A few months ago, I had a Therapeutic Yoga client that was here to deal with insomnia and other symptoms of anxiety and depression. I was using the many tools of yoga (NOT the postures!) to help them (firstly) become aware of what they were feeling. Often people will tell you certain things on their initial intake form, about what …
Infancy – the road to the present moment
Over the weekend, I had the great pleasure of spending time with several beautiful, sweet, innocent babies. All about a year old. I watch them play. I watch them eat. I watch them laugh. I watch them repeat spoken words. I watch them “be”. I can’t help but notice that the infant is doing nothing than playing, …
Give this woo woo stuff a try
Do you find yourself saying “I’ll be happy when XYZ happens”? When I get that job. When this relationship works out. When I have this much money saved up. When I get that car. When I go on that vacation. Unfortunately, we know that none of that is true. You’ll be happy when you make the decision …
Healthy inside out
The World Health Organization states that “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease.” It takes it one step further and adds that “there is no health without mental health.” With this in mind, I look at the resolutions that people tend to make at the beginning of …
A safe container
One of the foundational elements of doing therapeutic yoga work, is to create and provide a space for people to enter into, to feel welcome, to feel heard and not judged. All the other tools we use to help clients manage their symptoms of anxiety or depression would be worthless, if this safe container is not established …
Walk through the doorway
As I begin a new summer season of teaching, I am excited to have added a new Meditation class to my list of yoga classes. The class is being really well received and I’m getting great feedback in terms of the effect of the teachings and of the meditations themselves. People are not just hearing the …
“Don’t come to yoga”
This past week, I was at the hairdresser for a haircut and a woman I know approaches me and says in a very serious voice, “I need to talk to you.” After stepping aside so we could have a little privacy she tells me that she’s 45 years old, and has been noticing changes in …
Confessions of Pitta
I admit it. I am a Pitta dominant dosha. There, I said it. So, what the heck am I talking about, right? We learn by studying yoga and Ayurveda that most of us are dominant in one “dosha”. A dosha is a subtle energy, a sort of blueprint that governs how we look, how we act and …
The next step
Who says people don’t change? ========== Life changes us. Experiences change us. Aging changes us. The people we surround ourselves with, changes us. Or is it that we learn to accept who we are, and how things are – and that just feels different? =========== I’ve said many times in my yoga classes, that “we teach best, what we …
Some days, we’re more at home than others
A few facts before I begin; I am a homebody at heart. I love to be home. I love walking into my home. I love staying home. Also, when I was being formed in the womb, my DNA was infused with a healthy dose of anxiety. There has always been a long list of things to …
How she made us feel
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou I write this post after having given one of the most difficult yoga classes to date. Our practice was dedicated to a fellow yogi, who practiced here …
What home feels like
For over 25 years, I worked outside of my home and would return at the end of the day, always happy to walk through my front door. Arriving home to my kids, my kitchen, my worn out sweatpants (the ones with the holes in them, that I would change into the moment I’d walk in) – it …
The candy dish
Think about where you like to shop. Think about which restaurants you like to frequent. I’m willing to bet that often, it’s not necessarily about the clothes or the actual food. The product has to be good, but mostly, we go back because we had a great experience. I believe it’s about a feeling. And that, is what sharing …
Am I enough?
I don’t believe there’s a person out there who has never thought this to themselves “Am I enough?” The tendency to question things we are told in general is not bad, however questioning our own value, our own abilities, our worthiness, can be. The sense of wanting to be “perfect” (whatever that means), the sense of …
Learning. Life’s greatest adventure.
One of my intents for 2017 was to further my education, deepen my skills and my ability to offer more valuable services to clients. I just returned from a 4-week intensive Yoga Therapy training at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, which provided me with a wide range of new tools with which to grow the services …