from Another Way news

  "Constructive Living: Training for Daily Life" is a workshop to be held: May 14 (6:30-8:30) & May 15 (1:30-5:30) at Yoga East in East Brainerd. 

Asala Center will guide participants through tools based on Morita and Naikan therapies, geared towards living life in a more present, realistic, and appreciative manner.

To register, please email Constructive.LivingTN@gmail.com

or call Lauryn at (423)653-4478.

More information is available at www.asalacenter.com
Asala Center also offered Mother's Day Naikan activities at their blog, www.asalacenter.blogspot.com and plans to post more activities for Father's Day, so stay tuned.

This month, Asala Center continued to offer Chair Yoga to the Hamilton County Health Department and staff yoga to Signal Centers, Inc. Diana is in the process of completing her yoga teacher certification through the Asheville Yoga Center, and she was able to substitute teach for Lauryn, which was a great gift!

We would also like to thank Yoga East for including our information at their table at the Chattanooga State Health Fair.

Lauryn has been busy offering dance workshops through Zanzibar Studio, which can be found at www.zanzibarstudio.com

Mother's Day Naikan Activities

Naikan is a reflective practice which involves considering a more whole picture of the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.

Sometimes our relationships with our loved ones are complex or even tragic.  Naikan practice is not meant to deny that these are parts of reality.  However, through Naikan, one begins to notice how they have been supported in the world at different times in their lives.  Naikan is not necessarily meant to inspire guilt or gratitude but to cultivate awareness of actions and things we may have missed in the past.

In honor of Mother's Day, try these Naikan activities:

1) Calculate the money spent on you by your mother from age 0 to 21.  Try to be as specific as possible with your estimations.  Instead of calculating a broad cost for the food she bought for you, recall exact meals cooked and bought, to the best possible cent calculation.

2) Pick a birthday from your life and answer the following Naikan questions about that day, using very specific, concrete answers (instead of "laughter" try "My mother baked me a Betty Crocker cake and decorated it with soccer players"):
            What did I receive from my mother?
            What did my mother receive from me?
            What harm did I cause my mother?

3) Pick one of your mother's birthdays and answer the same three questions.

A portion of Naikan reflection involves "reporting out," and you may report your findings by writing constructive.livingtn@gmail.com if you choose to.