As Sharon Salzberg teaches:
Read MoreIt doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years—we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on. —Sharon Salzberg
In my past 25 years of teaching, I have never met a person who isn't harboring some level of habitual tension. Tension has a psycho-neurological component. Every time we don’t feel okay about something, we tense up in our body and it doesn’t release until we feel grounded, slow down, take a deep breath, and soften our body.
Eventually, stress can manifest in the body as tension. Tension, IS the stress response finding a home in the body.
When we relax areas of habitual tension, we send a message to the body that we don’t need to be armoring ourselves and defending ourselves from a threat.
Read MoreSeptember races in, pushing us to a starting line. We launch eagerly into new commitments and rededicate ourselves to routine. Yet, along with the excitement of what is to come, we may also experience nostalgia, and sometimes anxiety for what we leave behind. While it is a time of new beginnings, it is also a time of letting go and release. For me, September has always felt profound in this way, offering both a time for change and reconnection; good-bye and hello, transition and transformation. In short, autumn is a masterful teacher of change and transition.
Read MoreAhhh summer is in the air! Hopefully with slower and longer days you may feel you have the time and energy to read for pleasure. I know I love to read during the summer months, on the beach as I enjoy the sand and surf. Here’s a gift I'd like to pass on to you... I am sharing some of the books that have truly gifted me with insight, healing, wisdom, and growth. It's only my short list... and my recommendations for your summer reading list.
Read MoreSpring is ruled by the organs of liver and gallbladder, our main organs for cleansing and processing toxins. Our liver processes allergens that come from pollen and pollution, but if our liver is taxed, it has a hard time working as smoothly. It's time to give these organs a little break. Think of it like an oil change for your body.
Read MoreMost often, it is easier to stay focused on our disappointment, on what we missed or what we might miss. What we could have had, what we could have done. What we should have, or should be doing. You know: that whole FOMO thing -- Fear of Missing Out. Or FOBO -- Fear of a Better Option. All day long, we mentally pull ourselves out of the present, away from where we are. It's exhausting and joy robbing to be somewhere other than where we actually are. It's also depleting to try to do it all; it lowers the quality of everything we are squeezing in.
Read MoreMost of us live a step (or many steps) in front of our bodies. We are in constant mental motion, sequestered in our heads. We tend to forget there is support underneath us; that we belong on the earth, in our bodies, with our breath.
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