It has been a few busy months but here we are. Finally settling into our new, yet temporary, apartment in the Mission Bay area in San Francisco.

It's such a relief to finally have arrived. The past few weeks have been intense. Throwing out, donating away and not the least giving away so many things. Organizing the VISA. Saying goodbye to our friends until next time. Working my last few days at Squarespace. And inevitably, teaching my last yoga class in Ireland.

We spent a little over a year in Dublin which is really not that long. At the same time, it has been an intense year full of work, traveling, and not the least wedding preparations and celebrations. All while getting to teach and practice yoga around the city. I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I have met. For my beautiful colleagues and fellow yogis. The friendships you form in a place is truly what makes your life there. And the toughest part with moving country has to be the goodbyes.. 

At the same time, I'm super excited to start our new life here in San Francisco. While we've been here for holidays before, I just can't wait to explore the city further, study and practice with the local yoga community, and enjoy all the things that SF and and California have to offer.

Talk soon! With love,

Karin

Hope you all had a good start to the year! The holidays can be pretty intense, involving lots of eating, sitting and socializing with family and friends. In the middle of this, we also need some time for relaxation and reflection. I often find that there is little to no time left for this during Christmas itself, and first in the days before and after New Year's Eve I start to look back and set new goals. 

When I was a kid, I had these padlock-sealed diaries that I wrote in every so often. Nowadays, I treasure these books so much. When I go back home in summer, and happen to find any of these books, it is both sweet and fascinating to read about the things my 10-year-old self was preoccupied with. These days, I collect a lot of thoughts, ideas and learnings randomly in various notebooks throughout the year. That said, these notes are often scribbled between yoga sequences and to do lists and how could I ever separate these thoughts and events if I didn't write it down in a more structured way?

For this reason, every year I sit down for a few days (yes it does take a while) to write down what happened in my life from month to month and most importantly how I felt about it. This provides a unique opportunity to look back and better understand what's been going on over the last 12 months. 2015 has been A LOT; settling in a new country, beginning a new job, starting to teach yoga, developing my yoga practice, building new friendships, getting married and much much more.

I think the best way to set new goals, is to first look back to see what has happened.

Ask yourself:

What moments and friendships did I cherish? What projects am I inspired to take further? What gave me value, health and happiness in 2015? How can I do more of that? What else do I want to bring into my life?

I actively follow quite a few writers and sites that have published posts on how to best meet this new year, and how to keep your resolutions.. In truth, we can actually evaluate and set goals at any time during the year. That being said, now is always a good time - and better than later.

I think the best takeaways from the articles I've read are these:

Make the goals measurable and clear. For example, if you want to bring more happiness into your life. Then write down a list of the things that make you happy. 

Stake out a goal of how much time to dedicate to this each day or week:
 
1. Meditate 5 minutes - eg. each morning or night every day for two weeks
2. Go out with friends at least once a week
3. Try a new recipe or dish every week
4. Drink hot lemon water every morning
5. Commit to a 10 minutes simple stretch routine every morning or night

Write down the goals and share the goals with your partner or friend. When we share the goals with someone, the goals become more real.

Believe in yourself. We all have moments of doubt. On any journey, there is always gonna be some obstacles along the way, this includes moments of doubts, laziness or falling back to an old habit. But if the mind is focused, then we are far less likely to get entangled and lost as a consequence of such obstacles. For me, some of the best ways I know to refocus is to talk to a friend, exercise or meditate. 

As I was writing and thinking about Doubt, this one popped up in my Youtube feed. Blige and Swift for you all. 

Stay humble and allow for happiness in any shape or form!

Love,
Karin

Birds flying high, you know how I feel
sun in the sky, you know how I feel
breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel
it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me 
yeah - it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me
ooh - and I'm feeling good.

Nina Simone puts it into words, so simple, so true, so to the point.

When you go outside and feel the sunlight on your skin, there is this moment when you pause and no matter what is going on in your life, feelings of joy, calm or presence rise within you. It is from this very feeling, the experience of life and the lifeforce - prana, that the yogic practices arise.

As I mentioned in my post defining yoga the word yoga means union. In this sense, the communion with the sun lies at the heart of yoga and it is also the essence of Surya Namaskar, also known as Sun Salutations.  

Source: Ekhart YOGA

Surya means sun and nama means adoring or bowing to. As we rise our arms to the sky and bow to the ground we open up our hearts and show our gratitude. This is a very popular warm-up practice that heats the body as you combine the breath with specific movements. Although the practice of showing gratitude to the sun is a ancient aspect of yoga, sun salutations as we know them today are known to be much more recent. It was when yoga came to the west around a century ago that the sun salutations as we know them took form, supposedly inspired by European gymnastic practices. One saying goes that it was a yogi that one day, after bowing to the sun, decided to take a large step back to stretch the hip flexors and from there the modern variations were born. 

Sun salutations are a very demanding practice of moving the body into plank and lunges. They require your full attention and presence. The sun salutations can be very helpful for physical release, achieving focus and letting go. They move the energy out, so we can experience peace in body and mind.

Yoga is most commonly associated with these sun salutations that are a typical element in most types of hatha, ashtanga and vinyasa classes. But yoga is so much more than the physical practice. Remember, yoga is the quality of experiencing life. If you act with mindfulness, focus, intention or consciousness - then it is yoga.