took effort to set myself up in a truly comfortable way today, but it is so worth it!  Here’s how you can do service to your body too, with this yoga ergonomic tip for the week:

• If you use a lap top to do computer work and your body doesn’t feel good in front of it, do the following to make yourself feel more than halfway comfortable and leave your back feeling good!
• 

1. Sit on a soft, but firm surface with crossed legs with the option to stretch them out in front of you at the same height.

2. Put your lap top up on a breakfast tray, one half to a foot in front of somewhere you can put the unit up and back.

3.  Change your font size or screen magnification so your eyes don’t strain.

4. Put a rectangular bolster behind your back in a vertical position along the length of the spine, and place it on top of one that is perpendicular, lengthwise on the floor behind it, so the rectangular bolster sits at an angle upon which you can comfortably sit back.

5.  Before you get totally comfortable, diaper yourself so you never have to go the bathroom : )

6. Place a thin cushion or foam chip yoga block on top of your crossed legs for a remote keyboard that you USB plug into your lap top or which has Blue Tooth technology for going wireless.

7. Position the letters part of the keyboard in the centre of the body, even though this was never in a million years thought of, that you would put the keyboard on your lap, and not the electromagnetic polluter that the lap top (dumb name) is.  It should be called “Neck Wrecker,” “Convenient But Spine Crushing Electromagnetic Energy Nightmare,”…you get my meaning.

What is coming up on the horizon?

Here is my plan folks:

I have been invited to do kirtan for a retreat in the Brandon area at the end of April – I will send you a link to go when I get it.  This is when my current group of coaching clients and the 12 Week New Year Yoga Challenge will have finished.  Then I will be taking the month off to cool my jets and get ready for my own Next Step, that includes doing better getting good stuff out to more people, so I can focus on raising my son and being related to and participating in the community I care about – like you!

Here’s what i’ll be working on:

1> The launch of my Yoga for People Who Can’t Sleep Online Course.

2> The release of The Yoga Lullabies 2 that is about 3/4 done right now.

3> Electronic yoga self-care resources such as DVDs, practice CDs and video stream download.

4> Teleseminars, where I aspire to bring to you some amazing groups of experts in their yoga, mantra, and whole health fields.

In the mean time I’m going to launch a summer yoga program that takes advantage of today’s technological breakthroughs around podcasting and live streaming, to bring you an experimental 12 Week Online Yoga Challenge!!!  Dates to be announced.

Here is something I notice about service:

To do it properly and effectively, you have to understand what the return is on the investment into it, and who will benefit for what you’re putting out as service.  If possible, continuously revalue your time so you don’t slip into a lifestyle that is running at minimum meaning, but maximum output and consumption.  What happens naturally loop fed right back to you and affirmed that what you’re doing is not purely for your own satisfaction, but is truly desired by the community.

It just can’t hurt.

Here’s an example of one of my longer term students and coaching clients who has found herself in a fortunate and graceful situation where the family sustains itself, and children are mostly grown or have their own parents.  What does she do with her extra energy?  Honestly, I wouldn’t have imagined it, but she helps others to de-clutter their homes, something she genuinely enjoys doing and has often had her offer go unredeemed, even though she does it for free.

And why is this a huge service overall to humanity, even if this person charged big time for this valuable service?  Because some of the suffering of the world is actually reduced – the purpose of doing service in the first place – so we can all be more relaxed and not have to tune the world that is suffering out with the distractions of mass media and unhealthy addictions to name a few.

Now I’d like to develop that into a network of de-clutter angels who help moms and other caregivers with getting their junk out of the way so they have room to grow good stuff.

Here’s what’s going on live time right now:

The 3 Secrets of Keeping Self Care Promises is available for download at this link that can be shared:

Direct to Aweber Sign Up for The 3 Secrets of Keeping Self Care Promises MP3: (or copy and paste the URL below into your email or browser)

http://forms.aweber.com/form/86/2040145286.htm

Only one more week to get your yoga gear so you can get ergonomically better supported:

We are closing orders for Half Moon for yoga gear at the end of February, please bring your forms to class or go to this online version:

HALF MOON ORDER FORM:  (or copy and paste the following URL into your browser)

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1f_31cAOlLz8ERe-RtzK4UhL-kFl-BXyRBOTJ39FAgWQ

May we  recognize the Divine in each one,

Namaste,

Beth

The path to healing is never what we think it will be, and it will ask of us more than we are likely prepared to give or invest in order to get there, wherever exactly there is (more on that coming up next week!).

Ask yourself these questions, adapted from Carolin Myss’ book.  She shows you what the gate keeper of your healing is and asks you what you are willing to give up in order to heal:

1.  Would you give up your job?

2.  Would you move from your house or city?

3.  Would you stop giving your time to relationships that drain you?

4.  Are you willing to put your more superficial socializing and popular culture digestion on hold for a time?

5.  Are you willing to spend your savings on it?

6.  Would you do it anyway if it was complicated and took a long time and a great deal of inner work?

What is healing worth to you?  And can you be lucid about where you are at in your willingness to invest in a healing outcome?

As soon as (if) you see yourself not willing to walk through a transformational door – you are privilege to a great deal of self knowledge about what lays on the path between and barricading you from natures potential path to health and well being.

It’s more normal these days to resist healing than it is to receive it, from my perspective, though I’m honoured to work with so many people who are making effort in the right general direction.

As a teacher with much personal healing experience (way more than I’d hoped for!), I run into a very common thread of our culture every day – in family, friends, students and clients alike….and oh ya, myself.  This thread is to me an unconscious choice to pay the price of not healing, rather than the much smaller investment (when measured over time and factoring in others’ experiences) required to heal.

Healing doesn’t in fact mean you will live forever, as you may have noticed.  Healing doesn’t mean you will have no problems or challenges.  Healing doesn’t mean that things will magically fall into place with relationships or work.  And healing also doesn’t mean that you can look that mystery in the face and even begin to grasp the keys to unravelling it.

Rather healing does mean you will be at peace with mortality.  And it means you are willing to risk and take on challenges for the right reasons, such as for collective healings.  It means you will have to choose with greater discrimination who to give of your time and the unique blessing of your presence.  And it actually deepens the mystery of life at every mundane and miraculous turn, rather than serves to figure anything out…exactly.

Until developing my role as a teacher and healing music, sound and space facilitator, I connected with a world that was not only NOT able to receive my gifts, but which actually repelled them.  Now almost a decade into persisting with these roles full time, on the heels of healing from my own cancer journey, I see the world through completely different eyes, I still find myself bumping up against the mystery of human healing, and frankly, more than ever.

So here we are a fews days before Valentine’s and the time for embarking on this Step 3 of the 12 Week Yoga Challenge – Healing 101- is quite perfect.  Because at the depths of our love and affection for one another is this healing heart.

I was just speaking with a client this evening who has given me permission to share a part of her story that resonated with what I have also been through…and led me to be aware of one of the universal aspects of healing, despite all our unique experiences.

Paraphrasing and summing up her words tonight, she described having memories of sexual abuse that happened to her as a child, and how she is using yoga, meditation, breath awareness, diet observances, archetypal studies and community networking to learn how to heal and to bring to life the part of her that had to “die” in order to be spared the resulting pain.

Little did she know that the healing of various ailments would include giving a voice to that “part” of her, that had to be left behind in the emotional rubble of damage that sexual abuse causes.

Now if that weren’t already amazing enough to hear, while I am writing on this very subject, she concluded her experience by saying “…now I have this sudden awareness and compassion for others that have been through the same thing,” that she wasn’t previously aware of, but that came into focus with the release of emotional holdings, and with finding the voice of her inner child that could finally heal and bring into real time what got lost in the past.

And it reminded me of identical shifts that occurred when I worked to heal from cancer myself.  Every time I took a healing turn it gave me a new window with which to view – myself and everyone, but especially those who shared my life experiences and challenges.

It’s Hard to Go Back to Hallmark

So the reason almost no one has entered my now on Valentine’s draw for a couple’s yoga coaching is because I’ve framed it in a similarly deep context, from where it’s hard to go back to Hallmark for emotional references and celebrating relationship milestones.  This is because love has become something that includes, but by far transcends, the lure of romance that I have full appreciation for as well.

The question is are you, in the end, looking for romantic moments with those you love?

Yes you are, most deep down are.  Where do you really find it though?  To me the real and sustaining romance might begin with one other being, but then out of its generous nature expands and extend out towards the well being of potentially way more than just our own coupled units.

If it interests you to explore how your relationship is a potential take off point for doing service in community…I’d like to invite you to win, with so far very high odds of winning, because this contest is super NOT POPULAR.  Why is that?  I am getting an education on the subject right now.

Here’s some possibilities:

Because it raises the bar in a painful way – because there is a lot of struggle where relationship is concerned, just to get a foundation, never mind take off like a rocket ship and save the world.  As the Buddha said, “it is all pain.”  If we get used to it sooner than later, we will be getting to life’s truly good parts sooner than later too, and I promise you will attract the romance you may so naturally desire.  So I have some…

Advice for Men About Valentines

To the men who attend this forum, God bless you.  I’m putting it out there, to men everywhere, that trying to win this totally complimentary one-time-only-ever service, would be an excellent way for their partners, girl friends and spouses to be more attracted to having more sex with you, because this is in fact what turns women on, if I may speak on our womanly behalves.  No kidding guys.  Win this couples yoga coaching for your lady and she will be seriously into you.

Caution to the wind, throw your name in the hat to win this special Valentine’s Couples Yoga Coaching Session -  that includes eating chocolate, doing simple partner yoga and chill in’ to live music. Follow this link to the sign up form and there’s still time to share with any friends (or copy and paste this URL below into a new window of your browser):

http://forms.aweber.com/form/41/461628541.htm

Signing up here you will receive an email to send me your answer to this question and a submission will be randomly selected to win the free prize!

How are you making the world a better place for each other?

Your session will be a rich resource on how to move forward together with your goals as a couple and on a personal level while being mutually honoured and recognized.

Your Couple’s Coaching & Next Step Consultation will include

• getting to the heart of what you are hoping to accomplish as a couple and how to use your connection to make a greater impact on the well being of others.
• learning partner Yoga stretches to use in a home practice
• exquisite Chocolate Elixirs and Licorice Tea
• a goody bag with natural health products

Please watch your email February 14th to see who wins this special prize, but feel free to request an anonymous announcement for your privacy.

Check out Manitoba Hemp Harvest Website for some great food stuff – we are just about to make some Valentine’s treats that will incorporate hemp seeds.  Did you know they are considered safe from allergens in the school system?

Keeping Your 12 Week Yoga Challenge on Track!

How to observe, develop and work with your nervous system, and learn how to go to the edge of its capacity in a healthy way. This means how to exercise it, and invite it to rest often where it’s comfortable. But not too comfortable, because what happens when you get too comfortable, is that you no longer are growing. What is it that stops you from growing the nervous system and why is that so very important to the soul?

What holds you back is stopping you from taking those bigger leaps into your life. And how you do that is rooted in the fulfillment of your deepest desires.

Sample Practice: Ask Yourself This Question

What do you think you are going to be rejected about? Your hair, your car, your handset, your android phone? Or perhaps you fear the worst possible rejection of all, of your true self.

Luckily, your true self does not depend on being accepted, or even on the nervous system itself – rather the opposite. Getting over the jolt to the nervous system that rejection brings on requires practice.

Why do we need to overcome this fear of rejection? Because it is a major cause of not growing the nervous system and remaining stuck  - with much resulting limitation. You have to condition your nervous system, to accommodate more energy, and raise the bar, period. Your standards for yourself will go up. And the standards you hold for people around you will also.

And how do we find friends that won’t hate us, every time we raise the bar and grow to the next place? If we have even one connection in our life that can play this game of raising the bar, then we will stand a chance of enjoying the process. So this group is a chance to get connected with others online and real time:

The 3 Secrets of Keeping Self Care Promises Discussion Group for Facebook lovers:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/selfcarepromises/

I’m looking for feedback about The 3 Secrets of Keeping Self Care Promises as well, because there are about 100 of you currently signed up for it.

I’m hoping for a whole lot more people, to find a place for themselves on this Facebook group.  There will be support from other people just like you, who struggle to take care of themselves, while they take care of others. So please give me an opportunity to hear your point of view. AND I’d like to know what your experience was of hearing The 3 Secrets Keeping Self Care Promises and to let you know that it is now an MP3 free download available to anyone who signs up at the following URL link:

http://forms.aweber.com/form/86/2040145286.htm

PLEASE EMAIL ME BELOW IF YOU ALREADY SIGNED UP AND CANNOT DOWNLOAD THE MP3 FILE

And Go to Yoga for Some Yummy Treats:

Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods & Oils Are On Board!!

Great news, I get to welcome a new sponsor that I will be hosting in my programs this year. I’m proud (like they are my own) to announce Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods and Oils - an awesome grassroots company with whom I’ve had the privilege of being associated. I got to watch them go from sheer inspiration to a thriving and booming orchestrator of a good nutrition movement that is far reaching.

http://www.manitobaharvest.com/

Beginning this month, my students and clients the opportunity to sample some of the amazing products produced by Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods & Oils. This Made in Manitoba company is led by three great guys with good hearts. Through their hard work and persistance they have brought a great thing into the mainstream in a big and healthy way.

Need Yoga Equipment?

If you are looking for yoga gear I have a trusted relationship with Half Moon, a small outlet in Vancouver.  They are a source for beautiful props – body furniture – that save our bodies from pain and grief.

Their bolsters are the ideal prop for restorative yoga so you can fully relax and get the full benefits from this type of yoga. At the end of February I will be submitting an order and my clients and students receive a 20% discount off of the Half Moon website . Please find an order form at this link:

(Or copy and paste this URL into your browser:

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1f_31cAOlLz8ERe-RtzK4UhL-kFl-BXyRBOTJ39FAgWQ

You can print out  and bring to class, or you could also mail it to me at this address:

Beth Martens
284 Arnold Avenue,
Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3L OW7
*You must be in the Winnipeg area to redeem 20% off of Half Moon yoga products.

Enter to Win a Free Personal Yoga Couples Coaching

And finally in honor of the coming Valentine’s Day, I am offering one couple to win a free personal yoga couples coaching session, just to say “thank you!” to everyone who contributes to this community self-health forum. In order to sign up to win a couple’s yoga package that includes chocolates and a natural health product goodie bag, and all the yoga pose sheets for the practice you will be able to take home.

To sign up to be the winner of this couples personal yoga coaching program session please  this URL with your friends:

(Or copy and paste this URL into your browser:

http://forms.aweber.com/form/41/461628541.htm

CHECK OUT YOGA FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN’T SLEEP RESOURCES