What does it mean to meet yourself where you are? In a word: Acceptance. On the mat On the yoga mat, meeting yourself where you are means dealing with the body and mind that you have right now. Maybe you slept great, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you are over-caffeinated, maybe you are dragging. You might
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It will feel better than any diet ever did In the yoga world, many people start practicing yoga for the “yoga body” and if you are on any visually oriented social media platform, that’s a lot of what you see: young, predominantly white women who are thin, flexible, and standing on their hands or heads.
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My personal experience of grief, numbing, and letting go As I have written before (here, here, and here), I am an expert when it comes to not feeling my feelings. I have numbed with food, sex, alcohol, games on my phone, and television. During my 20s and 30s, I also numbed with “busy.” In 2017 or 2018
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The phrase “be present” is tossed around a lot these days, especially in yoga and meditation spaces, but what does it really mean? If you’re not in the present all the time, where are you? We spend many years in school when we are young learning how to think, how to analyze, and how to
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And into your life Most people in the US, including myself, start practicing yoga with poses on the mat (Asana). Downward Dog, Warrior 2, and Tree pose are some of the myriad poses that you might practice to stretch, strengthen, and work on your balance. But yoga is so much more than poses. Last spring I
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Journaling allows you to get to the bottom of things Lying to yourself starts very young. The stories you tell yourself is how you survived your childhood. These are not malicious lies, they are lies that kept you safe. Lies like: And so on. You don’t tell yourself these lies to intentionally mislead yourself, but
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Staying busy keeps you from feeling difficult emotions, but also keeps you disconnected from yourself When you think about addictive behavior, you might think about drinking, drugs, gambling, or perhaps food. Have you ever thought about “busy?” I often talk about busyness as a common way for us Type As to numb ourselves. If you
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After 30 years, you’re bound to learn something… I began my yoga journey in 1995 when I was 23. I’ve written a few posts about my history with yoga, here are a couple: Learning to Let Go of Control and Embrace What Is How to Love Your Body in 3 “Easy” Steps Now at age
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Breath with movement Swimming is meditation for me. A deeply grounding yet energizing practice. I don’t think about my breath, it happens because I’ve been swimming my whole life. I learned to swim at age 5 and joined the swim team sophomore year in high school after my knees decided they hated soccer. Or maybe
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No matter how long you’ve been practicing yoga I started practicing yoga in 1995 at age 23. If you do the math, I’ve been practicing yoga for longer than I haven’t. It’s been a major part of my life for almost 30 years and I have learned a lot in that time, both about yoga
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