NO, we are not going to ask mirror on the wall who is the prettiest lady or the most handsome man. This is about mirror in our life.

Mirror in life reflects the events in our life whether they are pleasant ones or unpleasant ones, or people who are around us whether we like them or not, especially our family members.
My mirror and my biggest angel is my mum.

We often go through frictions, end it with quarrels and no conversation for days. We almost never have similar way of thinking. Now, how come I can say that she is my mirror, the reflection of me? She is there to trigger the things that I need to learn about myself. She is there to keep me stronger in my faith. The faith to keep teaching yoga and growing the business, and helping many more people in this planet. And I am also her trigger. I help her to understand, learn and grow herself. I used to  have expectations that she would understand and being supportive in whatever I do. I knew now that it might will not happen. So, I focus in expanding myself now because when I grow, people around me eventually will also grow.

Recently, something happened that triggered both of us regarding household matter. I have just realized that I triggered her fear to come out and she projected her anger towards me with her words which was hurtful. And just like mirror principle, when we project negative energy out, it would return back to us because mirror reflects back and it also reflects who we are inside. I am not a perfect human. There are times when I feel low and lose my power by getting angry back at her. The awareness plays important part here. Once I am aware of it, I release it through meditation, journaling, or yoga, or another energy work. I do not want to hold into anger too long because it will weaken and block the energy in the liver (anger energy is stored in liver). Like my business partner says, "Turn anger into passion which drives the work and the business". He is correct.

It is not that easy to forgive and love unconditionally, but that is the biggest gift we can ever give to ourselves. We do not do it for others, but we do it for ourselves, for we are the one who can love ourselves the most. Let the sadness, grief, hatred, disappointment or whatever that is be returned to light for we are LOVE & LIGHT. Shine from the inside out.

It is Vesak Day 2020 as I am writing this blog. Vesak Day is a comemmoration, not a celebration. It is a day to commemorate the day of birth, enlightenment, and parinibanna (death) of the Buddha. All of the events happened during full moon. I am not going to talk about the Vesakh Day, but lets dive deep into A.H.A moment or enlightenment or insight or whatever you want to call it.

Everyone of us has been experienced A.H.A. moments in our life, be it through gentle way or hard way, and there is always lesson or gift behind every experience. The lesson for me as a yoga teacher and as I go through the journey in building this yoga business is expectation. It has come to me many times in many occassions until I learn the lesson.

The intention when I decided to teach yoga initially, other than I love yoga was yes, money. According to a friend of mine who was a yoga teacher at that time was making money as a yoga teacher was not that difficult, that I could earn more compare to working as employee. This reason motivated me to quit my job. But apparently it was not that easy and smooth for me as it was for her. I did not get many clients as I hoped for and even if I did, they quit after a month or so. I was frustrated and anxious, especially regarding financial situation. I did not understand myself that much like I do now. Then the time came for me to take one step ahead into spiritual journey. I practiced meditation with a meditation center combined with yoga, and learned about myself more and more. That was when I knew that I had too many expectations, towards myself, others, and situations. I wanted everything to be "perfect" while there is no perfection in life. I expected to have and teach more clients in order for me to feel safe and secure financially because I was worried too much about my future. There was not enough trust that the Universe would provide me with everything I need. Abundance was everywhere (abundance is not always about money. It can be love, suport, friendships, etc.), but I did not see it because I operated from lack and fear. I fear that people would judge me, I compared myself with other teachers, etc. which in the end it would paralyzed me because it was only in my mind, it was not real. And as my teacher, Master Umesh H. Nandwani, says that what we focus on expands.

I am still going through the process. There is no instant way or changing ourselves overnight. However, by going through all these lessons, I believe it will build the inner strength within me and make me a better person and teacher. I am dropping "the walls" that I have made for years. I did not let people know who I was inside, but today I took the courage to become vulnerable. I realized that without it, there would be no connection between me and people around me, and especially with you, readers and also clients of Yoga Biss with Lia. I rebuild this business with the intention of love. To share what I know about yoga and to heal people who need healing through yoga, so that we (you and me) can return to ourselves, being aware of who we truly are, and cultivating peace inside us. No matter how chaos the outside situation is, when we are at peace inside, we will see things differently.

Hopefully you get the understanding by now that yoga is not about healing through physical exercise only, but it is a spiritual process of how we understand ourselves completely by paying attention to the breath, movement, and also mind and emotion. Yoga is a tool for our wellbeing and it has been there for thousands of years. Now the choice is yours. Do you want to make big changes in your life? Your heart knows the answer.

Happy Vesak Day. May our heart blooms like lotus, and we always grow and rise, no matter how "muddy" the life is.
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Weight loss, a topic that will never goes out of date. Everyone wants to have an ideal body weight commonly. It will make us look good, confident, and of course healthy. We feel ashamed of our body when we gain weight and out of shape, and we can be the subject of body shaming by colleagues, friends, and even by family members, as I experienced it myself years ago when I was 62 kgs.

We try all kinds of diet, we avoid eating too much carbs and fat as most of us believe that they are unhealthy and can cause us gaining more weight. Diet works temporarily, however if it does not followed by healthy life style, it will become a yoyo diet. We lose weight for certain amount of time with lots of efforts, energy, and sacrifices, but we need to work so hard to maintain the weight which can be exhausting in the end.

So how can we lose weight without feeling miserable? The key is lifestyle changing. It is not only the action that changes, like eating healthy foods, drinking more water, getting enough sleep, etc. Yes, they give tremendous results when we do it consistently and make it as habit, but more than that it starts from WITHIN​. It starts from the changing of our perception about having a healthy body. It starts from our mindset and heartset. What does it mean?

First of all, we need to decide what a healthy body means to us. Is it just about losing weight and looking slim, but less energized and keep maintaining unhealthy lifestyle like drinking or smoking? Or we want a complete change and be a NEW ME. After we make the decision, we create our specific goal and actions we need to take. It can be lessen sugar intake, not to skip breakfast, lessen alcohol intake, exercise, etc. We need to know our own body, so we can create the actions that is suitable for our body needs. Every person's body is different, so lets say if a certain diet works for one person like only taking certain amount of calorie per day, it does not mean that our body can also take the same amount of calorie. Perhaps it needs more or less depends on our activies. And how do we know what our body needs? That is the heartset part a.k.a. awareness.

I am not talking about awareness of the mind only but also awareness of our emotions. When we eat sweet food, such as chocolate or ice cream, do we feel guilty that we are going to gain weight? Are we aware that we eat comforting food when we are in stress (emotional eater)? Often times we see food not as it is, but we give emotions towards it like bad, guilt, shame, regret, cheater, break my diet, etc. We keep eating the food with those feelings, working out so hard the next day because of the guilty feeling and the cycle repeats again. So, how can we break the cycle?

There are some ways to break it, like meditation, writing on a journal, and YOGA. I am not writing this because I want to force you into yoga and forget about other types of workout, but I already prove it myself that I can maintain the health not only in physical body, but in overall wellbeing, and I want you to have the same. Some of my friends told me that they have done yoga a few times and it was too difficult for them, and so they quit. They wonder why at my age (I am 38 and not ashame about it, there is nothing to hide) I even look healthier, have better posture, reach ideal weight than I was in my 20's. It is all thanks to yoga.

By doing yoga with commitment and consistency, yoga can give many benefits. It does not necessarily involving advanced postures. Even with basic postures everyday we will feel differences in the body. Yoga involves stretching to increase flexibility and tone up our muscles, take downward facing dog for example. It stretches and strengthens the hands, arms, shoulders, lengthens the spine, works on abdominal muscles, stretches the hamstrings, and calves, and lets the blood flows back into the brain, meaning taking in more oxygen and increasing the brain's function. They all happen within one pose. Stretching also improves range of motion, creates better posture by lengthening the spine, improves our mood, and makes us sleep better.

The other benefit of yoga is in its deep breathing. Breathing correctly has many benefits including losing weight (indirect benefit). When we breathe in, we bring our attention to the present moment and when we breathe out, we relax and release tension out of our body, including uncomfortable emotions, like sadness, anger, guilt, shame, etc. because pur breath is closely related with our emotions. When we breathe, we soften the belly meaning soften to resistance and inner tension. When we can accept things as they are and not resisting it, we will be less stress, relax and more peaceful which will have impact on our decision making which is to choose what kind of food we want to eat for example. We are energy and food is energy. Whatever we put into our body will be transformed into energy and it molds us. Therefore, the saying "We are what we eat" is true.

In conclusion, yoga is a great addition to our healthy lifestyle checklist. It has indirect benefits for weight loss physically and also for mental health for they are interconnected and inseparable. Yoga can help to increase range of motion and flexibility of the body if it is combined with another workouts like running, fitness, or even martial arts to get us losing the unwanted weight. And one more thing that yoga does is to help us appreciate who we are and to appreciate our body. Yoga reminds us that we are enough, that we do not need to compare ourselves with others, and yoga reminds us to be grateful with what we have. Our breath, our body parts and the organs, and the bodily systems that work 24 hour for us without stopping. So, it seems unfair if we judge that we are fat or I hate this body while it has worked very hard to sustain our life. When we are being grateful for what we have and send love to our body, it will return us the same. Just focus on being healthy instead of losing weight, and do whatever it needs to be healthy with light and joyful heart. So, what healthy choices have we made today?








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