EMBRACE

I've been getting a lot of slack lately...
...and by slack, I mean lots of strange and doubtful looks.

These looks surface when I talk about my nutrition habits...

In the last 2-3 years I've started taking a serious interest in what goes into and onto my body.  Please know, I'm not here to judge my former habits...or any habits of yours.  I'm very aware of why I've made some choices, and I'm aware of why you might be too.  And the thing is...it's OK.  Until it's not.  If the choices you're making are leaving you feeling healthy inside and out, then I'm proud of you!!  If there's even a hint of disease...belly disease, heart disease, disease from sugars, acid reflux, celiac's, gluten intolerance...then I'll be extremely proud of you if you read on with an open mind!

The thing is...if I were looking back at me 5 years ago I'd probably be giving myself the same looks.   These looks are of curiosity, doubt, and are without knowledge.  When I learned I had a gluten intolerance initially, I actually ignored it for about a year.  Living without the foods I had lived with for so long seemed ludicrous! How could my body, OVERNIGHT, be rejecting the things I've eaten since I could ingest solid foods?

The answer is easy....my body was never welcoming of those foods.  It was slowly deteriorating trying to digest them.  My body and I were now having a Come to Jesus.

The hardest truth of the whole matter was, I was fearful of looking deeper into my diet.  I didn't want to think or talk about food...I wanted to EAT it!  Why did I need to think about my food and how my body works with it?  That wasn't part of the deal...we didn't learn that growing up!  And that's just it...99% of us were not taught to look at what was on our plate.  We weren't taught to source our foods locally.  Its OKAY!  It's no one's fault...it's just what we learned.  Processed foods were easy and convenient, therefore nutritional value was not important.  We just didn't know...

...but, now we do.

GMO is a household term, and belly diseases from food are more and more common.  Drug stores are carrying gluten free products...and probiotics to restore gut health.  Friends and family members are co-op sharing to get the freshest and most seasonal produce available to them.  Mothers are researching diets for both themselves and their child so that optimal health can be provided to both mother and child.  There are now options available for not just gluten allergies, but dairy and nut allergies.  Most if not all are pretty easy to find, especially with a quick Google search.

Now...the knowledge is available.  That was probably the most fun for me...acquiring the knowledge. STILL acquiring the knowledge...as to what works, what might not, and where things are coming from.  But mostly, being okay with the change.  Being okay with moving away from what's been conditioned in me, and knowing I'll be in better health for it.  Being okay with investing just a small amount of time to read labels and find the information.

What do you do with all that knowledge?  Try not to latch onto any fads, like going gluten free by choice. Talk to a nutrition professional about your questions.  Preferably outside of the healthcare realm (read: go holistic), but thats a matter of (my) opinion.

People may be looking at me funny, but they're also looking at me differently.
I'm lighter, I'm brighter...and it's organically showing from the inside out.
All because I've finally decided to EMBRACE food...

Think about it....

Love, love, LOVE!

NATURE

April is a busy month.

I just spent a few days on the West Coast where nature is at full throttle.  I was by the ocean, and I sat in the sunshine.  Everything around me was in bloom, and I was surrounded by palm trees in 90 degrees.

I came home to NY, and as I walked my usual walk to the subway this morning...I looked up.  I heard the birds, felt the sunshine, and saw everything around me ready to burst and bloom!  My favorite thing about Spring is...the freshness of the leaves and flowers.  You can see their grooves, and literally see their DNA as if they're newly born.  You can smell spring in the air...it just WANTS to happen!

So please, enjoy this.  While I sleep off the jetlag and dream of warmer breezes....

Winters know
Easily to shed the snow,
And the untaught Spring is wise
In cowslips and anemones.
Nature, hating art and pains,
Baulks and baffles plotting brains;
Casualty and Surprise
Are the apples of her eyes;
But she dearly loves the poor,
And, by marvel of her own,
Strikes the loud pretender down.

For Nature listens in the rose,
And hearkens in the berry's bell,
To help her friends, to plague her foes,
And like wise God she judges well.
Yet doth much her love excel
To the souls that never fell,
To swains that live in happiness,
And do well because they please,
Who walk in ways that are unfamed,
And feats achieve before they're named

.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

PRACTICE

Yes...I am a teacher.

First and foremost, I am a student!

The idea of a "practice" is sometimes less appealing to us.  The idea of repetition, and then repetition quite possibly resulting in failure is just....daunting.  Maybe even a "waste of time".

We're pretty much living in an era of instant gratification.  Hell, if it takes an iPhone more than 10 seconds to respond to our requests we render it useless!  So how on earth are we expected to invest effort into a "practice"?  Because...that's just it.  A true approach to a practice of any sort is an investment in ourselves.

I see it in my students quite a bit.  Frustration that they barely made it on their mats, frustration in a pose, frustration getting out of a pose, frustration breathing or finding themselves on their left side when I cued the right.  I tell my students all the time, if practice held no purpose we'd all be football players and world class pianists.

When you get yourself into a practice, when you become a student of any kind....there is no ultimate.  Only infinite.  Infinite learning, infinite patience, infinite possibilities.

The beauty of investing your time and your efforts is the breakdown.  Eventually, something clicks.  Awareness kicks in and you...get it!  Whether you're practicing yoga, a subject, an instrument, a sport, a trade, or even how to love...keep going.  There are so many obstacles that find their way to our paths...the repetition and determination practice provides IS what helps us overcome. The very concepts we're avoiding and judging are the key!

Whatever you're practicing, you'll fail at least once.  Possibly more than once.

Still...KEEP GOING!

Failure does not define us, nor do our most glamorous achievements.

Courage, strength, determination, and the most humble parts of any practice lead to fulfillment that keeps us going.

Going...to the places too wild to even dream up!

Love, love, LOVE!

YOU

You were my beginning...

I didn't see you coming...
I wasn't ready for you to disarm me.

..but you did it anyway.

Before you, I chose who I let in.
Although it wasn't  love at all.
Living blissfully unaware in a heart that wasn't entirely true.

Before you, I settled.
Inventing qualities in the other that didn't quite exist.
Living in admiration, of nothing.

Before you,  I didn't know forgiveness.
I didn't know to give it, I didn't know to receive it.
Living in a place of complete and utter perfection, all of the time.

Then you.

And there was this mind that knew nothing.
There was this fool that ceased to exist.
I was left wondering what happened.
I was left wondering who you are.
I was left with half my heart.

I feel like I'm in THE MOMENT of my life.
Where this is what's meant to be.
Where I believe in you...
....and let you love me.
We let this become what it wants to be.

Your heart, my heart.

Now you.
Always you.

AWARENESS

This very word is what led me to first cultivate my own yoga practice.
As I dove deeper, the message of awareness is what led me to want to help others.

There's something temporarily blissful, I won't lie, about walking around completely unaware.  Now I compare it to my travels.  When I stumble willingly into an unknown place.  Where I don't know the language, and don't know much about the culture or geographical landscapes.  I'm an outsider looking in, free of responsibility and merely a spectator.

At least, that's what I remember about my approach to life about 14 years ago.  I was unsure why I was such a bulldog in my professional life.  I didn't really know a connection could exist to my inner self, never mind to nature and all the elements around me. I just knew my mind.  Even my heart wasn't fully part of the equation.

Not much of a way to move through life, is it?

When you begin your process of discovering your truth, it usually happens in a time of transition.  Something inside you awakens to something its longing for but does not know how to articulate.  Or how to seek it out.  We're taught as a society to fear the unknown, but when you're in a vulnerable state no matter what the caliber...you walk into the unknown willingly.  There's a refreshing quality, as if something is waiting for you on the other side.  In this case, it's the most authentic version of you you'll ever meet.

Welcoming in the concept of awareness is a quirky one.  It's simplistic in nature.  All you have to do is place your consciousness in places you haven't before.  All you have to do is give yourself time.  All you have to do is give these places proper attention.  What you uncover....well, it's not as simplistic.  You'll find your dualities at your core.  Your pleasures and your pain, your likes and dislikes, your emotions both positive and not so positive, your past and present, your most anticipated dreams and your most dreaded fears.  The vastness of what resides once you place your awareness within yourself is astounding.

Self realization could be overwhelming, but ONLY IF YOU LET IT!

Place acceptance where you once relied on judgement.  Judgement has no place within awareness...only acceptance will help you sift through your consciousness.  The process of realization will be vast, but acceptance will be your dear friend.  Approaching your own nature with a sense of nurture will be the very principle that will allow you to relate your nature to the rest of nature around you.

How are you moving through your life?
Is there a sense of anything that might be missing?
Can you identify an inner connection with yourself?
Do you want to learn more?

While I personally love stumbling into foreign territories and finding my way through the landscape, that's not true to life.  The truth in awareness connects us to ourselves, then to outside life and nature.

And how very, very precious it is.
To feel...connected.

UNCONDITIONAL

Love.
Something I don't pretend to know all that much about.

I'm proud to say I'm still learning about love....we all are.
Learning to love ourselves, our environment, and one another.

It's funny when you think about it...the same things we're trying to love most times seem like the hardest. They're the ones that we sometimes perceive as bringing us down, resisting us, giving us a hard time...and have us questioning ourselves....."do we have enough to give?".

As much as we think we love...there's something absolutely divine in the unconditional way of it.  We meet people in this world who require our unconditional love...while never having to answer to the question "why?".  It's just done.   It just happens. Loving unconditionally doesn't mean our love will be returned.  It doesn't mean we'll be rewarded.  Unconditional, by nature, just isn't about us.

Unconditional love cannot be controlled.  Its beyond reason.  It however, requires receptivity.  This might be the hardest part.  Letting go, and letting love in.  Feeling like we deserve what someone else is about to hand our way so freely.  What makes us deserve this...love?  We feel unworthy.  Unsure.

If you're the one handing out this gift of love, it's one of question...one of mystery.  Because it guides you, not the other way around.  You find yourself in a way with the world around you that you haven't quite experienced.  The forgiveness flows, the compassion undying.

Unconditional love doesn't have to run terribly deep.  It just requires acceptance.  On both parts, really.   I'm not quite sure it's to be understood.  Or if it needs to be.  Because I mean really...LOVE...it's just amazing.

Simplistic by nature, love allows us to expand from the inside out.  No restraints and no expectations.  It allows us to live in the moment and truly experience fully while we're there.  It moves past the existence of our deepest fears and into a place in our hearts that surprises us.

If we surrender to this space, and to the people/places/things offering it to us...well...I feel like it defines the meaning of life.  To be unified...to be vast...to be unafraid...and to be protected.

Unconditional love is around you in some form, in some way.  Welcome the idea of welcoming love into your ever-changing universe.

Everything will change, but love remains the same.

INTENTION

I don't know that I've ever looked up INTENTION in the dictionary until now...

The second definition I read defines INTENTION as "the healing process of a wound".

This is interesting to me, because doing what I do (I teach yoga, btw) I'm constantly watching how people move.  My students specifically, but everyone in general.  Even myself.  

I watch how people flow into their movements, what's restricted and what's free-flowing.  You can tell a lot about a person as you watch their body move.  

It's a general rule of thumb in Yoga that what's deep rooted in the mind and soul manifests itself physically.  The most obvious example I can give are overly stressed individuals with digestive disorders such and Crohn's, IBS, Diverticulitis...the list goes on.  More times than not the discomfort goes untreated, or treated in a way that's simply masking the discomfort...until it just cannot be masked any longer.

For probably the last year I've felt this knot at the back of my heart.  I think it's a manifestation of many things, and more specifically...the place where my fears live.   I felt it all day long...when I woke up, in my asana practice, while out to drinks with friends...it was always present.  A constant sensation of unanswered and lingering emotions, ideas, and creativity.

Finally, in the last few months it became so uncomfortable I decided to confront it.  Not with vigor or aggression...not with any of my ballsy methods, in fact.  I confronted this space with unwavering attention. Attention that for once didn't appear judgmental to myself...attention that simply....paid attention.   Rather than ask myself the who's/what's/when's/where's of this place...I simply let it be, and acknowledged that it resides within me.  I brought anatomy into the equation too...finding a deeper breath (read: space) into my lungs, kidney's, thoracic spine, sacrum, and back waistband.  I let my backbody breathe freely and allowed for more space.   These sensations, although mostly indescribable, I will say did re-introduce me to this healing truth of intention.  Because without fully realizing it, that's what I was practicing.

Yoga talk aside...how many of you are moving with intention?  Mind you, intention does not mean action...intention is a movement of a different sort.  It's a movement of awareness.  And intention as I mentioned...has no room for judgement.  

Asking more directly...is there a space such as this that resides within you?

As I started working with this place, almost instantly the knot went away.  I feel it every now and then...and am making a point to continue working with it during asana.  But the gentle act of acknowledgement that such a place existed within me helped me get familiar with it and actually start to MOVE from it!  It's been one of my most inspirational Yogi Aha Moments to date.

Some of you are going to instantly relate to what it is I'm talking about, and some of you will have an idea at a later time.  Either way, when the time comes definition is not important.  

The healing is what matters.  
It's the movement with intent that matters.

It's the movement from your truth that matters.

Love, love, LOVE