I was in my twenties when I started dabbling with yoga and meditation. For a long while, it was like many things are with me: all or nothing, coming and going in fits and starts. Looking back through the lens of years of experience and the patterns of thousands of students, I can see it for what it was. In the beginning, I did just enough practice to make me feel better. I did what was needed to take the edge off the pain of being human. And once that sharp edge was smoothed a bit, I fell back into old habits.… Read the rest
reflection
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I walked away from a silent meditation retreat last February with the imperative to get outside my comfort zone. To do something new and unfamiliar; to put on beginner’s mind and take it for a spin. That intention eventually evolved into the ongoing study in Depth Psychology I shared about last month. Let me tell you, the lessons keep rolling in. The latest? The question of purpose.
When I started the program, my mentor asked me to set a specific goal (something outside my comfort zone) that we would work with and toward through the course of the year to create a framework— a gauge for the self in relationship to the external world.… Read the rest
I’m grateful to have gotten to a place in my life where I’m not easily triggered. I’ve incorporated and interspersed enough mindfulness practices into my days, over enough years, that when the unexpected happens, I am (most of the time) able to just roll with it. I’m able to face surprises in their many guises, disappointment and frustration in a way that allows me to take a breath and choose my response. All of that is true to a point. All of that is true, until it is not at all in any way true.
I recently sent a note to a colleague in another state who I do not know very well with a request for some simple, logistical information.… Read the rest
I’m wondering how you’re closing your year. I don’t mean your plans for New Year’s Eve, rather, how do you find yourself as we tick off the final days of 2023? Excited? Exhausted? With anticipation or regret? Grateful? Content? Whatever it is, maybe you’ll carve out some time to reflect on where you’ve been this year, and with what are you aligning as we move into the year ahead.
Here are a few notions to get you started:
The garden of your mind. What is happening in there? Do you know? Is that voice in your head- your lifelong roommate— an ally or enemy?… Read the rest
I’m coming off of the rare pleasure of a weekend with friends, among them, the ever-wise Glenda Mackie. This morning before teaching, she asked if we knew why leaves turn color in fall. I actually had no idea. Throughout spring and summer, leaves are constantly generating chlorophyll, giving them their green color. As we shift into fall and the nighttime hours grow longer, chlorophyll production stops and other chemical shifts occur— revealing the stunning array of pigments we see in autumn leaves. From darkness, beauty. As always, the nature. Right there teaching us what we need to learn.
It feels so appropriate as I’m currently studying a form of shadow work, rooted in eastern philosophy and infused with techniques of Jungian psychology.… Read the rest
When I originally posted the January Hibernation retreat, it was early fall. At the time, I was in an extremely overwhelming work vortex and hibernation sounded like a fabulous idea. I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it— the theme welled up from wherever ideas arise, it resonated, and that was that. Come January, when we actually gathered, I felt good in the knowing that yes, hibernation was necessary. Why? Resources for thriving had become scarce. A refuge from challenging conditions was needed. It was time to conserve energy, and figure out how to rebuild from within what we’d allowed to be depleted from without.… Read the rest
I’ve been especially busy with 1:1 sessions lately. Students who have been with me regularly for years; people who’ve re-entered my orbit after a long spell away; and some brand-new-to-me folks that I’ve had the good fortune to meet through a mindfulness project with a local business. Whether seasoned yogis or not-at-all yogis, it never ceases to amaze me that the work never changes. It’s always the same. The same work, the same lessons, the same challenges, the same effort, the same magic over and over. Sure, it takes different forms, but at core? Same, same.
Without a doubt, I learn as much or more from those who come to me for reflection on what yoga off the mat can do to increase the happiness factor and decrease the suffering factor as they learn from me.… Read the rest
I am preparing to lead my first in-person retreat since the Before Times. The focus of our time away is around the practice of vichara, or self-inquiry. It’s a combination of unwinding the story of your past and keys to unfolding the life you want. I always hesitate to call it a retreat, because that word conjures up lazy days of rest, exotic locations, and a vacation from work of all kinds. It is decidedly not that. Training is also not the right word, as that implies I’ll be imparting information that can be learned and studied. I suppose what I am preparing to do is guide a vigil, an inner journey, a pilgrimage of sorts where the destination is the Self.… Read the rest
Earlier this year, I turned fifty. Whether a by-product of the preceding year we all enjoyed so much or an inevitable part of my own process, I had some pretty strong feelings about it. They were not the good ones. It’s quite an odd thing, as I have many friends who are older than I am, and I always have. When I look at them, I have never, ever thought “YOU ARE SO OLD” (with an accompanying judgment of old as bad) and so I cannot explain why that was the precise reaction I had to myself on this milestone birthday.… Read the rest
Dear friends,
The energy is ripe to make big declarations about what you want to leave behind and what you want to carry forward, cultivate and create as we turn to a new season, year and age. I reached out to our amazing teaching staff and asked: What is your word for 2021? What intentions are you setting for the next cycle? What have you learned that you want to carry forward or forever leave behind? What is your wish for yourself, for our small collective, for our global community? In reading the reflections of some of the amazing women who have held, supported and inspired you in this year that none of us will ever forget, I hope that you will allow your own answers, reflections and inspirations to rise.… Read the rest