February 2012
3 posts
4 tags
“really get in touch with what you believe. your belief in something is the magic...”
– jackson kiddard
3 tags
on studentship.
A fact: I am constantly blown away by my students. I have a man who comes to my class at least once a week who has the tightest hips I have ever seen. And every time I teach a hip-opening pose, he sits down on a block with a smile on his face and breathes until the rest of the class has moved on. From him, I have learned humility. I have a woman come to my classes who has 13 children at home. Yet...
2 tags
in yoga, and in life...
the way things look is secondary to the way things feel.
(read: don’t push yourself past your limits in asana practice to attain the physical appearance of how you think a perfect pose should look. there is no perfect pose. the perfect pose is the one in which you are at your own edge of ease and effort.
and don’t conform to stereotypes about who and how you should be in the world....
January 2012
10 posts
4 tags
“let’s quit thinking about abundance. stop asking for abundance. instead, focus...”
– max strom
1 tag
how are you?
How are you?
I’m okay.
A conversation that happens all too often in my life - more often than I would like, in fact. People will ask me how I’m doing, or how my day is going, or how my yoga class went, and I’ll always respond with fine, or okay, or maybe even good if they’re really lucky, but rarely (if ever) will I say that I’m doing great, or that my day is...
2 tags
“tightness, whether it’s in your muscles or your mind, drains your power....”
– elena brower
5 tags
learning from a coconut.
A cold and dreary Monday evening. I had just finished teaching my second class of the day and was roaming the aisles of the grocery store when my eye fell upon a gorgeous young coconut - on sale, no less! I immediately felt nostalgic for California, for the memory of sucking on a straw sticking out of a fresh coconut and sporting sun-kissed skin, practicing yoga outside and feeling so free. Just...
2 tags
“the kindest thing you can do for the people you care about is to become a happy,...”
– brian tracy
3 tags
2 tags
january gratitude list.
these blogs: here, here, and here
watching with twinkling eyes the bright beams of sunshine streaming in through my bedroom window
this song
wanderlust 2012 lineup revealed! (seriously considering vermont…)
the achingly beautiful sound of my students breathing deeply through discomfort in my tuesday night yin class
this print
surviving my first spin class (and checking it off my...
2 tags
a prayer.
oṃ saha nāvavatu saha nau bhunaktu saha vīryaṃ karavāvahai tejasvi nāvadhī tamastu mā vidviṣāvahai oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ
May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we create strength among one another. May our study be filled with light. May we not oppose each other. Om peace, peace, peace.
2 tags
“there is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you...”
– martha graham
4 tags
quality > quantity.
In the first few years of my yoga practice, I devoured as many classes and workshops as I could. (If I recall correctly, after I took my very first yoga class, I went back every single day that week!) I immediately aspired to master the most challenging poses immediately - headstand, handstand, arm balances - despite my embarrassing lack of basic strength and form. I practiced with a wide variety...
December 2011
7 posts
5 tags
“balance requires consciously honouring both the yin and yang energies of life....”
– bernie clark
merry christmas!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Wishing you all an abundance of love and laughter, today and always. And remember…the best gift is presence ;)
4 tags
1 tag
dear universe.
thank you for everything.
4 tags
“the only thing for certain is that everything changes. the rate of change...”
– guttorm floistad
4 tags
plateauing.
Yikes. When did December arrive? I feel sheepish for not writing much lately, but every time I sat down to write a blog post, nothing would come. Even when I tried to write in my journal, I could hardly string together a few words at a time. I was consumed with a writer’s block of epic proportions. I felt like I had reached a plateau - I was at a point in my life where things were going so...
3 tags
21 suggestions for success.
via h. jackson brown jr.
Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.
Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.
Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
Be forgiving of yourself and others.
Be generous.
Have a grateful heart.
Persistence,...
November 2011
7 posts
3 tags
“for when you acknowledge anyone with true gratitude, seeing beyond the illusion...”
– peggy black
1 tag
this is it.
If you’ve been waiting for a sign, this is it. You can change everything, right now. Just because you have been living according to a certain pattern does not mean that is your destiny. Stop thinking about all the reasons you can’t (or won’t), and think about the only thing that matters: whether or not you are happy, and fulfilled, and living life to its greatest...
4 tags
4 tags
“the work, our work, requires that we should be present. to be present we have to...”
– pierre elliot
1 tag
self-love.
Whenever you feel unloved or unappreciated, remember that only you have full responsibility for loving and appreciating your self. Self-love is self-sustaining. Nourish your spirit with the care that it needs to grow. Look yourself in the mirror and say, “I love myself. I appreciate myself.” Show up for yourself every day in ways that can make you proud of who you are. Tell the truth....
2 tags
lately...
So much more teaching than usual lately, which has consequently led to so much less writing than usual lately. But I promised a blog post today, so here it is, albeit a little late and perhaps a little incoherent.
I’ve been feeling really blessed over the past month or so; it seems like so many things that I had wanted for so long - more classes, more abundance, more love - have all started...
3 tags
“manifesting is not about wishing; it is about having complete faith that by...”
– christoper wallis
3 tags
“to lose interest in life - to retreat from being totally alive and totally...”
– sidney poitier
October 2011
10 posts
3 tags
space.
The theme of yesterday’s yoga class was all about creating space - not just in the physical body, but also in our minds and in our lives as well. In art there’s a concept known as “white space”, which refers to the portion of a page that is left unmarked. Indeed, this blank space is considered an important design element which enables the objects on the page to even exist...
3 tags
offering.
A confession: as much as I love teaching yoga, there are some days when I really, really don’t want to teach. I wake up, it’s cold and rainy outside, my bed is warm and cozy, and the last thing I want to do is get up and start doing yoga. There are days when I feel like I have nothing to offer and creative sequencing seems completely beyond my reach. There are days when my playlist...
3 tags
“we already have everything we need. there is no need for self-improvement. all...”
– pema chodron
2 tags
reach out and touch it.
Marvel at the fact that you can light up a room with your smile, electrify someone with your positive energy envelop someone in the loving vibrations of your big, beating heart.
Be astounded by the way that you can uplift someone with kindness enrich a day with sweetness and be the lens through which someone can see their greatness with clarity.
Your life is an ocean of opportunities - ...
3 tags
“…believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance,...”
– rainer maria rilke
3 tags
thank you, thank you, thank you.
Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians out there! I’m still brimming with delight from the complete and total abundance of joy I experienced this weekend. Notable mentions include:
a journey somewhere new
impromptu play dates with old friends
so much sunshine
amazing food
sunday brunch
Life is so good. We are so blessed to have the opportunity - every single day - to wake up and live...
3 tags
“the gift you carry for others is not an attempt to save the world but to fully...”
– bill plotkin
1 tag
unique.
A gentle reminder: your life experience is not relative. That is, what you have accomplished (or not accomplished) thus far has nothing to do with what your peers have done, or what your brothers and sisters have done, or what your neighbour has done. Each of us is endowed with a unique set of gifts and talents that we are made to bring to the world in such a way that cannot be compared and...
2 tags
“sun says, “be your own illumination.” wren says, “sing your...”
– danna faulds
September 2011
11 posts
3 tags
“let us accept truth, even when it surprises us and alters our views.”
– george sand
3 tags
4 tags
“the purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach...”
– eleanor roosevelt
3 tags
planting positivity.
For every word we utter and for every action we take, there is an intricate web of consequences. By telling ourselves, “I am brilliant and worthwhile,”; by telling someone, “You are beautiful and I have faith in you,”; by taking time out of our day to be kind to ourselves and to others, we are planting seeds of positivity from which only good things can grow. Imagine that...
3 tags
“life is perpetually creative because it contains in itself that surplus which...”
– rabindranath tagore
5 tags
let it go.
Lately it seems as though life has been a whirlwind. There’s something about September that seems to make people nostalgic, and there’s a certain crispness in the air that brings about a sense of clarity, somehow. I feel as if I’ve been simultaneously rooting down and reaching out, expanding equally in both directions, cultivating this precious balance that can so easily tip too...
4 tags
3 tags
“when you start reconnecting with these missing [parts of yourself], you tend to...”
– samuel sagan
3 tags
4 tags
“when you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the...”
– thich nhat hanh
2 tags
national yoga month. →
September is National Yoga Month! Designed to build awareness of yoga’s proven health benefits and provide people with actionable guidance and tools to enhance their own well-being, this grassroots awareness campaign inspires both youths and adults to take responsibility for their well-being by focusing on prevention and healthy lifestyle choices.
Yoga Month introduces yoga and its proven...
2 tags
“it is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and...”
– krishnamurti
August 2011
26 posts
2 tags
entrance - rainer maria rilke
Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight, Out of the room that lets you feel secure. Infinity is open to your sight. Whoever you are. With eyes that have forgotten how to see From viewing things already too well-known, Life up into the dark a huge, black tree And put it in the heavens: tall, alone. And you have made the world and all you see. It ripens like the words still in your...