Author: Ki McGraw

Every year our most senior students at the Hatha Yoga Center choose a posture for us to focus on all year. This year it was agreed that the posture will be Plank, like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg practices daily. Special attention on alignment, with classic cat and cow postures will broaden that focus to insure safety as we strengthen and open.

In personal training, Plank is considered to be one of the Pillar postures. It is basically the preparation position for push-up. Holding the posture while breathing, correctly aligned, results in a stronger core. With a stronger core, we are able to remain centered, as we experience these first days of 2020, and perhaps throughout the year, as well as the decade.

What practices will help you stay centered through this new year? In what way can you ensure safety as you strengthen your core alignment? Ki to Happiness practices staying centered safely.

It’s a good practice to select one word for guidance and intentional focus for the new year. More likely to stick with it than a resolution, research shows. And it can be used as a mantra, repeatedly saying it for spiritual benefit. This year, I’m selecting Sovereignty.

Sovereignty gives me the full right and power to govern myself, without interference from outside sources. I do so in awareness of the current legal and civil agreements I’ve chosen to live within.

What word comes to your mind as you contemplate this practice? How might you sum up your truest intentions for this new year, and this new decade in a single word? Ki to Happiness upholds your sovereignty in selecting your word of the year!

Happy new year. The fireworks have all quieted now. Peace crackles in the stillness. The earth has completed another cycle of orbiting around the sun. Life continues.

Bringing into this newness wisdom from what has gone before, evolution is possible. Connecting with Guidance, all is as it need be for the next iteration of consciousness expressing itself physically.

What wisdom do you bring forward into 2020? How connected are you to Guidance? Ki to Happiness delights in manifesting peace.

This day begins with a focus on New Year’s Eve. 2019 is about to end. And with that the entirety of the decade of the twenty-teens. In retrospect, we look back in order to be emboldened as we move forward.

What are you grateful for at the end of this year? How have you grown and changed and evolved in this decade? What continuity is present in the midst of these changing calendar pages?

Ki to Happiness is grateful for you, dear readers, and the blogosphere that has brought us together here. Gratitude is one continuing practice to bring with us into the twenty twenties!

This morning, at 10 AM I teach my final yoga class for the Hatha Yoga Center this year. The practices sustain me in a way that inspires me to continue teaching and training future teachers as well as working privately with clients on all levels. On a daily basis, it fills my empty cup, to overflowing.

I was first asked to teach in the mid-80s. 35 years have passed, with many changes on the planet, in myself, and in the awareness of the ancient practice globally. The practice itself, remains the same with its broad inclusion of the body, mind, emotions and spirit. Integrating these aspects of self into oneness and joining with the greater Oneness brings happiness, serenity, and peace.

How will you spend these last days of 2019? What has consistently sustained and inspired you? Ki to Happiness encourages you to give that preference…

As the calendar page is nearly ready to be turned, we have this Sunday upon us. How can we best spend it? Which practices will best assist you?

In your reflection through the fall, and the beginning introspection of winter, what has presented itself? Who do you wish to communicate with? What would you like to complete? What loose ends can you tie up?

Celebrating accomplishments and learning from our failures, both are appreciated as we look upon Life’s material with an eye toward spiritual growth. Ki to Happiness knows there’s great truth in the old adage “all is well that ends well”…

Time of great reflection is upon us. The end of the year, as well as the end of the decade, bring the opportunity for introspection.  Amidst the holiday busyness, festivities, and social obligations, it’s very important to find time and space for solitude.

Does the season of winter start for you in the same way as the beginning of fall? Does the year end finding you just as it began? Does this decade conclude with awareness of evolution? In your reflection, take time to appreciate your own efforts. Recognize that you are growing and changing, evermore consciously in the direction that you are choosing.

Ki to Happiness reflects daily on the slow steady process of manifesting the guidance Higher Power offers constantly.

As winter settles in, we are graced with the remnants from our holiday festivities. Gifts and leftovers fill our hearts and stomachs. Having boxed up our abundance and shared it with others, we experience greater spaciousness in our surroundings, as well as in our hearts.

What becomes visible is anything that has been neglected, so it also can be attended to before the new year is upon us. Hanukkah and Kwanzaa continue, bringing light and love through this whole time between National Holidays. May this light and love guide you during all of these holy days.

What continues to need attention? Who has been neglected? Ki to Happiness recognizance the Holy in every day.

Today we celebrate our abundance by offering items that are no longer useful, appreciated, or bringing joy to those who can make use of them. This ritual has begun in Canada, and is a great way to honor the new items perhaps you received yesterday, as well as to affirm the many blessings in your life.

This is occurring simultaneously with the new moon. As such, your generous offering to others will result in several benefits. A cleaner closet, more room in the pantry, as well as signaling the Lunar Cycle of energy to attract what we transmit. This will be affecting the next month, the new season of winter, the new year, which begins a new decade.

How do you foresee the future month, season, new year and decade? What of your abundance can you release, to offer generously to others who perhaps have less? Ki to Happiness knows that giving and receiving are the same.

I wish you all a merry Christmas.