Hello Source friends, Have you picked up the newly printed Source Yoga Journal? This is a collaboration between me, Tamiko...
Only a week later, my inner yoga teacher shows up again; she too, has gone on retreat. She reminds me of the definition of the word mindful, as used by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of MBSR in the West. Mindfulness is about paying attention in a non-judgmental way. I can pay attention mindfully, I like to think. I have a much harder time paying attention without judgment. So my inner yoga teacher says: What if your discomfort isn’t something for you to analyze away? What if you don’t need to do anything about your discomfort? What if you just noticed it?
I stood at the front of the room, my breath a bit shallow, a little nervous to look at the sea of young faces in front of me. I am not used to teaching children – a room full of adults is far less intimidating to me. I took a...
I’ve meditated at the pool with my kids, believe it or not. (Don’t worry—they are old enough to swim on their own, around lifeguards.) Several times this summer, I was at the wading pool and sat quietly in the water. Closing my eyes, listening to the water falling around me, the sounds of the water splashing, feeling the sunlight warm on my eyelids. Swaying gently when other kids are running in the water around me. I’ve meditated at the wave pool, and it’s a beautiful image now, the ruffled waves coming into and crashing, the pull of the water as it receded. I’ve even taken time to meditate on the ferry. Those seconds stretch into minutes, the minutes into time without measure.
When I taught on New Year’s Day morning, I was happy to see my regular Monday morning crowd. I am...
When we first begin to meditate, we might notice that there is very little space inside our minds. It might seem like just as we are trying to sit down and settle down, our brain goes into hyperdrive. We might be making to do lists, we might be replaying something...
In The Princess Bride, one of my favorite movies, the evil prince Humperdinck has dragged Princess Buttercup to the altar. There’s a great deal of noise outside the castle, and he knows that her true love Westley is coming to save her in a matter of minutes.
“Mindfulness, cultivated even for a few minutes, draws the heart toward itself. It invites the intimacy we yearn for and...
November 2023 When big things happen both in our life and in the world around us, we might struggle to make sense of them and wrestle with how to respond. If you spend any time online (ahem, who doesn’t these days?), you are seeing the events of the world filtered...
“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age...
The longer I teach and practice yoga, the gentler my teaching and practice become. I tell my yoga friends, “pretty...
One of the conversations we have been having in our current Yoga Teacher Training is about the value or detriment of mindfulness hitting the mainstream. When Jon Kabat-Zinn introduced the word and concept of mindfulness to health care in the 70’s, with the creation of the Stress Reduction Clinic at...
