Daina Scarola, Ocean Art Studio: Good Morning Yoga Flow & Homemade Oatmeal Recipe

Some of the best ways to feel younger is to stretch, exercise, and eat well. It's great advice we hear all the time and know it to be true. Yet somehow the excuses not to take care of ourselves can fill an endless well. I know, I've been there. Half the battle is just getting ready to start. Here's a tip from the best-selling book "Eat That Frog": get yourself a journal. First write down your vision of who you want to be. Write it in the present tense. Next, write a list of 10 goals that you wish to attain this year. Of those 10 goals, choose 1 goal that would change your life in the best possible way. Now write down a time line of how you will make this happen, and all the things you need to do to get yourself there. Commit to this goal. Take it one step at a time, and it won't feel so overwhelming after all.

There is something about yoga that is immensely challenging and calming, helping to bring focus and clarity.

DVD available here

This morning I started my morning with a 70 minute DVD called Shiva Rea's Flow Yoga for Beginners. It's labelled for beginners, but most of her DVDs are quite advanced so I find this one isn't exactly easy. It is challenging enough to make your muscles quiver and burn, and your body break a sweat, all the while moving at a turtle's pace and holding poses that feel incredibly awkward and graceless in comparison to Shiva's fluid movements. But still, in a nutshell, I love this video.

Before I began my yoga session, I added ingredients in my rice cooker for a delicious hot oatmeal that was ready for me when I finished.

Here is my recipe. It's really just a hodgepodge of my favourite ingredients, so feel free to change it up.

1 part blend of Speerville Flour Mill's Organic 12-Grain Cereal and Organic Scottish Oatmeal to 2 parts water
1 cup of frozen mixed berries
1 Tbsp of maple syrup
1/4 Tsp of real vanilla extract
1/4 Tsp of cinnamon

When it's finished cooking, add 2 Tbsp's of Holy Crap "Dragon's Blend" cereal or your own blend of organic chia seeds and raisins. Let it sit for a few minutes, and enjoy!

The ingredients to the most perfect hot breakfast

The best wedding gift we received!
A small rice cooker.

Yum!

Here is Shiva Rea's Sun Salutation... "Yoga's sun salutations are among the most refined and effective movement meditations for health and well-being ever created. Originally practiced to connect to the sun's vitality—this precise combination of forward bends, backbends, and inversions awakens the breath and promotes circulation and inner balance through the flow of prana shakti—our creative life force. On Sun Salutations, internationally acclaimed vinyasa flow yoga teacher Shiva Rea presents a complete at-home course."

Tomorrow morning I invite you to set your alarm 15 minutes early, unravel your yoga mat, put on some comfy clothes, take off your winter slippers, and press play... Deep breath, open heart, big sky mind...