Use the Ancient Wisdom of Yoga to Explore the Deepest Aspects of Your Creative Self
Combining expressive arts and yoga therapy, Yoga for the Creative Soul is an invaluable guide to healing emotional wounds and creating a joyous life. Through drawing, writing, dancing, humming, and cooking--as well as yoga postures, meditation, relaxation, breathing, and self-inquiry--this book helps you cultivate your true intentions and live your deepest values.
With helpful tips for daily practice and a quiz to support you in identifying areas of imbalance, author Erin Byron shares techniques that you can personalize to meet your specific needs. Discover how to bring color, movement, and melody into everyday moments with the five paths to self-realization: Karma, Jnana, Raja, Bhakti, and Tantra. Engaging a process of personal transformation and learning how take control of your life are gifts you can give yourself with Yoga for the Creative Soul
Praise:
I'm dazzled. Yoga for the Creative Soul is more than a program or philosophy. It's a gift, merging the tenets of ancient and yoga-based psychology with the expressive arts and personal healing...In this blessed book, Erin presents us with an all-inclusive path to joy.--Cyndi Dale, author of Llewellyn's Complete Book of Chakras
A DIY guide full of exceptional exercises to awaken your best and most creative self . . . Yoga for the Creative Soul will help you to gently release fear, embrace change, gather courage, and overcome your inner-perfectionist.--Amy B. Scher, author of How To Heal Yourself When No One Else Can
For modern spiritual seekers and yoga students alike, here is an irreverent yet profound guide to the most sophisticated teachings of the yoga wisdom tradition-now brought to contemporary life by a celebrated author, psychotherapist, and leading American yoga instructor.
While many Westerners still think of yoga as an invigorating series of postures and breathing exercises, these physical practices are only part of a vast and ancient spiritual science. For more than three millennia, yoga sages systematically explored the essential questions of our human existence: What are the root causes of suffering, and how can we achieve freedom and happiness? What would it be like to function at the maximum potential of our minds, bodies, and spirits? What is an optimal human life? Nowhere have their discoveries been more brilliantly distilled than in a short-but famously difficult-treatise called the Yogasutra. This revered text lays out the entire path of inner development in remarkable detail-ranging from practices that build character and mental power to the highest reaches of spiritual realization. Now Stephen Cope unlocks the teachings of the Yogasutra by showing them at work in the lives of a group of friends and fellow yoga students who are confronting the full modern catastrophe of careers, relationships, and dysfunctional family dynamics. Interweaving their daily dilemmas with insights from modern psychology, neuroscience, religion, and philosophy, he shows the astonishing relevance and practicality of this timeless psychology of awakening. Leavened with wit and passion, The Wisdom of Yoga is a superb companion and guide for anyone seeking enhanced creativity, better relationships, and a more ethical and graceful way of living in the world.
"Inspired and clear, The Five Tibetans makes a worthy contribution to body-mind wellness and longevity."
Dr. Mehmet Oz
Whether you're a professional dancer wanting to improve flexibility or a complete beginner, Secrets of Pilates offers a comprehensive introduction for anyone wanting to develop body strength, reduce stress levels and enhance both psychological and physical well-being. This illustrated guide will teach you to develop a mental awareness of how your body moves, resulting in a graceful posture, toned limbs and a firm abdomen in as little as ten minutes a day through a system of precise, focused exercises. Discover the history of Joseph Pilates' exercise methods; be introduced to the basic principles of the Pilates program with in-depth analysis and step-by-step guidelines as you embark on the first steps on the path to a new physique and approach to life.
When treating a client who has suffered from interpersonal trauma--whether chronic childhood abuse or domestic violence, for example--talk therapy isn't always the most effective course. For these individuals, the trauma and its effects are so entrenched, so complex, that reducing their experience to a set of symptoms or suggesting a change in cognitive frame or behavioral pattern ignores a very basic but critical player: the body.
In cases of complex trauma, mental health professionals largely agree that the body itself contains and manifests much of the suffering--self hatred, shame, and fear. Take, for example, a woman who experienced years of childhood sexual abuse and, though very successful in her professional life, has periods of not being able to feel her limbs, sensing an overall disconnection from her very physical being. Reorienting clients to their bodies and building their "body sense" can be the very key to unlocking their pain and building a path toward healing.
Based on research studies conducted at the renowned Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, this book presents the successful intervention known as Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TSY), an evidence-based program for traumatized clients that helps them to reconnect to their bodies in a safe, deliberate way.
Synthesized here and presented in a concise, reader-friendly format, all clinicians, regardless of their background or familiarity with yoga, can understand and use these simple techniques as a way to help their clients achieve deeper, more lasting recovery.
Unlike traditional, mat-based yoga, TSY can be practiced without one, in a therapist's chair or on a couch. Emphasis is always placed on the internal experience of the client him- or herself, not on achieving the proper form or pleasing the therapist. As Emerson carefully explains, the therapist guides the client to become accustomed to feeling something in the body--feet on the ground or a muscle contracting--in the present moment, choosing what to do about it in real time, and taking effective action. In this way, everything about the practice is optional, safe, and gentle, geared to helping clients to befriend their bodies.
With over 30 photographs depicting the suggested yoga forms and a final chapter that presents a portfolio of step-by-step yoga practices to use with your clients, this practical book makes yoga therapy for trauma survivors accessible to all clinicians. As an adjunct to your current treatment approach or a much-needed tool to break through to your traumatized clients, Trauma-Sensitive Yoga in Therapy will empower you and your clients on the path to healing.
Remarkable computer-generated illustrations of the muscles used during the most popular yoga poses.
Yoga teachers and students can use this book as a visual reference to the muscles that are engaged by specific yoga poses. Each pose is shown in a full-color photograph opposite a detailed and annotated anatomical drawing that identifies the active and stabilizing muscles being used. By identifying affected muscles, practitioners can maximize the benefits of each pose and even design a personalized yoga routine that focuses on their specific problem areas.
Anatomy of Yoga explains the basics of yoga, breathing and the spine, concentrating on the body's core musculature. It covers:
- Yoga warm-up
- Standing poses
- Forward bends
- Back bends
- Seated and twisted poses
- Poses that balance arms
- Inversions
- Restorative poses
- Sequences, such as sun salutation
There are numerous asides, including "best for" information boxes that describe the muscles that work the most during each pose. Tip boxes give hints on safety and form and outline the target muscles for and benefits of each pose. The author also suggests creative ways to modify the intensity of an exercise.
Anatomy of Yoga is an expert guide that is extremely useful for anyone interested in enhancing a personal yoga fitness routine. It will also interest yoga instructors who want a visual aid that clearly illustrates the benefits of each exercise.
![Pilates on the Ball: A Comprehensive Book and DVD Workout [With DVD]](/images/books_by_isbn/089/281/095/5/0892810955_item.jpg)
Features a 45-minute DVD and the bestselling book Pilates on the Ball
- Includes a visual demonstration of selected exercises from the Pilates ball workout described in detail in the accompanying book In her bestselling book Pilates on the Ball, certified Pilates trainer Colleen Craig combines the effectiveness of the Pilates workout with the unique capabilities of the Swiss exercise ball, providing an innovative and low-impact way to stay fit. Now she offers a DVD in which numerous exercises from the book are demonstrated, accompanied by Craig's vocal coaching that explains each step of the exercises. While the book Pilates on the Ball contains over 160 photographs and detailed step-by-step instructions, many users prefer to see the exercises demonstrated live in real time. The accompanying DVD allows readers to see exactly how to position the body throughout each phase of the exercise and also to see what pitfalls can occur and how to easily prevent them. Most important of all, the DVD allows the user to follow along as if in a class setting. The Pilates on the Ball book and DVD workout shows users of all levels of fitness how to maximize the use of the ball in order to increase athletic performance, build long lean muscles, and tone the abdominal core. The DVD allows readers to take the exercises to new levels of understanding and effectiveness as they put the exercises contained in the book into practice.
The first two limbs of the eight-fold path of yoga sutras--the basic text for classical yoga--are examined in this spiritual guide to the practice of yoga. Foundational to all yogic thought, they are considered to be the guidelines to the yoga way of living that free individuals to take ownership of their lives, direct them toward the fulfillment they seek, and gain the skills to choose attitude, thought, and action. The first five guidelines are referred to as the yamas--a Sanskrit word that translates to "restraints"--and encompass nonviolence, truthfulness, not stealing, nonexcess, and nonpossessiveness. The last five are referred to as the niyamas, or observances--purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study, and surrender. A self-study section at the end of each chapter may also be used by instructors for group discussion.
