Trigger warning: this is all about triggers. It was one of the hardest things I’d tried to teach. To teach a class for a popular teacher is hard enough. The students don’t already know me, and people are rarely totally open to a teacher that is new to them. To make it more challenging, this was […]
Ending Suffering
I attended a beautiful meditation gathering last Friday, and after we sat, they posed a question to the group about what ways pain had been transformative for us. I don’t think they knew that the previous weeks had been one of the most painful periods of my life. Emotionally, I had been grieving Jerry Candelaria […]
Diving in
The lifeguards had already left, and I was ready to leave the beach, too. I was sitting in the last bit of sun, waiting for my wife and our bestie to finish packing their stuff in the shade that had engulfed our blanket, when we’d heard the commotion. “Do you need help?!” I called. “Yes!” […]
Yoga teacher confesses: stretching is bad for you
If you take a rubberband with a knot in it and pull on each end, what happens? It gets longer from end to end, but the knot in the middle gets tighter. The typical body is filled with tension. The act of forcing bodies into exaggerated shapes not only drives the tension deeper in, but also tugs and […]
Post Election Trauma Yoga
Post Election Trauma Yoga Out here in the Berkeley area, I, and most of the people I’ve talked to, have anxiety about Trump’s election. People tend to be braced for the worst, depressed, and grieving. So what does yoga have offer us in this situation? Plenty. First of all, yoga is about the present. Yoga […]
Smell, Shamelessness, and Liberation
While you may have smelled hot chocolate a million times, that smell might just trigger one specific childhood memory. For me there is one winter day: coming inside from playing in the snow, shivering, my mom wearing that welcoming smile, the chocolate smell filling my senses as I quickly peel off my wet clothes, and […]
Heart logic
If you want to live from your heart you’ve got to live in your heart Living in your heart requires a willingness to face everything contained there, including the hurt. Yes, your willingness to face your hurt, old and new, is a prerequisite to living in love. Any fear of feeling your hurt will have […]
Embody Your Potential
a seed pure potential lies dormant safe, listening awaiting ideal conditions to crack open and live the life it’s meant to live cracking open protective shell roots down roots shoots up shoots nourishing, exploring formerly dormant potential living fully as beautiful life until death the space between our accomplishments and our full capacity will be […]
Fear of Safety and Bliss
I took a training a while back for workshop leaders to improve the workshops and retreats I’m leading, and during the intensive weekend, when we were talking about marketing, he asked what people get from my workshop, and I shared in front of the group that it was about intimacy, and he said vehemently that NOBODY […]
Breaking a Habit – from Unconscious to Intentional
“Thank you for helping me break my addiction,” he said, with a grateful look in his eyes. I didn’t know what he was talking about. “You sent an email to our list with the steps to healing an unhealthy habit. They made the difference. Thank you.” I felt that familiar glow that happens when I […]
