As a yoga teacher and lover of all things yogi, I attempt to bring this mentality to everything. I’m also a certified raw food chef and create amazing cleanse experiences for my clients and host raw uncooking classes, continuing this mindful practice in all areas of my life.

Mindfulness

A sadhana is a type of mindfulness practice, a way of fully participating in something. Yogis believe everything has its own sadhana, including eating and cooking (or ‘uncooking’!). Here are some suggestions to get the most out of the food you eat and to promote optimal digestion.

• *Eat your main meal before 2p and don’t eat anything after 7p. this will allow your body to digest the food more fully. Try to eat at the same time every day.
• *Chew your food slowly and with reverence.
• *Eat organic, fresh foods as often as possible.
• *Prepare your own food, using your hands as much as possible instead of spoons, mixers, or processors. Think of cooking as a meditation practice. then eat with your hands as well, making the connection between your hands and you belly. (Ethiopian Cuisine is a great idea for group get together’s!)
• *Don’t cook or eat when you feel agitated or distracted. You infuse the foods you prepare with your energy and emotions. Cooking with loving attention brings joy to those who eat your food.
• *Always say a prayer of gratitude before you eat. (or just acknowledge the foods beauty and how luck you are to eat it!)
• *Stop eating before you’re full. Yogis fill their bellies only two-thirds full: one-third with food and one-third with liquid. The remaining third should stay empty to help the stomach digest properly.
• *Take a walk after eating; don’t go to bed right after a meal.

“there are some people who eat an orage but don’t really eat it. They eat their sorrow, fear, anger, past, and future. They are not really present, with body and mind united.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

Hi Philosophie Lovers!

For the Holiday Season, I challenge you to stay HEALTHY and FIT versus pack on a new layer of warmth!

How you may ask?

With consistent help, advice, pointers and recipes of course! It’s so much easier to achieve your goals with a support system in place. We will also have a private Philosophie Holiday Health Challenge facebook group where we can all talk about challenges we face, exchange recipes and tips and converse about living the Philosophie lifestyle!

I will send out daily email tips, feedback, questions and advice along with NEVER BEFORE SEEN recipes, workouts and techniques exclusive to this program to aid in your weight loss vs weight gain!

If you sign up NOW (within the next 48 hours) your Challenge price will be $48. (after 48 hours it will be $75)

To commit to this Holiday Health Challenge and stay TRUE to your best self, email: Sophie@thephilosophie.com with the subject line: I COMMIT TO MY HEALTH!

Why wait til after New Years to drop that extra weight? Let’s all start 2011 feeling fresh, rejuvenated and LIGHTER than when the holidays began!

TO HEALTH AND BALANCE!

Sophie

*the only requirement is that you have a blender, access to fresh veggies and fruit and daily internet connection!

I COMMIT!

in the next 48 hrs! $48.00 after 48 hrs $75.00 Option 3 $48.00

My Bible: Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements

I’ve had this book, The Four Agreements, for over 10 years now. I’ve given it to every person I love to read- either the physical copy or suggesting them to go buy it for themselves. If everyone had a copy in their bedside table (like I do, my bible!) I think the world would be a prettier, nicer, more mindful, kind place to exist. I have a small mini copy I keep in my car for quick reminders when I get discouraged. It’s a beautiful, simple read and I highly suggest it for anyone and everyone.

Here they are! The Four Agreements:

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally: Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions: Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best: Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.”

– Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements

Here’s a list of things I want to always remember to do, continue to do… as often as possible! Create your own list, too!

*Love. Love. Love. Love.

*Love and appreciate my body, even when it’s changing or different than what I wish it were.

*Get outdoors, in nature, even for just 10 minutes.

*Continue to inspire myself while inspiring others.

*Pamper myself in some way: a bath, a massage from my hubby, paint my nails, mini facial

*Get exercise, get the blood flowing, sweat.

*Make love, with my partner or with myself!

*Have quiet time where I shut down from the world, for even 10 minutes. Meditation, or just a time when I put my phone on silent and take deep breaths and appreciate.

*Read something that brings me pleasure.

*Eat something that brings me pleasure.

*WRITE IN MY JOURNAL! OR DRAW! express myself.

*Be forgiving: with myself and others.

*Snuggle with my dog. Let him lick my face. Life’s too short to care.

*Speak up for myself.

*Ride my bike.

*Be playful. Laugh. Giggle.

*YOGA. live it. LOVE IT. do it. on and off the mat!

*Eat beautiful, organic, natural foods. As many colors as possible!

*Take too many pictures.

*Keep learning and growing. Evolving is what life is about!

*remember it’s OKAY to be WRONG.

*Share with EVERYBODY.

*Express gratitude, send thank you cards. Remember Birthdays.

Respect yourself

Self respect is one of the great secrets to health and longevity. If you respect yourself, you won’t pollute your body-mind with drugs, junk food, and smoke, and you won’t abuse it with a poor lifestyle.

If you respect yourself, you will treat your body like a superior being and you would treat your mind like a sage. Treat yourself with respect-you may be a potential Buddha, or the person with the potential to save or positively change the world.

This single practice of truly respecting yourself should be enough to propel you on the path of radiant health!

“To choose is also to begin.” -Starhawk 1982

That’s it.

The first step is always to make a choice. Pick one, whether it’s a color, a flavor, a career or a path. And GO FOR IT!

I CHOOSE to eat healthy. I choose to pick the honest course of action. I CHOOSE to work out today/go to yoga/meditate/take time for myself.

My friend and I were talking about this exact thing the other day: decisions.

The word decision comes from the latin word”decidere” which means to “cut off”.

as if to choose sides or to cut off an option. This is such a negative way of looking at something. Let’s change the word decision in our every day lives.. lets swap it with the word CHOOSE.

Because this is not to say you can’t pick again. We can always choose again! But we’ve gotta start somewhere.

Today, in honor of the day devoted to love, take the love promise:

“I open my heart to more love today, more love of myself and those I meet in my day. I commit to giving without worry about receiving.”

Lay down on a yoga mat or the floor.

Take a moment to put your attention on your heart;

expand the space around it internally as you inhale,

and perceive the vastness of that space even as you

exhale.

Each time you manage to do this even for a few moments,

you’ve healed something within yourself, you’ve

slowed down time for yourself and likely others around you,

and you’ve most likely selected a response

(rather than reacted) to a pressing situation.

Then notice what changes in your life as a consequence.

After watching my mother go through her fight with Stage 4 breast cancer last year, I learned quite a bit. Reflecting on the past 12 months, I have created a way to stay grounded through one’s cancer treatment (or any difficult journey).

Calm your Breath

Become more aware of your breathing in general. Notice when you hold your breath, when you hold onto tension. Make an effort to focus on your inhalation and exhalation. Try and lengthen each breath, especially in stressful moments.

Meditation

Find some time to meditate. This can mean something different to everyone. Maybe it means you take 5 minutes in the morning or before bed to lay down and close your eyes and focus on nothingness. Maybe you take 20 minutes to have a “proper” seated meditation. Either way, take some quiet time for yourself each day to help calm your body and mind.

Create a Posse

Think of your team of doctors, nutritionists, yoga teachers, massage therapists, acupuncturist, friends and family members as an invaluable wellness support group.  Looking back on my mom’s chemo and healing process, I see the faces of each and every person that helped make the process easier for her (and all of us).

Make Food a Loving Expression

Think of preparing your own food as an expression of self-love and appreciation. Every time I visit the farmers market or prepare a fresh juice or dish, I really take deep breaths with appreciation and love. When I’m preparing a cleanse, I turn my cell phone off to connect & fill the food with all the love in my heart. It makes a huge difference!

Plan for the Future, but Live in The Now

No one can give you permission to live the way you want to, except you.

Find your healer within and tap in!

Reporting in from Maya Tulum, Mexico

As Baron Baptiste, the great yoga teacher and guide would say, life is about two things: expanding and contracting. We are either opening up, or closing down. We are becoming larger, growing, evolving, transforming. Or, we are becoming smaller, hiding, lessening ourselves.

The key to living your life in a truthful, open, expansive way is to live authentically.
What do I mean when I say authentic? In existential terms, authenticity is relating to an emotionally significant, purposive, and responsible mode of human living. But how does one live an authentic life? This quote always seems to do the trick for me:

“Be as you are, not as you should be.”

There are no “shoulds” in life.  There is no universal right or wrong for how you should be, except to do your very best in every possible situation. You don’t need to be a certain color or flavor or change a single thing, unless you want to. Unless it’s a part of your own growth and expansion. Authenticity is genuine. It doesn’t require force, and in fact, if you attempt to force it, you will fail. Forcing anything just makes it more difficult on you and anyone or anything else involved. Try to drop your expectations of others and eventually you will drop your expectations of yourself: with the “shoulds” right along with it.

Another really wonderful part about being authentic in your life is that you give others permission to be their most true self as well. You open the door to expansion in the most powerful way. So not only are you improving your own well-being and truth, you allow others to do the same.

Don’t expect this to happen over night, because it probably won’t. Begin taking steps towards this way of living. Be patient and compassionate with yourself, this is a lifelong process that will actually get easier with time. Take off your mask, letting it reveal the true you. I find being in nature and/or on the yoga mat is a great way to start this process.

Try and drop your judgments of others, again, to attempt to drop the judgments of yourself. Open your heart to accepting that: You are perfect exactly as you are.

Check out this recent article on fasting from NPR!

For thousands of years, beginning with philosophers like Hippocrates, Socrates and Plato, fasting was recommended for health reasons. The Bible writes that Moses and Jesus fasted for 40 days for spiritual renewal.

“Glycogen is necessary for thinking; it’s necessary for muscle action; it’s necessary just for the cells to live in general,” says Dr. Naomi Neufeld, an endocrinologist at UCLA. Neufeld says most adults need about 2,000 calories a day. Those calories make energy, or glycogen. Neufeld says it doesn’t hurt — it might even help the body — to fast or stop eating for short periods of time, say 24 hours once a week, as long as you drink water.

“You re-tune the body, suppress insulin secretion, reduce the taste for sugar, so sugar becomes something you’re less fond of taking,” Neufeld says.

Eventually the body burns up stored sugars, or glycogen, so less insulin is needed to help the body digest food. That gives the pancreas a rest. On juice diets recommended by some spas, you may lose weight, but your digestive system doesn’t get that rest. Mark Mattson, a scientist with the National Institute on Aging, says that when we convert food into energy, our bodies create a lot of byproducts we could do without, including free radicals. “These free radicals will attack proteins, DNA, the nucleus of cells, the membranes of cells,” Mattson says. “They can damage all those different molecules in cells.”

And even if you don’t fast, Mattson says that simply limiting the calories you consume may be beneficial. He points to studies where rats and mice were fed every other day. Compared with those fed normal daily diets, there was a reduction in disease among the rats that were severely restricted in their food intake. Mattson says those findings hold promise that humans could also benefit from partial fasting.

Mattson thinks partial fasting has numerous benefits, from improving glucose regulation, which can protect against diabetes, to also lowering blood pressure. Some animal studies have also shown that partial fasting has very beneficial effects on the brain, protecting against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and stroke.

Partial fasting may even extend lifespan because eating less sends a message to the cells of the body that they should conserve and use energy more efficiently.

“When they’re exposed to a mild stress, [the body's cells] sort of expect that maybe this is going to happen again,” Mattson says. “So maybe next time I may have to go longer without food, so I’d better be able to deal with that when it comes on.”

Proponents say small, short-term studies find that complete fasting lowers blood pressure and reduces cancer risk. But Dr. Naomi Neufeld worries that complete fasting could be harmful. After the first few days of liquid only, the body uses up all its stored glucose to make energy. And then it turns to other sources, including fat and muscle. (juice/smoothie fast ensures you get all the nutrients you need while still obtaining the benefits mentioned above)

check out the full article here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16513299&sc=nl&cc=es-20071223&sc=emaf