Yoga & Life Empowerment: A Six-week, Self-study Practice Using Asana, Meditation & Diet to Achieve Happiness & Peace

By Sid McNairy

Yoga & Life Empowerment is designed for beginners and advanced yoga practitioners alike. It is a personal, six-week guide for anyone seeking a positive change in their life by transcending negative thought patterns and finding both physical and spiritual strength. The program brings out the spiritual practice of Nahi Warrior Yoga, which enco

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sid Yoga, LLC
• Release date: Jun 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997538335

Book preview

Contents

Praise for Yoga & Life Empowerment

Foreword

Preface

A Native American Prayer

The Beginning

Elements of Your Journey

Asana Practice

Week #1: Stand in Your Foundation

Week #2: Awaken the Witness Within

Week #3: Give Up Control

Week #4: Move with the Flow

Week #5: Let Your Heart Lead

Week #6: Live It in Every Way!

Going Beyond: Walking the Path with Love

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Foreword

Sid has been a committed student and teacher of Baptiste Yoga for many years. Over the years, I have watched Sid find his center of power as a leader, teacher, and coach. He has inspired and elevated countless people and empowered the Baltimore community where his yoga studios light up many lives every day.

Sid’s many years of training with and alongside me and Baptiste Yoga have made him powerful and practical as a leader and coach. He makes the profound results of power yoga real and accessible for athletes and people from all walks of life. Sid is an extraordinary coach committed to focusing his energy, experience, and passion to the empowerment of people who are ready to elevate their game.

Yoga & Life Empowerment takes a holistic approach to transforming your life. By combining yoga practice, meditation, and nutrition, Sid's program will strengthen you and awaken your inner fire to live your best life.

The dynamic six-week program in this book is powerful, effective, and easy to follow. Designed to work when done in a group or alone, it produces fantastic results. Whether you are new to yoga, experienced, or a seasoned athlete, follow this program and it will change your life. You will find Sid’s coaching style to be clear, from the heart, and supportive every step of the way. Yoga & Life Empowerment, like Sid, is real, full of heart, and will change your life forever.

Stay Gold,

Baron Baptiste

Preface

All things worthwhile take time.

All things great take commitment.

This book—this journey—began in 2004when I headed to Arizona for a vacation. It was on this trip that I met Aleyah Eyesafar, the first person who claimed to see my future. That future was to write a book that would touch many lives.

I was already writing in my journals, and this prediction inspired me to do more. Every night for a year, I would take time to write, just to get my thoughts down. I wrote about my experiences until the words began to flow upon the pages. Then, somehow, I found that my experience would be confirmed in the moments to follow, in the words of others or in something I read. I started to pay attention more and more to my experiences and realized that I was living the book that one day would help others. I knew that the walk I was on could lead others to fulfill their dreams as well.

Because I had a platform to share my thoughts, I was able to read my journal entries at the end of yoga classes and observe just what was coming up for others along the way. By 2006, I led a program called 40 Days to a Personal Revolution, developed by Baron Baptiste, my friend and mentor. As time passed I noticed that I was no longer teaching from a book. What I shared was flowing through me; I was conveying a new book, and I wanted to deliver it. I had exercises that would touch lives and shift how they were being in the world.

In 2007 I went out to the mountains on my first Vision Quest. A Vision Quest is a Native American process where we have an opportunity to sit and move into a deeper place inside of ourselves and become the person we long to be. Over the following years, I had a chance to continue to look within and uncover many layers, seeing all of my potential that resides in my heart. It is through the lessons of life and the lessons on my yoga mat that I would continue to land on the path to peace and to becoming my highest self.

I spent many nights and afternoons journaling, and in 2008, Yoga & Life Empowerment emerged as a program and a book for others. It is truly a blessing to have so many people contribute to bringing forward the many lessons that I have had the pleasure to reflect on and to birth a new dimension to my teachings. There were several nights we would sit around the table and talk and discover different ways of relating to one another. There just was no other way for me—my passion around bringing this forward would burn bright in the morning and all the way through the night. I would come home in the middle of the day, put on Krishna Das, and start writing until I was tired. Take a nap and then go and teach. Come home at the end of the day and write some more. This was my process to share the lessons of my transformation.

Yoga & Life Empowerment is for everyone. It is one of my gifts to the world. No matter how many times you take this program, you will continue to delve deeper within and elevate yourself to new heights. As you move through this journey, you will touch the lives of everyone around you and impact those who have passed by and those to come in the future. As we shift ourselves, the world is impacted in every way! No matter where you are, you have this book in your hand for a reason; this book has found you and this is just the beginning. Enjoy every step, as wherever you are is your destiny. Right here, right now!

As time passes, you will find that you are discovering a deeper sense of peace and connectedness to all people and things. You will notice that no matter what you are seeking—it may be happiness, it may be peace, it may be love or something else—you will find it. What I have found in my personal quest is that I have continued to share this with everyone around me. I have seen that, as my father said, there is no peace unless those that I love most have it as well. I love everyone, so I share this book with you, knowing that this is one step that will get you closer to the peace we all are here to discover. Where there is no peace, love is hard to find. May you find peace in every way so that you, too, can go out and love the world!

Blessings to you with every breath you take.

Peace and love,

Sid

A Native American Prayer

I call on the Four Directions, as you have set up the pillars in my life on the mountain.

To the keepers of the West, Brother Bear: If you send your medicine and your healing into this book as you have done in my life, allowing everyone to look within to find their space of healing, that helps us all heal in every way.

To the keepers of the North, to the grandmothers, the white buffalo, the buffalo woman who carried the peace pipe: Can you give us the wisdom to heal hearts and create a deep sense of peace throughout every being that experiences this program? From this space of peace, let them feel the love that flows from you to all of us.

To the keepers of the East, to the great eagle: Can you come in and give us the vision and those reading this book the vision to continue to grow and heal in every way, so that all creatures on this planet and those who are not on this planet any more, can feel it? From your eyes, from your vision that connects us to our highest as you fly, the highest of all the beings here, can you lift this book up as well?

To the keepers of the South: I ask that you come in and continue to bring in the reflection that we see in one another, the reflection of the coyote and the mouse, so people can learn how to let go of sweating the small things and begin to embrace all that is in your way.

To all of our relations, to the winged ones, the birds that fly through the sky, to the creepy-crawlers that wriggle on the earth, to the trees, the spirits, and all the others that I may be missing: May you join us as you have joined me on the mountain. Please come into this book and share your wisdom.

To Mother Earth: You have provided us the physical and held us in your arms when we have fallen apart. May you come with us and allow this book to have deep roots so we can help others reconnect to you, so they can see their reflection of hurt is causing the hurt on the earth, and when they heal themselves, they will heal you.

And to Creator, the Great Mystery that lies within each of us: Can we begin to know through this book who we really are in truth beyond the physical, beyond the money, beyond everything that holds us back in our fears, so we can let go of the illusions and understand that, through your love, we have everything.

- Sid

Chapter 1

The Beginning

We walk through life and have opportunities to step up or shy away. To be empowered, we are asked to step up. To empower others, we are asked to step up. This is your time to step up and shine bright!

Yoga & Life Empowerment is a self-study program that creates positive change in your life through yoga, meditation, nutrition, and presence. Its roots are commitment, awareness, and action. Choosing this program is a commitment to make an enhancement in your way of living. When we create positive change in our own lives, we are that example for others to do the same. To create this positive change, we must first become aware of the ways we are living now. This includes becoming aware of what serves us as well as becoming aware of what holds us back from growth. The goal of Yoga & Life Empowerment is to create personal empowerment within yourself so that you will know how to actively live in peace under any circumstance.

We want to love and to be loved. We want to live smiling, laughing, and being connected in happy relationships that support our dreams. We may claim we are content with our way of living, yet deep in our hearts we often feel anger, pain, jealousy, hurt, shame, guilt, and fear. These emotions and the thought patterns linked to them can inhibit us from living in love and peace in every moment.

I once had a conversation with a teacher along my path who asked me, What is your favorite vibration to live in?

I immediately responded with enthusiasm, Love!

She replied, Oh no, no, you don’t get it.

I was perplexed. How could she be telling me this? My favorite vibration was love! I knew I wanted love, I knew love was where I wanted to live. And then it hit me. No, you are right, I said. It’s not love. My favorite vibration is misery.

At that time in my life, I was going through many changes and was seeking to reach love. Yet I knew in my heart that I was unconsciously choosing misery so often that I was truly living in that space. This program will ask you to step back to take a look at your actions, your thoughts, and your feelings. When we see the big picture—and the parts of the whole that create it—we realize we have the power to create positive change.

Yoga & Life Empowerment will ask you to meditate, to eat a cleaner diet, to become aware of patterns and ways of living, to study yourself through journaling, and to begin or deepen your yoga asana practice. Through self-study you will find a deeper connection to your heart. You will find that your vibration will be that of true love.

To do this work, you must drop what you know. Surrender your past experience, surrender what you have been told by others before, and surrender what you tell yourself. Your involvement and commitment will bring you to do things differently than you have before. You will look at your life from new angles and be open to all parts of the process, including a yoga and a meditation practice. To reach the outcomes you seek, you must do some things differently. It is insanity to keep doing the same thing