Enough

Shelly's Dinner

A colleague retired this week after 20+ years with the foundation where I work. Since our office is now down two staff, I have absorbed most of her portfolio, even though I still feel so new to the job. Predictably, my insecurities have swelled, and this whole week I’ve felt deficient:

“I don’t know what I’m doing!” I’ve said to myself. “There won’t be enough hours in the day! I can’t possibly do this!”

Today, with 16 grant proposals in tow and a long weekend to chip away at the mountain of work, I decided to shift the narrative of deficiency toward one of abundance: “I am enough.”

If you’ve ever felt deficient — at work, in your relationships, or even with your yoga practice — maybe this week you could try focusing on a sense of abundance.

You are enough, just the way you are.

Walking Distance

Moon Salutations at the Lakewood Park Solstice Steps — I haven’t felt breath course through my body like this in a long time.

Recently I’ve been finding balance by walking a couple miles after dinner. Tonight I walked a new route and inadvertently challenged my assumption that Lakewood Park (just a mile from my doorstep) wasn’t within walking distance. Take a look at all the beauty I was missing out on because I’d created a narrative that a mile is “too far away.”

Forgiveness

During my time away, I struggled to keep up with a regular asana practice. After 2+ weeks off the mat, guilt and shame have crept into my consciousness. I feel weaker, not myself. Frankly, I’m a little afraid to get back into the studio.

This morning, I sat with myself in quiet meditation for just 10 minutes: forgiveness, forgiveness.

Maybe we could all take some time this week to forgive ourselves for whatever it is that weighs us down.

What barriers are you creating? How can you let them go?

Forgiveness

Simplicity

Venice

Happy to be home (and to have heard the last half of the Cavs game on my drive into town!).

I took this picture on my last evening in Venice as we wandered through the city, checking out a few spots that inspired us. Venice is amazing because, no matter how many times you walk through a neighborhood, there always seems to be something new and beautiful to discover. Here’s a photo from an alleyway we stumbled upon, which dead-ended into a courtyard we’d never seen. The vibrancy of the colors and the simplicity of drying clothes in the open air took my breath away.

I hope my yoga practice and teaching this week will open space to explore the ways in which wandering down old, familiar alleyways with an open mind can uncover unexpected beauty and simplicity.

Antelao

Feeling blessed to have taught an intimate class beside Mt. Antelao this morning. It’s amazing how full of breath your lungs can feel when you’ve got so much to be grateful for.

Can hardly wait to teach for the whole community tomorrow morning and in years to come!

Antelao

Nothing to Fix

Yesterday evening, I taught a very special group of yogis at The Source Yoga Studio.

For some, it was their first time on the mat. Others had been at it for years. The diversity of experience in the room helped me remember that the asana practice isn’t about looking like the people on the cover of Yoga Journal; it’s about self-compassion and radical acceptance. These themes translated to a mantra we used throughout the class: “Nothing to say, nothing to do, and absolutely nothing to fix.”

Today, fewer than 24 hours before I leave for Italy for two weeks, I find myself probing that mantra more deeply. “Nothing to fix. Nothing to fix.”

I wonder what it will feel like to have nothing to fix for two whole weeks and how, if at all, I can continue cultivating this notion in my life here at home.

What are some lessons or mantras you’ve learned while traveling? How have you shepherded them into your life back home?

Showing Up

Last Tuesday, a colleague asked me what I did over the long weekend, and I was embarrassed to say I couldn’t remember. This week, I dedicated my yoga practice and teaching to showing up — to not simply visiting the mat but to making something of each breath, something particular and real.

Bind-1 - Copy

“…When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

— When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

The Journey

Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—

though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations—

though their melancholy
was terrible. It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—

determined to save
the only life you could save.

Joyful Vinyasa

My gratitude has evolved into joy over the past couple weeks as I’ve begun to feel embraced by the wide arms of Cleveland’s yoga community. Yesterday evening, I taught an open-level vinyasa class at the Source Yoga Studio. I was encouraged to share an excerpts from the class, which was inspired, I am certain, by the wild and freeing sequences of Tory Jenis (Blackbird Studio, Ithaca, NY).

Warrior I (R)
Humble warrior
Warrior I
Warrior III
Chair
Mountain + grounding
[Transition: left foot back]
Low lunge twist
Vinyasa + repeat

Fallen triangle (R)
Crescent lunge (R)
Crescent twist
Warrior II
Reverse
Side angle
Warrior II
Triangle
Vinyasa + repeat

[Child’s pose, optional]

Forearm plank
Dolphin + leg extensions
Down dog

Warrior II (R)
Reverse
Side angle
Reverse
[Transition: straighten front leg]
Triangle
Goddess squat
Straddle fold
Straddle twists (R + L)
[Transition: mandala pivot toward back of the mat]
Warrior II (L)
Balancing half moon
Standing split
Forward fold
Chair pose
Mountain
Plank
Side plank (R hand down)
Wild thing
[Transition: L foot plants on the inside of R hand]
Crescent lunge (L)
Crescent twist
Warrior II (L)
Reverse
Vinyasa
Wide-legged down dog
Repeat

On Joy and Sorrow

Kahlil Gibran

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.