Emotions and Yoga

If you’ve taken Yoga for awhile, perhaps you already know it is not uncommon to have emotions emerge during class, particularly if you’re in a class that encourages mindful introspection. As my classes are breath-based mindful movements, practitioners have the optimal environment to access their interior. For this reason, occasionally a student will confide that an unexpected emotion

A work in progress

I cannot agree on the most important aspect of a Yoga Therapy class. I’ve gone through stages when it was about the poses, then the breath, then meditation, relaxation, and posture. As it turns out, they’re all equally important when looking at the holistic view of Yoga Therapy. In contrast, our modern, reductionist, Western view of medicine

When you’re not feelin’ it

It’s beautiful weather here in N.C. this Christmas. Global warming concerns aside, for the moment, many of us are enjoying these balmy winter temps. The recent memory of bone chillingly cold weather has made me especially grateful to feel the sun’s heat on my bare feet. It is not uncommon for us humans to appreciate something more

Jon Kabat-Zinn @ Duke, Dec. 2

I recently heard Jon Kabat-Zinn speak at Duke University on December 2. The subject was the intersection of mindfulness with science and medicine. Here are my brief notes from his talk. Meditative traditions come from the East. Mindfulness is essentially wakefulness. Can we be present for ourselves in the only moment we have? Drop all agendas.

The seductive wave of Speed vs Now

What does it mean to slow down? Why do we undermine this expansive state with repetitive thinking, fast moving, erratic breathing? To remember the freshness of this moment, and this moment, we bring the mind to where the body rests. Step into the now. Slow down reverberations of busyness and calm the breath, still the body.

will power, 1874, from will (n.) + power (n.)

After class, a student informed me that she’d recently been experiencing foot pain and had made an appointment with a Podiatrist. We Yoga Therapists are careful not to diagnose, but I suggested that if it was a bunion, there is a possible correlation to how we stand, walk, and the shoes that we wear. That

The Life of Bees

I’ve recently become a beekeeper. I had no idea of all that this would entail and how intrigued I would become about the mysterious lives of bees. Every morning I get up and check what’s going on around the hive. Then I revisit numerous times a day. The hive is in our front yard pretty close

Forgetting and Remembering

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a friend who told me about an event that surprised her. She had been suffering with blood sugar issues and was proactively limiting her sugar intake. Doing her best, she avoided restaurants and environments that would tempt her sugar tooth. One day while she was talking to a

Freedom and Pancakes

I have great respect for professionals who in a desire to stay abreast of the latest information will readily admit that whatever they know today may be found untrue tomorrow. The author of one of my anatomy books, and an anatomy professor, always tells his students at the beginning of each semester that 50% of

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At the beginning of class, I often ask students what’s going on in their bodies, where they’re feeling aches and pains. Inevitably I get one person who laughingly calls out that he/she is old. Or another that they need a new brain. And we all laugh. It’s good to laugh about these things, as we