“Yoga allows you to find an inner peace that is not ruffled or riled by the endless stresses and struggles of everyday life.” B.K.S Iyengar

Thanks to the conveniences of modern technology many of us now wake up and look at our phones first thing in the morning. We check emails, make phone calls, catch up on the whirlwind of world events online, and get on with our busy days often feeling frazzled and drained. Life can feel overwhelming at times with everything seemingly happening at once. At other times, especially in the last grey days of winter, life can just feel boring or dull and we may find ourselves feeling unfocused, uninspired and disconnected. 
Yoga can give us the opportunity to connect with a sense of inner peace, stillness and even joy despite the chaos. How? The practice itself connects us to our breath and through movement it brings us out of our busy minds and back into our bodies. Ideally this carries over to the rest of our day leaving us feeling better mentally, physically and emotionally than we felt before we got on the mat. So often being human means we live in endless pursuit of comfort, relaxation, stimulation, and happiness in general outside of ourselves. Through the practice of yoga it’s possible to step off of the merry-go-round of life each day, to reconnect with and even make friends with our bodies (in whatever shape they may be in) and to calm our monkey minds. When we allow ourselves to get quiet & and for that brief time to go within to that place of inner stillness and peace that lives inside of all of us, it can feel as if the world stands still. 

My name is Tara and I currently teach Basic Yoga on Friday’s at 9:30am at Puravegan. I encourage and invite anyone who is interested in yoga (*and able to get up and down from the floor) to join us! Staring Wednesday March 15 I'll be adding a 10am class to the schedule. Check the Puravegan website for details.

If you're stressed out, there are so many ways that yoga can help. Typically when you are stressed out your breathing becomes shallow and you hold tension in your body. Yoga can help you release tension and breathe deeper, not just in class, but with time outside of class when you feel stress creeping in. You don't have to be flexible or able to touch your toes. Yoga teachers know how to help you get the most benefit out of your time on the yoga mat, offering you modifications when necessary, which also helps to avoid injuries. We hope to see you in a class soon!

Sol Asar was born and raised in St Louis and has been sharing his culinary creations in the PuraVegan kitchen for a few years now.  When he isn't creating magic in the kitchen, he is focused spreading the knowledge of body mind and soul. He is a Reiki Level 1 healer, a student and teacher of Kemetic Yoga (Sema Tawi) activist and musician. Sol is interested in awakening the divinity within humanity.  

​
Sol  currently offers the following weekly class:
- Kemetic Yoga & Meditation, Fridays, 4:00 - 4:30pm, Donate what you can afford

​Ellie views yoga as a healing practice for both the mind and body. Ellie began practicing as a hobby around 2011 long before she understood the incredible medicinal benefits of yoga. Around 2013, she developed a committed personal practice and learned to release emotions stored in the body. Ellie loves to share a holistic approach to yoga and she hopes to encourage ease, flow, and acceptance through out her classes. In addition to practicing yoga, Ellie is incredibly passionate about whole body wellness, nutrition, and personal development.

Ellie currently offers the following weekly class:

• Wednesdays, 5:45pm, Yoga Flow, Donate what you can afford

​Josh's classes are focused on finding a deep connection to breath. Use of breath to clear the mind and the body of stress and fatigue. As you move through postures or sequences you are reminded to stay with the movement of practice with clear mind to the best of your ability. His inspiration for the design of classes comes from Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga. Get ready to open up and breathe!

Josh currently offers the following weekly classes:

• Tuesdays, 6pm,  Powere Vinyasa Yoga,  $10 drop in
• Wednesdays, 12pm, Power Yoga,  Donate what you can afford
• Thursdays, 9am, Vinyasa - All Levels, $10 drop in

written by Monica Stoutenborough, PuraVegan Owner
Ten years ago I never would have believed that I could feel this amazing. In fact, I didn't even realize just how bad I felt until I started feeling GREAT! I was 30 years old, beginning to gain weight, accumulate a variety of medications, suffered from regular migraines, and serious digestive pain. In spite of all that I thought that I was healthy simply because I was a vegetarian. Boy was I wrong. I was surviving on processed vegetarian food that was lacking in nutrients but abundant in calories, cholesterol, additives and lots of words/chemicals that I cannot pronounce. 

In 2007, I took the plunge to eat a healthy oil-free plant based diet and it was a real shocker. Before I knew it my migraine medication had expired because I wasn't requiring it, my digestion pain was gone, I lost 30 pounds and felt like a super human! My weight loss took place over many months, but the relief from pain and discomfort was almost overnight. I felt like I discovered something that was too good to be true and became the office health nut at my job. ​​

In assembling the amazing group of employees and teachers at PuraVegan we have built a team of passionate, positive, health focused people that want to help YOU. Please come in and try a class, the food, check out some of the books in our shop - many of them were motivators and catalysts for change during my transformative period and that is why we stock them.

I teach a donation based 30 minute Intro to Meditation class every single Tuesday evening at 5:30pm. If you cannot afford a donation for that class I am personally inviting you to attend anyway. Bring a friend. I don't care how healthy you eat - if you are stressed out your immunity is still compromised. It is time to take care of yourself and your whole body. Do not think that you have to be affluent, skinny, perfect or anything other than what you already are to start living the life that you desire. Your time is now - and we at PuraVegan would love to help support you on your path to feeling AWESOME!  You start from here and now.

Sincerely,
​Monica

This is for our meditation students that would like a guided meditation for at home. Kim Eng guides you through a ten minute breath focused meditation.

"Take Action! An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention." ~Dr. Steve Maraboli

It's December, do you remember what resolutions & goals you set last January? Did you accomplish any of these goals, make progress, or forget about them by February? If you fall in to the later category you are not alone. According to Forbes Magazine only 8% of people are successful in achieving their New Years Resolution. Here's the thing, intentions are great to get us started, but action is what gets us where we really want to go.

You've heard the saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. Of course most of us 'intend' to better our lives each New Year by eating healthier, losing weight, quitting smoking, or exercising more. But we seem to either lose sight of, or just get worn out by, the work that is required to make a real lasting change in our lives. What if we took resolutions and intentions out of the equation and just focused on one thing, one action step that we can take each day to move us closer to how we want to be? Instead of saying to yourself, "2016 is the year I will lose these extra pounds!", what about saying 'I will do one healthy/new/scary thing each day!' Would that take some of the pressure off yourself to clear some huge self imposed hurdle, to break it down to a daily goal? After all, small 'wins' can snowball and help us build momentum to keep moving in the right direction.

I believe in being kind and compassionate to yourself. I also believe in stepping outside of your comfort zone to stretch yourself, to grow, to evolve and maybe even surprise yourself. We can start to make change in our life with something as simple as spending 5 minutes first thing in the morning in silent meditation, just allowing ourselves to breathe and set the tone for the day. Or how about going to bed at night with a guided loving-kindness meditation online to end the day with gratitude. Maybe you don't feel ready to come to a yoga class yet, but you could check out some short beginner yoga videos online in the comfort of your home. The simple movement and breathing can actually start to shift how you live your life by allowing you to really honor your body and spirit, to really listen to what you need.

Change does not happen overnight, but the person taking a short walk each day is literally going to be miles ahead of the person who stays on the couch. So take action today, THIS IS YOUR LIFE! Interested in trying out some basic yoga and meditation at PuraVegan to kick off the New Year? I'm offering a 75 minute Intro to Yoga Class on Saturday January 9, 2016. Check out the website for details, call, or sign up in person. In the meantime, I also encourage you to check out the Meditation & Yoga Nidra classes currently on the schedule. If you're ready to start now, we're here for you and we'd love to see you!
​

written by: Tara Beckmann

​When you see or hear something about yoga, does it just seem like something that requires you to be young, flexible, thin, basically ‘in shape’ to practice, and that it is therefore, not for you? Have you seen posts on social media that make yoga look like more like a performance or a feat of contortionism that appears to put the body in terribly uncomfortable looking positions and just thought, ‘No thanks.'? 
I’d like to help in any way I can to make the practice appear less intimidating, more approachable, and actually doable! My hope is that more people will see that yoga is a deeply personal practice, something you do for yourself, and that it can be whatever you want it to be, whether you come to our studio or any other, or simply decide to start a practice at home. Know that your choices are not limited to ‘hot' ‘power' ‘flow’ ‘vinyasa’ or whatever classes. You do not have to do headstands if that’s not your thing, and in fact, I highly recommend checking out beginner, basic, yin, restorative classes, or intro classes if you are indeed a newbie. If you haven’t practiced in a while, or maybe you used to run, hike, bike, weight train or whatever, and you’re just interested in getting yourself moving again, you might actually enjoy a Zen Yoga class with me. I used to weight train and hike, I love to move, and I’ve always been active in general. 
As time went on though, the weights and the trails left me feeling sore, and not really in a positive growing pain kind of way. More like a repetitive use kind of soreness. In addition to that, I had always struggled with insomnia, anxiety and depression. I got sober and stress did not magically disappear, in fact it got a lot worse at times. I struggled with socializing and feelings of loneliness and isolation. For me personally, going to a yoga class became a way to be around other people, but not in a way that I felt obligated to talk necessarily. It became an opportunity to take ah hour long break from ‘reality', to check in with myself, to clear my mind by moving my body, breathing, and linking that breath with the movement. t’s a powerful tool for connecting to your own intuition, to find your own inner reserve and resolve, to get down on the mat and simply get to know your body. For all of these reasons, I decided to study so I could teach this practice to others to help them find a better experience of life in the way that it’s helped me.
My yoga practice gives me the ability to have a gentler, kinder and more compassionate relationship with my own body and mind. It is self care, daily hygiene, a time to work out the kinks in my system, both physically and mentally. It calms and settles me, and I can assure you that more times than not it looks nothing like an Instagram worthy post.