Here is one version of the season: Tis the season to buy stuff during Black Friday and Cyber Monday (thank goodness that’s over!), the season to go to parties and eat and drink too much, the season to then worry about how much you ate and drank and feel bad about it, the season to
Every morning when I wake up, my mind does not start with thoughts of gratitude. If you’re anything like me, your mind starts thinking about what went wrong yesterday, what could go wrong today, and what might go wrong tomorrow. This is not a great way to start the day. What I have learned from
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
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
The word “play” has been popping up in my awareness lately, and I’m wondering if I’m any good at it. I believe I have a good work / play balance—meaning that my days are a combination of getting items done on my work to-do list while not letting those get in the way of exercise,
At the moment of the Buddha’s enlightenment, he reached down to the earth goddess to affirm his triumph over Mara, the destroyer. He had seen through the house of sorrow that he had built around himself. The first teaching given by the Buddha after his enlightenment was the Four Noble Truths, which lays out the
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.
Almost our entire biology is geared toward protection and defense and our culture teaches us to grab what we want, even if it means taking from others. To work against this conditioning takes great courage and practice. The ethical and philosophical practices of yoga and meditation give us guideposts for leading a life in alignment with our values. When I practice them, they never fail. The key is remembering to wake up to our conditioning and make a different choice.
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
Complaining about being busy and working all the time is a widespread phenomenon. So much so that according to research by Silvia Bellezza, a professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, “seeming busy and “a lack of leisure” has become a strange status symbol in today’s world. The conditioning to work all the time is
