Shine Brighter!… without burning yourself up

It’s July!!! New month, new mantra to throughout for your practice. In my classes every month, I give a new intention as a way of bringing some new ideas to your practice. This month we are working on the them of “shine brighter… without burning yourself out.” So we are in the pitta time of season. It’s HOT out. Especially here in Arizona. So it’s a time to be really thoughtful about how our practice may need to shift and have some variability to make sure we are not burning ourselves up.

So I’ll share a couple practices I use to help balance the heat. One is thinking about WHEN you are practicing. If you have a really heated and intense practice, practicing at the Kapha time of day is ideal. This could be said about any season, but even more so in Summer when it’s so hot in the middle of the day. Kapha time of day is 6-10am and 6-10pm. So if you can get your practice in during the morning time, when it’s cooler out, that can be a good way to balance your heat. You can practice in the evening, but just notice if you find yourself depleted after your practice. It might still be too hot where you live.

Additionally, think about ways that you are using your everyday life as your practice off the mat as ways to cool you down. So make sure you are not overheating with the foods that you are eating. This is the time of season for melons, green juices, summer squashes… these more cooling and hydrating foods. One of my favorite summer beverage right now is what I call a coconut water elixer. Let me know what you think:

Coconut water tonic:

• 3/4 c. coconut water

• 1/4 c. aloe juice (inner leaf)

• squeeze of lime

• crack of sea salt

Tune back in, I’ll continue to give you some more ideas on how to keep you shining brighter without burning yourself out.

Namaste