Changing one’s relationship to digital devices can help bring clarity, increase happiness, and reduce feelings of stress in one’s daily life. In this series we highlight individuals and digital resources from Menla’s extended community that can help anyone mindfully navigate our interconnected, digital world. This week we look at the bookshelf and yoga book recommendations of Nadiya Nottingham.
What is your definition of Yoga?
My personal understanding of Yoga is that it gives me the freedom to allow my personal practice to evolve with my human body and my universal spirit. In other words, my practice is dictated not by some rules carved in stone but by the natural evolution of my life.
What do you love about Yoga?
No matter how out of sorts my body and mind are on any given day, my practice brings me back into my personal source of light. On a practical level Yoga simply helps me move well and stand tall!
Why do you teach Yoga?
There was no other choice for me. Were it not for Yoga, I would have to go live in the forest. Yoga gives me the tools for living in this world and understanding that everything is temporary except the spirit. Sharing the gift of transformation, which I receive with my students, is an outstanding privilege.
Do you have a favorite book on Yoga?
My favorite books are Yoga for Wellness, by Gary Kraftsow, Yoga Anatomy, by Leslie Kaminoff, and Awakening the Spine, by Vanda Scaravelli. The latter has a very complex asana practice, which I do not necessarily advocate; her life views, however, are well rounded, personal, and independent.
This article is excepted from an Integral Institute of Yoga interview from 2018: www.iyiny.org.
“It was as if the kitchen knew what my belly wanted and needed, then served it without my having to ask.”
William D.
“It was a lovely weekend as it always is at Menla! Thank you. It truly is a special place in many ways. The people who work there and run the place really do make the difference, as they are all very nice and kind. I’ve been to other like places where that typically isn’t the case. I realized this past weekend that just being at Menla is simply awesome!”
Sasha Laumeister
“Menla is so breathtakingly gorgeous, situated on an indigenous sacred land where its magnetic field is very strong… I have so many beautiful photos of the campus from my hikes at dawn on the property, mostly photos capturing the sunrise and the light rays shimmering iridescently on various aspects of nature. I took almost a thousand photos in my short stay there! Truly breathtaking! Even capturing the miracle of having a doe and her fawns surrounding me just several feet away from me!”
Priscila Espinosa
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