New Year, New You! by Nancy Weshkoff
New Year. New You!
By Nancy Weshkoff
Hello 2018! When we ring in a new year, it is a great time to start fresh with new goals and ambitions. I am reminded of a quote from one of my favorite books “tomorrow is a brand new day with no mistakes in it”.
For Moonflower Yoga, we are starting 2018 anew as well. 2018 welcomes in several great yoga teachers to the Moonflower Yoga staff. We are pleased to have Danielle Meill, Jackie Lee, Rose Edelman, and Cathi Nashak join the Moonflower Yoga teaching team. Each of these great yoga teachers bring their own unique style of yoga to the Moonflower Yoga studio. You will learn ways to strengthen your body, become more flexible, improve balance, link breath with movement, and most importantly de-stress and take care of YOU.
As meditation is something that is important to learn, Moonflower Yoga has also added a great new class on the yoga class schedule: “Stretch and Meditate 101” with Lynn on Thursdays at 5 PM. This gentle yoga class will help you de-stress from the day and then learn meditation tools to enable you to relax.
And to give the studio a great start to the new year, we have completed the facelift on the studio so it has a new design, better layout, beautiful colors on the walls, and new tapestries to help you feel relaxed as soon as you enter the doors.
It is our 2018 commitment at Moonflower Yoga to continue to offer great yoga classes with great yoga teachers where you receive personal attention and don’t get lost in the crowd. And we have made the studio a warm, friendly place in Bellmore, Long Island, on the South Shore of Nassau County, New York, where we also welcome students from the neighboring towns of Merrick, East Meadow, Seaford, Wantagh, Massapequa, and Freeport. Moonflower Yoga is also a great place to learn something new in one of our fun workshops or in one of our clubs. Check out the Moonflower Yoga Book Club, the Moonflower Yoga Mah Jongg Club, the Moonflower Yoga Needle Arts Group where you learn to crochet or knitting, and the new Women’s Gathering.
So what are YOUR plans and goals for 2018? First and foremost, it should be about taking care of YOU. If you do not take care of you, you cannot take care of anyone else. We often find excuses why we can’t take some time for ourselves. When we DO take care of ourselves good things happen. We sleep better at night, and sleep is important to giving our bodies and minds the down time it needs to function better. We reduce stress which lowers blood pressure. High blood pressure can lead to so many diseases including heart disease, the number one killer of women in the US. Just giving yourself a couple a hours a week of YOU time can make a big difference in how you feel physically as well as mentally and it can make you MORE productive as you have a clearer perspective. Are you a beginner and feeling nervous about starting a yoga practice? No worries – Moonflower Yoga offers beginner-level yoga classes 7 days a week. You’ll see a full listing under the FAQ tab above. Have problems reaching the floor? Try Chair Yoga offered 3 times a week.
Yoga and meditation can help put you on a great path for 2018. You can strengthen your body and de-stress while learning that important message of taking care of YOU. Come try it! You will be glad that you did and you will find yourself on the road to better health in 2018. Happy new year, and we look forward to seeing you soon!
Mantra and Stress Reduction by Nancy Weshkoff
Mantra and Stress Reduction
By Nancy Weshkoff
Beginners to yoga often ask what is a mantra and why is this used in yoga classes. Mantra is a short phrase, or a chant, or it may be a single word. It can be in Sanskrit, the ancient language of yoga, or it can be in English. As an example, “shanti”, is a Sanskrit word and means “peace”. At the end of a yoga class, a yoga teacher may close the class with “shanti, shanti, shanti” as a message that peace be with you and with the world.
Mantra can be any word or combination of words that has meaning to you. It is important that it be a POSITIVE message. For example, you can say “I am smart”, “I am beautiful”, “Everything is going to be okay”, “I am grateful”, “I am happy”, etc. You want to avoid negative versions of this such as “I am not stupid”, as your brain has difficulty processing the negative and hears “I am stupid”. You could also choose a famous phrase that resonates with you. A simple “I love myself” is also wonderful.
Sometimes people think a mantra can only be used in a yoga class or if you are doing a seated meditation in your house. This is certainly when you might encounter mantra, but mantra is available to you at any time during the day. If you are sitting in traffic, on a train, waiting in a doctor’s office, standing in line at a store, or just walking down the street, you can use a mantra. Just silently repeat to yourself the positive mantra of your choosing.
So, why is mantra important and how can it help with stress reduction? During our day, our mind is occupied with many thoughts – not all of them good. We might find ourselves regretting something from our past and reliving the past scene in our mind. Or perhaps you are imagining what might happen in the future at a certain event which is making you anxious, and we start to worry. Our blood pressure rises, which increases a strain on our heart and other organs. Guilt and worry are two negative emotions that we should try to reduce as much as possible.
Instead of negativity, how about changing this to something positive? If you change the negative into a positive mantra that you repeat to yourself, you start to relax. It helps with stress reduction and lowers blood pressure.
Try doing this for just 2-3 minutes. Select a positive mantra that is meaningful to you. Notice how you feel before you start the mantra. Take a few deep breaths. Then start repeating the mantra to yourself. If you are alone in a room, you can choose to say it aloud. After just a few minutes of slowly repeating the mantra, notice how you feel. You should notice a reduction in your stress and your mind should be calmer. Mantra can be miraculous!
If you would like to discover more about mantra, come try one of the great yoga classes at our Moonflower Yoga studio in Bellmore, in Nassau County (Long Island, New York). Our yoga teachers offer mantra to our yoga students and encourage them to incorporate these into their daily routine. In our singing bowl meditation classes, mantra is used with sound, which is a fabulous way to relax. In our Kundalini yoga classes, mantra is part of the yoga practice, and you may repeat your mantra while moving in a certain yoga posture or with a breathing technique offered by our Kundalini yoga teacher. I encourage you to incorporate mantra in your life and see how it can help you relax and feel great!
Being Grateful by Nancy Weshkoff
Being Grateful
by Nancy Weshkoff
I wrote this blog previously during Thanksgiving week The sentiments expressed in the blog are still true, and I encourage all of you to take a moment to count the blessings in your life. Doing so can help you realize how amazing each day that we spend on this earth can be. Here is the blog, and I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!
As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, I am taking a moment to pause & think deeply about the holiday. If you look at the media blitz around us, you would assume Thanksgiving is about shopping for items you probably don’t need at discount prices. Stores are opening earlier and earlier, and this often means families spend less time together as they rush to get to the mall. What happened to this wonderful holiday with its family traditions?
Instead of the craziness of shopping, I am instead listing a few things in my life for which I am very grateful:
I am grateful for the many students who walk in the doors of Moonflower Yoga to attend a yoga class. It is such a blessing to have them at the studio each week, getting stronger, feeling better, and sharing a part of their lives at Moonflower Yoga. I love meeting each person as they walk in the door and catching up with them each week. Thank you to all of you who have made Moonflower Yoga a success.
It was 6 years ago this month that my life changed forever with the news that my job in corporate America was coming to an end with a forced layoff. Although that news was devastating at the time, it gave me the opportunity to try something new that I always wanted to do. Moonflower Yoga was born as a result of that, and I am grateful that my life changed for the better. As Gandhi very wisely said: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”.
Making a life change would have been very challenging if it wasn’t for the support of my husband, Bob, who has been my rock for the last 40+ years. Bob, together with friends and family, supported me and Moonflower Yoga, and I am very grateful for their love and support. And Bob’s delicious, homemade desserts at our workshops, events, and Moonflower Yoga Book Club & Moonflower Yoga Needle Arts meetings bring a smile to everyone’s face. And now Bob is offering his own vegan and gluten-free cooking workshops at Moonflower Yoga.
Moonflower Yoga has great yoga teachers who work alongside of me each week and bring their love of teaching and helping people to Moonflower Yoga each week. I could not run the studio without them. And there have been wonderful workshop presenters as well, who have taught us some very interesting things that we didn’t know before and helped us learn something new. We now have Reiki training at Moonflower Yoga taught by Connie helping to bring healing to people, as well as IET/Angel healing training taught by Chris. I am grateful to all of the great instructors and workshop presenters for making Moonflower Yoga a special place.
I am grateful to my hometown of Bellmore, Long Island, in New York’s Nassau County. I have been welcomed in the town, and it has been awesome to establish my business roots here as well as my home roots.
I am grateful to my yoga teachers who helped me discover the wonders of yoga many years ago. Yoga has been my rock when things were stressful, and now it has become my life. It all started with attending my first yoga class, and it grew from there. Yoga can help you too!
What are you grateful for this holiday season? Take a moment to reflect on the blessings in your life. You will feel inspired! Have a wonderful holiday.
Coping With Stress by Nancy Weshkoff
Coping with Stress
By Nancy Weshkoff
Life can be tough. You may find yourself in a situation where you are caring for children, in addition to aging parents. Employers are demanding more from employees, and with electronic media, jobs that were previously 9-5 are extending past this, as you may be expected to be checking and responding to emails in the morning or in the evenings. Teens and young adults find pressure from social media. Children are feeling stressed from rigid testing requirements. Yikes!
Stress has negative effects on our health. It contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the US. Stress has also been linked to other health issues. We need to find healthy ways to cope with stress.
At Moonflower Yoga in Bellmore, we have instituted a great, new program to help you cope with stress. On Tuesday nights at 7:30 PM, we have a “Stress Buster” group of classes, with each class designed to help you feel more relaxed and calmer. These classes range from meditation with mesmerizing singing bowls or guided meditation while comfortably seated in a chair, IET/angel healing where you can learn to work with the healing angels, a Reiki healing circle where you receive a relaxing Reiki treatment while reclining on a massage table, a candlelight restorative class to help you stretch and deeply relax with bolsters and blankets to support you, etc. Our great yoga and meditation teachers have designed these fabulous classes to help you feel calmer and relaxed, putting you on a path to good health.
If you are on the south shore of Long Island, in Nassau County (New York), come try one of these great yoga, meditation or specialty classes in our Stress-Buster series. Discover the calmness that comes from these relaxing classes!
Chair Yoga by Nancy Weshkoff
Chair Yoga
By Nancy Weshkoff
One of my favorite yoga classes to teach each week at Moonflower Yoga is Chair Yoga. It is a special yoga class to me because it enables yoga to be available to students who would find it challenging to be part of a regular yoga class. Chair yoga at Moonflower Yoga is not just for seniors – it is also great for women in the latter stages of pregnancy. Do you feel stiff and tense from sitting in your office chair most of the day staring at a computer screen? Chair yoga will teach you some stretching exercise that you can do from your office chair to alleviate muscle tension. For people with injuries that might make it difficult to be in a regular yoga class, Chair Yoga is also a great option.
For the seniors who do attend the weekly Chair Yoga class at Moonflower Yoga, I applaud them for trying yoga for the first time in their 70’s and 80’s. How cool is that! Chair yoga provides them with fabulous stretching poses to keep their muscles flexible. We also work on yoga poses to build strength. Each class also consists of mantra (chanting) to quiet your mind, as well as several minutes of quiet relaxation with bolsters, blankets, and essential oils to enhance the relaxation while you meditate. The mantras are something that everyone can use to help with stress reduction, as well as use as a tool if you are having difficulty falling asleep at night. Meditation is something that is helpful for everyone, and meditation is recommended by leading doctors.
Chair Yoga is wonderful for people of all ages. Come to Moonflower Yoga on Tuesday mornings and give this great yoga class a try! Moonflower Yoga is located in the town of Bellmore, in Long Island, New York’s Nassau County. You will love this great yoga class or any of the fabulous yoga classes on the Moonflower Yoga schedule from some of the best yoga teachers on Long Island.
Yoga and Your Bone Health by Nancy Weshkoff
Yoga and Your Bone Health
By Nancy Weshkoff
As an avid fan of yoga for many years, as well as a yoga teacher, I have experienced firsthand the many benefits of yoga. It is a wonderful practice for helping you feel great, reduce your stress, while teaching you to worry less as you focus on the present moment. The breathing techniques that you learn also calm you while bringing more oxygen to your organs. And your balance improves, which is very important as we age.
Did you know that yoga is also good for your bone health? Many of the poses that you do in yoga are weight bearing which helps to strengthen your bones. In a recent study, Dr. Loren Fishman tested the benefits of yoga on seniors who were suffering from osteoporosis or osteopenia. In this study, the test group performed a standard set of yoga poses on a regular basis. The test was conducted over a 10-year period with more than 90,000 hours of yoga practiced by 741 participants. The results were eye opening. During this period, no fractures or serious injuries of any kind were reported by the participants. Several participants also showed better internal support for their bones. There were also improvements in posture and balance. All of this is great news. Plus with yoga, there are no harmful side effects which you might experience from certain medications.
Yoga can be practiced at ANY AGE. At Moonflower Yoga, located in Bellmore, in Nassau County, Long Island (New York), we have students ranging from children to seniors. No matter what your age, you can always work on improving your bone health, as well as your health in general. If you have never tried yoga before, give one of our great beginner yoga classes a try. Our dedicated yoga teachers are here to help you, and Moonflower Yoga has a small class setting with personal attention, so we can work closely with you as you learn. Keeping your bones healthy is so important! A fracture or fall can be devastating. Come check out one of our great yoga classes and help improve your bone health today.
New Year, New Beginnings by Nancy Weshkoff
NEW YEAR, NEW BEGINNINGS
By Nancy Weshkoff
There is something very special about the new year. It is a time for new beginnings. One of my favorite authors is Lucy Maud Montgomery who wrote the wonderful “Anne of Green Gables” series of books. In this series, Anne Shirley made this comment after having a not-so-good day: “Tomorrow is a brand new day with no mistakes in it.” How true! If there were some things in 2015 that didn’t turn out as planned, just say goodbye to that, and turn the page to 2016. It is a brand new year!
One of the best things to do for 2016 is to take care of YOU. If you don’t take care of yourself, you cannot take care of the others in your life who may need you – children, elderly parents, spouse, your boss and co-workers, friends, siblings, etc.
At Moonflower Yoga, we have a great selection of yoga and meditation classes where you can take care of you. In just one hour you can de-stress, learn to take some deep, cleansing breaths to remove tension, and engage in physical activity designed to help you become stronger, more flexible, and improve balance. If you are afraid to take that first step, don’t be! Everyone is welcome and greeted who walks through the door. Our class sizes are small and semi-private in nature (with generally no more than 6-8 students per class). We have great yoga teachers who will pay attention to you and help you with alignment and feeling comfortable. There are many props at Moonflower Yoga to support you. If you have difficulty with a standing class, we have Chair Yoga on Tuesday mornings where you’ll get a great workout and feel amazing while seated in a chair. Or come to a Tuesday meditation class and find some inner peace and relaxation.
Make 2016 a year in which you learn something new. You can join us for the Moonflower Yoga Needle Arts Group where you will learn how to knit, crochet, or quilt, or try the Moonflower Yoga Book Club and go on a wonderful journey with a fascinating book. There are great workshops on the schedule to start 2016 including a Feng Shui workshop to learn how to situate items in your environment to get the best energy flow, the Ayurveda workshop where you discover your “dosha” type and learn how following the lifestyle for your dosha can help you reduce stress, feel better and sleep better. Or learn a wonderful healing energy such as Reiki in our Reiki training sessions or Reiki Healing Circle. Discover essential oils and how they can fill your home with aromatic bliss while also providing other benefits, and learn to make homemade, organic gifts using essential oils. Most importantly, you can feel relaxed while meeting new people and making new friends in one of our great workshops, training sessions, or events.
Here is to 2016 and its new beginnings! If you are on Long Island, New York, in Nassau County, come give Moonflower Yoga a try in the town of Bellmore. We would love to help you start the new year with a great beginning!
A Grateful Heart by Nancy Weshkoff
I wrote this blog 2 years ago during Thanksgiving week The sentiments expressed in the blog are still true, and I encourage all of you to take a moment to count the blessings in your life. Doing so can help you realize how amazing each day that we spend on this earth can be. Here is the blog, and I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!
As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, I am taking a moment to pause & think deeply about the holiday. If you look at the media blitz around us, you would assume Thanksgiving is about shopping for items you probably don’t need at discount prices. Stores are opening earlier and earlier, and this often means families spend less time together as they rush to get to the mall. What happened to this wonderful holiday with its family traditions?
Instead of the craziness of shopping, I am instead listing a few things in my life for which I am very grateful:
I am grateful for the many students who walk in the doors of Moonflower Yoga to attend a yoga class. It is such a blessing to have them at the studio each week, getting stronger, feeling better, and sharing a part of their lives at Moonflower Yoga. I love meeting each person as they walk in the door and catching up with them each week. Thank you to all of you who have made Moonflower Yoga a success.
It was 4 years ago this month that my life changed forever with the news that my job in corporate America was coming to an end with a forced layoff. Although that news was devastating at the time, it gave me the opportunity to try something new that I always wanted to do. Moonflower Yoga was born as a result of that, and I am grateful that my life changed for the better. As Gandhi very wisely said: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”.
Making a life change would have been very challenging if it wasn’t for the support of my husband, Bob, who has been my rock for the last 40 years. Bob, together with friends and family, supported me and Moonflower Yoga, and I am very grateful for their love and support. And Bob’s delicious, homemade desserts at our workshops, events, and Moonflower Yoga Book Club meetings bring a smile to everyone’s face.
Moonflower Yoga has great yoga teachers who work alongside of me each week and bring their love of teaching and helping people to Moonflower Yoga each week. I could not run the studio without them. And there have been wonderful workshop presenters as well, who have taught us some very interesting things that we didn’t know before and helped us learn something new. I am grateful to all of the great instructors and workshop presenters for making Moonflower Yoga a special place.
I am grateful to my hometown of Bellmore, Long Island, in New York’s Nassau County. I have been welcomed in the town as a new business, and it has been awesome to establish my business roots here as well as my home roots. I always learn something new at the Bellmore Chamber of Commerce meetings.
I am grateful to my yoga teachers who helped me discover the wonders of yoga many years ago. Yoga has been my rock when things were stressful, and now it has become my life. It all started with attending my first yoga class, and it grew from there. Yoga can help you too!
What are you grateful for this holiday season? Take a moment to reflect on the blessings in your life. You will feel inspired! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.
Reaching a Milestone by Nancy Weshkoff
Reaching a Milestone
By Nancy Weshkoff
August, 2015 is a personal milestone year for me. I am leaving one decade behind and starting a new one. And while that is a bit scary – and exciting – it is also an opportunity for reflection.
I am so very blessed to be doing something that I love in life. If you had asked me at the start of the previous decade, when I was on a fast track in corporate America, what I would be doing at the end of the decade, I would not have predicted owning my own yoga studio. Yet, here I am, on the verge of celebrating a 3-year anniversary for Moonflower Yoga.
One of my favorite sayings is that “everything happens for a reason”. When life in corporate America came abruptly to an end with the sale of the company, it put me on a different path. Helping me to decide what to do next was my yoga practice and meditation. And through that process, I chose the path of becoming a yoga teacher and opening Moonflower Yoga.
The journey of creating Moonflower Yoga has resulted in meeting so many wonderful people in my life. I am eternally grateful for the students who choose to come to a yoga class or workshop at Moonflower Yoga each week, as well as the great group of yoga teachers who share their love of teaching with the students. I am also grateful to the friends and family who support me.
And, so now, here is the next decade of my life with a brand new slate of possibilities. I am looking forward to seeing what this next decade brings.
If you are in the area of Bellmore, on Long Island’s south shore of Nassau County (New York), please stop by and say hello! It is always nice to meet new people on my continuing journey into my next decade.
Changing the Channel by Nancy Weshkoff
Changing the Channel
By Nancy Weshkoff
One of my favorite quotes is from the remarkable Thich Nhat Hanh: “There are thousands of channels in in our consciousness; it is up to us to choose the channel.” So much wisdom in just one sentence!
When we discuss this concept in my yoga classes at Moonflower Yoga, I suggest to my students that they should think of their minds as cable television with a remote control. If you are sitting at home with the television set on, and if you come across a program that you don’t like, you use the remote control to change channels to something else that you do like. It is the same with your mind. If an unpleasant image pops up, change the channel to something more pleasant and concentrate on the present moment. YOU are in charge of the remote control.
So why is this important? In our yoga classes at Moonflower Yoga, we stress the importance of being in the present moment. When you focus on the present moment, you strengthen your body and become more flexible as you concentrate more fully on the alignment of your pose and your breath. When you concentrate on the present moment, it also means finding that inner peace that reduces our stress because you have released regrets from the past and worries about the future.
In all of our yoga classes at Moonflower Yoga, we teach our students techniques to help you relax, feel calmer, and learn to be more in the present moment. If you are in Bellmore, on Long Island New York’s Nassau County, come and try one of our amazing yoga classes or workshops taught be a dedicated team of great teachers as we help you to become more in the present moment and find that inner peace. You’ll feel great!
