Social isolation is one of the modern health pandemics. All ages and kinds of people have fear around connection and intimacy. Perhaps you wonder how to develop more meaningful relationships to those in your life. How do we turn towards love and belonging? How can we cultivate the freshness of feeling our feelings of fear […]
Category: Mental health
What does “bliss” mean to you?
Five years ago, if you’d asked me what bliss looks like, it probably would have been an image of me in the center of … something. I would have been at a book signing, the front of a packed yoga workshop, the cover of a magazine. I cringe a little writing that, but I’ve always […]
Balance is bullshit
Go hold a tree pose for 10 breaths. What do you feel? You’re wavering quite a bit; your ankles are quivering, your hips sway a bit side-to-side, you may even notice your whole body moves front-to-back. The illusion is that you are standing steady and perfectly balanced, but you’re actually just constantly working toward balance, […]
How to prevent burnout
Rest comes in a lot of forms. We think of ‘rest’ as meaning a true vacation, but it doesn’t have to. Whatever it is you are digging deeply into, rest simply means to dig deeply into something else for a period of time. It requires you to put your primary occupation on the shelf while […]
Finding your Inner Support System in Life
Recently, in a mom therapy group, our facilitator spoke to us about resiliency. She asked, “What can we do to help our children be resilient?” The current generation of teenagers has some of the lowest resiliency rates we’ve ever seen; anxiety and depression rates are through the roof. What can we do to set the […]
Finding your inner support system
This week on the mat, we’ve worked on identifying the muscles that comprise the deepest layer of support for our posture. We regularly hear about the psoas and transversus abdominus, but what about the multifidus and pectineus? When we are in a state of functions, these muscles work without our conscious engagement; unfortunately, many of […]
Use the right tools
I returned last night from a week-long trip to visit my family. Hollis met her great-grandmother, great-aunt, great-uncle, aunt, a second cousin, and two first cousins. She went to a luncheon, her grandfather’s workplace, the zoo, the pool, and the pickle ball courts. And she did it all with her best friend – Flapjack – […]
Hollis’s Birth Story
It’s a big practice in the yoga world to share birth stories; many “celebrity” yogis get press highlights to share theirs. Throughout our pregnancy, and now with Holly at home, my primary feeling is one of protection. We’ve waited a long time to have this sacred experience, and I feel the need to keep it […]
Try This Instead of Making a Gratitude List
Yesterday, our teacher training group was discussing contentment. What do you do to be more content? The question caught us all a little off guard, as we realized an active contentment practice is something we should have but mostly don’t. One student asked, “Does being grateful help? How about thinking about people less fortunate than you […]
What are you devoted to?
At the end of my teacher training, I sat in the center of a circle while the people around me “bombed” me with love. One friend said, “You are a very dedicated person, and I respect that.” She was right. Since childhood, I’ve been good at dedicating myself to whatever holds my attention. You could […]