Today I want to share with you a blog post about the unique Mindful Body Training invented by Verena Hoflehner, who is a talented trainer, health coach, yoga teacher and a beautiful person, who has brought a lot of inspiration, joy, and happiness to my workout routines. She wrote this text to explain, in detail, how her technique works. I hope it will inspire you to join her classes in Vienna, Austria, or if you don’t live in Vienna, may encourage you to find a trainer or club where you can participate in body and mind training, in order to find your way to a more balanced mind and body.
In a era when we are always rushing from A to B and stressing ourselves out by trying to eat healthily, exercise regularly, look as good and work as much as possible and have time for our families, partners, whilst also trying to achieve our highest potential, we build up so many negative emotions that we get stuck with and, without really noticing, make ourselves miserable, tired and long way away from being our best.
My name is Verena, and it is my mission to empower as many people as possible to live healthier and happier lives.
I also used to feel like I had to do everything and be everything at the same time, which almost broke me. That’s why I created my Mindful Body program.
I’ve designed Mindful Body to strengthen the body and heart and calm the mind to achieve a total body and mind reset.
Mindful Body is a safe place where you can be yourself, whoever that may be. The 75-minute body & mind experience combines meditation with the positive aspects of yoga, such as balance, strength, flexibility and breath work with exercises that help to tighten the body and add muscle definition, while causing you to sweat out the bad stuff and become leaner.
Mindful Body has two core purposes. The first is to improve the body by focusing on lifting the butt, slimming the waist, toning the arms and burning calories, all of which lead to a leaner body. The second purpose is about creating awareness through feeling so that you can learn to let go.
Some of you may have heard about Osho and his moving meditations or maybe you’ve even practiced it. I can tell you it is incredible! It is an hour long process with five stages involving deep breathing, catharsis, mantra chanting, silence and finally celebrating. I first tried it when I was in a very stressful state. I had a lot of things going on in my life, and a lot on my mind, however, when I tried a shorter variation of Osho’s 60 minute session, I felt so good and relieved afterwards, that I knew I had to bring some aspects of his beautiful practice into Mindful Body.
Because of that, Mindful Body gives you an excellent opportunity to release feelings that cannot be expressed in ordinary life. Negative emotions that get stuck in us can affect our health and energy. At Mindful Body, you can release all of your negativity and make space for new positive things. Negative thoughts, feelings, self-doubt and relationship problems that hang over you can affect your whole body. Mindful Body allows you to feel and express everything that is inside of you so that you can begin to control them, rather than allowing them to control you.
Of course, you can make Mindful Body whatever you need or want it to be. You can come and work your ass off through exercise, or you can begin to work on things that are going on in your mind and find release. You can get angry; you can get sad – whatever you feel, it’s ok, you should allow it to be felt.
The advice I give at the beginning of every Mindful Body class is: Close your eyes and feel. Leave your ego at the door and dance like nobody’s watching.
Let go of all expectations, and preconceptions, be curious, be open and allow yourself to feel.
At the beginning of every class, we remember that we have all we need. You have you. Followed by a short meditation, you tune in for a moment and create awareness of how you feel because acknowledgment is the first step in changing. How are you feeling today? How is your body feeling? How is your heart feeling? How is your mind feeling?
I then invite you to find one thing in your life that is not good for you. One thing which you don’t need, regardless of how big or small it might be. One thing you want to let go of.
During our practice we work on our bodies as well as on our minds, allowing all of our demons to come up, so we that can let go of them
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By pushing ourselves to our limits we are trying to create a space for our unconsciousness and, through the intentional discomfort of physical conditioning, we see who we really are.
At the end of the session, we focus on all of the positive things in our lives, setting goals and making them happen. At last, we remember what we are grateful for, allowing us to end our practice with happy hearts and smiles on our faces.
The wonder of Mindful Body is impossible to express in words; you need to experience it to see and feel what’s happening. I encourage all of you to stop by and give it a try. See what it’s like to push yourself mentally and physically in order to achieve a state of higher wellbeing. Give yourself a chance, and I promise it will leave you feeling better, clearer and more equipped to face the ups and downs that life throws at you.
We practice daily at our beautiful studio >Body Concept Vienna< at Spiegelgasse 8/6, 1010 Vienna and I would love to see you there.
