There are always layers to work through in your Bikram yoga practice.

Physical, emotional and spiritual.

When you practice, something important to remember is that you are working towards creating balance in all of these parts of you. This yoga practice is a type of healing exercise, but it can be overdone or under done like anything else in your life.

I have noticed some of you may be either feeling stuck...

like you have hit a plateauor
or you are cramping too often
or your practice simply does not seem to be improving as fast as you would like or expect

Let us offer words of advice.

Go back to the breath

In every Bikram posture, concentrate on breathing in slow and exhaling slow so you continuosly develop a connection to your life force, your lungs, as you move in and out of posture. This is a process of mastery, and over time with practice, you will feel tremendous results in all levels of your practice.

If you are consistently having trouble with a certain posture, applying more breath awareness will help you to overcome. We as people have a hard time believing that it can be that simple. We have been conditioned that life is difficult, hard work, push harder. The tricky part is that you and your mind are constantly fighting, and surrendering to working on breath may seem like not doing enough. Little do we know that is what it is all about.

Your breath is the link, the power that connects all of your system's intelligence together. Just think of it - if you stop breathing, you die. How powerful is that! How we have underestimated the power of breath.

By focusing on your breath, you will learn to quiet the mind. By quieting the mind, you will hear the answers you seek.

Concentration, determination, self- discipline, faith and trust. All of these levels of self-realization will develop within you, if you simply, apply the breath:)

namaste,
Amanda

Image source: federico stevanin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net