Monday Morning. It feels like fall.

I adore autumn. For me, this is the true New Year. (I also despise New Year's Eve and the month of January, generally, so this just works out better for me, anyway). I realize it's August 27, and therefore not ACTUALLY autumn at all, but the weather has been a bit gray and rainy and it just feels like the seasons are shifting. I think the insane heat of July, during which I got accustomed to a heat index of 120 degrees for WEEKS on end, has made the 80s feels downright chilly. When I make it back north it's going to take me some time to readjust, but I don't think it will be difficult. I was the 6-year old who decided, while laying in a huge snow drift in Cleveland Hts., Ohio, that I must be some kind of snow fairy, because I wasn't cold. I was angry that my mom made me get out of the snow drift and come inside. "Of COURSE I won't freeze to death, mom! I'm a SNOW FAIRY! Don't you KNOW?!?"

Last week I spent all of my time fending off a cold. My friend Cleo introduced me to the most amazing supplement EVER, called Ultimate Immunity. I have never seen such dramatic results from a supplement in my entire life. I was feeling AWFUL. I started taking them on Wednesday night - on the intensive schedule per the bottle - and by Friday morning I knew I was on the other side of this monster of a cold. Thank you, Cleo. This week I want to focus on getting even healthier, and maybe more regimented. With my eating. Exercising. My yoga and meditation practices. Keeping my house clean. Taking baby steps toward goals I have. Etc. After months away, I'm considering turning back to the blog for accountability and consistency. But I'm bad at long term goals - they tend to overwhelm me and I shut down. So instead, a five day goal. I'm going to write every morning for the next five days. It doesn't have to be long, remotely creative or even a bit eloquent. But I'll write. Something.

For today I will write this: if you want a hit of greens in the morning, throw collard greens into the Ninja with a cup of coconut water. Blend, blend, blend. Add a banana and 4-5 ice cubes. Blend, blend, blend. It ends up tasting like banana deliciousness, and you don't have to chew the little pieces of greens like you do when using kale. Life lesson: collard greens work WAY better in smoothies than kale. And according to this big sign I saw at Whole Foods many a month ago, they are actually rated higher than kale in some arbitrary nutrition rating thing that Whole Foods makes seem very important.

Fret not, Cassie. I still love kale. I love kale the very best. More than collards. But I like eating kale sauteed with garlic and grapeseed oil, then simmered in vegetable stock for 20 minutes , or crisped up as kale chips, or in soup. In smoothies it never quite blends up enough.

Today I had collards in my breakfast, I'm having spinach as part of my lunch, and kale as part of my dinner. Three different greens in one day!! I'm a huge dork for being excited about this. I know.

Also, two years ago today I graduated from yoga school at Kripalu, which is how I first began eating copious amounts of kale on a weekly basis. Thank you, Kripalu.

The End. =)

Reality Yogi Aims True: Habits

February is almost over! My birthday is on Monday, February 27, which is fun, but what is even MORE exciting is that on Wednesday it's FEBRUARY 29TH! I love, love, love, love LEAP YEARS! I'm really excited that it's a Wednesday, too, because that means I lead my meditation group on the EXTRA, SPECIAL DAY we only get once every four years. It's gonna have to be a special one. =)

So the second month of 2012, and you might think I've TOTALLY failed at my Aim True challenge. Well, I haven't. (Have I struggled feeling as though I failed because I needed a break from vigorous vinyasa with Kathryn Budig? Yes.) But the reality is, I actually feel as though I'm starting to aim more and MORE true. I've still been practicing and teaching a LOT of yoga. But I've moved back toward the power of KRIPALU yoga these days, and it's incredibly therapeutic and personal. I know I'll start to work some more of Kathryn's classes into my practice, but maybe just one or two a week. I still want to finish all of her classes by the end of 2012.

In other news, but totally related, here are two habits I am starting to get a firm grasp on:

Sadhana every morning. This doesn't have to be yoga practice, although it could be. Any combination of asana, meditation, pranayama, music and silence for at least 30 minutes. I have my own little 6-motions of the spine practice/warm-up that I do (almost) every morning, which developed out of both my personal practice and my teaching, that takes all of two minutes. I try to do at least 8 to 10 minutes of some pranayama, which could be as simple as soft-belly breathing, but is usually some combination of Dirgha, Ujjayi and Nadi Shodhana. I also do a 20 minute seated breath, mala bead, or mantra meditation every morning. Right now I've gotten really into metta meditation - sending positive energy out into the world, usually toward someone specific. I was completely taken by this passage in the book The Wisdom of Yoga by Stephen Cope:

This photo has nothing to do with the passage, but was a yummy dinner.

Jake was holding the most intriguing piece for last. "Here's the most amazing thing. I discovered that there were tracks coming back the other way."

Susan knit her brow. "What?"

Rudi got it. "It means that Fiona had been praying for Jake, too. Jake found the tracks of Fiona's prayers coming back toward him."

"She has been praying for me. Praying for me for years." said Jake.

"Of course, she hasn't been praying for the right things, exactly. I mean she's been praying, I assume, that I'll get married, give up yoga. Whatever. Be a good dog. Get the Devil outta me. But I don't think it matters. It's the spirit of well-wishing itself that makes the tracks."

Jake later discovered that, indeed, Fiona had her own prayer group of Catholic ladies: the St. Mary Society. They had all been praying for Jake for years."

For some reason, perhaps oddly, this calls to mind my favorite E.E. Cummings poem.

(Oh, and I hope you ALL can feel my well wishes for you. =)

Ginger tea while I blog. =)

Ginger tea every night after supper. Signifying the end of eating for the day. This was ritualistic for me at Kripalu. There is really no snacking at Kripalu, unless you buy goodies at the little shop during the day. And I didn't. I stuck with the cafeteria food - which is pretty EXTRAORDINARY. (Okay, except for OCCASIONAL afternoon coconut waters and ginger chews. Sheesh).

Also trying to:

• Limit snacking
• Continue drinking lots of water (about 100 oz a day on a good day, um, ESPECIALLY if you include La Croix!)
• Drink a little bit LESS La Croix (just as an experiment...I was drinking at least six a day).
• Read a BOOK at least two hours a day.

Wanna know the one habit I cannot seem to get a grasp on? GOING TO BED AT A DECENT HOUR. Another one? WATCHING LESS REALITY TV. Housewives, Kardashians, Top Chef... I even got sucked into ICE LOVES FREAKIN' COCO THIS PAST WEEK! Come ON, Hilary. ;)

Tell me, tell me...what habits are YOU working on these days??

Aim True - First Month Wrap-Up

Jai! Jai! Jai!

Aiming true with more green smoothies!

The first month of my Aim True Challenge 2012 is almost done. In fact, it's been exactly four weeks today since 2012 began, and there are only two days left in January. What a different experience this January has been for me than those of the past. In some ways it has still been a tough month for me, but not quite in the same ways that it has been in prior years, and this time around having the focus of my yoga practice with specific plans and goals (including writing about it in this very blog!) really changed the way it felt, all for the better.

Sitting here with a space heater, fuzzy socks and ginger tea to warm me, I present my January stats! (My heat isn't working and won't be fixed until tomorrow. I'm going to be under 10,000 blankets watching movies soon.) 

January, 2012

• 16/87 Kathryn Budig YogaGlo classes completed.
• 9/16 I had taken at least once before.
• Favorite Aim True (Kathryn Budig) practices so far:  
• Calm Your Monkey Mind and Master Hanumanasana
• Find the Connection to Your Core
• Morning Yoga Flow with Kathryn Budig
• Yoga to Change Your Perspective with Kathryn Budig
• 21 total personal yoga practices completed.
• Additional yoga practices this year: 
• Felicia Tomasko's Wipe The Slate Clean Yin class 
• Kripalu Restorative Yoga class 
• Public Hatha class at the YMCA with Beverly
• Kripalu Moderate Flow Yoga audio practice
• Danny Arguetty Moderate Kripalu Yoga Audio Practice
• Professionally: have taught 37 yoga classes and four meditation classes in 2012 as a Kripalu-certified RYT.

Aiming true with glorious steamed artichokes!

I remain convinced that a strong personal practice of yoga is a stepping stone to wonderful things - transformation in your life for the better in ways you didn't necessarily realize you wanted and needed. This is the magic of yoga and this is why it works in a way that other fitness practices do not (at least for me!) - it's truly something you do on the mat as a launching pad for your life off the mat. Maybe this is what makes it a spiritual practice. I have the experience in other forms of physical activity to back this comparison up, too. I have been a cardio-junkie, a regular at both Jazzercise and step aerobics back in the early 90s, a walker, even training for (and walking in) the 39-mile Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I spent many an afternoon in the spinning room, have done all the machines at the gym,, been at Bikram five times a week, followed a very regimented and intense strength and interval training program called Turbulence Training, been the queen of Tae-Bo, and put Jillian's 30-day shred in my DVD player numerous times. Through it all, what I've come back to again and again is my practice of yoga - this beautiful balance of strength, cardio and flexibility. And when I commit to my sadhana of  yoga, I start to see positive changes in my life that I didn't even plan for or have to force to happen. Life just starts to blossom. I start to make better choices. I start to take better care of myself. I become activity engaged - in a soft, safe way - with this overwhelming, confusing reality of being ALIVE.

Aiming true with a focus on fruits and veggies!

The most obvious and measurable step I've taken as an outgrowth of my practice so far is to join Weight Watchers online, a decision that has provided me a lot of comfort and stability this week. Being able to count points and make good food choices gives me a sense of control that I really value. I'd like to lose some more weight, and I want to do it in a compassionate, reasonable way. It isn't that I was making lots of bad food choices as much as I was choosing to eat too much. I read a great quote the other day that said "If hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution." Amen and amen. I don't know exactly when it happened, but my practice led me to taking action toward this goal of healthy, compassionate weight loss. I've become reinvigorated and excited about healthy cooking, revisited my love affair with vegetables (yesterday I roasted beets, carrots and broccoli and steamed artichokes, all to have on hand for quick, healthy meals) and have been paying a lot of attention to keeping up on the latest information on nutrition and health. I've cut down my caffeine to one cup of coffee or latte a day (Nick would be so proud!) and quit doing things that have a negative impact on my health and well-being. And I've actually managed to get almost eight hours of sleep a night this past week! (Something else Nick would be proud of!)

Aiming true with Artemis!

It's fitting. This entire Aim True challenge slowly presented itself to me because of how much Kathryn Budig's story of how she found strength through the Greek goddess, Artemis, resonated with me. You should read it. I love the first line of the prayer to Artemis that Kathryn found, and I've had it as my "info" on Facebook for months: Artemis, huntress of the moon, make my aim true. Give me goals to seek and the constant determination to achieve them.

I joke with my students all of the time that they can set an intention to have intention, and that's perfectly okay. Your intention in yoga practice, if you have one, doesn't have to be something lofty or profound. It can be as simple as having intention. I can't tell you the number of times in class, when directed to set an intention for my practice, I have thought "my intention is just to find some freakin' intention!" (it's second only to "My intention is my breath. Focus on the breath. Nothing more or less. Breath.") It's not so much that I lack things I want to do, see, achieve, accomplish, and check off an imaginary list. It's that I have TOO many things on too many lists, and I get overwhelmed and start feeling paralyzed. I need help discerning which goals I should seek. And after one full month of this focus, I know my first goal is the inquiry of optimal living, and specifically how good health supports optimal living, and how my choices support good health.

So, Jai! Jai! Jai! to you, to me, to all beings. As I continue to choose to be actively engaged in my life, I wish you the aim to be actively engaged in yours. And peace. I wish myself and you and all beings peace. Om. Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.

*photo of Artemis from Kathryn Budig's Elephant Journal article.

Things I Love Sunday

Jackie on the left, Marie on the right.

This is a tribute to my dear friend Jacqueline Saxby, who has SO much courage and drive that she is on her way to China for 18 months, no doubt to make the world a better place. I've not been in touch with her very often as of late, but I think of her a lot, and send her lots of good energy and love. (Same with many other Kripalu loves, actually!!)

Jackie sends emails every Thursday to a group of people listing things she loves. It's really a nice snapshot of what is going on in her life every week, and even though I don't respond very often, I do read and appreciate them. She calls it TILT: Things I Love Thursday. Maybe it's a thing? Maybe lots of people do this? I might be behind on the "things" these days. I've not been keeping up with Whole Living magazine and Yoga Journal, I suppose. =)

Om, shanti, anyway. Right?

Kripalu Yoga Teacher Training, August 2010.

In any event, in honor of Jackie, I dedicate my (Kripalu Yoga Teacher Danny Arguetty audio) practice to her safe travels and exciting next chapter. And I am going to spend five full minutes before I practice writing my own Things I Love Sunday, or more like "things that are on my mind and making me feel really excited and happy!" (Yes. Sparkling water IS often on my mind and it does make me happy. Six times a day.)

water. weight watchers points giving me a sense of control. the inquiry of optimal living. the results of consistent and disciplined PRACTICE. roasting vegetables. sunshine in january. thumb hooks. la croix. letting go and creating space. space heaters. mala beads. routine. potential. feeling. being alive. considering impulsive decisions because you supposedly regret what you don't more than what you DO do. safe space. holding space for other people to step into their fullness six days a week, whether they are there for that reason or not. savasana. getting more sleep. eating healthier. facing demons. making peace with me. trying to re-open my heart to other people after a series of disappointments. setting goals. cleansing. releasing. sisters. nieces. family. friends. feeling happy. knowing that sacred, silent space you find in your head during an intense vinyasa practice. the sacred feeling of kripalu yoga. connections near and far. starting to think about 500 hour training at kripalu.memories of kripalu ytt.

Kripalu Yoga Teacher Training, August 2010

Oops! That was more like seven minutes! I'm off to practice, and I send the energy of my practice straight to you, Jackie! Love you and miss you! Hope you read this someday!! ;)

Aim True - Day 15

Friday, January 27, 2012

Yoga to Change Your Perspective with Kathryn Budig
Vinyasa Flow
Level 2
Kathryn Budig


Shift your attitude and perspective along with your hamstrings and hip flexors. We explore the potential for growth, length, space and change in our minds and lower bodies leading up to Uttitha Hasta Padangustasana (Standing Hand to Big Toe) and Vashistasana II (Side Plank II).

• Posted on YogaGlo on September 28, 2010, I took the class for the first time today. (But I actually don't believe that. I think YogaGlo is WRONG! I am pretty sure I had taken this class. But YogaGlo says I didn't, and they have the final say. =)
• 15/86 classes complete.
• 8/15 I had taken at least once before. (or so YogaGlo says.)
• Favorite Aim True practices so far: 

• Calm Your Monkey Mind and Master Hanumanasana
• Find the Connection to Your Core
• Morning Yoga Flow with Kathryn Budig
• Yoga to Change Your Perspective with Kathryn Budig

Yep - it's going on the favorites list! This was a really great practice for me today. In fact, I feel like I'm starting to have some serious Yogalations (you know, yoga inspired revelations) so maybe any practice would have made it to the favorites list. I'll have to watch out for that.

I've modified my approach to my Aim True challenge just a wee bit. I'm still going chronologically through the classes, but I've decided I'm going to also go by level, so I'll complete all of the level 2s before moving onto the 2/3s and 3s. It's a little bit of a change for me; usually I just take any Kathryn class and modify it on my own, which in a lot of the 2/3s and 3s means mostly ignoring the handstand kick-ups during the flow and skipping the INSANE arm balances and inversions, instead practicing dolphin. But I'm trying to do a better job of honoring my body and getting stronger and not just letting my practice plateau, and I think sticking with classes that really challenge me where I am actually makes it harder - in a GOOD way.

My Yogalation for today was more of a question. Kripalu Yoga is the inquiry of optimal living. Am I living optimally? It's scary to think about. But how can I approach the answer to this from a place of non-judgmental, compassionate self-awareness?

I need to get back to Kripalu for my 500-hr training. I'm feeling the call. I have to make it happen. =)

In other news, I want these Hot Booties. Has anyone seen this late-night TV product? They are slippers that you microwave! Those would go GREAT with my Snuggie... if it ever actually feels like winter here in Kentucky!

Bonus Yoga: Kripalu Moderate Yoga Flow

Friday, January 20, 2012

Whew. I had forgotten just how physically and emotionally intense true Kripalu yoga can be. I've been doing so much Vinyasa Flow with Kathryn Budig, and I LOVE it, but it's really important to me in my practice to switch it up at least once a week to keep myself fresh, open and connected. It's like this analogy I heard: if you drive a pickup truck down a gravel driveway the same way again and again and again, deep grooves are going to develop in the gravel, and the truck won't be able to go any other way; eventually the wheels will get stuck and spin. So it is in our bodies, when we habitually do the same thing each and every day, which is why we have to iron it out through a yoga practice (assuming, of course, that we want to feel GOOD in our physical lives!) I think it applies on an even deeper level for the serious yoga practitioner and yoga teacher - in order to avoid overuse injuries and creating deep grooves in the body you can't do the exact SAME yoga over and over and over again, day in and day out.

Today I did an audio practice that the Kripalu Yoga Teacher's Association sent me a few months ago, that I hadn't yet tried. It was truly a Kripalu style class - deep emphasis on pranayama, micro-movements, long holds with deeper breath work, and a lot of emphasis placed on STRENGTH and finding flexibility from a place of strength. It was CHALLENGING for me to slow down after so much fast-paced Vinyasa practice. And I really appreciated that slowing down, immensely. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be SORE tomorrow.

Bonus Yoga: Kripalu Restorative Class

Maybe it's because I only did a 20 minute practice with Kathryn today, or because I didn't teach today, and normally Sunday is my only day off from teaching, but I needed a little bit more yoga tonight. I do have my Reality Yogi type evening practices almost every night, usually some time in pigeon or Legs Up The Wall while I catch up on my reality TV guilty pleasures. Tonight, though, I gave myself a really delicious treat, and actually did a free online Kripalu restorative class. SWOON.

Click this link and at least bookmark it - you'll thank me later. 

I don't want to over-hype it, but really, try to carve out an hour for yourself sometime this week to do this practice. I had the great honor of being trained in restorative yoga (as part of my 200 hour YTT at Kripalu in August, 2010) by Sudha Carolyn Lundeen and then take a 90-minute restorative class with her, complete with every possible, perfect yoga prop courtesy of Kripalu. They quite literally brought in huge, huge carts of blankets for the 57 of us to practice with her. Heaven. Sudha is one of the most brilliant, seamless, calming and patient restorative yoga teachers I've EVER practiced with.



Don't let the need for props scare you. You don't need to go out and buy things labeled "Official Yoga Prop" or have anything special. You can do this practice with two couch throw pillows in replace of a bolster, or even a couple of folded blankets, and other various pillows, blankets and cushions you have around your house. A scented eye bag is LOVELY, but I used a (clean) fuzzy sock tonight because it was nearby. It's worth the time to grab a few blankets and fold them up or figure out ways to re-purpose something you already have. Trust me.

THIS is a true Kripalu yoga class. Kripalu RESTORATIVE yoga, at that. The benefits of restorative yoga are outrageous and man, it feels GOOD.

It sort of reminds me of how I feel about berries - the fact that they are healthy is almost too good to be true, because they are so damn delicious, and anything that delicious can't possible be good for you, too. (I also feel this way about avocados, pomegranates and salmon.) Restorative yoga is as delicious as the richest chocolate cake, with NONE of the guilt. =)

As much as I tried to really experience this practice as a PRACTITIONER, and not a yoga TEACHER, the part of me that is always eager to soak up more techniques from all of the amazing yoga teachers in the universe was still present. And these are the things the yoga TEACHER in me noticed:

• There was a pretty vigorous joint warm-up. It was very thorough, including the ankles and the wrists, knees, hips, shoulders, neck and the six motions of the spine.
• Sudha took her time demonstrating the set-up, entry, hold, release, and breath cues for each posture, having clearly asked the class to WATCH the first time through and not try to start setting up (which is the natural impulse) and then went though it a second time with the students actually setting up and taking the posture. 
• She gave students ample opportunity to adjust to honor their bodies, even long into the holds.
• The transitions were as mindfully and clearly cued as the postures themselves. 

But the yoga PRACTITIONER in me was just melting. =)

I couldn't believe how much tension and stress I was holding on to that I didn't even know was there. It was intense. It reminded me somewhat of my very first experience with restorative yoga in southern California with a teacher named LB Iddings. Bliss.

So that's TWO bonus yoga practices in nine days, which means that this challenge is REALLY working to give my practice a boost. Wow. In nine days I've practiced eight times!

JAI!!

photo credit: aprilhelen

Reality Yogi: I Don't Practice Shoulderstand.

I am a yoga teacher who very rarely practices and almost never teaches shoulderstand.

Oh! The horror! I know!

I've read numerous times that some schools of yoga consider this to be the ULTIMATE yoga pose, the pose of all poses, the pose that will bring physical bliss and spiritual enlightenment and all sorts of good fortune. I saw something about essence and sweet nectar and divine peace and other random, seemingly profound (but ultimately vague) words and phrases in regards to shoulderstand the other day.

As my friend Nick is fond of saying, "cool, dude."

Really. Cool, dude, who thinks shoulderstand holds the key to knowing the meaning of life. Cool, dude, who digs the practice and feels better after a shoulderstand and thinks if you don't you're not as "yogic" as he is, but om shanti, anyway. Cool, dude, who thinks if you aren't rocking shoulderstand and arm balances and scary backbends day in and day out, you aren't an "advanced" yoga practicioner.

Cool, dude, because I think shoulderstand is pretty scary for the general population, and if you weigh more than a feather, and even if you don't, it can potentially be disastrous on your cervical spine.

You think I'm being overly cautious in my teaching and my practice? Okay, take it from Yoga Journal: "What happens if your student forces her neck too far into flexion in Shoulderstand? If she is lucky, she will only strain a muscle. A more serious consequence, which is harder to detect until the damage is done, is that she might stretch her ligamentum nuchae beyond its elastic limits. She may do this gradually over many practice sessions until the ligament loses its ability to restore her normal cervical curve after flexion. Her neck would then lose its curve and become flat, not just after practicing Shoulderstand, but all day, every day. A flat neck transfers too much weight onto the fronts of the vertebrae. This can stimulate the weight-bearing surfaces to grow extra bone to compensate, potentially creating painful bone spurs. A still more serious potential consequence of applying excessive force to the neck in Shoulderstand is a cervical disk injury. As the pose squeezes the front of the disks down, one or more of them can bulge or rupture to the rear, pressing on nearby spinal nerves. This can cause numbness, tingling, pain and/or weakness in the arms and hands. Finally, a student with osteoporosis could even suffer a neck fracture from the overzealous practice of Shoulderstand." 

I think that being "advanced" in your yoga practice isn't about any levels or progressions of postures or working up from shoulderstand to being able to balance on only your head. In fact, I think balancing on only your head is kinda crazy, and for 99.9% of the population, potentially dangerous.

Let's face it. We are not all built like my favorite yoga teacher, Kathryn Budig. She's essentially a world-class athlete. If there was yoga in the Olympics (oh, lord, don't even get me started) she'd be on the American team. She very well may have the prowess and natural ability that, had she pursued it, could have landed her a spot on the Olympic gymnastic team, all yoga aside.

Yes, you can build strength, you can increase flexibility, you can develop balance, and you can find deep peace and relaxation by practicing yoga. If you want to work toward a certain pose that you don't currently have the strength or flexibility or balance to do, that's great. Goals are good. Getting stronger is good. Using yoga to transform your body, your mind, your spirit - it's all good. And for some people, shoulderstands are good. Headstands are great. Arm balances are extraordinary.

But you can't look at Kathryn Budig's ToeSox ads and decide that one day, come hell or high water (or a slipped disc or two) you're going to have a photograph of yourself looking exactly the same. It's not gonna happen. Why? Because Kathryn Budig is Kathryn Budig. She has HER body. You have YOUR body. And having taken a copious number of her yoga classes, I'm pretty sure that she'd be the first to say that there are probably things that come easy to you, maybe even physically, that she absolutely struggles with. She manages to balance teaching "advanced" classes while remaining compassionate and encouraging and playful, and that's why she's really incredible. And if yoga is about compassion (and, at least, KRIPALU yoga IS about compassion - the world kripalu MEANS compassion) then pushing past what is natural for you, to get your body to do what another person's body does, is NOT compassionate. Not when ego and obsession are involved. Not when force is involved, period. Not when your anatomical structure and physical reality mean that if YOU were to do shoulderstand on the regular you could do severe damage to your cervical spine.

I'm worked up about this because an article appeared in the New York Times this week about the dangers of yoga. "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body" made me feel really anxious at first, even about my own practice, especially about my teaching of a general population in western Kentucky that, for the most part, has never heard of yoga outside of a scary, hippie-dippie, new-age, against their religion thing that people in big cities do. (To be fair, there are some really wonderful, very well-studied yogis here, too.)

And then I realized two things. First of all, that this article is written as though asana, or postures, are the only aspect of a yoga practice, and that mastering versions of said postures that involve "extreme bending and contortion" is the only goal of that asana practice. Secondly, I realized that the common thread between the numerous examples the author cited of yoga causing horrible injuries and conditions was that each one was an example of someone who was clearly pressing their body past obvious, reasonable limits. It specifically mentions "extreme bending and contortion" - and not all yoga is "extreme bending and contortion." It mentioned someone doing full shoulderstand for five minutes a day, I can only imagine despite some sort of discomfort. It mentioned someone pushing their heels down with so much force in downward facing dog that they tore their Achilles tendon.

Okay, come on. Why would you do that? I don't understand.

Do you want to know how Kathryn Budig cues pressing the heels down in downward facing dog? How I cue it? She (and I) usually says something along the lines of "take a deep inhale and come high onto the balls of your feet, feel your hips float toward the sky, internally rotating your triceps so that your arms extend and your armpits pull in toward the body. Lift your shoulders away from your ears, letting your neck relax. Exhale as you slowly ALLOW the heels to descend, to melt toward the earth." Do you hear anything about FORCING your heels to touch the ground? No. Kathryn will specifically, and repeatedly say that it doesn't matter how close your heels get, that it's just the energetic intention, and ALLOWING the natural ability of your muscles to open. So maybe one day your heels meet the ground, maybe your heels NEVER get anywhere close the ground, and IT DOESN'T MATTER. It's your body. Your yoga.

It really sounds to me as though these are all examples of people NOT approaching themselves - their body or their spirit - with non-judgmental, compassionate self-awareness. And that is what I believe to be the key to a healthy, safe, beneficial asana practice. In fact, I'd argue that learning non-judgmental, compassionate self awareness IS the reason to practice yoga at all.

Michael Taylor wrote a wonderful response to the NYT article, and says, "Injuries aren't part of yoga. Injuries are part of "not yoga." Yoga, just like life, is ours to create. It's ours to create yoga that's struggling, striving, pushing and forcing; a life that reinforces the strain and difficulty in our bodies and minds. It's also ours to create a yoga that is calm and peaceful. And a life that is capable and easy in any setting, under any challenge." 

My goal as a yoga teacher is to find a way to balance giving my students the opportunity to challenge themselves, to grow as practitioners, to work toward those more "advanced" postures that our competitive culture seems to covet, while holding onto a practice, as Michael says, that is calm and peaceful.

And it's a good reminder in my own practice, in this challenge I'm writing about, too. My reality as a yoga practitioner is that too many chaturangas start to bother this old shoulder injury I have. There is nothing for me to gain by forcing my way though a level 3 class without modifications just so I can blog about it. But don't worry about me. I'm a master of taking child's pose whenever I want. I'm pretty sure listening to other people chaturanga through a level 3 class while I take numerous child's pose breaks has just as much benefit as doing them all myself. ;)


ps - If you ADORE shouldstand, if it is your favorite of all favorite poses, please accept my humble apologies. We're all different. It just doesn't float MY boat, so much. I think Legs Up The Wall is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Yummy. =) 

pps - Here is a really compelling response to the NYT article entitled Yoga and Injuries. One of many good points is "Ultimately, the Times article provides no evidence that yoga classes on the whole are any more dangerous than other exercise classes. I haven’t been able to find any statistics on the prevalence of injuries from yoga classes versus from running, lifting weights, P90X, CrossFit, step aerobics, Zumba, deep knee bends, silly walks, etc. But if those statistics have indeed been collected somewhere, my bet would be that yoga comes out among the safest exercise options, because of the point made above: only in yoga are you actively encouraged to practice mindfully and sensitively."

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger...with a side of compassion.

Last weekend I kept meaning to sit down and write about what it was like teaching my first real-deal-real-people-real-life yoga class. Didn't happen. Tuesday did happen, though, so as of Tuesday at 6:31pm I started meaning to sit down and write about what it was like teaching my SECOND real-deal-real-people-real-life yoga class. Now it's Friday. Sitting down? Check. Writing? I suppose.

At Kripalu Yoga Teacher Training we would set inquires for every Practice Teach. In fact, we set inquiries all day, every day, which was part of what drew me to the Kripalu program in the first place. I'm the product of Montessori School and an Authentic Liberal Arts College Education (on the World's Most Beautiful Campus - yes I'm bragging on my alma mater. Again.) and the Kripalu YTT methodology, much like every other educational experience of my life, reminded me of that amazing Rilke quote:

...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

...which is NOT to conjure images of sipping scotch (although I am a fan) in an imposing Ivory Tower feeling generally superior. In fact, it's the opposite - sometimes I feel incapable of making decisions because my brain has been wired to live everything as a question, to see a million POSSIBLE answers, and then see each possible answer in shades of gray - good and bad - right and wrong - and OH! Every possible answer PROBABLY becomes another inquiry. Woo!

Learning to teach yoga from this perspective (it's one of Pantanjali's sutras: Atha Yoga Nushasanam - Now, the inquiry of yoga) means the realization that you could teach an entire 2-year series on Tadasana (mountain pose). "What happens if you soften the knees? What happens if you shift your tailbone down ever so slightly? How does it feel when you lift the ribcage? Spend the next hour noticing your fingers!! Namaste!" To be fair, we did spend an entire day learning/learning to teach Tadasana, and nothing changed my understanding of yoga or helped me tune in to the details of my own body more than that day.

I used to get so anxious standing in mountain pose. First of all, it felt ridiculous to just STAND there. I wanted to move on and start beating myself up - you know, force my body to work hard, harder, harder - be stronger, be more flexible, be BETTER - whatever that meant. Second, I was always sure I wasn't doing it "right" - the cues to notice these subtle things in my body were just totally lost on me. It was almost impossible to connect my mind with where my hips might be. How could standing be SO complex? That drove me crazy.  These two things are connected, though, and common. And exactly why I'm teaching yoga.

It's the devastating thing I saw in my own life and I see in the lives of people all around me, all of the time. Somehow the body has become a thing we have to punish, beat into submission, force into compliance. On those TV shows where people are losing weight in groups or working with celebrity trainers I've heard it spouted off as a way to do more, work harder, get results: "Show the body who's boss! Run faster! Push harder! Don't let the body control you, you control the body! No pain, no gain!" Essentially we're encouraged to disembody ourselves in order to achieve something physical. As opposed to being one integrated human being, we are a floating head who happens to own a body, and as the owner of the body, we're going to whip it into shape. I used to do this all of the time in fitness classes, running, working out at the gym: I would tell myself I was the boss, I could keep going, I could do more -as though my body and mind were totally disconnected. And it can work for a little while. Maybe it could even work for an extended period of time, at least on the level of keeping the body in good physical shape as defined by the clothing industry.

But it's a recipe for failure, misery, injury and weight gain, and here's why: perhaps on Monday I disembody myself so that I can run five miles as fast as I can - I'm pushing and beating myself up and forcing - and maybe it's a good thing in and of itself. Maybe my body really needed the movement, the exertion, the oxygen. That's good. Except if I'm doing it from a disembodied place - if I'm forcing my body to run as some kind of power-play, showing it that I'm in charge, I'm setting up a really warped mind-body connection. And then on Tuesday, maybe I continue feeling disembodied, but this time it makes it easy to binge on fast-food because, hey, the body is just this thing, it's not really me. And maybe on Wednesday I feel really guilty about the fast food binge, and I spend a lot of time hating my thighs, obsessing about how much I hate my thighs. And then on Thursday I feel generally shitty and I don't really know why. On Friday I am so disembodied that during my latest and greatest strength training program (that has promised me THE perfect abs) I don't listen to the cues that I'm using too heavy of weights and I put my back out. On Saturday my body and I are involved a serious war - stupid, hurt, not good enough body keeping me flat on my back in bed, all the while probably gaining weight and making sure I can't fit into my favorite jeans. On Sunday I'm in a state of such serious self-loathing I can hardly see straight. Why? Here's a guess: if I'm punishing my body, I'm punishing myself. If I hate my body, I hate myself. The end.

I don't mean this as a literal example. Each day could represent one year in a person's life, even. But this is what we are being told to do by many in the fitness industry - even in yoga classes, especially the latest and greatest super-vigorous-core-power-vinyasa-ass-kicking-in-a-room-as-hot-as-a-sauna class (and I mean no harm - I love intense vinyasa classes, and I even love Bikram classes!) - and  we are so completely disconnected from our bodies that it is hardly a surprise that we fill them with food that has no nutritional value and that people are starving themselves and over-exercising on a quest to meet some arbitrary standard of physical beauty. It's no surprise that we pack our schedules so full that we have no time for any relaxation, restoration or anything else that doesn't serve a specific purpose toward getting further on the imaginary totem pole of necessary life accomplishments.

I want to teach yoga from the perspective of how miraculous the body is. Instead of hating your thighs, what if you marvel - simply MARVEL - at their strength holding you, sweet and easy, in Virabhadrasana I? Instead of hating your belly, what if you explore the way your core strength allows you to move and stretch and stabilize poses? What if your goal wasn't to show your arm muscles who the boss is, but to instead notice, every day, how much longer you can stay in chaturanga dandasana, and then thank those muscles - those parts of YOU - for the effort? In my experience, if I work WITH my body - with the muscles that I am strengthening and training and stretching every day in my yoga practice and any other form of exercise, then it becomes fun and compassionate to work hard, challenge, explore the edges of exertion and endurance.

When a yoga practice allows you to begin reconnecting the body and mind - inquiring into parts of the body that have been ignored because of shame and experiencing the beautiful power and potential of the body even after years of neglect - the door to true health and wellness has been opened.

What if I can connect my body, mind and spirit in such a way that we are one entity: moving, flowing, living and loving together? Moreover, what if I can inspire my students to approach their practice (and by extension, their lives) from a place of compassionate self-awareness so that one day choosing healthy foods that nourish their physical form becomes second nature; not holding back during a vigorous yoga practice becomes an act of love; sweat pouring and heat building goes from being a punishment to an expression of the connectedness of mind, body and spirit?

Now, the inquiry. =)

PS - My first two real-deal-real-people-real-life yoga classes went well, by the way. =)

Life. The way it is. The way it isn't.

I can't believe it's been three weeks since I returned from yoga teacher training at Kripalu. It feels like three YEARS, and that can, at times, feel disheartening. I think back with such a sense of bittersweet longing to waiting at the Albany airport on August 1st and meeting the sweet Kelly ("Are you doing yoga teacher training?" "YES! Are you?" "Yes! Are you SO excited!?" "Yes." -pause- "I'm also SO NERVOUS." "ME TOOOOO!!") who in many respects may as well be me 14 years ago. I think we were both so relieved to make a connection with someone else in the program right away, and specifically with someone with whom we could RELATE. We sat next to each other on the shuttle from the airport to Kripalu and exchanged stories, and I had that funny feeling that in four short weeks this slightly uncomfortable small talk would be replaced by a deep and abiding connection. (I was very, very right.) We checked in together, chose our bunk together in the huge dorm room with 20 other bunk beds and explored the building together. We met Pam, who had been a volunteer at Kripalu previously, and as such seemed to have lots of good inside information (for example - even if the doors to the dining hall are closed, you can still go in and get tea! Anytime!!) and went to a gentle afternoon yoga class taught by Grace, who would end up being our Anatomy and Physiology teacher. I will never forget how nauseated and nervous I felt during that class. It may as well have been a super advanced vigorous class because it was destroying me, probably because I had gone to bed (on an air-mattress at a wonderful friend's house) at 1am the night before, gotten up at 4am to be at the airport for a 7am flight, had traveled all day and was embarking on a whole month that was really a complete unknown, except for the vague notion of supposedly coming out the other end a yoga teacher. Hello, nerves! I remember meeting Launa (with her amazing British accent, her intimidatingly powerful and yet kind presence) outside of our program room. She told me immediately that she was petrified that she wasn't ready for teacher training, but that she was convincing herself it was just a journey. That made me feel SO much better, especially coming from someone who looked the part of Yoga Goddess already. And, of course, I met Murphy that night at the opening session. I had no idea we had already chosen top bunks right next to each other or that I would eventually be her visual alarm clock in the morning (I would always see her wake up with a start and check if I was still in bed around 5:45am. If I was, she promptly went right back to sleep. I'm guessing if I wasn't she either checked the time and/or got up herself. Ha!) She sat on a cushion next to me and just seemed READY. TO. GO. She was emanating so much energy that she may as well have been vibrating. I told her, much later, (in the sauna, which became our nightly ritual - The Sauna Situation, it's called) that she had seemed so front-bodied that I wasn't convinced she might not propel herself forward at the speed of light and crash through the wall on the other side of the room before the program even started.

And these are just a few details of day one that I think back on with fondness and longing. 27 sixteen hour days equal an INFINITE number of details, a lot of fondness, and a ton of longing.


I always find it so tempting to try to hold on really, really, really, REALLY tight to experiences and people that make me feel good, and while understandable, it's no good to get so caught up in the past that I'm living in it and/or mourning it ALL OF THE TIME, right? I'm reading a book that another Kripalu friend, the lovely and talented Julia, suggested: Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. Were the battery in my Kindle not low and were I not feeling too comfy in this big blue chair to get up and find the charger, I'd quote a few passages from the first chapter that deal with exactly this phenomenon: the intrinsic suffering of being human that is essentially not seeing life as it is in the present moment. Ah ha! And there it is. I think this was one of the stairwell signs I saw most often at Kripalu.

I suppose I wonder how we remember, celebrate and learn from the past AND plan for the future, all the while living squarely and fully in the NOW. I have a few ideas and theories, but I'm curious, does anyone know THE answer?!? Or have AN answer? Please share!

Granola!

I made granola! I made granola!!

The granola at Kripalu is LEGENDARY. During my month-long teacher training I ate it almost every single morning with organic yogurt. It was SO perfect after our 90 minute morning yoga practice, especially if that practice was particularly vigorous. In fact, I specifically remember very sweaty morning classes with Jovinna, Danny and Roger during which the only thing getting me through the class was the promise of granola. I'd be hovering in plank for what seemed like an eternity, watching the sweat drip onto my mat below me, and just think "granola-granola-granola-granola" over and over and over again. Ha!

I have been craving Kripalu granola ever since leaving the Berkshires two weeks ago, and today I found a few different recipes online claiming to be THE Kripalu granola. After reading them (and doing some general granola research) and coming to terms with what I could get at the local grocery store (i.e. NOT rye flakes or barley malt) I sort of made up my own recipe. It's not EXACTLY like that magical Kripalu granola, but it IS very delicious!!! Now that I have the granola-bug, though, I think I'm going to be doing a LOT of granola experiments.

So this is what I did today, in case you, too, are in the mood for some delicious granola!!

Mix together in large bowl:
9 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup flax seeds
2 cups shredded cocount

2 cups sunflower seeds
1 cup sesame seeds
2 cups chopped almonds
(set aside)

Combine in saucepan:
2/3 cups canola oil
1 & 1/3 cup maple syrup
(warm on medium heat for a couple of minutes)

Remove from heat and add:
1 tbs vanilla extract
1 tbs almond extract
1/4 tea maple extract
1 tea salt


Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture in two stages, combining well after each addition.

Spread the mixture onto two large baking sheets and press down with a spatula (or, let's be honest, your hands.)

Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. Unless you have a huge oven, you'll have to use two racks; I switched the position of the sheets in the oven after 20 minutes so they would bake evenly.

Cool for 30 minutes (the granola will harden and darken as it cools!) Break up, add raisins, and store in an air-tight container.

Serve with yogurt (I'm partial to Seven Stars Farm which you can usually find at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods) or milk or just snack on it dry!! Be careful, though. All those nuts and seeds means a little goes a long way, but it tastes so good that you may end up REALLY FULL before you know it. =) This is a powerhouse food!!

YUM!!

The blue and black stone

“I’m not going to be very good dinner company.”

No response. At all.

“I’m NOT going to be very good dinner company,” I repeated a little bit louder to the woman who had placed her tray across from mine, clearly, in my mind anyway, taking pity on the poor girl eating all by herself in the crowded Kripalu dining hall on a busy Saturday night. She glanced at me only briefly, obviously not intending to take my not-so-subtle hint that I wanted to be left alone, and I wondered if she could tell I’d been crying. My instinct to pretend everything was fine - to will the tears backward from where they lay precariously on my bottom eyelids, one blink away from streaming down my cheeks - was met with a manipulative curiosity. Maybe if I WAS obviously crying she WOULD leave me alone, and I REALLY wanted to be left alone. Even more so when I recognized her as the 50-something, abrasive woman with the thick Boston accent who had snapped at me in the laundry room the night before. I, riding the euphoric high of a week at Kripalu, had been shocked by her “real-world-ness” - she had been angry that there were no washing machines available on Friday night (umm, join the club, sweetheart - Kripalu may be heaven on earth, but when it comes to laundry it’s the only part of the organization a bit closer to hell - of the six machines in the basement two are for staff use only, requiring a special card, and at least two are always out of order, leaving only two coin operated machines for the 600 guests who may decide to do laundry on any given day) and when I had admonished her (in a positively giddy, and in retrospect, probably obnoxious way) for saying the situation was hopeless (“Don’t say THAT! Nothing is EVERRRR hopelesssssss!” I had gushed. Who did I think I was, exactly?) she had quickly put me in my place, snapping back at me with such anger that I had physically recoiled. It hadn’t phased me in the moment, particularly, but less than 24 hours later I was feeling pretty hopeless for other reasons, and quite enjoying my trip to Wallow-World alone in the dining hall with my plate of kale and other assorted steamed vegetables. After a week of pure bliss, it was almost comforting to revert to old habits. Not almost, actually. It just was.

Why was this woman sitting down with me? I searched her eyes for any glimpse of recognition, but if she did recognize me as the overzealous-life-is-BEAUTIFUL-smiley face-LOVE-exclamation-points!!!! type from the night before, she hid it well. Instinct winning out, I pushed back my tears and tried again, a bit more forcefully.

“I’m just finishing up, really, and honestly, I’m not going to be great company anyway, and…” Wait - were my tears betraying me, the little JERKS, or was that residual sweat from the vigorous yoga class with Danny I had just finished 20 minutes prior? I didn’t have to wonder long.

“Why, because you’re crying? That’s why I’m here.”

She said it with such authority that I was quite sure she was telling the truth, and in my current state of self-loathing, I was also quite sure it was to let me know that I needed to pack up and leave the yoga teacher training program immediately. My tears made up their own minds and sprung from my eyes.

In somewhat of a quick-cycling-bipolar-like episode, I had gone from being on top of the world to the pit of despair in less than 24 hours. When I had last seen angry-laundry-room-lady, everything in my world had been perfect. More than perfect, actually. I was riding a somewhat insane high after a full week of teacher training. I was managing four hours of yoga a day, plus posture clinics and lectures, eating incredible organic food, going to the sauna and hot tub (with cold dip plungey pool!!) and getting eight solid hours of sleep EVERY NIGHT, and being encouraged to be completely authentic and real. And to my surprise, everyone seemed to really like me! A lot! I was getting so much positive feedback, constantly, and I was eating it up. People I thought were drop-dead gorgeous were spontaneously telling me I was “stunningly beautiful” when I felt anything but. People who had intimidated me to the nth degree when I first met them were asking me to have meals, vying for my attention, telling me I was funny!! I was was being real and I wasn’t being rejected!! Incredible! My extraordinary teachers seemed to really like me and, as far as I could tell, thought I actually BELONGED in their program! Who knew?!?

So far I had spent our one day off a week taking a joy ride into the quaint town of Lenox with Kelly and Athena. We had eaten at the most adorable cafe, owned, in fact, by a Kripalu yoga teacher (and his wife) who had led morning sadhana on Thursday. Athena and I splurged on the most beautiful wooden watches at a little boutique shop, and I found only the most PERFECT gift for my sister - real butterfly wings set in sterling silver earrings (the butterfly died a natural death, I was assured.) We had pedicures and lattes and I bought note cards at the local general store so I could be a superstar yoga student and make flashcards to learn the Sanskrit names of poses. We listened to Deva Premal on the way home and sung Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya like perfect little yogini angels. But toward the end of our adventure something inside me had started to feel broken, somehow fake. I had pushed away the feeling.

After getting back to campus, I decided to go to the 4:15pm vigorous yoga class with Danny, “to kick my own ass” I had thought. And kick my own ass I did. The whole 90 minutes I was pouring sweat, internally admonishing myself. Accepting this voice without question, I let it berate me. “You’re sweating like a PIG, Hilary. This is ridiculous. This shouldn’t be so FUCKING hard! You’re pathetic. Can you even bind?? Oh my god, did you just fall out of TREE POSE after 2 seconds? Ridiculous. Awful. Oh, you’re NOT going to take the option to “build more heat” - eh? What a cop out. You suck. You have no right to be in a yoga teacher training program. None! You’re awful! Aww, poor BABY, you really don’t want to stay in this plank pose much longer, do you? TOO BAD! You’re fat! You’re ugly! You’re weak! Look at you! You’re failing at this class! You can’t do yoga! You SUCK!!”

The mean, mean, mean voice had actually brought me to tears in the middle of the class, and sitting at dinner afterward, alone, I was still listening to it. Nevermind the fact that I had made it through one of the most physically demanding yoga practices I’d ever attempted with grace and strength, after a week of more yoga and exercise than I’d ever done in a 6 day period before in my life (Kripalu YTT is, truly, yoga boot camp) - no, no, I was a FAILURE. A complete failure.

“Pick a card,” angry-laundry-room-lady said to me, fanning out an imaginary deck.

“Huh?” I was the one hearing evil voices, I really didn’t need to interact with a crazy person who had an imaginary card deck.

“Pick a card,” she said again, evenly.

I had a boss once who made me knock on a pretend door to his pretend office. Life is certainly cyclical.

“Okay. What card did I pick?” I asked, holding out my imaginary card, humoring her.

“You tell me.”

I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through the conversation without telling her to fuck off, but that would FOR SURE get me kicked out of YTT at Kripalu, so I bit my tongue.

“I picked the two of hearts,” I said, glancing at the clock and wondering if there were any massage appointments available that evening.

“Ohhhh. So you’re anxious to communicate and longing to tell the truth.” She picked up her fork, not even pretending to put down her imaginary deck of cards. So she wasn’t quite as insane as my former boss. Or maybe just careless with her cards?

I paused, thinking that I’d like to say that were I ANXIOUS to communicate, lady, I wouldn’t have tried repeatedly to convince you NOT to join me for dinner, nor would I be eating ALONE when I have 56 new best friends here, all of whom would join me for dinner if I asked. How’s THAT for the truth?

“I’m doing my yoga teacher training here, and I don’t think I’m good enough.” I said, instead. “And that really is the truth,” I realized, starting to cry. I was, out of nowhere, telling angry-laundry-room lady everything. How my wonderful day started feeling horrible, how this mean voice inside my head just wouldn’t let me feel happy, or good about myself, how my brain had rebelled against a week of feeling so high on life and happy and free and positively BLISSFUL by tearing me to shreds, how Danny’s vigorous class should have been easy for me if I’m training to do what he was doing, RIGHT?

Angry-laundry-room-lady responded with a story of her own, a story of years of self-loathing, the women she had loved who had used her and left her, weight she had gained and lost and gained again, and how in the end hating herself didn’t serve her at all, and how, in fact, she had just spent $4000 on some 10-day workshop in the wilderness to rid herself of her self-loathing - because it was that or killing herself - and had then come straight to Kripalu for a weekend of R&R, massages and time in the hot tub. I momentarily forgot all about my own mean inner voice and wondered why on earth someone would spend that much time despising themselves when it served absolutely no purpose and, Christ, cost them a LOT of cash. And as I studied her more carefully, I felt my heart break for her struggle. She was actually very beautiful, incredibly articulate, and just another soul on this earth trying to do the best she could. (Much later on in my Kripalu adventure a stunning yoga goddess would teach me that intimacy means “into me I see” - just like me this person wants to be happy. Just like me this person has known hardship. Just like me. Just like me.)

“I happen to know, however, that you are going to be a spectacular yoga teacher,” she said, out of nowhere, ending her own story without any specific or necessarily happy resolution.

I looked down at my untouched kale, wondering for a moment if anyone would lend me a car or knew where the nearest burger joint was. “How do you know that?”

“You have the eyes for it,” she said.

“Thank you.” I said, perhaps too flatly. It doesn’t take EYES to be a good yoga teacher, I thought. It takes a perfect body! It takes being able to bind in a really, really deep warrior twist! It takes holding chaturanga dandasana for 30 minutes and not breaking a sweat! It takes always choosing the option to produce “more heat” because YES, IT’S AVAILABLE TO YOU, and if it ISN’T then you SHOULDN’T be teaching yoga…

“It’s in your eyes already,” she said, as though it were a matter of fact, cutting through my self-hating reverie. “You radiate compassion. Maybe you just need to start looking at yourself the way you’ve been looking at me for the past ten minutes as I told you my story.”

Kripalu means compassion, and Kripalu yoga is, in fact, the yoga of non-judgmental, compassionate self-observation. In my classes I had been learning about something called witness consciousness - the seer - the layer of being that just watches. Just sees. Without judgment. Things just are.

It wasn’t in that moment that I got it. It wasn’t any specific moment, at all. But my dinner with angry-laundry-room-lady was part of the journey to realizing that I can choose to tell that mean voice in my head to fuck off when it tries to tell me I’m not good enough. When it calls me names. When it treats me the way I wouldn’t treat a perfect stranger. And, low and behold, I’ve started to do just that.

“Pick a stone,” she said. Certain these were stones as real as her deck of cards, I reached out lazily, stopping with my hand hovering over hers when I realized there actually were several little stones laying gently in her palm.

“Which one?” I asked, feeling anxious all of the sudden.

“You tell me,” she answered. “You know which one is yours.”

I picked a small, smooth blue and black stone, held it tightly in my palm, noticing how cool it felt against my skin. Still unsure if the stone was actually real, or if maybe the cards hadn’t been imaginary at all, I thanked her for the company, and treated myself to a massage at the healing arts department, followed by a long sauna and soak in the hot tub.

My last morning at Kripalu, three weeks to the day after my dinner with angry-laundry-room lady - three weeks that equate to a lifetime of learning and self-discovery, to the point where I can almost not recognize that girl in Danny’s class kicking her own ass both internally and externally - I took that same stone on a walk with me through the labyrinth. The stone had come to represent a moment when I was so afraid of failing that even while trying my very hardest, and in reality, succeeding, I told myself I wasn’t good enough. I thought about my limiting beliefs, all of the ways I treat myself poorly, the voice in my head that shows up to scream at me during difficult situations, both on and off the mat. I thought about all of the ways I let baseless self-loathing negatively impact my life. I put it all in the stone. Every last bit of it. I placed it in the center of the labyrinth.

And I left it behind.

Hilary the Yogini!

In the next few days I plan to sit down and write long and hard about the extraordinary last month of my life at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. I completed the 200 hour yoga teacher training program with the amazing Devarshi Steven Hartman and Priti Robyn Ross, and I’m still reeling from the sheer intensity of the month. There were 57 amazing people in my class, and in addition to Devarshi and Priti we were guided and mentored by nine incredible assistants. Six days a week we had sadhana - our yoga practice - from 6:30am-8am, followed by class (ranging from Anatomy and Physiology lectures to posture clinics to meditation lessons) from 9am-11:30am and 1:30pm-4pm. Sadhana again from 4:15pm-6pm and a third class or presentation from 7:30pm-9pm. We had different yoga teachers for almost every one of our 2 per day yoga practices - experts in every area of yoga you can imagine, from Vigorous Vinyasa to Yoga Nidra. And the FOOD. Oh, the food. I could wax poetic for years about the food at Kripalu. A completely organic and mainly vegetarian kitchen utilizing almost all local sources for everything served, I was able to eat in the way I’ve always fantasized about eating. I could have steamed vegetables and miso soup for breakfast, or zucchini mint frittata made with organic, local eggs, or the most MAGICAL granola with locally produced yogurt.

That’s just BREAKFAST.

And the PLACE. The Berkshires. The sprawling lawns, the hidden paths through the woods leading to meditation gardens that ooz sacredness from every inch of ground they inhabit, the lakefront and the labyrinth and the ancient trees and….

This isn’t even the beginning of what I need and want to write about, but it’s a taste. As soon as I have a day at my favorite place to focus on things such as writing (it starts with Star and ends with Bucks… I may be a certified yoga teacher who just spent a month at a place that used to be an ashram, but I still love my coffee, just not as MUCH of it as I used to love/need!) I will try to compose my thoughts about my magical month, along with some musings about where I may be heading next.

After my third and final practice teach (a week ago today) my evaluator, whom I had not met prior and whom is a ROCKSTAR yoga teacher, told me: “Just from taking your class I know, without any doubt, that this is your calling. This is your dharma. You were MEANT to be a yoga teacher. You ARE a yoga teacher.” It was affirmation of what I’d started secretly struggling with after about two weeks at Kripalu - my training was feeling less like making a choice about a career change and more about fulfilling something much deeper and more profound. But how terrifying is it to feel that there is something you absolutely MUST do, something you were born to do, something you are then responsible for making happen! But also, truly, how SPECTACULAR!!

Clearly more to come. Much more. =)

“The highest spiritual practice is self-observation without judgment.”
-Swami Kripalu