Link to Yoga Videos on Ribbon

Hey all! Here is a link to all of my pre-recorded yoga videos I will be putting up via Ribbon. Most of these videos will be outside in nature, mainly on the Big Island of Hawaii. Some may be in other places as I travel around:). I always seek to be as authentic as possible; because of this I will not be editing my videos a lot as well as for the sake of my time. I want to be real so these videos will not be super polished and perfect. That is totally fine with me because I prefer to be perfectly imperfect while trying my best to give you all a quality yoga practice. This is a new endeavor for me and I am learning, so please me patient as I continue to grow and find my footing with this project.

Much love,

Rylee

Also feel free to message me with any feedback you guys have as well as any asanas, locations, mediations you want me to incorporate!

https://withribbon.com/u/ishvarayoga

Living out of the box!!

Aloha homies!!! I hope everyone is well. I am feeling the energies of life today!! New changes occurring in my life…and I am excited about it. Where will it all lead? No one knows…can only enjoy the present moment at hand! Mercury retrograde may have us all feeling a certain type of way, but its not all bad like we think. In fact, during the retrograde it is the perfect time to reflect on habits and patterns of thinking that might be limiting us. It is a time to rest and reflect, which is why sometimes our technology doesn’t work, travel plans don’t go our way., etc. The universe is trying to get us all to just stop and relax for a few minutes during our crazy, wild lives! Something our western culture has a difficult time doing.

Recently I watched a video that someone shared on Facebook about women, and all of the struggles we face to be “perfect”. To live up to these unattainable standards that society attempts to force upon us. I really vibe with this video, as I can think of many times that people have made comments to me about how they think I should be living my life: in terms of the way I dress, act, behave, etc. My friend and I got to chatting about how rigid our society really is. Its as though we are born and put into these boxes before we even get a chance to discover who we really are! (The being that is under all the learned behaviors, ways of thinking, childhood/past-life traumas, etc.). Most of us act a certain way because we believe it is “the right way” to be. But have you ever stopped and really asked yourself why you are doing what you're doing? Why you like what you like? Have you asked yourself if you’re happy with the “persona” you’ve created within your mind? Newsflash! These are all just thoughts in your mind. Not the real you. You can be who you want at anytime you want. Time is always moving, change is always happening. Nothing is stagnant. Everyday we are born again. Remember this when you feel you want to change, when you want to let the real you out! When suddenly the life you think you wanted doesn’t make sense any more! Its ok to feel lost, confused, sad, happy, angry. Its ok to feel all of it…it is apart of the human experience.

Society sets us up to limit us. It categorizes us and tells us who we should be. But humanity is a spectrum, its a rainbow of colors! To think that billions of us could be categorized into a few labels is insane!! The beauty of humanity is that we are all unique, we all have our own gifts and passions that we are born with to share with the world, or to just share with ourselves! Point is: its YOUR life. At the end of it all, the opinions of others won’t matter, they don’t matter now. No one knows you better than yourself. No one knows what you need more than you.

We were not brought into this world to look the same, act the same, be the same. We were brought here to share our dreams and our passions with one another. To share and to give and to live in love. When we don’t express who we really are, we hold this within ourselves. This can create stuck emotions that can lead to physical and mental ailments. When we are not who we are truly meant to be, not only us suffer, but the whole world suffers! Just look around at how unhappy most people actually are….we all drown it in drugs, alcohol, media, other people. We use these things as a way to run away from the fear of how unhappy we are that we are afraid to be ourselves. And yes it is scary….but most things worth fighting for in this life are scary. But you will find that the grass is truly greener on the other side. So take the leap, make the jump…do what it is that sets your heart on fire. Because I guarantee you will thank yourself, and so will the rest of the world.

I am really passionate about this topic as it really hits home for me. My whole journey thus far I always felt like I was chained down, forced to fit in when I knew deep down that to be like everyone else…to follow the “normal path” laid out in front of me, was just something that I would never be able to do (unless I wanted to be really unhappy). This caused me a lot of pain and suffering…and thus I projected this out to the world. But I’ve have been trying my best to heal the wounds first in myself, and to also help others by living a life in which I choose to love others for who they are. It can be challenging at times, but it is worth the struggle. I want you all to know, whoever reads this…that you are already everything you ever need to be. Already perfectly imperfect! And you can do anything you want to do…just trust and listen to yourself. We can do this!!

Mahalo,

Rylee

Following your heart can be the hardest thing to do:

Hi everyone!!

Thank you all for being so patient as I haven’t written in almost a month. I have been busy with yoga, visiting my family, and also taking care of myself. But I am back! Hope you have all been well:) This week I am going to talk about following your heart/staying true to yourself. This may sound easy but is actually very hard for most of us to do. Our heart knows deep down what we truly need, what it is in this life that we are supposed to do. But most of us forget to listen or choose not to listen to it.

All of the answers that we continuously search outward for such as in other people, material objects, teachers, books, technology, etc. lie within our hearts. I have spoken about this before and I will always continue to do so because this is very important. A lot of us listen to the voice in our heads which is mostly run by the ego and not the truth within our souls. This voice in our heads can sound accurate and like it is coming from us, but if we actually take some time to listen to what it is saying and think about where it is coming from, we can see that it is not actually us and only a fabrication that the mind has created!

One way to quiet this voice and begin to listen to the heart is through meditation. Just taking a few minutes out of the day for self-study or svadhyaya can tell you a lot about what you are actually feeling. Taking a few deep breaths and centering yourself. Feeling the way your body reacts to certain thoughts, words, outside stimulants can also tell you a lot about what may or may not be good for you. We are all energies and everything around us are also energies; our bodies know the difference between positive and negative energies and vibrations, its just about listening and acknowledging this. Pretty cool, ya?!

Once we can center ourselves and come back to our bodies instead of hanging up in the clouded minds inside our heads we can begin to feel the strong sensations within our hearts. The quiet voice that lives within and knows what you truly need, who you truly are. All we have to do is listen. You can also ask your heart how it is feeling (internally or externally, it doesn’t really matter). All that matters is that you acknowledge and feel what this voice is trying to tell you. You may not like what it has to say because sometimes the truth isn’t what our ego wants to hear! The truth can make us uncomfortable and fearful but these feelings are not us, just another layer of the ego that we must shed. When we can breath and let go of this fear that we may feel from learning the truth; this is when we truly begin to step into our power.

Following your heart can be tricky and at times difficult. Its not all romance and jetting off on some whimsical adventure like they show in the movies (thank you commercial movie industry). Most of the time it is diving into your biggest fears of letting other people down (this is also only an illusion), sacrificing relationships, leaping into the unknown without knowing how it will all work out. Yes it can be scary at the time, but the best things in this life usually are. To get where I am now I had to stop listening to the opinions of others, sell all of my stuff, say goodbye to people I loved not knowing if and when I would ever see them again, quit my jobs, and fly to the Hawaiian Islands not really knowing why exactly I was going there in the first place. I didn’t know what I would find, just that my heart wanted me to go! If I didn’t listen to it, I knew I would continue to be unhappy. And yes, people said I was crazy to not get a “real job”, save money, live out of two backpacks, and move to an island where I knew no one. But it was the best decision I ever made!

We are all on different journeys and no one can say what is right for you, but you!! No one knows how to live your life better than you. So stop listening to the opinions of others, and start listening to your heart. Listen to this, go inward, breathe deeply. It will never lead you astray. Yes the road can be tough, nothing worthwhile is ever easy. It’s all about remembering to be grateful for the present moment, and everything in-between. We are all only in this human experience for a short while, so we might as well do what we actually are meant to do, instead of what we “think” we should do.

I am at a point in my journey again where my heart calls me to do something that I don’t necessarily want to do, but I will do it anyway, even if it makes me fearful and uncomfortable. I am not sure where I will land, but I trust that it is exactly where I need to be.

Mahalo to all you lovely beings. Feel free to message and comment!

Rylee

Authenticity!!

One of the most important things we can do in our lives: live authentically!! Yet this is one of the hardest things for most of us. Why is this? What is holding us back from living as our truest forms? Living without limits, boundaries, lines and fears. Truly being exactly who we are meant to be at each moment in time.

There is only one you. The you that is unlike any other. You were meant to be exactly who you are for a reason, so why are so many of use trying to be anything other than ourselves? It’s like trying to swim upstream, constantly fighting and battling with the current of life, desperately trying to conform and fit into boxes that our soul just wasn’t meant to be packed into. The fact is, no one is meant to live in a box! No one is meant to follow any rules. There are no rules of life. This is no secret! Yet all of us are raised to believe that we must follow the guidelines of a book that was written by someone other than ourselves. Imagine this: we’re all living our own lives in a way that SOMEONE ELSE wants us to be living it. This is crazy! For someone else to tell us what to do, what to think, how to feel, express. It doesn’t align. When we try to conform, to fit into places not meant for the shape of our soul, we end up feeling confused, angry, unhappy, bitter, resentful, etc.

Living authentically can be scary. But guess what? Some of the best things in life are scary. Its about acknowledging that fear, and then simply letting it go, not letting it take ahold of your life and how you’re going to live it. Take the reigns back! Dive into the scariest depths of yourself! Do the things you’ve always wanted to do, but are too scared of doing. Say the things you’ve always wanted to say. People aren’t always going to like what you say and do. That is fine! At the end of the day the only thing that matters is what you think of yourself. And I promise you, the more you live your life in an authentic way, the better you are going to feel. The more aligned with your true self you will feel. The more in-tune you feel with yourself, the more connected you will feel to those around you.

Living authentically also gives others the opportunity to live authentically. Ever see someone totally owning who they are and thinking how happy they are? How they radiate with a great luminosity and higher vibration? It’s because they really do! And because of this they in-turn attract energies and vibrations on the same wavelength as them, law of attraction baby!! Others can literally sense your authenticity, can feel it. Once you own this, there is NOTHING that can hold you back.

It would be a waste to try to live within the lines. To live as someone else, when you know fully well who you are inside. We ALL know who we are, and we all have the tools at any time to figure this out. Everything you need is within. That happiness you crave and search for? You aren’t going to find it within another person, in your drink at the bar, in the books that you read, the places you travel. It doesn’t exist there, it only lies within your soul, your being. Living authentically is honoring your soul, your essence. It’s giving yourself the love that you deserve. We all deserve this unconditional love that only we ourselves can give to us. When we give this love to ourselves, it is then we can share it with the world.

Grateful for all of you, this moment in time, and the alignment of the sky.

Namaste,

Rylee

Living life with intention:

It’s all about intention! Literally everything. Why do we do the things we do? Say the things we do? Act the way we do? It’s all surrounded with our intentions in life, and a lot of us have good intentions that may be received negatively, and likewsise, some of us have bad intentions that are received positively. How can that be?! It all depends on the person receiving and the person giving. As well as the energies inbetween. Actually, this all depends on all energies since everything is energy. It’s also all about perceptions, realities, lenses, beliefs, etc. For example, someone could speak with good intentions, but another individual could interpret this to be hurtful. So even though one’s intention (in their perspective) was a good one, the receiver could interpret this in a completely different way. How confusing!!

This can be why a lot of us suffer from communication issues and are afraid to speak authentically. We fear we will say the wrong thing at the wrong time, someone will be upset with us, disagree with us, or simply not understand where we are coming from. I won’t lie, these issues are probably going to happen for the rest of your life. There really is no preventing it, some people will just interpret what you say in a different manner than you originally meant when you put the energy out in the first place. This is completely ok!! Differences are fine, various opinions can be accepted and validated.

It all comes down to YOU. As do most things. You cannot control what is going on in the outside world. Nothing. Everything is happening and flowing just as it should be, and you can flow with it too if you simply let go of your grasp to what happens/what you want to happen on the outside and instead turn your focus onto your inner self. Here is where you control what you say, act, perceive, interpret, feel, everything! Remember: no one can MAKE you feel any sort of way. No one can MAKE you do anything you don’t want to do! Only you hold the key to this. So stop worrying what others are going to think, say, and do. Instead pay attention to what you will think, say, and do. This will get you way farther on your journey to your highest self. Focusing inward and having good intentions with everything you do. Really asking yourself, “why am I actually do this?” “Is this serving me in the best possible way at this time?” “Is what I’m putting out a reflection of how I actually feel inside”?

A lot of times our ego can get the best of our good intentions and take them on a wild ride down a winding road we didn’t intend on going. But never fear, for there are always lessons to be learned at every step, on every path. If you ever afraid of speaking your truth, acting on what you think is right, or simply doing something because you want to do it, just simply stop and listen. Listen to the beating of your heart, to what it is saying to you. The heart always knows what is truly best for your highest self. Ask yourself what your true intentions are: if it is coming from the ego or the heart. Listen to your breath, your body. Your body always knows and can pick up on energies, because it IS energy. So stop, feel your feet, breath deeply into your navel center (diaphragmatic breath) (I’ll talk about this more in another post) and relax. Relaxing and taking time to really contemplate what your intentions in life are can help you to save a lot of energy in the things you do. Knowing that you are only acting, speaking and living with good intentions from your highest self; you can release your fears about what will happen in the outside world.

In the end, everything is going to be ok. Everything is already ok right now! The universe is exactly how it is supposed to be at this moment. You are exactly what you’re supposed to be in this moment. Let go and trust. Follow your heart and not your mind, live your life with good intentions. I promise you will be alright!

Feel free to comment or message me as always with any questions or just to chat!

Peace,

Rylee