Sunday, January 31, 2016

FOLD / slow down and take it apart

@10000buddhas at Wanderlust Hollywood

Last night, I found myself in a quiet space, softly lit, among other evening yogis. I rolled out my dusty mat and quietly whispered, "Hello, i missed you".  As I found my way into my first downward facing dog it took a few moments to get reacquainted with the pose, but, like an old friend that forgives all past indiscretions and long absences, I quickly settled into my palms, pressed my heels towards the mat, and found that first lonnnngggg exhale.

This pose, deeply rooting into the earth below, always has a way of making me feel instantly at home.

Last night was a practice in patience, a practice in receiving. Which unknowingly, built strength and released tension through resistance.

Try standing with your back against a flat wall; bring your heels about 12 inches in front of you; away from the wall. Feel your low back nestle up to the wall. Let your tailbone sink toward the floor. Press your shoulder blades down your back and straighten your upper back against the wall behind you. you will feel taller than you knew possible. You will feel expansive in your chest. You will feel rooted through your feet. So many things are happening in your body, in this moment, in this pose.

Stay here. Stay here even when your mind tells you to let go, to get out, to move on. Breathe. Breathe three more deep and long breaths. Now stand up straight and tall, do you feel that? You changed something in your body. You shifted something in your mind, and all it took was a few moments of checking in, honoring where you were at, and creating space for you to inhabit a space you didn't consider before.

On this Sunday eve, find a moment to move slowly, mindfully, and as you ride your breath, you will find that you start to soften to the noise and find space in your mind to let go.


Monday, January 18, 2016

FOLD / give yourself permission


"Yoga is the breaking of contact with pain (duka - separation)."  - Rod Stryker

Freedom. It's funny how one conversation can release from the cage you built around yourself. One conversation can give you the permission you need to let go, surrender, and trust. One conversation to stay, it's okay dearest one, to just let it be. You can always adjust, alter, shift, move, cry, be joyful, all the time and ways in which you need. It was so beautiful to be reminded of choice in a moment when I wasn't able; couldn't see myself clearly, it was good to be reminded that I chose this life, this place, this job, this man, this home, this moment. It was good to feel humbled and honored and loved, deeply. I am going to stop using violent words against this place, this home. I am going to honor my choices and shift when necessary. I am going to listen deeper and lean into joy and love and honesty. I am going to be here, now. I am going to try to honor myself enough to shift my self-care, to speak to myself in soft whispers of compassion. I've ben quietly calling in freedom this month, ushered in by one of my teachers, and already feel such a clarity of space given, space received, and space yet to be created. I felt a lightness that I wasn't able to acknowledge or surrender to until his quiet and steady voice begged me to remember, to listen. Life is a steady commitment to take a single step at a time; there's no need to rush, it's all coming.

How are you honoring your internal whispering?

How can you turn up the volume on your self-care?

How can you be with yourself exactly where you are?

Thursday, January 7, 2016

GATHER / crafting intention into your daily routine


Welcome to 2016. It seems like the entire internet, blogosphere and podcast airwaves are buzzing this month on crafting intentions, feeling all the feelings, and creating the visions and goals we want to cultivate this time of year. I love the New Year for it's sense of renewal, refocus and inward questioning. It's a universally recognized month of hitting the reset button, which I think we all sometimes desperately need and yearn for. It's a month of levity and lightness fueled by this sense that good things are on the horizon. I love love love that. I love that as adults this time of year gives us a chance to take a collective deep breath and say this is how I want things to go this year. Intention fills up manifestation and then create our reality. And, let's face it, it's easier to craft new intentions when the universe is spending the moment aligning and conspiring with you.

For me, this is going to be the year of 

 CLARITY

Clarity really struck a cord with me this year. It's defined as the quality of being expressed, remembered, or understood. This year I want to use clarity to define and own my purpose, defend my definable values, illuminate my core purpose, cultivate my continued financial freedom, create and not be afraid to ask and call in abundance, expanded as a private at-home yoga teacher, what studentship means to me, continuing education with my chosen teachers, acknowledgment of space and dedicated time for the tribe i love, continue to define what home has come to mean. 

and also, for good measure and pleasure I'm adding in 

CURIOSITY

just because this word just feels good in my bones. 
It's has an air of playfulness that I am always running the opposite direction from. I want to bring a sense of curiosity into every interaction, struggle, joy, and change this year. 




Sunday, January 3, 2016

GATHER / reflecting on 2015


When I sat down to think back on this year, my first thought was well, "what happened?". I usually mark each major (and most minor) life events in a journal that often sits next to my bed at night. For some reason this year, that ritual was almost completely absent from my day-to-day. So when I sat down to pause and reflect on what this year taught me and how I wanted to enter into this bold and beautiful 2016, I was at a loss for words. It's funny how much I yearned to write this year, but often just couldn't take a deep enough breath to sit with my experiences. I wanted to pour my heart out here and there and everywhere, but instead I intentionally spent time being "in it" with my life: my family, my man, and my work. This was a year filled with epic amounts of transition. The older I get the more I realize how much life is mostly just one big moment-to-moment transition. In yoga, we often hear teachers talk about the ever elusive "present moment" and how "being there" can and will shift everything. This year was one of the first in an 11 year practice that I was able to truly digest that thought. To be "in the present" moment for me has come to mean exhaling control and attachment to outcome while leaving space to inhale trust, beauty, love, and inner truth. We are different in each and every moment and this leaves such profound space for you to expand and contract and always be someone who is evolving, even as life continues to alter and shift around you.

My life lessons of 2015.

Words are meaningful and profound and can alter the course of who you are if you just speak them. 

Trust me, you know what you need. You already figured it out, you don't need to revisit it, reconfigure it, or posit an alternate solution. I spent the better part of a year deciding that my silence on the future of my beautiful and deeply meaningful relationship was more important and sacred than actually speaking the truth about where I wanted us to go together. We hit a breaking point this year, a moment when the truth was a force to be reckoned with and trust led us to loud conversations, mixed emotions, painful truths, and ultimately a profound choice: WE WANT TO BE TOGETHER. I learned that trusting him, and us, was far more productive and meaningful than keeping silent for the sake of not rocking the boat. ROCK AWAY; new places of intimacy and connection lay waiting for you; even if it's end of something and helps you build a path to something new.

If what you're doing has stopped lighting you up, then shift it. 

You're more than your struggle and your value extends beyond your day-to-day work. I was so fortunate this last year to be working for a company I admired with people who continue to inspire me daily with how they're showing up in the world.  Lululemon gave me a year and a half of friends, family, and immeasurable tools to dig deeper into how I walk around and who I am at my core. I am beyond grateful, but after struggling to prove my worth to myself, I decided that they only way to discover what I truly needed was to leave it. I was comfortable, supported, and going places, but something was just not working. It wasn't lighting me up and life is too short for that. So I left, I moved on and found something new and now I have still have all of those beautiful people in my life and I am finally beginning to understand my worth. I can now see, hear, define, and defend my value and it has taken me so many long years to get here. It required of huge leap of faith into the unknown, but that's usually where the greatest things in life hide out, on the other side of uncomfortable.

When your heroes show up, meet them there. 

This year I sought out my heroes in whatever form they presented themselves to me. I seriously soaked them up. I flew to San Fransisco to practice with Elena Brower for an entire weekend just for the pure and unadulterated joy of it. I drove to Pasadena, in rush hour on a Friday night,  to hear Liz Gilbert wax poetic about Big Magic and how much she loves the creative life she is living. Inspired by a blog I love, I started frequenting my local library to devour books by the handful. I forgot how much reading inspires and delights me. I spent countless hours in the car [a two hour commute became a daily addition to my life this year] and listened to hours upon hours of amazing and inspiring podcasts that continue to rock my world about; how to be a badass business owner, how to show up creatively, how to be vulnerable enough to ask for advice about your darkest demons, how to feel inspired and passionate about art and it's intersection with our daily life, how to create magic and be more brave. It's all about the little things and knowing that we are all in this together. I joined a reading group with Jacki Carr, a super bad-ass woman who I have the sincere pleasure of calling a friend, with tons of inspiring readers friends to help me feel connected to a larger community. I finally joined a yoga studio, where it is my profound joy to practice with my teacher Mary Beth LaRue. Finding this space and committing to making it my own was a profound shift this year, and even though I am not there every single day: I am telling you; creating a home somewhere makes all the difference.

These beautiful creations totally made me a better human this year: 

Watch this: 
Flight of the Hummingbird - Liz Gilbert

Read, read, read these: 
Girl Waits With Gun - Amy Stewart
Big Magic - Elizabeth Gilbert
Rising Strong - Brene Brown
The Divers Clothes Lie Empty - Vendela Vida
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
The Vacationers - Emma Straub
My Paris Dream - Kate Betts
The Gifts of Imperfection - Brene Brown
Yes Please! - Amy Poehler
The Creative Habit - Twyla Tharp
Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
Thrive - Arianna Huffington
The Dinner - Herman Koch
Astonish Me - Maggie Shipstead
One Last Thing Before I Go - Johnathan Tropper

Listen with open ears to all of these: 
Being Boss Podcast - Kathleen Shannon & Emily Thompson
Dear Sugar Radio - Cheryl Strayed & Steve Almond
Magic Lessons - Elizabeth Gilbert
Elise Gets Crafty - Elise Blaha Cripe
Creative Start - Cortnee Brown
Art for Your Ear - Danielle Krysa
After the Jump - Grace Bonney

Create space for being alone: expansion lives here. 

This year I learned that in order to be fully present with my TIME, ATTENTION, FOCUS, and LOVE to those in my life that I love most deeply, I need time ALONE. I mean completely and utterly alone, preferably in a space without the constraints of familiarity. I took myself on a solo trip to San Fransisco and it was a salve for a wound I didn't even know existed. I was able to breathe, think, meditate, practice, soak up, wander, imagine, dream, remember that I have preferences, and truly put myself first. That thing they always tell you on the airplane about adjusting your mask first before you help others, is SO DAMN TRUE. I have been running around trying to help everyone in my life adjust their masks while I was slowly suffocating. It's okay to be selfish, the people who love you understand, and if you're anything like me, you probably give them the grace to be selfish with themselves all the time.

I hope your 2016 is filled with wonder, shift, the unexpected, and a deeper understanding about who you are. Know that we're all in this together.