What if your life’s work is rooted in the essence of “being?” What if your highest purpose in this world is merely being YOU? Mellara Gold is a yoga & meditation teacher, intuitive healer, and author of her best-selling memoir, “A Life Worth Living: A Journey of Self-Discovery Through Mindfulness, Yoga, and Living in Awareness.” We explore her life story in this episode.

  * What being a Hollywood actress taught her

  *  Her near-suicide as the awakener

  *  Living free of “baggage”

As yoga practitioners we all have to live our lives off the mat as well as on it. In my new book ‘A Life Worth Living: A Journey of Self-Discovery Through Mindfulness, Yoga, and Living in Awareness’ it suggests living in awareness as an everyday understanding for living a more meaningful life. But, if you are (like me) a parent with a household and responsibilities to manage, bringing in and inviting that peace into your life doesn't always go to plan! If that sounds like you then here are some tips that sometimes help me to invite peace off of the mat and into my home and life.

Click on the photo to read more. 

words by Mellara Gold

Meditation is my temple - words by Mellara Gold

Keep it simple,” said the Dalai Lama. “There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; our philosophy is kindness.”

Meditation, or contemplation, is the seventh limb of yoga in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. These eight steps basically act as guideposts on how we can live a more meaningful and purposeful life. They invite us to live a moral and ethical existence as we bring our attention towards ourselves to live ‘healthy’ in all the many understandings of this word. And, if you are a yoga teacher, this is one of the very first things we are taught during teacher training.

It can overflow from there and become a lifetime of curiosity and understanding. For over 20 years as a yoga teacher I’m often referred back to the sutras for guidance and, as Patanjali might say, to refine personality, or gain more awareness in the body, and develop an energetic awareness of ourselves and all beings.

All of this is supposed to lay the foundation and prepare us to delve deeper into our senses, mind and being the higher vibrational state of consciousness that is available to not just a few, but to all of us. To read more please click on the image. 

How our yoga practice can help us to live a more authentic and down-to-earth life, one rich with humility. By Mellara Gold

In a world filled with inequality, exploitation, and injustice it’s hard to imagine being humble on the top of our list as a collective.

If our ancestors were alive today perhaps they might have this wish for us. A simple yet powerful intention of accessing our most humble selves — and if practiced with heart and soul — could change everything.

Having a consistent yoga practice we are asked to look into the very mundane of our lives and ‘become the sacred’ — in the ordinary of folding clothes, getting legs up the wall for a few minutes (viparita karani), or cooking a healthy meal for ourselves and loved ones.

In being humble, we enter into a state of service and it becomes an extraordinary experience.

And it is being of service to humanity that is at the heart of what yoga is really all about.

When we practice yoga, whether we are on or off of the mat, we are essentially remembering who we are. Our pure human kindness radiates and a humble heart takes centre stage. The more we can give back and nurture ourselves throughout our day, and not just on the mat — that’s what it’s all about.

Our new mantra becomes: ‘All of life is a yoga class’.

Why does it sometimes feel like our yoga is getting harder, the more we practice on the mat? It’s because we are learning about ourselves says long time yoga teacher, student and writer Mellara. To read more from this article just click on the photo 'Does Our Yoga Practice Ever Get Easier?'