Lara Land
Self Care Blog
Mind, Body, Spirit: Tulum
Why Tulum? Why you? Why me? Summer may have come to its unofficial end with the passing of Labor Day, but the ease, boundlessness, and warmth that come with it should not have to be lost. I figure we can all hold on until the beginning of December, but we are going...
Train Your Brain!
All Eight Limbs
#HowIMeditate Part 2: Five Steps to Easier Meditation.
There is a lot of confusion, frustration, and misinformation around meditation. Perhaps the word itself needs re-defining. In most yoga circles you'll more often hear it said that one has done their "siting practice". It's fair to say we've sat still for a length of...
Three and a Half Acres Expands Services
Julia Knight, Area Manager, Independent Consultant with Arbonne International, visited our Three and a Half Acres young adults at Harlem United H.O.M.E. center last Tuesday to teach them about nutrition, skin care, and cleansing. The talk began with the passing around...
Why aren’t I positive? Why it’s ok to feel your feelings.
If you look at the images of yogis strewn across the Internet, you'd have to believe that all yoga practitioners are continuously and exceptionally happy. In fact, it may have been one of the reasons you've decided to take up yoga yourself. Yoga has been marketed as a...
No Resolutions Please: Why starting and failing at resolutions…
Success begets success. Confidence builds upon itself and guides a person toward her dreams. You never want to teach yourself that you don’t do the things you say you will do. You never want to create the story in your subconscious that you lie to yourself, don’t...
Temazcal and New Years
Temazcal is a place where the elements, air, fire, water and earth intersect. Physically it is a small hut with a pit in the middle where rocks (typically volcanic) are burned along with medicinal herbs. The participants are encouraged to breath deeply in the steam...
The Little Death
We've come to the last of the eight-limbs, Samadhi. Samadhi is a concentration so deep, that only the essence of the object being observed radiates. It's as if the mind itself is no longer. In this sense, it is a death. The levels of Samadhi deepen until one merges...
More Thanks, Less Full
Happy Holidays everyone! With Thanksgiving and Holiday time coming up I wanted to share three of my favorite personal tips to keep from overeating. I hope they help you to stay balanced and gorgeous during this hectic time of year. 1. Eat Breakfast. Many of you get...
Dress for Success: Halloween as a Spiritual Practice
“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” -Anais Nin If we want things to change we have to change ourselves. Then, suddenly, the world around us appears different. But how can we change ourselves? First we must become aware that there is an option to...
#HowIMeditate
The seventh of the eight limbs of yoga is Dhyana, or meditation. This state occurs when Dharana (concentration) is held on the same object for some time. Another way to describe this state is that it is made of a string of back to back moments of concentration linked...
Dharana
I can hardly believe we are up to the sixth limb. For over a year now I've been blogging on the limbs and now we have finally reached the final three, known collectively as Samyama. These limbs are the most subtle and internal so I wondered during the year if I'd have...
Silencing the Cravings: An intro to Pratyahara
You’re listening to an engaging story, desperately trying to weave a thread through a needle, perhaps deep in a daydream. Whatever it was, we’ve all had the experience of being so in the moment that we fail to hear a siren outside, feel the dog licking our leg, or...