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Hi Reader, Have you ever noticed that telling yourself to "think positive" rarely changes how you actually feel? If you're struggling with thoughts like, "I'm not good enough," or "Nothing is going to work out," you've probably noticed how trying to replace them with clichéd affirmations usually doesn't help. Why? Because your mind knows you don't believe it. Most approaches to positive thinking ask us to deny what we're experiencing. Yoga wisdom takes a different approach. The Yoga Sutras teach a practice called pratipakṣa-bhāvanam—cultivating a counteracting thought. But this doesn't mean covering negative thoughts with forced optimism. It means learning to recognize the mistaken assumptions hidden inside many of those thoughts and replacing them with something that is both truthful and uplifting. In other words, yoga isn't asking us to fool ourselves; it's teaching us how to think more wisely. In my upcoming live online workshop, we'll explore this remarkable practice together. You'll learn practical tools you can use in your own life and, if you're a yoga teacher, ways to help your students work more skillfully with negative thinking as well. Overcoming Negative Thoughts: Practical Yoga Psychology for Teachers and Students Live on Zoom — Sunday, August 9 @ 12:00–1:30 pm EDT Replay available to everyone who registers / 1.5 Hours CE credit with Yoga Alliance TUITION: BY DONATION I'm offering this workshop by donation because the ability to work skillfully with negative thoughts—and help others do the same—feels especially important right now. If you have any questions about this course, just reply to this email! Hoping you're well in all respects, Hari-k |
If you’re ready to apply yoga philosophy to your own life—or teach it with clarity and feeling—my classes and workshops create space to sharpen your thinking, steady your inner life, and connect your practice to what matters now.
Greetings Reader, Morbid curiosity got the better of me last Thursday night: I watched Trump’s speech. Oy vey. I thought about trying to count the number of lies he told but the man is a Top Fuel dragster of disinformation; he covered 1,000 feet of falsehoods every 3.6 seconds. I couldn’t keep up. The thing that really makes me meshugana is that Trump’s conception of reality is based entirely on feelings rather than facts. Feelings aren’t facts, but they feel like facts. And the idea that...
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