The towering oak in our backyard now supports a swing.  Two Saturdays ago, our children emerged from the basement with some rope, a bit of plastic pipe and a can of paint.  When we asked what they were up to, they informed us they were building a tree swing.  What a good idea!  Of course, we thought we’d have a swing that very day.  It turns out the project was more involved than expected.  After two weeks of full-family brainstorming, a trip to the sporting goods store for a sling-shot and a stop at Home Depot for a really long piece of rope, we were ready!  When Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, we knew it was THE day.  Brimming with confidence, we marched out into the backyard armed with the sling-shot and a baseball with a string attached to it with gobs of packing tape.

 

Ready!  Aim! Pphfft.

 

The baseball thudded to the ground just in front of my husband.  Many, many tries later, the sling-shot was deemed a dud and we moved on to a lacrosse stick and a similarly packaged lacrosse ball.  Many, many tries later, tired of tossing and retrieving the lacrosse ball, we moved on – this time to the roof!  We endured more “close calls,” trying the sling-shot, lacrosse stick and my husband’s pitching arm from this new, slightly closer vantage point.  Finally, we moved on again.  To an entirely different project.

 

We splashed ourselves and each other, for a couple of hours as we scrubbed down our porch furniture.  While we worked, periodically, someone would throw out a new idea for getting the rope up into the tree.  At some point, our son vanished.  We located him when a tennis ball started lobbing from the roof toward the tree.  He’d wrapped one up and was smacking it toward the tree with an old racquet from the hall closet.  And he was getting really close to that branch!  I could see the glint in my husband’s eye as we scrubbed the last porch chair.  He couldn’t wait to get up on that roof and give the racquet a try!

 

All it took was three strong forehands and a ton of cheering from the kids.  The ball lobbed up and looped the string over exactly the branch we’d chosen!   We shimmied the ball down to where we could reach it, attached the rope to the string and began the surprisingly long process of pulling the rope up and over the branch.  One fancy, double-hitch knot later, the rope was up!  My daughters delivered the piece of white pipe they’d decided to use for a “seat,” and we had our swing.  I’m sure the neighbors all stopped in their tracks at the “WHOOP!” we released as my husband launched himself off the patio and into the air on the first trial ride.  It was 4:30 – seven hours after we’d first marched out into the yard.  We were all filthy, exhausted and smiling like fools as we lined up for our turns on the swing.

 

That night every single one of us agreed that it had been the very best day ever!  My son said, “That was really, really hard and took a really, really long time, but we built an awesome swing!”  I think the kids glimpsed the heart of living well that Saturday.  When we pour ourselves into something – anything! – whether a tree swing, our marriage or our job, we make an investment which will pay tremendous dividends.

 

Yoga teaches us this same lesson.  Whatever our reasons for practicing yoga, we come to our mats over and over again.  We invest our time, our energy, our minds and our spirits in the practice.  And it pays off.  Yoga changes us.  Not unlike our tree swing project, our yoga journey may have some hiccups.  It might take longer than we’d thought it would for our hamstrings to open up.  We might get injured and have to take a “detour,” steering clear of some postures until we’re healed.  We might have spells when we just can’t focus and we wonder why we’re practicing at all.  But we keep at it.  In the end we’re glad we do, not just because the detours and hiccups make the journey more rewarding, but because our investment in yoga pays some surprising dividends.  We might find we’re more focused at work and wind up on a dream project.  We might find we’re more aware in our relationships and discover new depths to a friendship or our marriage.  We might find we’re noticing the blessings in our life more than the problems and simply feel more contented.

 

Maybe that’s the way it is with anything we truly invest ourselves in.  When we set out to build a tree swing in our backyard, we thought we’d get a really fun swing.  I don’t think any of us suspected the project itself -- challenges and all -- would be so much fun.  And I know none of us suspected it would be so meaningful.  Working on that swing yielded some life lessons for our kids that we as parents would pay good money for!  Beyond those “parenting moments,” however, the way working as a team drew us together as a family was absolutely priceless.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

It’s the end of the first full week of summer and I’m exhausted!  I feel emotionally taxed and mentally maxed out.  The other day I scoffed out loud as I drove past a billboard that mentioned the “lazy, hazy days of summer.”  My newly ever-present children naturally wanted to know what was so funny.  It was during my attempt to explain that I realized why I’d been so tired and frazzled.

 

I’ve spent the last ten months fending only for myself during the bulk of the day.  The day school let out for the summer, the moving parts of my daily life increased by a factor of three.  Suddenly, instead of focusing on my own to-do list, I am processing three more opinions (rarely unanimous, by the way) about how to structure the day.  Instead of simply deciding when and what to eat, I now have three additional hungry bellies to keep full.  Whereas last week, I only had to get myself “there” on time, now I have three more people to get to three more places at any given time – hopefully within the forgivable range of punctuality.  I guess it’s not surprising that I’ve been feeling a little worn out!

 

You see, I’m pretty much a classic case of a Type A personality and summer vacations can be hard!  On the off-chance that you don’t know already, let me define what I mean by Type A.  Type A’s prefer to be in charge.  We enjoy a sense (I know, I know, it’s an illusion!) of control.  We tend to like things “just so.”  As a Type A mother of three, let me tell you that it’s a lot easier to maintain order and that pesky illusion of control when your kids climb onto a big yellow bus first thing in the morning and arrive home with enough homework to keep them relatively still and focused until it’s time to head out for soccer practice.  Summer is a whole other story.  Summer is a time to practice “letting go” of control and order.

 

Yoga is a fabulous way to practice this “letting go” year-round.  It doesn’t take long (often only one or two classes) for Types A’s like me to sense that yoga offers an unexpected release from the internal pressures they put on themselves in their quest for control.  Yoga’s stretching opens the body up and relaxes the muscles that Type A’s habitually clench in their efforts to stay on top of things.  Yoga’s breathing offers an immediate sense of calm that can be elusive for someone trying to maintain control in today’s chaotic world.  Yoga is challenging enough to require high levels of focus, which keeps busy, multi-tasking minds tied to the here and now.  For someone who is always “in charge,” stepping into the role of student can feel light.  Placing themselves in a relationship to a teacher can feel liberating.  It’s as if, by allowing someone else be in charge, they are absolved of the heavy burden of their responsibilities -- at least while they’re in class.

 

And this is partially the point of a yoga class.  Remember, Type A’s are more comfortable when in charge.  As we practice yoga, we learn to follow instructions even when they’re hard.  We learn to submit to challenging postures.  We learn to resist our urges to escape to comfort or turn away from something daunting.   When we hang out in postures that stretch us to the edges of what we think we can do, we grow and learn and change.  We also learn on our mats to acquiesce to authority – whether it’s a teacher, a DVD or a sequence we’ve memorized.  These can be great big lessons for someone who is used to making all the decisions!

 

But it wouldn’t be yoga if there weren’t a balance to strike.  Despite letting go of control, yoga is NOT about relinquishing responsibility.  When practicing yoga we are always responsible for ourselves.  Physically, we are responsible for our own safety.  If our teacher leads the class into a stretch our body is not ready for, it is our responsibility to ask for a modification or to retreat to child’s pose.  Even if our teacher is giving us an adjustment, it is up to us to speak up if it feels too strong or frightening.  We are the only ones who truly know if a deeper stretch would be beneficial.  Emotionally, we are responsible for how far we push ourselves.  Some days we’re up for challenges and others we aren’t.  Some days we feel brave.  On others we feel as though life has challenged us more than enough and we need a nurturing, comforting practice.  Our practice, even in a group class, remains ours.  While our teacher sets the sequence of asanas, we determine the intensity for ourselves.

 

Getting back to my exhausted and frazzled week, because of my yoga practice I am getting better at recognizing my emotional state.  While recognizing what’s going on doesn’t change my reality -- I’m still “cruise director” for three energetic young people for the next ten weeks – it is helpful in that I can change my approach to my days.  For the next two months, perhaps I can approach each day like a group yoga class – going with the flow willingly and perhaps even enthusiastically.  (Kids really do know how to have a good time!)  Yet, just like in a group yoga class, I know I am still responsible for my own well-being.  No matter how loud the clamor of opinions, a trip to the aquarium should simply never be combined with a hike and a “short” trip to an amusement park, for instance.  Sometimes, Mother does know best, after all!

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

I really like to play miniature golf.  I’ve loved this “sport” (can I even call it that?) for a really long time.  Many days in college that North Carolina sky was simply too blue to sit in the library and my friends and I would hop on over to the local mini-golf course.  Over the years, my brother and I have developed a healthy rivalry on the miniature links, spending hours trying to best one another.  And I’ll never forget the first time I played with some friends and their kids.  They were horrified that I made even the youngest kids play by the rules!  (Deep down, I guess I do believe miniature golf is a sport.)

 

All along I’ve assumed that because mini-golf draws out my competitive streak (after all, I don’t even let my darling children beat me!) that it was all about the winning for me.  But a recent conversation with a friend has me reconsidering.  The other day I was telling him about a particularly great game of miniature golf that I’d played over Memorial Day weekend.  In all the details I’d shared -- that the course was like a “real” golf course with actual sand traps and without “rails” to keep the balls on the green; that I got a hole in one on the very first hole; and how much fun it was to compete with my husband and brother -- I failed to mention who won!

 

Now, a cynic might think that was information I’d omitted because I’d let a six-stroke lead slip away.  (I know.  Sheez.)  But when I started thinking about it, I don’t actually win all that often.  And, win or lose, I always have a great time playing.  So what’s going on?  What are my competitive feelings all about?  I think miniature golf allows me a little healthy competition with myself.  As I tee up each time, it feels like a fresh game.  I get eighteen chances to find the best route to the hole.  And often, eighteen chances to find another “best” route to the hole when my first stroke takes a surprising turn.  Hole after hole, I have many chances to make good puts or bad ones.  Each stroke in the game requires careful physical positioning, a little deliberate breathing to relax and some fairly intense mental focus.

 

In a surprising twist, it turns out that mini-golf has some parallels to yoga!  Just re-reading that last sentence makes me smile.  Asana after asana in the series feels like a fresh practice.  Most days when I practice, I take at least thirty postures.  That’s thirty chances to find the best route into the stretch.  And often thirty more chances to reconfigure my body to accommodate a surprising tight spot or (even more surprising) loose spot.  Asana after asana, I have many chances to really settle into the stretch.  I also get many chances to space out and miss the stretch entirely or wimp out and forego the possible gifts of a challenging posture.  Like each stroke in a game of miniature golf, each asana requires careful physical positioning, a little deliberate breathing and some intense mental focus.

 

Perhaps the most surprising parallel, however, is the element of competitiveness.  After all, when even when we’re practicing in a packed room, we’re told over and over again to listen to our body and do our own thing.  Looking around the room and getting competitive with our classmates is absolutely discouraged.  To do so will dramatically increase the chances of us leaving the studio injured.  But most of us do have competitive streaks and we can actually put them into service in our yoga practice.  We learn on our mats to put our competitive urges to work inspiring us to come to our mats regularly to reap the benefits of more frequent practice.  We learn on our yoga mats to put our competitive urges to work by leading us up to the edges of our abilities where we can grow and stretch.  We learn on our yoga mats that our innate competitiveness can serve as incentive and discipline and passion.

 

I would be hard-pressed to discern a difference between the jubilation I felt when I shot that hole in one on Memorial Day weekend and the triumph I felt when I finally managed to lift both feet off the ground into a sturdy Bakasana (Crow).  Both felt like victories to me.  I love the fact that my yoga practice provides me with so many opportunities for “victories” over my own physical fears or weak will or hyperactive mind.  Come to think of it, the first time I made it into Crow I actually jumped up with a whoop and did a little victory dance that was eerily reminiscent of the one I did on the mini-golf course after I sunk that beautiful, long shot.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

Every day, right after I wake up, my cat climbs onto my lap for an early morning snuggle.  Yesterday, as I stroked his ears and rubbed under his jaw just the way he likes, I decided I had plenty of time to pet him until he was “done.”  It turns out I didn’t have THAT much time!  As I lavished attention on him, waiting for his purring to abate or for him to get fidgety, I realized that never once in the thirteen years that we’ve had him, has the cat gotten “done” before I do.  I honestly believe that he’d sit contentedly, eyes at half-mast, toes kneading my pajamas, lapping up my affections for hours on end.

 

And, really, I thought, isn’t that logical?  If something really nice is happening, don’t I want it to go on and on?  Well, sort of.  But then, many times, right in the midst of the “really good thing,” my list-making, taskmaster mind kicks into gear.  When that happens, suddenly rather than enjoying the “really good thing,” I get distracted.  For instance, right in the middle of a massage, I might start working a problem that could just as easily wait for my undivided attention.  Not only would the problem be better served by my full focus, but as soon as I allow my awareness to drift from the sensations of the massage, I’m missing out on a “really good thing.”  Two wrongs don’t make a right any more in this case than they ever do!

 

Worse, sometimes in the midst of a “really good thing,” I stand up and leave whatever it is to embark on whatever project or task has just hit the top of my mental to-do list.  Last week, I was throwing lacrosse balls for my daughter to catch.  The sun had just come out after a gray, wet day and it felt great to be outside.  Katie’s getting pretty good at lacrosse, so we were having fun seeing how many catches in a row she could make.  All in all, it was one of those times when I was especially relishing being a mom.  Despite how “really good” things were at that moment, I found myself checking my watch repeatedly.  Though we didn’t have a pressing schedule that evening, I finally succumbed to my inner-taskmaster and stopped the game to head for the kitchen to start dinner.  Let’s just say that I’m fairly confident that’s not what the cat would have done!

 

Yoga teaches us to stay in the moment – whether that moment is pleasant or not.  On our mats, it is typical for us to begin to work with this notion as we learn to hang out in postures which are challenging and perhaps even uncomfortable.  We do this counter-intuitive thing because science (and our teachers) tells us that it takes time for our bodies to open to the postures.  Physiologically, we must be in a stretch for at least 30 seconds for our bodies to really open.  I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that this is roughly the time required for five long yoga breaths.  If we bail out of an asana before that time has elapsed because it is hard or uncomfortable, we miss out on the potential gifts of the posture.

 

We also learn on our yoga mats to hang out in postures that feel great.  Rather than dashing off to the next asana in the series, we learn to stay and breathe, going even deeper into the stretch that feels so good to us right then.  Why, then, do we dash off so often?  Perhaps we’re in a hurry to finish our practice.  Perhaps we’re wondering if the next asana will feel as good as this one.  Whatever is the case, the lure of “what’s next” can make staying in a pleasant posture just as challenging as sticking with an uncomfortable stretch.  Through our practice, we learn that “what’s next” can take us away from “what is” even more effectively than discomfort can.

 

And that brings us back to my cat.  Yesterday morning as I petted my cat, it dawned on me that, despite all my practice staying in the moment on and off my mat, my cat was one up on me.  Short of a freshly opened can of tuna fish (which doesn’t happen too often in the wee morning hours at my house), nothing distracts him from his morning rub down.  The good news for me is that, when I’m paying attention, I find my days are pretty full of “really good things.”   Therefore, I’ll almost certainly get the chance to practice staying in the moment later today -- though my “moment” may not feel quite as good as the lovin’ I gave my cat this morning!

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

Monday morning is laundry day at my house.  I made this decision deliberately.  You see, Monday is my favorite day of the week and laundry is my least favorite household chore.  I figured combining these two would somehow work out to a net positive.  Mostly, it does.  But this weekend was a really good one and I woke up Monday morning not quite ready for the return to our regularly scheduled program of “musts,” “have-to’s” and “shoulds.”

 

I was standing (OK, I was slumping) in front of the washer folding a load of whites (Note:  this my least favorite load to fold … all those socks and little pairs of underwear make the job seem endless!) when my husband bounced in.  After watching me comb through the pile of match-less socks in the cupboard over the washer to successfully locate a match to an orphan in the clean pile, he exclaimed, “Awesome!  That must feel like finding the treasure in a treasure hunt!”  I shot him a withering look and grumped, “Maybe it ought to, but it doesn’t.”  He sort of smirked at me and retorted, “Maybe there’s a ‘Yoga Thoughts’ in there somewhere.”  “Yeah, right,” I muttered sarcastically.

 

I’ll be darned if he wasn’t right.

 

I was slouched at my laundry counter with a bad attitude.  My irritation and grouchiness were coloring my entire experience.  I was peeved at having to do the wash and that made the task seem onerous and insurmountable.  The fact that I’d actually managed to salvage a beloved, mud-stained t-shirt didn’t even cause a tremor of satisfaction.  The fact that I actually re-matched a separated pair of socks should have been a triumph.  After all, some of the orphans in my pile have been there for years!  In my grumpy mood, however, I completely missed this little, everyday “happy.”  It didn’t even register when it was pointed out to me!

 

Moods are powerful things.  They are like colored lenses through which we perceive our experiences.  This is exactly why I decided to make Monday laundry day!  I’m usually in a pretty good mood on Monday mornings, and it is my mood that makes doing the wash more palatable.  Just as a good mood can make a less pleasant task seem more positive, the opposite is true as well.  I can vividly recall clomping through the woods on a hike fuming and stewing rather than enjoying the beauty of being outdoors with my dog because I was in a beastly mood.  I don’t know what snapped me out of it on that hike, but once I realized the lunacy of allowing my mood to ruin my hike, it started to lift and I was able to enjoy the remainder of the walk.

 

A regular yoga practice offers us lots of opportunities to develop awareness of our moods and how they color our experiences. There is a certain degree of repetition and structure to an asana practice.  It is this sameness that serves as such an effective backdrop upon which to observe our moods.  Most of us arrive at our yoga classes straight from the throes of everyday life.  Perhaps we’ve been sitting in traffic and are feeling harried and harassed.  If so, instead of feeling calming and centering, sitting still before class starts can feel like torture as we squirm under the weight of our mood.  Perhaps some news about a loved one’s health has us feeling melancholy and helpless.  If so, rather than feeling invigorating and energizing, our Sun Salutations can feel heavy and draining.  Perhaps we have bounced onto our mats right after receiving a promotion and continue to bounce all the way through our yoga practice with a surprising amount of energy to spare when we lie down in savasana.  Because we’re practicing sequences and postures that we’ve done countless times before, the influence of our moods is immediately noticeable.

 

I wish I could say there was an easy antidote to moods.  I wish I could offer the assurance that a few, vigorous Sun Salutations could shake a heavy, bad mood with no problem at all.  I wish I could prescribe some calming asanas as a counterbalance to the hyper mania of a euphoric mood.  Unfortunately, I can’t.  But I can confidently say that yoga can and will heighten our self-awareness.  A regular yoga practice will make us better able to recognize a mood even when we’re right in the midst of it.  And awareness is a big, powerful tool in dealing with moods.  You see, as I discovered on my hike, the power of moods increases in inverse proportion to our awareness of them.  Once we realize what’s going on, with a little effort, we can start to shake ourselves free of our mood and just have our experience, whatever it is.

 

It simply would not be honest or accurate to say that I enjoyed folding the rest of that load of whites on Monday morning.  The fact is, I simply tolerated it.  But, while I didn’t end up enjoying that load of laundry, my husband’s comment drew my awareness to my mood enough that I got a little chuckle out of the lunacy of allowing a little, ol’ load of laundry to ruin a perfectly good Monday morning.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

Over the weekend I was up in Vermont to cheer on my husband, father, brother and niece as they teamed up to run a relay marathon.  As I watched my family members pass the baton from one to the next that rainy, Sunday morning, I was surprised at how emotional I felt.  The surge of fierce pride I felt for each of them was overwhelming.  I had goose bumps as I yelled and clapped as they each began to run.  And I had actual tears in my eyes when they dashed to the end of their legs of the race.

 

Running is not a hobby that I share with my family.  You see, while I might break into a run if someone is chasing me, that’s really about it for me.  However, I do enjoy listening as they talk about the challenges of running.  I like to hear them discuss the willpower and discipline required to train for a race.  I’m curious that, despite being so different, both yoga and running calm the mind by moving and challenging the body.  I find it fascinating that they receive many similar gifts from their running that I get from my yoga practice – physical and mental.  I can intimately relate to the joy they feel at the opportunity to grow and stretch themselves each time they lace on their sneakers.

 

But none of this caused the powerful swell of emotion for me as I watched my family compete.  It was something else entirely.  Although these are people literally at the very center of my life, watching them run the marathon turned out to be a chance to see them as I’d never seen them before.  Because these are people I know as well as I know anyone, seeing them in such a wholly different light was even more surprising.  While it was not at all surprising to me that I felt proud while watching people I love do something really hard really well, the joy and love I felt took me off guard.  It literally swelled my heart to have my view of my loved ones expanded.  If possible, witnessing this new side of them made me love them even more.

 

It’s natural for us to put folks in little mental boxes.  “He loves to read.”  “She is very creative.”  “He is always in charge.”  “She is hard to get along with.”  And, if we’re honest, we do this the most with our family of origin – especially when we’re no longer living under the same roof and see each other only sporadically.  It’s just easier to fall back into old habits and assumptions than it is to get to know them all over again each time we reunite.  But our yoga practices reveal to us that we change dramatically each time we come to our mats.  An asana which was challenging one day can be accessible the next.  Seemingly overnight we can gain the strength to lower ourselves through chatarunga (low push-up) with our knees off the ground.  One day our mind is spinning crazily, the next we maintain our focus throughout our entire yoga practice.

 

If we’re different every single day, doesn’t it follow that everyone else is too?  Now, we all know from practicing yoga how very hard it is to part ways with our assumptions about ourselves.  Just the other day, I told someone I had tight shoulders as I wrapped my arms behind my back into prayer position.  To anyone else, my shoulders probably don’t look tight at all.  Though they’ve forever been my “problem spot,” I’m long overdue in shedding my assumption that my shoulders are limiting.  To really, truly do so will require a massive shift in perspective for me.  After all, my old and expected ideas about myself are familiar and easy.  It’s much harder to keep myself open and observant to what is actually going on now.  And that’s just my body and my mind on my mat!

 

If it’s this hard to stay open to surprises about ourselves, it’s exponentially harder to do so with others – especially others we know really, really well.  However, when we do manage to pull it off, it is a gift to ourselves and to the ones we love.  As I watched my family run this weekend, I was bowled over by what they could do.  This new knowledge of them made me prouder than ever to call them my family.  It also leaves me wondering what else I’ll find out about them if I keep my eyes open and stay curious.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

Every once in a while, I get behind a car sporting a bumper sticker with these words from Mahatma Gandhi:

 

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

 

No matter how often I come across them, these words never fail to stir me up a little.  I’ll confess that I’d like to change the world -- even if it’s just a bit.  I hope most of us feel this way.  After all, if this is our intention even for a few minutes each day, it will help lift us out of our little, self-contained bubbles.  It will help maintain our awareness that there is a big world around us filled with people that we’re impacting.  It could even inspire us to do something we might not have done otherwise.

 

I think the real power in Gandhi’s message is that he’s not necessarily talking about acts of genius or heroism.  He’s talking about the way we live our lives.  Each morning that I wake up in my little town outside of Philadelphia and make my way through my day I have a chance to be the change I want to see in the world.  On days when I get to teach a yoga class, or volunteer at my kids’ school, or help with a project at church, I can easily see the impact I’m having.  But Gandhi’s words remind me that I have this same powerful opportunity even on days filled with decidedly uninspiring tasks such as preparing a meal, removing a splinter from my child’s finger or appreciating the efforts of the boy bagging my groceries.  Simple acts done with a generous heart are powerful too.

 

For nearly 80 years, a man in a dusty town in India practiced yoga.  His intention for his practice was simple.  He hoped to realize physical, mental and spiritual happiness.  At some point, he began to share yoga with students at the little yoga shala (school) he opened near his home.  At first there were just a few students.  But, gradually, more and more came.  As student talked to student about the powerful practice that he’d taught them, people began to find their way to his shala from outside of India.  In time, he received invitations to visit students in their countries and traveled thousands of miles around the world to share yoga with even more people.

 

He was seeking neither fame nor fortune, but at the time of his death earlier this week, thousands of yoga students around the world paused to celebrate the life of Sri K Pattabhi Jois, the father of Ashtanga yoga.  He did not set out at the age of 15 to become a world-renowned yogi.  Rather, he simply used his gifts to do the work that he felt called to do.  From his small town in India, Pattabhi Jois managed to share yoga with students around the world – including this student in a small town outside of Philadelphia.  His story is a shining example of the tremendous potential we have when we live so that we are the change we want to see in the world.

 

We all have different gifts.  We all have different callings.  Some will share their gifts through their vocations.  Others will share them through hobbies or relationships.  Some will be fortunate to see the effects their gifts have on the world.  Others may never know.  No matter how quiet or dramatic our impact, we can rest assured that we are making an impact.  In our own ways, we all have the chance to be the change we want to see in the world.  After all, by doing nothing more than sharing his gifts and passions for yoga, Sri K Pattabhi Jois forever altered the course of thousands of lives around the world!  Who will you influence today?

 

In grateful honor of him and his teachers,

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

I’ve been to known to say that yoga will affect the spirit of anyone who practices.  I believe the practice is a well-refined science designed to transform us on every level – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.  In other words, I believe the hockey player who unrolls his yoga mat once a week to balance his workouts with some stretching will see benefits from the practice beyond improved flexibility.  He might find he’s better able to keep skating hard when the game’s gone into overtime and his muscles are aching to stop.  He might realize that his focus is sharper and he’s less easily distracted on the ice.  He might even find that somehow he’s less susceptible to nerves or adrenaline rushes during the game and is able to stay calm, cool and collected no matter how critical the play.

 

At a recent dinner party, I briefly met a man who practices yoga regularly.  As I often do when I meet someone who does yoga, I mentioned the way that yoga touches me off the mat and in my daily life.  He listened attentively and then graciously said that, for him, yoga was really all about the physical.  I nodded and asked him (a little incredulously) if he hadn’t noticed himself using any of the skills he honed in his practice in life off his mat.  I was so sure of myself that I even threw in some hypotheticals – perhaps he responded in a different way to challenges or perhaps he was a little more confident when trying something new?  He reiterated that, no, he hadn’t.  He did yoga as often as he did simply because his body felt better when he stretched regularly.

 

I could have walked away from that conversation questioning my fundamental beliefs about the practice.  Or I could have walked away from it making judgments about the nature of his practice.  Either would have been easy to do.  After all, I had just come face to face with someone whose experience of yoga was wholly counter to mine.  I credit yoga for keeping me from taking either of those paths.  As certain as I am in my beliefs about the practice, I am more certain that I will never fully understand its power.  More often than not, when I think I’ve finally figured out an aspect of yoga, something happens that throws me back into wonderment and curiosity.  The one real constant in my yoga practice is that I’m always learning and discovering new things about myself, my body and the practice as a whole.  Therefore (thankfully), I walked away from that conversation curious about how yoga was touching my dinner party acquaintance.

 

I wound up using that short conversation as the intention for my practices that week.  Each time I unrolled my mat, I focused as completely as I could on the physical sensations of the postures.  Each time my mind wandered, I came back to what the stretch felt like.  Each time I drifted off into the power of my breath, I drew myself back to what I was experiencing physically in that moment.  I realized that it had been quite some time since I’d really paid attention to how some of the more familiar postures in my practice felt.  I learned that when I’m still figuring out how to get into an asana I don’t really settle in to feel the muscles it’s stretching.  The fact of the matter is that I discovered that I spend an awful lot of time on my mat not really tuned into how my yoga practice feels.

 

If my experiences on my mat that week were anything like his, the man at the dinner party is practicing some pretty awesome yoga.  By focusing on the physical, I didn’t miss a single delicious sensation during my practice.  I’ll confess that I also didn’t miss any of the less-than-delicious sensations either, but by sticking with them, I recognized that they had stuff to teach me too!  Having taken this little journey back to the physical, I find myself in awe (again) of this practice.  I find myself grateful for the reminder that we are comprised of body, mind and spirit --- and that the body is no less important a facet of who are than the other two.  I find myself celebrating all the reasons we come to our mats.  Yoga is infinitely fluid in its ability to meet the needs of those who practice it – whether we need a good, post-hockey game stretch or some quiet time away from our to-do lists.  Yoga meets us where we are.  And, though it can be easy to forget, where we are is always in our bodies.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

When I was in fourth or fifth grade, my science teacher showed us a movie I’ve never forgotten.  Through some sort of cinematic magic, it showed plants growing and flowers opening seemingly in real-time.   Though the images didn’t seem to be sped up at all, the plants in the film went from tiny, green pips poking out of the earth to full-grown plants in moments.  While I’m sure some of my reaction had to do to with the beautiful music the images were set to, the transformations revealed in that movie were majestic and magical.  To me, witnessing the miracle of growth like that felt like a sneak peek into creation itself.

 

I’ve always marveled at the patience it must have taken to make that movie.  I imagine the photographer searching gardens and forest floors.  I imagine her finding a barely visible, tiny green tip peeking up through the ground.   I imagine (probably personalizing things a bit here) her hoping this speck of green will indeed grow into the jack-in-the-pulpit or the trillium she is searching for.  I imagine her searching for a safe, sturdy place for her tripod.  It boggles my mind to even try to calculate how often she will need to snap a picture to capture the growth as fluidly as she does.  It must take days and days to film each of the hundreds of examples of life which blossom and bloom in her movie!

 

This spring, though, it has seemed like the window next to my desk is my own personal movie screen featuring the miracle of growth starring the perennials in my garden.  There has been no need to speed things up this spring.  Between the burst of summer-like heat we had two weeks ago and the incredible amounts of rain, I swear I can sit here and actually watch the plants in my garden grow!  In the last two days, my hostas have gone from tight little tubes to expansive, broad leaves. The ferns in the back corner have transformed from rows of funny little fiddleheads into a jungle of lush, swaying fronds.  And, overnight, the naked, brown branches on the trees behind our fence are clothed in a thick coat of fresh, green leaves.

 

Such change!

 

As I allow my eyes to wander around my garden, I wonder at the treat of being able to experience this spectacle of growth and think, “When have I ever had such a special chance to see life in motion?”

 

And then I realize that while perhaps not as breathtaking, I get the chance to see notable, visible growth and change each and every time I come to my mat.  As I take each asana, each breath changes me.  Each exhale deepens my stretch.  Each inhale lengthens my body preparing for more depth. Over and over I breathe. Over and over my body lengthens and opens.  While the opening and stretching over the course of five breaths can feel quite dramatic, I imagine the changes in my asana could appear as subtle as a plant’s hourly growth.  A photographer might not be able to see the changes if she were standing there clicking photos at regular intervals.  But if she were to string the series of photos together and speed them up, I’d bet the transformation of my body in the stretch would look as dramatic as a fiddlehead stretching up out of the earth to uncurl into a fern frond.

 

Such change!  What a treat it is to witness the spectacle of our own growth!  What a gift it is that our yoga practices serve as a lens through which we can glimpse our transformation!  The physical transformation inspired by our yoga practice is like a single fiddlehead in the back corner of my garden.  While miraculous in and of itself, it is only one small part of a beautiful whole.  Like a good camera, we can adjust the lens of yoga to reveal a wider shot.  When we do, we see that our yoga practices transform us wholly and completely – body, mind and spirit.  What a special chance indeed to see life in motion!

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

Growing African violets is one of the little things in life that makes me happy.  While not as temperamental as orchids, violets do require a certain amount of TLC.  They like their light “just so.”  Their leaves don’t particularly like physical contact.  They like to be watered from the bottom rather than the top.  When I manage to successfully cater to their finicky needs, I am rewarded not just by their beautiful blooms several times a year, but with a satisfying feeling of accomplishment at seeing them thrive.

 

My violets need a little pruning regularly.  If I inadvertently damage one of their sensitive leaves when watering, the next week I need to remove it.  The bright bunches of flowers fade and dry and need to be clipped off before they start to decay.  More times than I care to remember, an entire plant has seemed to be failing – with spotted leaves or thin, droopy stalks – and I have to cut the plant back seemingly within an inch of its life.  Parting ways with the old, separating from the diseased, or simply paring down, never fails to give the plant a renewed zest for life.  In fact, I believe the pruning I do is one of the key reasons for my success with my violets.

 

This week, as I was removing a leaf here, a bloom there and even one whole section of a plant, the thought crossed my mind that it would be nice to be able to snip off my most recent nagging muscle.  Alas, when I am struggling it always seems a little more complicated than that.  Whether I am suffering from a sore shoulder, a stiff neck or a tight, painful hamstring, my discomfort can easily take center stage on my mat and in my mind.  I can get caught up in whatever the problem is.  My mind has been known to run amok with the assumption that the pain will be with me permanently.  Despite my complete conviction that this practice is for everybody and every body, in my obsessing I have even been known to question the suitability of yoga for me – wondering if my body is just not meant for it and whether I ought to just move on.

 

Practicing yoga heightens our awareness – physical and otherwise.  For the most part, this sharper awareness is a good thing.  We learn to use our body more effectively and more efficiently.  We get better at reading situations and other people.  We develop better balance on our mats and in our lives.  We learn to recognize and respect our limits – on and off the mat.  However, in an interesting twist, our keener awareness can also mean more aches and pains, physical or otherwise.  A tight shoulder from a bad night’s sleep can feel more significant once we’ve experienced how good our upper body feels when properly aligned.  Similarly, being stretched too thin by various obligations can feel intolerable with our heightened awareness.

 

While it can seem perfectly natural to panic that we’ve somehow hurt our shoulder or question our profession or life path when we experience these new, not-so-comfortable sensations, we can learn a little something from my violets.  We can remember that keen discernment, a healthy dose of patience, and faith in the fundamental healing nature of our yoga practice can be as powerful for us as a good pruning is for a plant.  No, we can’t simply cut off the part of us that is causing discomfort.  But we can take a careful look at our practice to see if there are postures in which our alignment needs a little more careful attention.  We can consider modifying our practice.  Perhaps we can add a stretch or two on our mats that will access our painful muscles or joints.  Similarly, we can consider modifying our commitments.  Perhaps we can temporarily eliminate an obligation or two which are causing us stress.

 

Most importantly, we can spend some energy putting our struggle into perspective.  Rather than defining the whole plant as ill or damaged, the wilting stalks or spotted leaves on my violets are just wilting stalks or spotted leaves.  With proper care and nurturing, the plant itself continues to grow and bloom.  Similarly, our struggles (whatever they are) do not define us.  A tough time at work does not necessarily mean we’ve chosen the wrong career.  Nor does a sore shoulder mean we are damaged goods or that yoga is not for us.  What our struggles do define is how we take care of ourselves – how we practice, in other words.  Rather than being a cause for fear or panic, our discomfort can be enlightening.  It can be one of the indicators of how best to care for ourselves right now.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

When I first started practicing yoga I was seeking change.  I sought physical change as I yearned to reclaim my body after years of sharing it with babies.  I sought emotional change as I yearned to leave behind my short temper and quick tongue and grow into the person I hoped to be.  I sought life change as I yearned to find balance and contentment in days when I frequently felt frustrated and subject to the whims and needs of others.  Though I didn’t know it at the time, I also sought spiritual change as I yearned to find deeper meaning and purpose in my life.  My desire for change was intense and expectant.  I often found myself waiting -- as eager as a child waiting for her birthday -- to see who I’d be, where I’d wind up and what life held in store for me after the anticipated change took place.

 

I waited for a long time.  Then, a little more than two years into my practice, I had an epiphany.  The change I was so eagerly waiting for was not going to change me or my life.  I was always going to be me.  My life was always going to be my life – complete with gifts and obstacles, strengths and weaknesses, passions and irritations.  The growing in store for me and the work for me to do was right there in front of me.  Right there in the midst of my everyday life.

 

Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.

After enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.

Old Zen Saying

 

The change I sought was more subtle than I’d ever dreamed.  Indeed the change had already begun.  In the moments after my epiphany, I realized that, through my intentions, my hopes, and most of all, my practice, my acceptance of and approach to my daily life had already changed fairly dramatically.

 

Nearly eight years after I first unrolled a yoga mat, I still regularly practice the ashtanga primary series of postures.  This is, for the most part, probably the very same series of postures I was led through during my first yoga class.  I guess it could seem that nothing has changed.  After countless practices, I am still moving through the same postures.  I am still “chopping wood and carrying water.”  However, everything has changed.  My body opens to each posture in the series in a very different way than it first did.  Part of this is the strength and flexibility I have gained over the years.  But most of this is a result of my finer understanding of what the posture offers and how my body can receive it.  I am chopping wood and carrying water a little better as a result of the skills and efficiency gained from experience.

 

On good days, lately, when I practice the ashtanga series, I find a level of peace and comfort within the vigorous, challenging flow of postures.  I’m still working mighty hard though.  In other words, I’m still chopping lots of wood and carrying many buckets of heavy water!  But I’ve learned to pour everything I’ve got into my yoga – my breath, my body and my mental focus.  When I bring everything I’ve got to my practice, not only does each posture feel better and more manageable, but my practice delivers “the works” – a peaceful, focused mind; quiet, centered emotions; and an energized body.  While these gifts immediately make my yoga richer, that’s not all.  Over the years, practice after practice, I’ve been carrying these gifts with me as I return to the rest of my day.

 

Like the yoga I practice, I guess in some ways it could seem that nothing much has changed in my day to day life over the past years.  After all, I’m still raising three children.  I’m still working to make my marriage the best it can be.  I’m still cooking and cleaning and … well, I’m still chopping wood and carrying water.  However, just as it has on my mat, everything has changed in my day to day life.  Like my deeper experiences of yoga postures, I’m much more present, peaceful and comfortable in the rhythm of my days.  As I’ve gradually been able to add a few new postures to round out my practice, over the years I’ve gradually added facets to my life that fulfill and sustain me.  Yet, just as I saw so clearly in my epiphany, I’m still me.  I’m still right here where I started.  Now, however, I can see that right here is exactly where I’m supposed to be --- for now!

 

On our yoga mats and in our lives, with hope, intention and lots of regular practice, many subtle changes add up to endless dramatic change.  How are you changing?

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

I woke up feeling harassed the other day.  From the minute I drifted up to consciousness, I was bothered.  As I lay in bed contemplating the day, I was irritated to find that there simply wasn’t enough time to get everything done.  When my husband left the bathroom door cracked sending an unwanted beam of light into my still closed eyes (something he’s done three mornings a week for five years, mind you), I felt persecuted.  I’m pretty sure I was still radiating irritation two hours later, because when I roused my son to get to an early morning orthodontist appointment, he popped out of bed without any of his usual procrastination.  The orthodontist was (of course) running late.  We hit traffic as we raced home.  The arrangements I had made for childcare fell through and I had to scramble for help at the last minute.  While everything worked itself out, I was feeling truly tormented as I threw myself into the car to head out to my next appointment without a moment to spare.

 

And then I slammed to a screeching stop in an impossibly long line of traffic.  “What the #$&* is going on now????” I hissed.  As I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, I looked out the window and noticed I was next to a cemetery.  I saw the funeral procession of cars turning into the gates.  And suddenly, my jangling nerves and racing heart came to a screeching stop that mirrored my sudden stop in traffic.  As I sat in my car, healthy, busy and alive, I imagined the grief-stricken people driving to the graveside to say good-bye to someone they loved.  I imagined the departed and all they’d left behind.  (Let me be clear that I wasn’t thinking about their to-do lists left undone or missed appointments.)  As I sat still waiting for the procession to make its way into the cemetery, I absorbed a big, fat, much-needed dose of perspective on all that I was allowing to bother me.  I entertained the notion that I had a choice in how I was approaching my day.  I acknowledged to myself that I was as responsible as anyone who’d crossed my path that grumpy morning for the way I felt.

 

Do you ever have days on your yoga mat when you feel plagued by stiffness?  Days when you never seem to get loosened up?  I have plenty of those days.  How do you handle them?  Our yoga teachers would encourage us to embrace our stiffness and rejoice in all that we’re feeling and learning about our body.  They would encourage us to work lovingly with our tighter limbs on those days, respecting our limitations by not going as deep into the stretches as we usually do.  Let’s get real, though.  Many times, on days like that, I’m irritated.  I resent not being able to experience the full postures.  As I progress through asana after asana, having to take modification after modification, my frustrated feelings build upon themselves.  On those days, instead of nurturing me and soothing me, my practice can feel like torture.

 

But it’s self-inflicted torture.  By allowing myself to sink into feelings of limitation, irritation and frustration, I set myself up for a lousy experience.  Anything I approach from that perspective is going to stink.  There is another path however.  I can choose to take a breath and simply acknowledge that my body is feeling tight.  I can choose to adjust my practice accordingly with the knowledge that my yoga is more about the act of practicing than it is about the depth of my stretches.  I can even choose to acknowledge my feelings, without allowing them to take over.  This other path is the path our yoga is teaching us to find.  On it, we learn to recognize our expectations.  And we learn to try to set them aside so we can be more receptive and responsive to what actually is.  On it, we learn the power our feelings have to color our experiences.  On it, we learn the power of the space of a breath (or five or ten or twenty) to provide us with some separation from our feelings and some perspective on our reality.

 

In a nutshell, yoga teaches us that what we feel, and how we project it, creates our reality.  A stiff hour on our mat is still a gift – a gift I may not notice if I choose to experience frustration instead.  After all, I’m blessed to have a yoga practice at all.  I’m fortunate to have an hour to take care of myself.  And, if I’m really honest about it, for every day that I feel stiff and unbendy on my mat, I have many more that I don’t.  Earlier this week, it took the shock of witnessing the sorrow of death to shift my perspective on my day.  But the reality is that I had many chances to notice the way my mood was creating my day.  I had many opportunities to take a breath and create some space from my feelings.  I had many chances to notice the gifts life was offering me and to choose to receive them with open, grateful arms.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

All week long I’ve been humming the song “I Can See Clearly Now,” by Johnny Nash.  I woke up with it running through my head on Tuesday morning and it’s stuck with me ever since.  (If you’d like to listen for yourself while you read, here’s a link to a recording on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPuYfFw-9Oo.)  The catchy, upbeat tune is mirrored in its cheerfully optimistic lyrics.  How can you not smile when singing along with, “It's gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright sun-shiny day?”

 

But it’s not the song’s positive perspective that captured my interest this week.  Instead, I’ve been pondering the opening two lines.

 

“I can see clearly now the rain is gone.
I can see all obstacles in my way.”

 

You see, this is exactly what yoga is designed to do for us.  Yoga helps us to see clearly.  Yoga helps us to become aware of the obstacles in our way.  Practicing yoga doesn’t guarantee blue skies all the time.  Practicing yoga doesn’t create smooth seas for us to sail or bump-free paths for us to walk.  Practicing yoga helps us to see more clearly so we can better navigate whatever life brings our way.

 

It doesn’t take long before we start to become aware of this on our mats.  As we move through a series of postures, it becomes clear pretty quickly where we’re tight and where we’re loose.  Typically, I can tell long before I finish my Sun Salutations what I’m going to be focusing on that day!  Some days my Upward-Facing Dogs feel restricted and I know I’ll be breathing into and out of my upper back and shoulders throughout my practice.  Some days my knees never do straighten in the forward bends and I know I’ll be working in my hips and hamstrings.  Moving through the postures does not eliminate my “obstacles” or challenges for the day.  Rather, moving helps me see clearly where I need to focus my energy to navigate through my practice in the most beneficial way.

 

Learning to move through the postures in the most beneficial way is the key.  I learned very quickly that if my hamstrings are tight, pulling myself further into a forward bend only shifts the stretch uncomfortably to my lower back or (worse!) risks a tear in the muscles on the backs of my legs.  Practicing yoga has taught me to work with my body rather than to fight it.  I’ve learned to stop at the edge of my stretch – that point where my muscles say, “Hang on!” – and to breathe there.  Almost every time, after two or three breaths, my muscles release a bit more and my stretch deepens.  I have learned that recognizing and respecting my tight muscles is the first step to working with them.  Once I clearly understand what I’m working with, I can approach my yoga postures with patience and love so that I get more of the release and openness that feels so good.

 

As our yoga practices deepen, we begin to find “yoga moments” off our mats as well.  Whatever the obstacles in our way on any given day, we see them clearly.  Whether we’re facing a short temper, a monumental list of things to do, or a worrying situation at the office, our awareness helps us keep perspective.  We’ve learned on our mats the power of taking a breath, or two, or five.  We’ve learned to work with our challenges rather than fight them.  We see clearly that when we’re grumpy, it’s OK (and wise!) to withdraw a little from others until our mood passes.  We see that if we take things one step at a time, our to-do list begins to feel more manageable.  We recognize that our situation at work will pass just as our hamstrings eventually loosen up if we hang in there and keep breathing.

 

All of this brings new meaning to the next lines of our song:

”Gone are the dark clouds that had me down.

It's gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright sun-shiny day.”

 

The dark clouds that have us down are actually not, as we first thought, the obstacles we face --- our tight hamstrings or our monumental to-do list.  Rather, the dark clouds are created by our lack of awareness and perspective.  The dark clouds lift when we approach our obstacles with acceptance, with patience and (yes) with love.  We find the dark clouds gone when we stop fighting and start working with whatever life has brought our way.  When we allow this awareness that we’ve developed on our yoga mats to shine in our lives, it is a bright, bright, bright sun-shiny day indeed!

 

Namaste,

 

"A photographer gets people to pose for him. A yoga instructor gets people to pose for themselves." — T. Guillemets

 

Trying to get my three kids in place for a group picture is quite an undertaking.  You see, they each have their own take on what makes a great shot.  My son is partial to sticking his tongue out or other “hilarious” facial expressions.  My middle daughter loves to strike a pose, turning her head over her shoulder to gaze directly at the camera with a sultry stare.  As for my youngest, well, she’s currently in the grimace-instead-of-smile stage that seems to plague seven- and eight-year-olds everywhere.  I find myself directing their every detail – where they stand, how they face the camera, how and when to smile.  Honestly, it can feel like I’m producing a Broadway show by the time we’re done!

 

You might think getting a class full of yoga students safely into and out of a series of postures would be even more challenging.  After all, I’m usually teaching more than three folks at a time and the instructions I give for each asana are typically a lot more complicated than “Say Cheese.”  But, I’ll confess that, comparatively speaking, leading a yoga class is a breeze.  Why?  It boils down to my expectations.

 

When I’m taking a family photo, I have a clear vision for how that photo is going to look.  Sure, every once in a while the kids will do something spontaneous which results in a priceless shot.  And, yes, I know that I can only set things up.  To a certain extent, as a photographer, I must stay open to whatever happens – their expressions, their body language, even their interactions with each other.  But, for the most part, I’ve embarked on taking the photo with a pretty clear idea of the picture I’d like to capture.  (And rarely does that involve a stuck-out tongue!)

 

On the other hand, I don’t show up to teach a yoga class with these same expectations.  In fact, I often say to my students that releasing their own expectations of what a posture will look like can be the most challenging part of the stretch.  I’m never happier as a teacher than when I look around my classes and see a room full of people in an asana in different ways.  It’s like looking at snowflakes.  While all snowflakes are made of crystallized water and have six points, no two look alike.  In the best of all worlds, a room full of students will be breathing and approaching a posture with the same intention, but all look different as they honor the strengths and limitations of their individual bodies.  When that is happening in a room, it means I’ve managed to convey the most important part of the practice.

 

Yoga is a personal practice.  Each yoga asana is infinitely modifiable to suit everybody and every body.  So long as we’re breathing smoothly and deeply, and stretching ourselves to our edge where we can grown and change, we are exactly where we need to be in the posture.  My role as an instructor is to help people understand the intention of each asana and then to help them find their way into the deepest expression of the posture for their body that day.  For one person, working in a forward bend is about opening the hips and pressing the torso into the tops of straight legs.  For another, the same forward bend is about lengthening the hamstrings and is expressed with bent knees.  Despite looking quite different from each other, these two students are both receiving the gifts of the posture – and they are doing so in such a way that their breath will continue to carry them deeper into the stretch safely.  In yoga classes, I not only honor each student’s physical reality, but I celebrate it. 

 

At home, my current reality involves a very silly (“hilarious,” even) eleven-year-old boy, a precocious and gorgeous 10-year-old diva and an adorable, slightly self-conscious 7 year-old.  Therefore, it’s not surprising that our photo albums are filled with “funny” faces, “sultry” stares and smiles disguised as grimaces!  Rather than working so hard to create the perfect family picture, I could approach our photo shoots like a yoga class – only this time I’ll be honoring and celebrating the goof-balls I love so much.

 

Namaste,

Amy