I have just recently returned from sunny Atlanta, and I had such a great time. I always have a great time with my boyfriend and his family, but this time was super relaxing. While I was down in Atlanta I tried to be a productive YouTuber and upload videos, but that backfired, and I wasn’t able to upload. This empties video is what I planned to upload in ATL, but it is going up now. Hopefully, I will be back on my schedule of two videos a week for the rest of the summer (fingers crossed)
I am currently taking summer school classes. Despite summer school, I have many exciting things planned for Zen HairLife this summer including ZIYs, Art projects, home decor, gardening, and I will be doing several new hair videos!
I can’t wait for all of the new things it is going to be awesome! STAY TUNED
I am currently sending a huge spring welcome back to all of your lovely faces. Today is such a beautiful day, and I am happy to say that I can enjoy it because spring semester is finally over! This semester has been one of the hardest semesters of my college career. This year started out with a bang in the worst way possible, two major deaths in the family. I was also taking one of the most important classes in my major program, and I literally couldn’t deal. The stress consumed me and every day was like climbing Mount Everest.
So I know you are thinking “this is a super sad and depressing story when is the sun coming out” lol. Well, I thought the same thing and it took a lot longer than I expected. Yoga Teacher Training was something that I had already decided to do before all of the devastation happened. The way everything has played out I believe that God, the universe, the force put this teacher training into my life to change it forever. This training has helped me so much with the grieving process, the stress of school, and realizing that my life is in my hands, and I do have the power to change.
In this training, I quickly learned that becoming a yoga teacher and going through the ytt process is so much more than just learning to teach people yoga poses. Knowing that you never stop learning is something that keeps me so excited for the future. Being surrounded by such amazing and supportive people has been such a blessing! Now that spring is here and the sun is coming out I feel the same way about my life (or possibly due to the surge of sun sourced vitamin D I’ve been getting ). I have become super-connected to the seasons, the moon, and the natural energy around me. That is totally due to the increase of meditation, yoga, and mindfulness in my life. I am a firm believer that when you remove yourself from the artificial life cycle and put yourself back into the natural swing of being you are much more balanced and grounded in life.
Needless to say, ytt has been a blessing so far, and I can’t wait to see what is to come 🙂
Check Out The Video For Some Different Info About How YTT Has Been 🙂
Hey, guys, I hope everyone is doing great! So I have some great news! I have started my eight months long Hatha RYT (registered yoga teacher) Training! This program is something that I have wanted to do for a while, and I am making a goal come true. The program started at the end of February, so I have already completed two sessions, and I have six months left. I thought it would be a great idea to document the entire process to see how much I grow. The program is an alignment based hatha yoga training, we have learned so much already I can’t believe it. We started practice teaching on day one, so we didn’t waste any time getting the ball rolling. It is proacticive that we started practice teaching early on because we get more comfortable teaching and with each other. The people in my training are awesome and very sweet, and our instructor Naomi is amazing and extremely knowledgeable. I hope you guys follow me on my journey to becoming a yoga teacher; it should be an exciting ride.
I talk a little more about my feelings about the program and other things in the video. Let me know if any of you guys are yogis or are in teacher training, I would love to know.
Hey, guys what’s shakin?! I hope that you all are doing well. Recently I traveled to Los Angeles with my boyfriend for spring break. This trip was my first time to California, and naturally I loved it! I don’t know how one could not like California it’s magical. Needless to say I bought quite a lot of things from a ton of cool places in L.A. My favorite places were Little Tokyo, Chinatown, Santa Monica, and Malibu and everywhere in between. This trip was so fun and relaxing, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. School this semester has been so stressful and aside from school my life has been pretty stressful as of late. Traveling to California reset me and I’m ready to finish this semester. In this video, I show you all of the cool things I purchased while in L.A., and I hope that you enjoy it. Let me know where is your favorite place to travel? Oh and by the way if you live on the east coast as I do can you believe that it is still snowing in the middle of March with the beginning of spring coming in 2 days!!!! BANANAS
Anywho I hope that you have had and enjoyable day and that you enjoy the video! ☺
Hi, guys, I hope you all are doing well. I like to use my blog as sort of a diary along with the topic of the video. So that is what I will continue to do, and I hope you enjoy that. Anywho my personal life has been a bit crazy to say the least, but I do like to look on the bright side so it could be worse. As many of my veteran readers know I am in university, this is my second to last semester, and I am so ready to be finished. School is nothing if not stressful. So totally random but as I am writing this I had the idea to do some de-stressing DIY(ZIY) video for my holistic living series (so look out for that). When I am stressed, I find that nothing brings me back to a good headspace more than yoga and meditation. I feel like regular meditation allows you to be your ultimate self and break out of the fog of a stressful period. So I think that it is so fitting that this video/post is going up right now in my life (no coincidence). In this video, I just give you some basic tips on how to approach meditation for the first time or make it more powerful for yourself. It is difficult to navigate the world if you don’t have a sense of self, and how can you have a grasp of yourself if you have not ever had time to be with yourself. Meditation is more than chanting, it’s for everyone, it’s for you! I encourage you to watch my video and try some of my tips, you may not like all of them but that’s part of learning yourself. Take some time every day to be with yourself FULLY and see what comes of it!
Love yourself! You guys are awesome ☺
Hey, guys, it’s Maya!
Lol, I don’t know whom else you would be expecting, but it’s me! ☺ So let’s get into it. Over the last few months, my skin has been going through it! Most of you know that I have parched skin and eczema sometimes. I have discovered that along with moisturizing your skin continually exfoliating is crucial for the rough, parched skin. The reason being when you have dry skin it is important keep your skin cells turning over. Now, what the heck does that mean? When you want to get your dry skin from scaly to smooth and from lifeless to youthful, you need to get rid of those old skin cells. This process is an essential component to revitalizing your skin. I love this brown sugar body scrub that I call lemon cookie body scrub because it smells like a lemon cookie! It is simple and fast, and anyone can make this. So I hope you enjoy this video and the scrub more importantly. Let me know how you like it! Talk to you later ☺
LIVE A ZEN LIFE!
Wow, today is Christmas Eve, and I really can’t believe it. This year has been an excellent one I must say. I have grown and learned a lot, but I will talk more about the year in my New Years post. I have finally gotten to the age where Christmas is more about giving than worrying about getting stuff. I have been having a lot of fun buying and making gifts for friends and family. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, it is nice to have the little time to spend time with friends and family. After this incredibly stressful semester (probably one of my most stressful ever) it’s great to be able to sleep and chill. Filming my winter curly hair routine is a video I have been planning on shooting for a while now, and I finally had the time. I had a lot of fun filming and editing this video, and it is my little gift to you guys☺.
For my winter curly hair routine, I like to keep things extra moisturized and simple. As always I deep condition, wash, and detangle/condition before I do any styling. I typically like to style my hair under running water in the shower; my hair turns out best when styled soaking wet. Giovanni direct leave-in conditioner is so great for wintertime because it is the perfect thickness. Then I like to apply oil on top of the leave in, although it’s winter I still like to use a light oil (apricot has been nice but I love Argan right now). After that the last step is to apply my styler, you guys know that I like gel and jelly kind of products. I am in love with kinky curly curling custard, and it is great for the winter because it doesn’t have too much hold, but it holds in moisture. Anywho let me know what you guys think of my routine and I hope everyone is enjoying your time off and time with your family.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND MERRY CHRISTMAS ☺
Waddup! So I’m not even going to say anything about how horrible I have been about posting because I just did lol. Sooooo if you guys haven’t noticed, we have upgraded!!! I am now zenhairlife.com, which is super exciting for me. There are just so many things that have occurred since the last time I posted. For one, I am finally 21, I’m not sure if talked about it before but my birthday was two months ago now! This semester has been crazy, and I’m just trying to survive out here since I’m semi-close to the end. College has been an eternity and a blink of an eye all at the same time. I am quite ready for this Thanksgiving break, although Thanksgiving is not what it used to be for me (being plant based), although I am excited to be with family and have fun. So IDK about you guys but here in D.C. it’s frigid, and I know it is only going to get colder which makes me sad. I’m not sure if I’m the only one, but I love and hate winter so much. I love the feeling in the air and the spirit of the universe during the winter time. There is something about winter that is so still, and calm, almost silent. On the other hand, my skin gets so dry, and I sometimes swear the air is so fierce that it whips the chapstick right off of my lips lol!
On Another note, I have a lot of good New Years resolutions already. I never really do the whole new years resolution thing, but this year I’m excited (apparently I’m getting old). Anywho I have lots and lots of work to do, but I did just upload a video so if you want some more Zen HairLife then head over to the YouTube channel.
Hey, There Friends hope you are doing well. I am now in the third week of school already I can’t believe it! I already have papers, tests, and quizzes that I should be working on now, but I am writing this blog post lol. On the bright side of things my 21st birthday is coming up in three weeks and I am pretty excited. I am also doing a mini hair challenge keeping my hair up in a bun to decrease on the tangling and dryness. I am not sure how long I am going to do this for, but I will let you guys know. So I know a lot of you are super excited about my new video because many of you have highly requested cooking videos so I gracefully and happily obliged. Tofu scramble is something that I enjoy especially as a plant-based eater. I was never really an egg person before I became plant based except for eggs Benedict I loved eggs Benedict (with salmon I never really did pork). Nevertheless, tofu scramble is something that I enjoy; my favorite one is from a place called Flying Biscuit in Atlanta, Ga it is amazing! I decided to make the version of tofu scramble that I make at home that I adapted from bonappetit.com and put my spin on it. I hope that you guys enjoy, send me pictures if you decided to make it yourself with the hashtag #zenhairlifetofuscramble.
Ingredients:
One block of extra firm Tofu
Two tablespoons vegetable oil
One small onion, chopped
One small green bell pepper, finely chopped
Handful of mushrooms, Sliced
Small bunch of Red Kale, Chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
One teaspoons ground turmeric
One can of black beans, rinsed, drained
2 Teaspoons of Low Sodium Soy Sauce
Salt and pepper To Taste
Hey, Zen lifers how’s it going? I am officially back in school my 4th year of university. For quite some time, I have wanted to do a juice fast. I have done juice fasts in the past but never completed them the way I wanted to, or I didn’t exactly complete it at all. The week prior to the first week of school I thought would be a great time to do it. For me, fasting or cleansing is never about losing weight. It is always about mentally and physically detoxifying myself. Fasting is not an easy thing to do, we have such an attachment to the act of eating not just food. I realized while I was fasting the agony and hunger you feel the first few days is not because you are deprived of food but because you are removed from the act of eating. Fasting takes a lot of willpower and discipline, and those are things you need to not only be successful but influential in life. The fast brought me closer to myself and helped me realize that appreciating the present is important, but it’s imperative not to dwell on the minutia and push toward your goal. If you have never done a fast, you may not understand how drinking fruit and vegetable juices and smoothies for five days can teach me all of this. I challenge you to fast for just one day and see how you feel. Acknowledge how you feel in the end and what you have learned. I feel that fasting is a physical meditation, and it does so much more for you than cleansing your system. To make a long story short I had a great time on this fast, and I am very proud of myself for completing it. About a week later now and I still feel great, I have been meditating every day. Day 3 of school and I already have lots of work to do, but it will get done with my 100% efforts. If you are interested in what I was drinking through the week and how I was feeling on the days, watch my video! I hope you enjoy 🙂
LIVE A ZEN LIFE
Zen HairLife 