Don’t Think of it as Pain Don’t think of it as pain,” my first yoga teacher used to say. “Think of it as sensation.” Yes, painful sensation. But I did start to think of it as sensation. And it helped. So I shifted my attitude off the mat too. For instance, I didn’t [...]
finding the buddha, the dharma and the sangha on the road and bringing them home Last year I packed my bags for three months and moved from Los Angeles to Iowa. My greatest fear was not the bone-chilling winters, ruthless tornadoes or the sparser selection of vegetarian menu selections. My greatest fear was [...]
Someone’s in the Kitchen With Ahimsa In yoga class I caught myself beating myself up about beating myself up. I took it as a sign to start focusing on ahimsa (nonviolence). In classical yoga, ahimsa is generally given as the first yama (ethical precept), and defined as the non-harming of others by thought, [...]
Pregnancy and Practice I hated being pregnant. By the end, I could no longer fit into my maternity pants and had to wear an old pair of drawstring sweatpants every day. My arms were swollen and pink. They flapped back and forth, like the belly of a pig, when I washed the dishes. My butt [...]
The Generation Trap I’m a third-generation American, a second-generation control freak, and I now realize, a first-generation yogi. The other day, I was reading a teacher’s bio. Her first teacher? Her mom. She’s been practicing since she was two. “I’ll never catch up,” I thought, which just put me farther behind. If I’d been practicing [...]
The Spiritual Path Looks Like You What does the spiritual path look like? It looks like you. Whatever you’re doing – it looks like you doing Bikram Yoga in the evening, or joining a 12-step group, or learning kickboxing. It looks like you taking care of your kids instead of going to the meditation retreat. [...]
Beth of Both Worlds I used to be a total yoga snob. So when one of my yoga friends reappeared in our world-class class and confessed she’d been ‘doing yoga at the gym,’ I thought, ‘Gym Yoga?! I would never do gym yoga!’ She was back in our class now, because she’d been injured. Sure, [...]
We may think of meditation as a seated, static practice, but it can reflect the dynamic nature of life, its organic seasons and rhythms. The five categories of Taoist yoga meditation teach us how to draw our actions into consciousness. In Taoist meditation we move energy artfully, connecting breath with movement and rest, so that [...]
Discovering Sensuality One Woman At A Time The traditional image of pole dancing involves scantily clad women, dollar bills and sleazy bars. But there is another view; committed groups of pole and sensual dance enthusiasts are changing that image and reclaiming the rightful place of empowered feminine sexuality in motion one woman at [...]