She amazingly pulled off the incredible feat!

The long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad took close to 53 hours non-stop to swim the 103 miles between Cuba and the Florida Keys, becoming the first ever to do so without a shark cage and at the young age of 64 years old.
Sharks and jellyfish are no match for sheer determination.

Diana Nyad has had attempt this journey several times in the past.
Her first attempted for this swim was in 1978 in a shark cage.

In 2011 she attempted the swim twice with no shark cage, but had to stop because of shoulder pain the first time, and jellyfish stings on the second.
Her last unsuccessful attempt ended in August 2012.

This time, Nyad does not swim in a protective cage, so she has no real defense against aggressive sharks or, the more likely threat, jellyfish - which have stopped her in the past by inflicting so many stings that she simply couldn't continue.


Surely Nyad had to realize that she would face the same danger this time, but she didn't let that stop her. A special silicone mask is designed to ward off jellyfish stings.

On this successful time, with just two miles to go, according to her blog, Nyad stopped briefly in the water to thank her crew (a team of about 35 in boats) and she said:

"I am about to swim my last two miles in the ocean. This is a lifelong dream of mine and I'm very very glad to be with you. Some on the team are the most intimate friends of my life and some of you I've just met. But I'll tell you something, you're a special group. You pulled through; you are pros and have a great heart. So let's get going so we can have a whopping party. Thank you, all of you, thank you for your generosity."

Congratulations, Diana! and Thank you for sharing the 'inspiration'
  
    What a great example she sets for anyone who wants to achieve something difficult in life. Surely the politics with Cuba hardly seems to matter her. Danger doesn't stop her. Age doesn't stop her.

   May you get inspired by her beautiful example of persistence, commitment, perseverance  and strength to achieve whatever is calling in your heart, since we all have the amazing Divine potential within.

In Love & Inspiration
Lydie Ometto
www.innerseayoga.com

~ light ~

What a 'Pressure Washing Experience' taught me about Yoga & Life !

Earlier this past week, I found myself embracing in the 'duty' of giving a 'face lift' to the steps and porch leading to our Yoga Studio through the magic of pressure washing.
Wow... what a precious time I found myself in!

I started 'the job' right after guiding a very precious group of students on our morning 'exploring our bodies yoga flow' needless to say, I was already in a high. Plus happy to be around (and many times enveloped in) all that delicious water in a day when the outdoor temperature was around 89F.
Patiently I began to watch the tired green mold from the long gone winter and last transformed spring move away and disappear through the fierce jets of water leaving behind the happy and bright wood face from underneath it. As the jet kept on uncovering that true wood essence, I observe in myself, how many times I needed a good and committed push to uncover my own self from the many debris I had acquire with time.

The cool thing about this process was that the pressure necessary for the 'debris cleansing" was directly related to the well-being of the wood, in other words, if I was unfocused and held too hard in one place, I would hurt the wood, but as I was precise, motivated and patient, the result was impeccable.This can surely serve me in a daily basis.

As I got the groove of it, I found myself in this beautiful meditative experience, where the mind was totally one focus and the body was guided in a magical flow. But then again, was I fully present in the whole experience or just hypnotized by it? The answer came when I felt a little side jet of water coming from an obscure place... opss, the water hose touched the pressure washer motor and a melted spot was showing its face, so time to re-connect with the 'whole picture'.
The gift of this moment was on re-checking the times I had disconnected from the overall focus in search of the one point experience and the beauty of knowing that true balance is a dynamic scale.

Another jewel of my pressure washing experience was observing the Divine gifts and nudges we all receive in a daily matter towards the awareness of taking care of our own bodies, oh well, I was soooo into the moving of the water, the flying of the mold, the shinning of the wood, that over two and a half hours had pass when I realized I had not stopped to hydrate my own inner body and the message came through the pressure washer needing desperately some extra fuel, hummmm.

Then on my next set of two and so hours, I made sure to stop off and on checking in within my own 'inner motor' and admire the surroundings, as more beauty was being expressed through each dance of the waters, as the tiny little particles were forming rainbows here, there and all around. And once more the reflection on the many moments in which I stop the go go of life and embrace the surrounding around me embracing the rainbows of nature, friends, family, love, joy, peace, music, dance, laughter, silence, beauty and much more!

Well, thank you for listening a bit of my pressure washing experience and looking forward to see or hear you enjoying the new 'stairway to yoga' either here at the studio or in your own inner stairway to Self.
May the moments of clearing, cleansing, moving, washing and transforming be joyful, productive and insightful.

In Yoga
Namaste
Lydie Ometto
www.innerseayoga.com

innerseayoga

PARTS OF OURSELVES.....

"There are parts of ourselves we try to hide because somewhere along the way, we created the idea that 

we are alone in our flaws".  ~  A BEAUTIFUL POST BY LIZ ARCH  (lizarch.com)

We flip through magazines and see gorgeous models with perfect bodies, then we look in the mirror and feel less than. The photo above shows much more than I would ever normally feel comfortable displaying, but I share it today with the hope
 that we can stop comparing ourselves to others and start loving ourselves for the

 beautifully flawed masterpieces that we truly are.

A photographer once told me that even the models on magazine covers wish they looked like their own images.  As a yoga teacher who has appeared in my own fair share of photo spreads and magazines, I can vouch for that. I have been told not to “overindulge at the salad bar” before big shoots and I’ve often wondered why I suffer through last minute juice cleanses and spray tans, when the final images are always photoshopped to erase my imperfections.

Sure, my ego loves looking at these “perfect” photoshopped images of myself, but these images aren’t the real me.  I have cellulite and stretch marks and days when I skip my yoga mat for the couch and a pint of ice cream. But in our social media driven world, where everybody’s life seems so much glossier than our own, we’ve managed to convince ourselves that real is not beautiful and every photo needs a filter. I’m definitely guilty of editing my public life down to a handful of inspiring quotes and photos on Facebook that only show my best sides.

I never really thought much about it, until I started receiving messages from people telling me how “perfect” my body was. The thought of other people lifting me up only to put themselves down broke my heart, especially since perfect is not a word I would ever use to describe myself. So I called my dear friend, photographer Robert Sturman, and asked him if he would shoot the “real” me.

One of the reasons I have always admired Robert’s work is because he doesn’t do a lot of retouching. He might adjust the exposure of an image or play with the background, but you will never see a size eight woman photoshopped down to a size four. As a skilled photographer, he knows the body’s angles and when angles are not enough, he leaves all unflattering photos on the cutting room floor.

This shoot wasn’t about flattery though, so we threw the old rules out and created a new set: 1. No photoshopping of my body or face would be allowed. 2. All angles would be fair game.  3.  I would show up to the shoot as myself (translation: I would not starve myself, workout excessively, spray tan, or do any of the other absurd things models do before a shoot).
Here is the result. The real me is someone with a normal, healthy body—and yes, a normal, healthy body has cellulite on the back of her thighs and a belly that folds instead of lays flat.

“Everybody has a part of her body that she doesn’t like, but I’ve stopped complaining about mine because I don’t want to critique nature’s handiwork…My job is simply to allow the light to shine out of the masterpiece.” ~ Alfre Woodard

 Robert and I had set out to capture both the beauty and the beast, but a strange thing happened that day. Out of over 400 photos we shot, there ended up being only a handful of images that showed my flaws. Ironically, after years of being in front of the camera hoping I delivered the “right” shot, I was actually starting to panic that we hadn’t captured enough of the “wrong” shots. I had set out to reveal the ugly sides of myself, but in shot after shot, all I could find was beauty.  It occurred to me that I could easily take a photo of myself at my worst—we all could.
But even on my worst days, while ugly is how I might feel, it is never who I am.

Doing an “ugly” photoshoot would be just as distorted as doing a shoot where my “beauty” was photoshopped in.

The beauty of this shoot is that it captured all sides of me and while some sides admittedly made me cringe, others absolutely took my breath away (see full slideshow below). For the first time ever on a shoot, I was able to completely let go of all self-consciousness and get really comfortable in my own skin. It dawned on me as I posed unabashedly next to a soft and curved statue of Venus, that my flaws were part of what made me an exquisite work of art.

“People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder.” ~ Salma Hayek

The next time you look in the mirror, adore yourself from every angle. Accept your flaws so you may identify with your beauty.  Let go of the obsession with your outer self and allow your light to shine from deep within.

THANK YOU LIZ FOR SO ELOQUENTLY BRING THIS SUBJECT ON....

MANY BLESSINGS

LYDIE OMETTO

INNERSEAYOGA.COM

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Releasing What No Longer Serves  
by Tosca Braun

Do you experience “negative, unwanted thoughts” that may hinder your New Year's resolutions?   

 A new study in the journal, Psychological Science, suggests that writing down such thoughts, and subsequently discarding them, may result in a corresponding mental release. From a yogic perspective, releasing what does not serve invites deeper integrity and alignment with one’s intentions and self.

Spanish high school students participating in an eating disorder prevention class were randomly assigned by researchers to write down either positive or negative thoughts about their body during a three-minute period. Half the students were then asked to contemplate their thoughts and look for spelling mistakes. The other half were instructed to contemplate their thoughts then throw them in the trash can.

 For students that kept their thoughts and checked them for mistakes, the positive or negative nature of thought about their bodies predicted their body attitudes. Those who wrote negative thoughts about their bodies had more negative attitudes about their bodies than did those who wrote positive thoughts. Yet among students who threw their thoughts away, no difference in body rating was observed between those who wrote positive and negative thoughts.

The implication? When recording thoughts, the nature of what you write and retain matters. Likewise, when you write down thoughts and throw them away, whether positive or negative, such thoughts are no longer considered.

According to yoga philosophy, thoughts relate to vrttis—the waves of mental chatter or activity habitually traversing the mind’s eye. Vrttis are the surface froth on the bottomless expanse comprising the self and its universality. The practice of yoga is intended to sharpen awareness of and soften these waves, thereby imbuing an embodied awareness of the deeper self and cultivating a more sattvic (harmonious, loving, and pure) orientation to one’s self and the external world.

In the practice of yoga, even negative thoughts are observed as they arise and pass with compassion and non-judgmental awareness. Paradoxically, when the inevitability of these negative thoughts is accepted rather than suppressed or avoided, awareness of the universal nature of “negative, unwanted thoughts” is bestowed. When humanity and fallibility are recognized objectively and with kindness through these practices, identification with such thoughts naturally begins to soften as self-knowledge increases.

This is a recursive and long-term process. In the short-term, recording intentions (positive thoughts) and releasing what does not serve you (negative thoughts) may be helpful, as this study suggests. A similar practice is employed in programs at Kripalu Center. A list of positive intentions may be kept in a safe place, or offered to a deity. Thoughts to release are recorded, contemplated, and thrown into a collective wastebasket for disposal, offered to the earth, or burned. Rather than being salient just for New Years resolutions, this practice may be helpful any time you need to realign with your intentions and let go of what may be holding you back.

Have you engaged in a practice of letting go of negative thoughts (or habits)? Has it been helpful?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Take a moment to reflect within Self and allow the 'release of the old' .

'May your day be new and fresh'

In Joy & In Yoga

Lydie Ometto

www.innerseayoga.com

InnerSeaYoga on FaceBook

"Trust to 'Let Go' and Enjoy the Ride !"

     During my morning walking today, which I love doing in a beautiful nature park close to home, my attention was directed to this awesome grandfather filled with a great  amount of patience, giving his all to teach his grandson the joys of riding a bicycle with no training wheels.

     Initially it was visible the fear and hesitance from the little one in taking his foot away from the ground; balance wasn't there and the ground looks way too hard for a fall down, and besides that, the unknown of only two wheels was a bit frightening.

   

     But little by little grandfather's love, care and support was like a magic wand on the boy's body awareness and strength, and a small distance of terrain and several pedaling turns was manifesting inch by inch as the new rider's trust was increasing, the new perspective of freedom was widening and their faces were happily softening.  

After many interesting maneuvers, turns, swerves, sweats... it happened ! Yes, the little one just took off like a pro, he allowed to let go and let be and there it was, the most beautiful face of joy, happiness and yahoo!!! At that moment he was conquering the world, his world.

    What a contentment blossomed from grandfathers heart, feeling and expression, to the point that there was I clapping and cheering for both of them with my own heart filled with that contagious sense of joy and achievement.

    As I continued my walk, deep inside I was expressing a big heart of appreciation for the constant life's reminders as I tuned to my gratitude for care and support around me, for the power of our inner trust to jump on and venture through new ways, for soul strength and determination to let go and let be and for all the love that is constantly all around.

    May I and Us always remember of those gifts of life which come wrapped in the beautiful angels of our lives, family, friends, teachers, students, neighbors, animals, nature...the Divine in All.

~ Namaste~

with love and gratitude

Lydie Ometto

www.innerseayoga.com

Everyone Gets the Same 24 Hours

      Life — it’s what we do between the time we get here and when we go. We only get one at time, and despite what other folks might suppose, it’s ours to determine what to do with it.

* We don’t measure life in hours and minutes. We measure life in memories and moments.

* Life is when we take hold of it and live it. 

Here are 10 Ways to get a life and start living it.

  1.  Give yourself permission to claim your life. That’s right — permission. You’re the only one who can decide you are in charge of your life. Even though it feels like you’re not supposed to do so, turn off the internal editors, the old tape recordings, the “shoulds, have tos, and musts”, and the rules that didn’t come from you.

  

 2.  Define what living means to you. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Just picture yourself at the end of your life looking back. What words would you want to describe how you lived your life and who you are as a person?

 3.  Stop living in the future. Every time you think “someday” or “when I have time I will,” stop. Ask yourself, “Why not now?” Think about this sentence, “I always wanted to, but never did.” Start doing the things you always planned to do. Choose your life every morning. Plan one thing you will do that day to feel alive.

 4.   Surround yourself with people who enjoy living. They’ve obviously discovered how to have a life and live it. Why not hang with the pros?

 5.  Lay down your pain and your anger. Carrying them around makes living harder and less fun. It doesn’t bring anything, and it steals a lot.

 6.  Let the losers win. Don’t argue about things that you don’t care about. Unless there’s some real threat, let the folks who have something to prove, prove what they need to. Why waste your living time trying to fix what’s wrong with them?

 7.  Create energy. Jump to forgiveness and love, then figure things out. Most conclusions we jump to are not only wrong, they’re negative. Negative conclusions lead us to prepare a defense. Being on the defensive isn’t living. It’s hiding from life.

 8.  Learn the physical symptoms of when your head and heart become disconnected. We know when we’re having a knee jerk reaction, when we’re feeling sorry for ourselves, and when we’re being blind to people’s feelings. We can remember how it felt physically while we were behaving badly. Get to know those symptoms, and you can stop the behavior. Living life will feel a whole lot safer because you won’t be in danger of shooting yourself in the foot.

  

9.  Take small risks that push your boundaries in every way. The joy of life is packed in learning that matches our skill set. When we stretch just a bit intellectually, physically, emotionally, we grow. Living is growing. Even your cells know that.

 10.  Value and protect the people and the places you care about. A job isn’t a life. It’s just a part of one. Let the people you care about come first, and let everyone know that you do. Re-read numbers 1 and 2.

(by Liz Strauss)

We come to life with an immense amount of possibilities & potential. Are you fully expressing yours ?

Take a moment BREATHE ~ evaluate it....... and as you choose, make the necessary changes for your own light to shine brighter and brighter....and this way our world will be also shining brighter and brighter.

much love to you

Namaste

Lydie Om.

www.innerseayoga.com

Opening up Obstacles...

(A beautiful writing by Leanne Hall)

      Often when I'm teaching a Yoga class I will remind students (especially when they are attempting to be in the splits), that the tightness they're experiencing in their bodies is not an obstacle to flexibility, but an opening. The awareness of tightness/tension being present, is the beginning of flexibility being created. When we feel this tightness in our bodies, our first instinct is usually to back away from it or avoid it. It is not comfortable and the mind almost immediately begins to feel distressed.

At this point the teacher usually reminds us to breathe into the tightness of the uncomfortable stretch we feel screaming back at us in our bodies. As we begin to breathe and allow the tightness to be there, something amazing begins to happen. The breath we're breathing begins to relax our mind and our instinctive re-activeness, and we begin to feel the body start to open up and let go of the tightness. As we allow ourselves to stay in the splits, we begin to discover that if we just allow ourselves to breathe, then the stretch we're in actually starts to feel good. Before we know it, we come into the splits again and again seeking relief from the tightness and tension within our bodies...

Life can often feel like being in the splits. There are times when we feel emotionally split apart, insecure, doubtful, and faithless toward our own self and Creator. We find ourselves wrestling with what is and struggling to comprehend how it can be so bad, painful, unhappy and miserable. We resist feeling whatever is going on inside of us and feel like it's never going to get better.

 These feelings are the awakening, not the obstacle. Each time we find ourselves feeling pulled apart, uncertain of all that is and how to get out of what we're in, this is actually the moment we're being put back together. It is the transformation of ourselves into a new way of thinking and Being.

The truth is we were split apart long before we became aware of the tension or distress being within us. Inflexibility is when we have no feeling and are not even attempting to stretch ourselves. The moment we come into a stretch and become aware of tightness, that's flexibility, that's the opening up. So, next time you find yourself in the splits, whether it's in Yoga class or in an emotional, mental or spiritual challenge in your life, remember to allow yourself to breathe into it, the breath is the Life Force which heals and opens up the obstacles to the body, mind and spirit. Remember that no matter how bad it feels, if you can remember to breathe into yourself with the intention of healing whatever you're feeling, it can only get better…

 "May You enjoy every moment of your 'openness' on and out of your yoga mat" w/ love Lydie Ometto.

www.innerseayoga.com