Here Comes The Sun!

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 🙂

LIVE A ZEN LIFE

Subzero Madness + ZIY Lemon Cookie Body Scrub

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!

Word Scramble, Mind Scramble, Tofu Scramble!

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

No Food For Thought

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