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Imagine you are overlooking the clear blue Caribbean ocean, the sun is setting behind the mountains that encircle the coastline. You have an amazing view because luckily you are on a jungle hillside. As you watch the coast turn from that light shimmering yellow to a deep cerebral purple, all around you is a cacophony of birds, chirping insects and howler monkeys calling in the now dimly lit treetops. Perhaps, you are at an evening yoga class at AmaSer. 

I’ve just started working here and in my opinion, the location of AmaSer is one of its most unique qualities. It is just a few minutes walk to town and the ocean, yet the elevated hillside microclimate provides a sense of seclusion and fresh, boisterous air. You’ll notice that AmaSer is not just in the jungle, it is intentionally amongst the jungle. Every corner of AmaSer is padded with foliage. Draped over the walkways you’ll see ferns, and palm leaves, tall or short coconut, banana and moringa...

Your Rhythm, Your Resonance, Your Heart: More than a Mere Organ

Did you know that your heart, your personal inner drum, beats an average of 37 million times a year?!  This rhythm, in a healthy heart, is highly adaptable and always shifting. Much like the anatomical heart, a healthy energetic heart center (Anahata) must also be adaptive; must ebb and flow with the rhythms of life in order to be healthy, hearty and whole.  

Shiva Rea (Tending the Heart Fire) explores the body’s system of entrainment.  The medical dictionary defines entrainment as “the synchronization and control of cardiac rhythm by an external stimulus.” Or in other words, as Rea says “a state of yoga, or joining together, a coherence between multiple rhythmic patterns.” (p. 56).  Understanding entrainment is an opportunity to explore how every single experience leaves an impact on our sacred heart. What is this “external stimulus”? you...

You, Yes YOU Are A Yogi  

The explosion of yoga on Instagram has visually defined what it means to be a yogi: $120 yoga pants and top, a skinny body with magically non-sweaty hair and professionally done makeup, most likely white.

No matter who you are, whether you fit most of those descriptors or none, it can be extremely intimidating to claim what seems to be such an elusive and EXclusive title as your own.

When asked if you do yoga, it’s hard not to qualify your ‘yes’; “Yeah I guess, but I’m not one of those crazy handstand people.” A full, confident, yes is a long-fought discussion with the Self until you can finally claim that YOU. Are. A. Yogi.

Here are some golden tidbits to help you end that war once and for all:

• What we know as ‘yoga’ today in the West is really called ‘Asana,’ or the physical component of Yoga. And get this- it’s only one out of the EIGHT limbs of yoga!
• Asana literally means...

Original Piece by Avani | 2016

There are conflicting ideas on Yin Yoga and it’s placed in the world of Yoga. As we dive more into the anatomy of Yin you will be left to decide for yourself, based on practice and experience, what is truly best for your unique body. Whatever you decide, there is no doubt that all yogis agree the pace of lifestyle today is creating an ever-growing need to slow down.  One of the many benefits of Yin Yoga is its meditative quality.  Where Yang Yoga provides barely enough time to set up, breath, check alignment and then find mental focus…in Yin Yoga there is nothing but time.  The challenge and blessing become very mental.  Patience is a challenge…and will grow through Yin practice!    

The practice of Yin asks practitioners to hold poses from 45 seconds to 2 minutes for beginners or 2 minutes to 10 minutes for more experienced yogis.  Within that time we can feel...

What is shadow work and how do I do it?

Shadow work is creating awareness around the parts of your life you’ve abandoned and kept hidden. It’s the work of intentionally acknowledging them bringing them into the light and releasing them.

Many of the emotions we hold inside are interpretations of long-ago events. Memories, scenes or just vague feelings that have negative energetic charges attached to them. Kept hidden, they can fester and create feelings of overwhelming fear and disempowerment. They feel secretive, dark, primitive, irrational, and dangerous. Often our psyches think giving them any attention at all is unwise and unsafe. So we do our best to leave them alone.

Yet, left alone they fester and raise their head in ways such as:

Feelings out of control

Feeling flashes of panic or dread

Not being able to talk about your feelings

A reasonable argument turns into warfare

Crying for no reason

Try this useful automatic writing exercise as an effective tool to express...

Have you ever wondered why other people seem to be more or less comfortable in the same environment as you, or with the same foods? Have you experienced subtle underlying discomfort- emotionally or physically- and had no idea where it was coming from?

Ayurveda (Ayur= Life + Veda = Knowledge/ Science), the sister science to yoga, uses thousands of years of study on happiness and longevity to help you create your optimal lifestyle; physical movement, family relations, morning routines, natural environment, job, and diet down to which types of root vegetables and when.

An Ayurvedic appointment evaluates you by your past and current experiences and your Dosha combination. The three Doshas are mind-body types, subtle energies that cannot be perceived but that express particular patterns in a unique blend of physical, emotional, and mental characteristics. Basically they help explain why you do what you do.

Next, the Ayurvedic “prescription” has the power to change your life...

“First of all, it was so so so much more than I could have ever expected. I went in with a vision that I wanted to deepen my knowledge since I felt ”kind of stuck.” I did my practice and went to yoga lessons since 2012 so I felt it was time to get deeper.

Also in my daily life I started to ask myself questions about the meaning of life. I felt like humanity (myself included) is becoming so separate from nature and things that are natural for us. The only thing in my life that got me more connected was Yoga.

So after this YTT I felt so connected to my dharma. Many of my questions I’ve been thinking of was exactly what YTT was giving me. It was so liberating.

And now only Thanks to Caribe Yoga Academy I feel like I got such an ultra mega good training, so good that I felt the courage to start working with yoga right away in Sweden. Sharing the things of yoga that I feel very passionate about. And it’s working!! Talking about earthing, Ganesha and...

5 Tools To Achieve Inner Peace NOW

Do you want to levitate your way to the supermarket? Do you want to handle problems with a smile on your face and a skip in your step?

Ancient Yogic wisdom tells you how to do it with the Niyamas- the 2nd limb of ashtanga (8 limbs) yoga and the last 5 Living Principles of Yoga. Per usual, the ancient gurus have got our back.

The Niyamas

The observances, internal disciplines, codes to live soulfully and relate to our own inner world.

• Saucha- Purity. Stay clean! Not just hygienically, but in thoughts and actions and food. Don’t weigh yourself down with unnecessary baggage.

• Santosa- Contentment. Not to be confused with complacency, contentment is appreciating the present moment for what it is, while still having ambition to improve.

• Tapas- Self-discipline, training your senses. Sometimes negative patterns need a little fire to burn through them. Hard-work can be fantastic medicine to blast through limitations.

• ...

YOUR KULA IS YOUR COMMUNITY OF THE HEART.

The people you turn to when you’re happy, sad, a little frustrated, or anything in between. They are the crew that makes you feel validated in your oh-so-human experience, a social space where you can feel seen as the greatest, largest, most phenomenal version of yourself, the one that is ever-present and waiting to be recognized.

Kula’s can appear in various stages of life and you can collect them as you go. They can be groups with whom you have a shared understanding of a shared experience, philosophy, education, or job. The stronger the ties, the more more likely you are to be happy. Across the world, The Blue Zones of Happiness indicate that one of the strongest corollary factor between the worlds’ happiest places is the sense of community.

Find your Kula by following your own desires. The more true you are to yourself, the better you will be able to find a Kula you resonate with. What are you...