Elissa Cirignotta, Writer, Entrepeneur, Kid Yoga Instructor, World Traveler.

For the past 12 years I have had what I thought was an unrequited love affair with Oprah. If I had to guess I'd say that I've written her about dozen, maybe even 18 love letters throughout the years. I have admired, and continue to admire, the message she shares, her charisma, the strength it takes to be such a powerfully influential role model, and the journey she has walked. She has inspired a collective shift in thinking; One that moves from hatred to love.
In Feb of 2011 a friend invited me to go to Chicago. We were going to see Oprah! She had won tickets to one of the final shows of the 25th season. It was spectacular and we were like giddy school girls. Liz wore sequins and I chose a rainbow poncho. We sat in the third row, winked at this idol, and each won a 2 night stay at Cesar's Palace in Vegas along with food and drink vouchers and tickets to Celine Dion. We would have left completely ecstatic, yet the interview for the national radio station following the show's filming was the most delicious icing a cake could have!

We loved our Cesar's Palace stay! Thanks for the love Oprah!

What's a girl to do but keep writing those love letters, right?

I didn't suffer too much of a loss with the end of the show as not owning a television and cable made it hard to keep up with it with any type of consistency. And life goes on.

Later that year I moved to Portland Oregon and I quickly began to make positive changes in my eating and exercise habits. My yoga practice started a few months before the move and I was jogging regularly. During one of my foggy morning jogs I stumbled across a free box full of old Oprah Magazine editions. I grabbed 5 and subsequently went home to start reading. Within a week I had submitted payment for a year subscription that was waiting to be read. I was surprised by how much I loved it. It was inspiring and talked about real life issues with solutions for positive improvements. It was spiritual and pragmatic while also providing an element of entertainment. For the past year I have diligently read every single word (minus the prescription ads) of every month's edition. I have wanted to understand the strategy behind the marketing, the article selections, and all the hows and whos and whys. I dream of being a contributing writer to the magazine and there's no reason for me to stop dreaming now.

On Friday afternoon (January 17, 2014) I was going through my O ritual; I drew a hot bath, poured a cup of tea, lit my candles, saged the bathroom, and relaxed with my magazine and journal. 21 pages in and almost finished with the "We Hear You" section, I completely lost it when I saw MY name. I was in Oprah Magazine! After falling out of the tub and running naked around the house for 30 minutes I cleared space on my phone for a new picture and sent the image to practically everyone I knew! I don't care what anyone says, I'm going to keep on dreaming, because for this Sicilian Jew, the sky is the limit! Thanks for the love Oprah.

 

 

 

 

I am open to all the good and abundance in the Universe. Thank-you life!

365 days Upside Down

I was inspired today to challenge myself in new ways. For the last half a year or so I've been following a handful of incredible internationally known yogis. I watch them practice a variety of beautifully balanced handstands, headstands, and forearm-stands every day. I imagine what it would feel like to be able to put my body in such creative and strong poses. And then all of a sudden it hit me: The only thing stopping me from doing the same is not doing it. This means that today marks the beginning of 365 days Upside down.


Day 1: I'm still needing some support (Thanks Greg) to get both feet up and I need to use the wall. My core must get stronger. We all start somewhere!
Please join me in the evolution of my inversion practice!
#365daysupsidedown

 

 

Day 2: I decided to do some upside down arm strengthening. Jesse and Greg joined in on the fun. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 3: Jesse helped me with my right leg. It just doesn't want to go upside down on its own! I spent 2 seconds without wall support. Getting better! Also I look headless. 

 

 

 

 

Day 4: I first tried to handstand in the grass. I fell. Here's me with my crutch, the wall. Greg helped catch my legs again. I'm looking forward to independent handstands.

 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (Lao Tzu).

 

 

 

Day 5: Greg helped get my legs up the wall. Left leg bends when I kick up which pushes me back down. I'm not over the fear yet. I spent 3ish seconds without wall support. 

 

 

Day 6: I did it! Today marks the day I did my very first solo handstand! January 6, 2014. No help. Still using wall support, but that's ok...it's only day 6! 

Retraction: I did have help. My dear friend Katy Mac gave me some great pointers. She suggested I walk my feet closer to my body, inhale fully, kick up after the next exhale while tightening the core and holding the uddiyana bundha. WaLa! 

Here's a glimpse at Katy's day 6 inversion. I love having a friend join me on this year long challenge!

 

 

Day 7: In one week's time I have become an independent handstander! I can get my body up and hold it away from the wall for up to 4 seconds. How did this happen? I can't wait to see what I can do in the next 358 days. It's more than just an inversion. I'm finding that I'm learning life lessons through this challenge. Keep Practicing guys! 

 #365daysupsidedown #365handstands #iwillhandstand2014 #ilpiantatore #imaginationyoga #happyhandstandprogress 

 

 

 

 

Day 8: Reality check. Couldn't get up. Maybe it was a mental block? The pasta I just devoured? The gloomy day? I tried 3 times before I asked Jesse for help. I resisted every inch of the way up. So I stopped and went into my handstand prep pose. Maybe tomorrow...

 

 

 

 

Day 9: Sometimes it's easy to get up and stay comfortable, secure, and strong. I like being upside. I look for it everyday. 

 

 

 

Day 10: I stopped to have coffee and conversation with Becky and showed her my new skillz. ;) 

 

 

 

Day 11: Greg and I grabbed our coats at the first sign of sunshine and took a quick walk to the park! This was my attempt to transition away from using a wall. Why was this so scary to me???

 

 

Day 15: I can handstand in a skirt! 

Day 18: Today I moved a few inches farther from the wall. I kicked up into a handstand approximately 15 times today. I was feeling pretty bold so I decided to also try my very first tri-pod  headstand. Without any resistance I went straight up and held the pose for a solid 10 seconds. I love this challenge!

 

 

 

Day 21: I'm really enjoying my inversions.  Here's the newest addition to my inversion repertoire. Everyday is brighter and better! 

 

 

 

Day 22: Today I took my biggest step away from the wall. I like knowing its there for support but its becoming less and less scary. Keep practicing. Part of the practice is learning how to fall with grace and ease. #yoga #yogi #yogalife #yogalove ##365daysupsidedown #365handstands #inversion #perseverance #namaste #upsidedown #practicedaily #yogaeverdamday 

Day 24: I tried to work on core strengthening for my daily yoga practice. This is a good prep to help hold the pose longer. 

 

 

 

Day 27: I'm feeling comfortable enough to get playful and try different things upsidedown. I'm excited about this discovery. 

 

 

 

Day 28: Crista, Katy, Jamie, and I took a moment out of our lunch break to handstand together. This week Imagination Yoga is having their annual teacher training. This year it's hosted at Nike! 

Day 31: One month in and I can independently handstand with wall support and forearm headstand away from the wall! This is craziness! Handstanding without the wall is up next! 

Life is beautiful

Learning Gratitude

             

This story has been reposted from http://imaginationyoga.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/learning-gratitude/

 

 

 

 

 

12 years ago, at the age of 18, my family went through a series of painful and life shifting events. Everything in my life felt dark and challenging. My coping strategy became gratitude. It was the only thing that gave me hope. My practice became one that propelled me to continue to move forward.  As I now understand it, gratitude offers us a glimpse of hope and hope inspires optimism.  Combined with other healthy qualities like: physical exercise, eating fresh food and deep breathing, gratitude contributes to a healthy mental atmosphere. And a healthy mental atmosphere is the birthplace of all things bright and beautiful, right? Right!

I began my practice by recording gratitude through photographs. I took and collected photographs of simply anything and everything that made my life seem brighter. Sometimes this was a rock and other days it was a stray cat or sunset. Years later when I was gifted a gratitude journal my practice evolved and grew to cataloging 5 positive experiences a day. This concerted and focused effort lead to more frequent and extended periods of happiness.

Even though I may not have understood exactly how or why it worked, the practice of offering gratitude created a shift within me. Gratitude connects us to each other and to nature. It taps into our creativity and makes us kinder and more compassionate humans. It inevitably transforms us into happier, more positive people. It helps us focus on being present in each moment and notice the small things like: the sound of raindrops, a stranger’s smile, the sun shining through a grove of trees, a thoughtful email, a home cooked meal, a soft pillow and warm bed, and the smell of creosote after a desert rain. It develops within you an appreciation for life.

Science tells us that gratitude has a profound and transformative impact on our health, happiness, energy levels, and longevity. Fortunately there is no age too young to begin this practice. Not only am I ridiculously thankful that I get to be an Imagination Yoga Instructor, I’m equally thankful that Imagination Yoga is a brilliant platform that teaches children how to experience happiness through gratitude, movement, and kindness. 

Each of my yoga classes begins by offering gratitude and ends by practicing self-love. It is my personal belief that gratitude and self-love are closely linked and as we practice one, our understanding of the other grows.  Shakespeare was onto something when it was memorably stated in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true.” At the beginning of class we take time to reflect on one event or person in their day that they are grateful for. After a few weeks of this activity we deepen the practice by adding a why. For example, someone might share, “I’m thankful for Penny because she played with me during recess.” or “I’m thankful that it rained and we had indoor recess because I forgot my coat, and was sad when I thought about missing playing with my friends outside.” The class concludes with each student stating an affirmation such as, “I am creative and a kind friend”.  By practicing both gratitude and self-love in my yoga classes my hope is for each student to intrinsically experience their abundant benefits.  

Some of my sessions are 10 weeks long while others are sporadic, making it difficult to know how this routine can impact each individual, but last week when a 16 year old girl with an Intellectual Disability walked up to me after class and said, “I am beautiful and smart! Thank-you!” my heart overfloweth!

Walk with courage, self-confidence, and faith! Oh, and by the way, the glass is half full.

Story by Elissa Cirignotta

Elissa teaches Imagination Yoga in and around the Portland area.  To find out more about her and her class offerings please check our website www.imaginationyoga.com or e-mail her directly at elissa.cirignotta@imaginationyoga.com   

 

*Ideas for strengthening your child’s gratitude ‘muscle’, in your classroom or home:

• Begin meals and family meetings with a gratitude circle where everyone shares a triumph.
• Teach your kids to savor positive experiences. Have them describe, act out, or share how that experience made them feel.
• Before bed have your children recall three ‘good’ things that happened during the day.
• Model the language! Freely and openly expand your own practice.
• Stop to smell the roses. Literally, stop and smell flowers with your children.
• Write a gratitude letter every month (11 for other people and the last one for themselves), not connected to receiving a gift, but rather for acknowledging and thanking someone for something they did.
• Start a gratitude journal and catalogue daily/weekly experiences.
• Have a gratitude jar in your home or classroom. Let children and adults freely add to the jar, read them aloud at the end of the day/week/month.
• Make a gratitude sunshine (see image) that can be hung in your home or classroom 

 

 

Project Androgyjumpsuit

Dichotomy of Life

How important is it to you to know the truth about yourself? All the light, all of the darkness, no difference.

What does it mean for you to investigate the darker parks?
Similar to many of you out there, I have a desire to understand my wholeness, my role, my place in this universe.
I am on this earth right now as Elissa Cirignotta and she is short with a bumpy nose. I am darkness and I am light. I am you. I am your daughter. I am this pen. I am your ex-husband and your friend. I am the dog barking in the distance and the car driving by. I am the sound of the wind. I am everything that is beauty.

The darkness seems less and less dark as I realize that the beauty does not, can not, exist without it.  For the darkness, I find myself thankful. I am thankful for my tears. I am thankful for the pain of heart hurt.

They are a part of this journey of beauty.

The very best in me honors the very best in you.

Did you know that hope and optimism enable achievement? Apparently hope alters brain chemistry which influences our decisions and the actions we make.
I've been spending a great deal of my time thinking, discussing, and researching topics like hope, love, and goodness. How are they measured? Or quantified? What makes happy?

Lately my free time involves me, a yoga mat, and downward dog. I've stepped up my yoga practice in the last month and now more than ever  I am experiencing this mind body connection, with my breath working as the invisible thread that links the two.  I am more in control of my body than I've ever been and with that has come a sense of calm within that makes every day easier and better. Don't get me wrong, things don't always go my way and the firey Sicilian-Jewish blood makes an appearance just often enough to assure me that I still got it; however overall, I find, that I keep celebrating life.

So here are a few things I know.
The more I celebrate life the more life I have to celebrate.
The more I move from judgement to caring, isolation to connection, and indifference to understanding the more I love myself.
The more I love myself the more I love others.
The more I love others the more I experience hope, happiness, and optimism.

The dopamine pleasure surge is highest when people become fully engaged  in the practice of optimism, gratitude, hope, and an overall sense of well being. What gives us that surge?
Drugs, alcohol, over-eating, participating in acts of kindness, making choices and solving problems, engaging in physical activities, enjoying creative efforts, collaborating, etc... The more consistent we are in experiencing pleasure and rewards that come from physical activity, creative efforts, social interactions and over-all positive experiences the less likely we are to engage in risky behaviors that could bring harm to us and others.
Because I strongly believe we are all connected to one another, I often experience that sense of urgency that we must immediately begin to focus on becoming the very best person we can be. It is no accident that when you look closely into the eyes of another, the very first thing you see, is yourself. We are all somehow connected.

I'm going to be 30 in 2 and 1/2 months and decided that I wanted to conduct a small experiment for the remaining time in my 20s.
Everyday in April and May I am going to consciously engage in an activity that is dopamine inducing and on May 31st reassess my overall appreciation for life.
I invite you to join me. Keep track of your activity and feel free to share with others. If you don't feel better after 2 months, I'm sorry; I'll be sending you cosmic love... If you feel great, then please continue to celebrate and learn with me. Let's start to live vicariously through our own lives.

The very very best in me honors the very very best in you.

April: These 5 suggestions should be practiced on a daily basis.
1. Either in a journal or on post-its, document 1 thing you are thankful for. (Do this before bed every night.)
2. Practice seeing yourself through the eyes of genuine compassion. (Explore what that means for you.)
3. Tell yourself, every morning, that you are beautiful.
4. Do one thing everyday that you fear. (Borrowed this one from good ole Eleanor Roosevelt. But seriously, do it.)
5. Think good thoughts. Remember, we create the world we want.

May: These are only suggestions, mix and match, add your own... What's important is that you consciously engage in one a day.
1. Go to a laundry mat and leave 6 quarters on 3 separate washers.
2. Write a letter to a friend.
3. Prepare a meal for a homeless person and go deliver it to them.
4. Give an inspiring book away.
5. Put $10 on a random gas pump.
6. Buy a stranger a lottery ticket.
7. Give something awesome away on Craigslist or Facebook.
8. Go to a yoga class. x20
9. Be bold in your appreciation of life; make a list of 10 things that you are thankful for.
10. Send a sibling or someone like a sibling a small token of your love.
11. Go to a local coffee shop and treat yourself to your very favorite bagel and chai and then leave $5 to go towards the next person that orders.
12. Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
13. Find a hula hoop and HOOP!
14. Leave a yummy chocolate bar for a colleague.
15. Leave your favorite book in a public space with a note in it.
16. Send a stranger a letter! (This one is fun!)
17. Leave special something(vegan cookies?) and a note for your mail(wo)man.
18. Tell yourself that you are beautiful, creative, and intelligent...everyday.
19. Plant wild flowers in your garden... Or sprinkle them around your community.
20. Leave a dollar bill taped to a vending machine with a note that says "Pay it foward".
21. Tell one person every single day that you love them.
22. Tell yourself, every single day, that you love YOU.
23. Make eye contact and smile when you pass a stranger.
24. Offer to help a friend.
25. Bring a coffee in for your front desk receptionist.
26. Write your favorite teacher/professor a thank you note.
27. Take a walk in nature.
28. Pet a cat.
29. Buy someone a flower. (It's such a nice surprise to receive a flower.)
30. Create something. Sit down and paint a picture, write a journal entry, make a collage, build a birdhouse, or sew a pillowcase.
31. Do something that makes you feel OH SO GOOD!



"Happy people are as unique and beautiful as snowflakes, while unhappy people are tediously, monotonously, excruciatingly the same." Martha Beck.