Writer Yoga: See the World Through The Right Lens

In my first yoga teacher training that really touched on the philosophical underpinnings of yoga, one of the other trainees mentioned advice her stepfather, who had terminal cancer, had once given her. “We see the world through the lenses we CHOOSE to wear.” A simple statement, but one that has stuck with me ever since. [...]

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Wobbling Through Uncertainty

A few weeks ago, I sprained my foot after I tripped over my own two feet. It’s finally starting to feel close to normal, at least some of the time. The past several days have been unsettling as I’ve had to adjust to limited mobility and unstable balance. It’s pushed my yoga practice off the [...]

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Writer Yoga: Balance Keeps Our Writing Fresh

After class the other day, I was talking with a member about balance from one side of the body to another. That’s the other kind of balance we find in yoga. The poses — Tree, Star, Dancer, Airplane, Warrior III — allow us to develop that calm center that keeps us from getting knocked off [...]

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Writer Yoga: Letting Go of Expectations

Some mornings, I come to my mat and everything clicks. My body feels fluid, moving pose to pose smoothly. Other mornings, it’s a struggle. I feel all the places my body deviates from the norm, all the ways I struggle to find the essence of the pose. I have writing days like that, too. Some [...]

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Writer Yoga: Walking Along the Edge

There’s a phrase I use a lot when I teach yoga — I let participants know we’re looking for the space between “easy” and “ouch.” You know that space. It’s not just in yoga. In anything we do, there’s a place where we’re challenging ourselves, but not setting ourselves up to fail. That’s the Edge, [...]

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Softening Our Grip on Outcomes Through Nonattachment

Back when I had a yoga studio, I had a weekly yoga philosophy discussion group. It started as a short workshop at The Sacred Circle, a local bookstore that carries some wonderful yoga and meditation books, among other things. In the workshop, in the discussion group, in every yoga training I’ve taken that’s touched on [...]

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Balance, A Challenge?

One of the regulars in my Tuesday morning yoga class was asking for balance poses in the Friday class I covered last week — she finds them the biggest challenge. That’s true for a lot of us, whether we’re talking in yoga or in life. I’ll cop to being the poster child at some points [...]

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Harnessing Energy in Writing and Yoga

I’ll admit, I was a very left-brained “I’m just in it for the flexibility” yogini when I started. I’m still left-brained, but I’ve also learned enough of the science and seen enough evidence in practice to embrace the deeper aspects of yoga, including the idea of energy flowing through the body. We see this all [...]

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Intertwining Writing and Yoga In My Life

It’s coming up on 13 years since I began practicing yoga, and probably 30 since I started to write. In both cases, I’ve lapsed at times in my practice, whether it’s putting words on paper or feet on the mat. And the best advice I’ve ever gotten for both yoga and writing is the same: [...]

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