September, 2022 Dear friends, I was talking on the phone with a friend the other day, and after a couple of...
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING AND SHARING In this third year of pandemic life, I just want to take a...
April 20, 2022 Recently, I was talking with Chris Martin, a Source Yoga student who regularly attends our Gentle Yoga classes and sometimes modifies poses with a chair. Chris has been attending yoga classes at Source Yoga for more than a decade and a half and has seen her yoga practice...
April 2022 Welcome spring! The days this week have had such welcome pockets of sun and warmth, so inviting after...
February 16th, 2022 If this last two years has taught us anything, it’s that we really don’t know what the...
With some sadness, I let you all know recently about my decision to close our University Place studio location. The end of this year will be the end of an era – the completion of 10 heart-felt years at our UP studio. It is a bittersweet goodbye, but one I...
I received an email from a student recently asking for help looking for yoga classes for her parents who live...
The longer I teach and practice yoga, the gentler my teaching and practice become. I tell my yoga friends, “pretty...
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.
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?
Normally, I’d be all about the homework. I am one of those people who’s ridiculously happy to be a lifelong student. I have 2 grad school degrees, for goodness’ sake. I miss taking classes besides yoga. But I have to admit that the MBSR homework is a struggle.
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.
