Category Archives: gratitude

“Hassle” or “Opportunity”? Ways to Look at Life

Early Monday morning I gazed at the garage and knew it was time to clean out the recycling that had piled up over the past few weeks. There is only so much clutter I can stand before it starts to drive me crazy. And, since we don’t have pick-up by the city anymore, you need

Taking It Off The Mat: Yoga For Your Life

I’m in the middle of teaching the 21-Day Summer Sunrise Yoga series. Every two days I teach one of the Yamas or Niyamas (basically the yogic directions on how to live your life found in Limbs One and Two of the Eight Limbed Path of Yoga). Each Yama and Niyama have an associated mudra (hand

Dear alleyCat Yoga–Reviewing a Journey of Love

My story with alleyCat Yoga begins before it had a name. I was living in California for a year (2001-2002) doing my internship in psychology when my Buddhist teacher, Ginny Morgan, called me from Columbia and said that she had a couple of yogis living in her basement—namely, Ken McRae and Kathleen Knipp. They had

EFT Tapping and Mindful Eating: New Partners at the Table

As many of you know, I have taught mindful eating through a class called Eat for Life for 15 years, so I am familiar with the topic. However, I just had the privilege and enjoyment of taking a mindful eating program with someone else. Chef Marcella Friel has a course on Shambhala Online called Mindful

Recipe for Sanity: How to Keep the Holidays Bright!  

It’s a time of celebration! You are busy and happily making a list and checking it twice. Trees are being decorated and lights are strung around the house which brings a glow to the season. The delicious smell of baking cookies is wafting through the house. The stockings are being hung with glee. You’ve fought

Put Down the Phone and Tune Into Yourself

What do you do when you first wake up in the morning? My guess is many of you start checking your phone for the news, swipe through all your social media accounts, and then go to email. And your mind might immediately get caught up in obsessive, ruminative thinking about something that’s not going well.

A Mindful Morning Routine Jumpstarts Your Life

What do you do first thing in the morning? Do you turn off the alarm and snooze then must hurry when you finally get up? Do you check your phone for news and social media before you get out of bed? Do you grumble until you get your first cup of coffee? Do you skip

A Weekend to Savor: Join me at Omega Institute June 24-26, 2022

Savor Every Bite is a book about possibility–the possibility of a life of happiness, beauty, and ease. It’s also about understanding the difficulties and painful emotions that we experience in life and how to navigate them with the skill of mindfulness. Join me at Omega Institute in beautiful upstate New York for a weekend of

50 Practices to Savor for a Lifetime: A Simple Gift That Keeps On Giving

This is the season where we often give gifts to family and friends that we love and cherish. To that end, I would like to suggest my newest book Savor Every Bite: Mindful Ways to Eat, Love Your Body and Live with Joy, as a beautiful offering to those you love. It is an inexpensive

Giving Thanks Everyday: How Gratitude Can Change Your Life

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”— Meister Eckhart Saying thank you for the blessings in my life is a part of my regular spiritual practice. I don’t really need a holiday to remind me of the power of gratitude. But, since we’re at that time of year,