Living With Loss
Perspective + Psyche
Yoga + Movement
Seasonal Health
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Perspective + Psyche
manage your waste line
This was the clever title of an article in the SF Chronicle this past Sunday. Molly de Vries, from Mill Valley, is a self-described "passionate advocate for living a (nearly) non-disposable life." Though she refreshingly admits, "I'm not a minimalist. I'm even a bit...
memories
Like many people, at the end of every year I do a general review of how things have gone the past 12 months and some dreaming and scheming for the coming seasons. This has been especially helpful in business -- assessing what programs and events were well received,...
new year motto
Like many of you, I like to choose a word of the year. Something to use as a filter for decisions, a guiding idea, a reminder. I choose a word that brings a felt-sense of something I want more of in my life. 2018 seems to be a multi-word year, warranting the power of...
winter care
If you think about winter in elemental or weather terms, our climate here has been cold and dry. Hopefully we're are headed into some wetter months ahead, which will change how we ideally care for the physical body and our overall health. There's a system of health...
long way home
The most perfect description of the on-going-ness of spiritual practice and the practice of yoga -- or any relationship, for that matter -- comes from Mark Nepo, poet and teacher. Mark's most popular book, The Book of Awakening, was recommended by a friend many years...
winter solstice rituals
You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. -David Whyte Winter Solstice -- the shortest day of the year -- is Thursday. “Solstice” comes from two Latin words: sol meaning "sun"...
two new workshops
Workshops in the works! Two upcoming offerings... Seasonal Care : Winter to Spring Address the unique symptoms that can arise from the upcoming seasonal transition -- colds, mucous, sluggish energy and digestion -- using the accessible tools of Ayurveda and Yoga....
yoga philosophy for today
You know the phrase, "You get better at what you practice?" The follow up to this truth is the real wisdom: "So be careful what you practice." The spiritual path is hard work, and sometimes it's lonely. But we do it because we want to grow and learn and evolve as...
spread some cheer
A couple of years ago I had the idea to organize a group to sing carols at a local senior center. This time of year is loaded with baby memories and anniversary dates and ultimately incredible loss. It's also been my favorite season for as long as I can remember. So I...
the magic pill
If you've been in class lately, or seen me in the grocery store for that matter, you know that I can't stop talking about the book How Emotions Are Made by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett. This book is causing a bit of a ruckus in the psychology world, even though...
we are made of the stars
In spite of, or maybe because of, all the things going on in the world -- from political insanity to indefensible misogyny to nature's massive pandemonium with the California fires closest to home -- I found myself slightly obsessed with a recent 60 Minutes segment on...
on being human
The TV show The Voice is partly responsible for my passion around developing the Living Wholeheartedly with Grief and Loss series. Let me explain. I am a sucker for singing competition shows, particularly The Voice. I love the blind auditions, I love the banter...
two things i got wrong
No sure thing I’ve always appreciated the saying you don’t know what you don’t know, but never more than this. I was preparing for the Yoga Philosophy series, and I thought I’d double check the pronunciation of Saucha, our concept of the week, which means purity,...
joy *and* sorrow: santosha
“We try so hard to separate joy and sorrow into their own boxes, but the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama tell us that they are inevitably fastened together. Neither advocate the kind of fleeting happiness, often called hedonic happiness, that requires only positive...
get uncomfortable
The Discomfort Zone… It’s not a place we talk about often. Certainly not a place we strive to be. But it is a very important place. It’s possible that our extreme desire for comfort keeps us a little too protected. We successfully avoid situations where we are forced...
why i started doing fitness classes
A couple of years ago I decided to add a fitness class to the schedule of the yoga studio. Because It's All Yoga is known for the highest caliber of yoga teaching around, people were curious, to say the least, about why I would add a gym-type cardio class to the line...
i know you’re there…
…even though I can’t see you. It was one of the high-intensity full moons this summer and I really wanted to see it. I’d been watching it’s waning and tracking the phases on my Moon Calendar app. This full moon promised revolution, breaking free to new...
i used to have a “real” job
Some people are surprised by this fact. They think I was born a Yoga Teacher. Au contraire. I was a Business Consultant first. Ya, I’m not really sure what that means either. It’s said that consultants are sort of good at a lot of things, but not really good at any...