The Yoga with Eve Grzybowski Blog
I’ve been blogging for 15 years now. At first, I was quite nervous about publishing my thoughts. Because I was shy about writing, my old posts were almost exclusively photos of the view from our bedroom in our Tambourine Bay house.
Remarkably, my original Ville Blog still exists. Does anything on the internet ever go away? It ran from November 05, 2006 to January 12, 2010 and it’s still just where I left it. If you’d like to have a look, the address is http://thevilleblog.blogspot.com.au/.
These days, because there are way too many YSH posts to browse through-over 1200-I’ve put some major themes together in The Vault. I hope this makes it easier to find exactly what you want.
Know Any Everyday Heroes?
Source: confessionsofapropjunkie.com via Lauren on Pinterest
Sometimes I hear about a person in my circle of friends and acquaintances who is doing it hard and doing it quietly and uncomplainingly. It crosses my mind that these people are really everyday heroes, in their own sphere.
We don’t often recognise these stalwarts for their contributions because we think of heroes as being those who lead forces in battle, tie themselves to trees in old-growth forests, or save lives. I’ll never forget the faces pictured on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald after the Port Arthur massacre. […]
Best Ways of Cultivating Concentration
Source: flickr.com via Jessica on Pinterest
Yesterday I wrote about how difficult I find it, at times, to pay attention. I’m finding the practice of mindfulness meditation gradually helping me improve my concentration.
Another aid for focussing the mind is the practice of pranayama – attention to the breath. Today I wanted to link back to Patanjali and his Sutra regarding pranayama. […]
Tripping Over Myself
Source: fibromodem.com via FibroModem on Pinterest
Do you have any preferred ways that you use to escape from work or problems in your life?
One simple device I use is to take frequent breaks to have cups of tea or coffee or snacks. I try to eat and drink in wholesome way so I don’t really abuse the above strategy. […]
Hips Are All the Rage
Is there an epidemic of hip replacements going on? I know of three yoginis who will have the surgery done within a month time frame – mid-March to mid-April. To be fair, I also know women who haven’t done yoga who, for various reasons, had to have replacements.
If you’ve been following this blog, you know my story of bi-lateral surgery, performed more than 3 years ago. […]
How Did I Get Here?
I had some time this morning – quite a lot of it, actually – to wander around Bondi Junction, my old stomping grounds. Here’s a photo of the entrance to the Australian School of Yoga on Oxford Street.
I was mentally winding back the clock to 1979 when I had my first experience of Iyengar Yoga taught by this man:
It’s fair to say that Martyn Jackson, Iyengar Yoga and the time I spent at the Australian School of Yoga changed the course of my life. […]
Medical Merry-Go-Round
Oh my! My head is spinning!
I left paradisiac Mitchells Island at 9 am to drive south as I was scheduled for root canal therapy in Sydney in the early afternoon. The dental specialist that performed the procedure, an endondontist, did the 75 minute treatment while I was looking up at the ceiling watching Mr. Bean videos, hearing easy- listening tracks on the stereo, and, at the same time, trying to do mindfulness meditation. […]
How Do You Say ‘Alert and Relaxed’ in Sanskrit?
Source: palmstone.com via Jennifer on Pinterest
Do you shut down in yoga class when your teacher uses Sanskrit words and concepts? Or, are you the opposite? You relish the opportunity to extend your learning about yoga, even to the point of assimilating an unfamiliar language.
Probably you stand in the middle; you don’t mind a smattering of the Sanskrit but not so much it keeps you in your head. […]
A Lover’s Quarrel with Myself
Source: hautefavesdeux.tumblr.com via sally ann on Pinterest
Do you get into internal dialogues where one part of you catches another aspect of yourself being foolish, judgmental, absent-minded, mean-spirited…. You get the idea. Insert any negative adjective you might think of into the description.
Round and round you go, trying to fight your way out of disempowering self-talk, but all you end up doing is digging in yourself into deeper hole.
Then, with any luck, some distraction comes along and the interruption is enough to wake you up to the moment. […]
Better Than a Yoga Relaxation: Beach-time
Source: manningvalley.info via Eve on Pinterest
Our American friends who come to visit us cannot believe that Australian beaches can be so beautiful and so empty of crowds. […]
Musings from the Blogosphere
Source: ciaomom.com via MiMi on Pinterest
I have an author/illustrator friend who is about to launch himself into the blogosphere. When that event happens, his blog is one that you will definitely want to visit, and I’m anticipating sharing his address with you.
I’ve read that blogs are passé. If I believed that, I would feel sad, so I choose not to acknowledge that theory. […]
Community By Design
Who are these people and why are they appearing on my yoga blog?
These are two of my housemates, Rick and Heather, and my husband, Daniel. […]
The Mind: There Be Monsters
Source: mrspicassosartroom.blogspot.com via Feios, Tortos & Maus! on Pinterest
Since I’ve been practising mindfulness meditation over the last few weeks, I’ve come to appreciate what an incessant thought machine my mind is. (Well, appreciate is probably the wrong word.)
At the best of times, I notice a certain entertainment value in the thoughts my mind spins out. […]
Well-liked, Sought After and Good For You
Source: everydaytrifles.tumblr.com via Ana on Pinterest
Do you ever stop to think what makes yoga so popular? If you’re a teacher, it’s a great question to ask because you can then provide what students want.
Styles of yoga seem to hold appeal according to your age or stage of life. Hot, sweaty, music-fuelled yoga might suit a younger demographic… slower-paced, prop-supported for the older crowd, perhaps.
A friend of mine has a theory that yoga teachers attract students who are close to their age – specifically in a bracket of 10 years younger and 10 years older. […]
Funks Come and Go
Source: papiermier.be via DesignMadeMine on Pinterest
I got up on the wrong side of the bed today….
What does that mean anyway? I felt out of sorts, out of kilter, glum.
How did I know that was the case? The first comment out my mouth, Daniel took the wrong way. So naturally I thought he was the one ‘up on the wrong side’.
I did my morning mindfulness meditation anyway, and let myself be in the experience of feeling out of sorts. […]
Thinking Does Not (Necessarily) Make It So
Here’s something I’ve noticed about my thoughts as I’m doing my mindfulness meditations, and you might have experienced it, too: when I catch myself thinking, much of my thought content relates to creating new projects.
Do I need to be doing any new projects? Absolutely not! […]
Smell the Roses, Savour Your Good Self
The Patanjali study group that I’m leading on Saturday afternoons has created some perturbation among the students, that is… […]
Living in the Bubble
Source: Uploaded by user via Joanna on Pinterest
I have a relative living in the United States, and I’m afraid she is going to fall through the cracks in the economic system there.
What I mean is that she is 79, renting a small apartment, has six grown kids who either won’t or don’t feel able to support her, and in about a year, she will run out of her meagre savings.
She is working casually in a fast-food business, earning a bit over a hundred dollars a week, with tax taken out. […]
Is Your Mind Too Full? Try Being Mindful
In our household of six, there are three of us who have cottoned onto mindfulness meditation.
Michael started it through his involvement in a course of study he is doing where there is a big emphasis on the importance of mindfulness.
And then, Daniel learned about and practised meditation in a structured nine-week course offered in Taree last year.
Finally after umpteen years of trying to meditate, I down-loaded some of Russ Harris and John Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness recordings to my iPhone, and climbed aboard the meditation bandwagon.
Now Daniel and I meditate together. […]
The Big Wet
“If, from time to time, you give up expectation, you will be able to perceive what it is you are getting.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections
Australia is a crazy place to reside climate-wise. We live between drought and flood, cyclone and dust storms, biting arctic winds in the extreme south and near-equatorial heat in the far north.
Our household on Mitchells Island has been under a heavy blanket of rain over the last few days. […]
The Gift of Life
Source: christies.com via Rebecca on Pinterest
Do you consider life a gift? I know people for whom life is hard, and, regarding such a gift, they might say, ‘Aw, you shouldn’t have.’ I’ve felt like that at times, but fortunately I don’t now.
Still, what’s a life for? […]