By Marianne Williamson

I hear a lot of people say we have to wake people up… convince them of the urgency of this moment… make them realize that the planet is headed for disaster!

But I don’t see it that way. Anybody who needs to be woken up at this point is so deeply asleep that they’re not the target audience for global activism. We don’t need to wake the sleeping so much as we need to harness the energy of those who are already awake. Enough people know we’re in trouble; what [read more...]]]> Courtesy of the Huffington Post.

By Marianne Williamson

I hear a lot of people say we have to wake people up… convince them of the urgency of this moment… make them realize that the planet is headed for disaster!

But I don’t see it that way. Anybody who needs to be woken up at this point is so deeply asleep that they’re not the target audience for global activism. We don’t need to wake the sleeping so much as we need to harness the energy of those who are already awake. Enough people know we’re in trouble; what they want to know is what to do about it.

We’re living at a time when whole systems break down, calling for a whole systems response. It’s not just outer change but also inner change that’s called for. It’s not just that this is wrong, or that that is wrong. The entire direction of human civilization is wrong, as we have placed economic principles before humanitarian values and in so doing have placed the very survival of the human race at risk.

Human civilization as we know it is like the Titanic headed for the iceberg, whether the iceberg be nuclear, environmental or terrorism-related. The probability vectors for the next twenty years are grim, and our job is to turn the probability vectors into possibility vectors… in other words, we have to turn this ship around.

In every advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives, a common anthropological characteristic is the fierce behavior of the adult female of the species when she senses a threat to her cubs. The lioness, the tigress and the mama bear are all examples. The fact that the adult human female is so relatively complacent before the collective threats to the young of our species bespeaks a lack of proactive intention for the human race to survive.

Yet how things have been has no inherent bearing on how things have to be, and I think we’re living at a time when Western womanhood is just a moment away from emerging into the light of our collective possibility. Especially given the relative lack of power – even basic rights – given to millions of women in other parts of the world, we have a particular responsibility to speak up not only for ourselves but for them as well. And we are ready. Maybe not all of us; but enough of us. Western women should be a moral force on this planet. We should not be infantilized; we should not be pretending we don’t know what’s going on; we should not be giving in to the various and ubiquitous temptations to anesthetize ourselves. Quite the opposite, we should be taking the wheel of human civilization and saying to anyone who will listen: We’re turning the ship around, and we’re turning it around NOW.

One thing we should all be aware of is the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight goals signed on to by all 189 members of the United Nations in the year 2000. The goals are important because they speak to the underlying causes of so many of our most important problems, addressing them on a global level and giving everyone the chance to monitor how we’re doing as a species.

The goals are a road map to cutting absolute poverty in half, improving health, getting children in school and reducing disease by 2015. When we think of “women’s issues,” we should be thinking of these issues. They should be our concern as the mothers of the world, the lovers of the world, and the leaders of the world.

Specifically, the goals are these:

1) Cut Extreme Poverty and Hunger in Half

2) Achieve Universal Primary Education

3) Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

4) Reduce Child Mortality by Two-Thirds

5) Cut Maternal Mortality by Three-Fourths

6) Halt and Reverse the Spread of HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB, and Other Diseases

7) Ensure Environmental Sustainability

Develop a Global Partnership for Development

We are five years away from 2015, the year we are supposed to achieve the Millennium Goals. We are making progress but not fast enough. We need an accelerated sense of urgency from our decision makers. And nothing would make that happen more effectively than for the women of America to learn this information, to take it to heart, and to refuse to shut up about it. No matter what else you’re doing to make the world a better place, add a P.S. about The Millennium Goals.

Facts to consider: Putting a child in school is one of the most powerful things we can to do to reduce poverty. An educated child earns more later in life, knows how to keep their own children from dying, produces more food, is less likely to get AIDS, and in the case of boys, is less likely to engage in armed civil conflict. And we already know how to address the problems of AIDS, TB, and Malaria; we just need to do more of it via mechanisms like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

So what can you do? You can call or write your Congresspeople (go to http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml) as well as the President, and tell them you want them to actively and substantially support the Millennium Development Goals. Remember: our Representatives get lobbied by wealthy corporations every hour of every day, but the poor of the world have no economic leverage. The only voice they have in the halls of power is yours.

And do more than that. Educate yourself. Look at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ Use your own platform, or create one. Consider ways to help spread the word. http://www.results.org/ Use Facebook and Twitter and every other way you have of building a buzz about something that could matter to the lives – even the survival – of millions of people. And some of those people might someday be your own grandchildren.

Then, when it’s all handled, when 17,000 children a day are no longer dying of hunger; when the ecosystems of the planet are well on their way to restoration; when nuclear bombs are scarce if not completely gone; when females of the world are no longer treated like chattel; and the nations of the world are beginning to achieve a real and lasting peace; then, we can celebrate. But until then, we should mourn. Anyone who’s looking at the world and not grieving isn’t conscious; but anyone who’s looking at the world and not rejoicing in the possibilities for how we can turn all this around, is underestimating what human beings can do. We can learn to love each other. We can be conduits for the miraculous. We can stop playing small and start playing large. We can stop giving in to our weaknesses and start claiming our strengths. We can tell truth to power. We can act like we mean it. We can never, never, never give up. We can be the mothers and the fathers of a new and better world. And all of this is possible because human beings can decide. We can decide to say something. We can decide to write an email. We can decide to step up and participate. But we must decide now… not later. There is no more time to waste.

In Purna Yoga, everything — from the greatest disasters, to personal challenges, to the seeming insignificance of breaking a glass — must be viewed through the yogic perspective of cause and effect, so that we may take personal responsibility for our lives.  Purna Yoga teaches us to look at each of our actions, thoughts, and feelings and to take full ownership of our choices and their effect upon the world.

When we break a glass, it may be [read more...]]]> I always value Aadil’s perspective.  When we can learn to accept our participation in the problem, we will have the power to change our course.

In Purna Yoga, everything — from the greatest disasters, to personal challenges, to the seeming insignificance of breaking a glass — must be viewed through the yogic perspective of cause and effect, so that we may take personal responsibility for our lives.  Purna Yoga teaches us to look at each of our actions, thoughts, and feelings and to take full ownership of our choices and their effect upon the world.

When we break a glass, it may be easy to accept the consequences of our choice: we clean up the broken glass, and resolve to be more aware and respectful of material objects. But when the problem is an oil spill of devastating proportions, it may be a little harder to accept personal responsibility. For, no matter how you look at it, each one of us is personally responsible for this oil spill.

Now before we all want to bury our heads in our hands and never look up, let me tell you that while this burden is shared by all of us, and it only takes a few of us to make a difference.

So, what do we, as yoga students, do? The first thing we have to do is to understand what is really happening and why. Energy sources such as oil and coal were pressed into the earth thousands of millennia ago. These resources were meant to be left alone and were put into the earth to sustain the earth and were never meant to be brought up to the surface. When we go inside the earth and pull out what is meant to be kept inside, there are going to be problems.

Very often you will hear that coal and oil are the black fuel from hell, while solar and wind are the bright energies from heaven. These resources are designed to be used because they are so accessible! However, because solar and wind energies are practically free, there is not much financial gain for large corporations for promoting solar and wind. Having made the decision as a race to use oil, we now need to decide what to do. We have to ask ourselves if it right to use so much fuel. Is this in integrity with our purpose?  Are we willing to change in order to save our planet?

Second, we must understand the ramifications of this spill on all of us. The oil is polluting the water and the atmosphere as it evaporates. The oil is turning into tar balls ranging in size from pin heads to golf balls. Since fish do not distinguish between oil and food, when they open their mouth, tiny tar balls are swallowed and become part of the fish. If we consume these fish, or the fish that ate these fish, we are bringing these toxins into our bodies. Very soon we will have to stop eating fish until there is a total disintegration of the oil itself. This may take decades.

Third, we must do our work by inviting Divine Light into the earth and into the oil. We must ask with deep sincerity for the protection and the transformation of this dark energy that has been violated, that has been yanked out from the earth. Therefore it is important that students of yoga bring as much light as possible into the oil spill and into the earth, and ask The Divine to help us find a more peaceful resolution to our energy issues, ones that do not interfere with nature. As Margaret Mead wrote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” The Divine only needs a small group of people willing to pray with enough sincerity for real and lasting change to occur.

P.S. I have posted on our blog an article about another of the root casues to the oil spill – corporate deregulation – that I hope you will all read. It was written by Barbara Streisand for The Huffington Post.

ZEN is expensive. The flattering Groove pants, Lululemon’s answer to Spanx, may set Luluheads, the devoted followers of the yoga-apparel brand, back $108. Manduka yoga mats, favored for their slip resistance and thickness, can reach $100 for a limited-edition version. Drop-in classes at yoga studios in New York are edging beyond $20 a session, which quickly adds [read more...]]]> From the New York Times. Some food for thought: What is yoga?  What is your yoga community?  Does it reflect what you need?  As a side note, Yoga for the People, based on Gumucio’s model, is now here in Vancouver.

ZEN is expensive. The flattering Groove pants, Lululemon’s answer to Spanx, may set Luluheads, the devoted followers of the yoga-apparel brand, back $108. Manduka yoga mats, favored for their slip resistance and thickness, can reach $100 for a limited-edition version. Drop-in classes at yoga studios in New York are edging beyond $20 a session, which quickly adds up, and the high-end Pure Yoga, a chain with two outposts in Manhattan, requires a $40 initiation fee, and costs $125 to $185 a month.

You can even combine yoga with a vacation in the Caribbean, but it will cost you: in August, the luxurious Parrot Cay resort in Turks and Caicos has a six-night retreat with classes taught by the “yoga rock stars” (in the words of the press release) Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman. The cost? A cool $6,077. (In August!)

And is it surprising that yoga, like so much else in this age of celebrity, now has something of a star system, with yoga teachers now almost as recognizable as Oscar winners? The flowing locks of Rodney Yee. The do-rag bandanna worn by Baron Baptiste. The hyper perpetual calm exhibited by David Life and Sharon Gannon, who taught Sting, Madonna and Russell Simmons. The contortions (and Rolls-Royces) of Bikram Choudhury.

Yoga is definitely big business these days. A 2008 poll, commissioned by Yoga Journal, concluded that the number of people doing yoga had declined from 16.5 million in 2004 to 15.8 million almost four years later. But the poll also estimated that the actual spending on yoga classes and products had almost doubled in that same period, from $2.95 billion to $5.7 billion.

“The irony is that yoga, and spiritual ideals for which it stands, have become the ultimate commodity,” Mark Singleton, the author of “Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice,” wrote in an e-mail message this week. “Spirituality is a style, and the ‘rock star’ yoga teachers are the style gurus.”

Well, maybe it is the recession, but some yogis are now saying “Peace out” to all that. There’s a brewing resistance to the expense, the cult of personality, the membership fees. At the forefront of the movement is Yoga to the People, which opened its first studio in 2006 in the East Village on St. Marks Place, with a contribution-only, pay-what-you-can fee structure. The manifesto is on the opening page of its Web site, yogatothepeople.com: “There will be no correct clothes, There will be no proper payment, There will be no right answers … No ego no script no pedestals.”

One more thing: There are no “glorified” teachers or star yogis. You can’t even find out who is teaching which class when, or reserve a spot with a specific instructor. And that’s exactly the way that Greg Gumucio wants it.

LATE on an overcast Saturday earlier this month, just a little before sundown, Mr. Gumucio, the founder of Yoga to the People, was sitting on the rooftop of his East Village studio, surprisingly refreshed after a birthday party downstairs for his son, who had just turned 5.

Propped on the ledge on a round pillow, his wavy, shoulder-length hair framed by the urban jungle backdrop of tar-covered roofs, Mr. Gumucio recounted his biography, and how it was linked with that of Bikram Choudhury, perhaps the most famous name in yoga today.

“The idea for Yoga for the People came to me because of Bikram,” Mr. Gumucio said, explaining that he worked for Mr. Choudhury for six years, from 1996 to 2002, sometimes running teacher training for Bikram Yoga in Los Angeles, commuting from Seattle, where he was living. He channels Mr. Choudhury, one suspects not for the first time, talking with a raspy, slightly accented voice: “Boss, do me a favor, take everybody’s class and tell me what you think.” Mr. Gumucio obliged, and when reporting back, mentioned one teacher whom he didn’t like. Mr. Choudhury was not sympathetic. Just the opposite, telling Mr. Gumucio to, in essence, suck it up and go back to the class — that the problem wasn’t with the instructor, but with Mr. Gumucio himself. “You are your own teacher,” Mr. Gumucio said he was told. “You are responsible for your own experience.”

It was a revelatory moment for Mr. Gumucio. If the student was more important than the teacher, why was there such an emphasis placed on the individual instructors? Too often, Mr. Gumucio saw students stop doing yoga because they couldn’t practice with a favorite teacher. Why not jettison that system? Why not just assign students to the next available teacher?

A second revelation occurred in class when he was struggling to keep his body in a difficult position. “I was sweating, my muscles shaking, in triangle pose, and Bikram was talking about how fast he was as a boy in Calcutta. How he could catch this dog.” The situation was almost more than Mr. Gumucio could bear. “In my mind,” he recalled, “I was thinking ‘What is wrong with you. Stop this stupid story!’ ”

Later, Mr. Choudhury again dismissed his complaints, telling Mr. Gumucio that distractions were everywhere: “Candle, incense, music, easy to meditate!” Mr. Gumucio recalls being told. “Try being calm and peaceful in your car when someone cuts you off.”

Message learned. Yoga isn’t about a pristine environment — yogis can work downward dog to downward dog, no matter where they are, even if in a crowded, unadorned studio. “Being able to do yoga with a foot in your face, that is a really powerful practice,” Mr. Gumucio said. He would take that no-frills philosophy with him when he left Bikram in 2002, and a few years later (after a stint as a mediator in small claims court), in 2006, moved to New York to open his own studio. “The first few months there were four or five people, but within three months, it really took off,” he said.

Today. Mr. Gumucio has three studios in New York (including two hot-yoga studios that charge $8 a class), one in San Francisco, one in Berkeley, Calif., and one to open later this year in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He has just signed a lease in Chelsea and is considering expanding to Austin, Chicago and Los Angeles. (But his philosophy of keeping a low profile seems to be working: a question to many students about what they think of Mr. Gumucio usually provokes little more than a blank stare and “Who?”)

High volume is the key to his business model — he says up to 900 people may go to a Yoga to the People studio in a single day, with perhaps half of them paying at least something in the form of a donation — as well as an important part of his overall philosophy. “I truly believe if more people were doing yoga, the world would be a better place,” he said.

LAST Sunday morning, the sun streamed through the windows of the clean airy loft on the second floor as the teacher, Haven Melynn, stood at the buzzer letting in students from the street. On a metal stand sat an empty tissue box. Some students dropped a donation into the box, others didn’t. The students fit in one studio, and at prime times, the teacher will send any overflow up to the studio above, and then the studio above that.

Mats are rolled out, a few inches apart, with no one under the illusion that it may be an empty class. The classroom holds about 60 students, and people are socializing, chatting about their late nights, where to get falafels, and upcoming art exhibitions. Music plays quietly in the background. No opening “Oms.” (“I like that there isn’t any chanting, or big spiritual message,” Layan Fuleihan, a college student, said afterward. “I like that you make the class what you want.”) Instead, Ms. Melynn started off with slow movements to warm up, sun salutations, then quickly picked up the pace. Jammed, yes, but the yogis stuck to their own mats, boundaries defined, during a sweat-producing vinyasa class, flowing and moving, as the teacher cajoled people to make cathartic exhales of HAA-sss — all to the sounds of a play list that includes Michael Jackson and the Dave Matthews Band.

Yoga to the People isn’t the only entity raging against the yoga machine. In New York, other studios are popping up, offering affordable, if not entirely donation-based, yoga. Do Yoga and Pilates, in TriBeCa, is donation-based; Tara Stiles, who has an iPhone app with Deepak Chopra, has opened Strala Yoga in NoHo, offering multiple class levels for $10 each. Yoga Vida NYC on University Place opened in January. Classes are small and it costs $10 drop in, $5 for students. “Our studio isn’t better or worse, it’s just different,” says Hilaria Thomas, yoga director of Yoga Vida NYC and a former instructor at Yoga to the People. “Different energies.”

Better-known rivals in the yoga world don’t seem to take offense at this back-to-basic movement. “I think the donation model is awesome,” says Baron Baptiste. “It’s a balancing act. If someone has the means for what I’ll call ‘high end yoga,’ like going on exotic retreats, they should enjoy it.” He adds, laughing, “I never know what the term rock star yoga teacher means. Someone like Iyengar, one of the most famous teachers in the world, is he a rock star? Is Iyengar the Bono of yoga?”

Mr. Gumucio knows his niche — “the ABC’s of yoga” — and that Yoga to the People has its critics. Its detractors say that classes are too big, that there isn’t a lot of advanced alignment breakdowns, that the exclamation HAA-sss isn’t the way you are supposed to breathe. He mimics a naysayer, sniffing: “Oh, that’s not yoga!” He laughs and shrugs, a wordless: Who’s to say what is yoga?

Of habits, relationships (healthy or toxic), of expectations, of dreams? Even when we know we’re hurting ourselves by hanging on, what drives the compulsion to keep gripping?

What do we do when old behavioral patterns no longer serve our life?

In the transition stage between awareness and change lies a really sucky phase of awareness without change.  It’s torturous.  “Why do I do this?”  “Why can’t I change this?”  We lament.  We tear out our hair.  And we still don’t change.  But now we’ve spiced up our situation by hating [read more...]]]> Why is it so hard to let go?

Of habits, relationships (healthy or toxic), of expectations, of dreams? Even when we know we’re hurting ourselves by hanging on, what drives the compulsion to keep gripping?

What do we do when old behavioral patterns no longer serve our life?

First of all, don’t beat yourself up.

In the transition stage between awareness and change lies a really sucky phase of awareness without change.  It’s torturous.  “Why do I do this?”  “Why can’t I change this?”  We lament.  We tear out our hair.  And we still don’t change.  But now we’ve spiced up our situation by hating ourselves.  Stop adding fuel to the fire.  Rest assured, you created your habits for excellent reasons.  To cope, to deal with stress, to survive.  They have served you well.  But now the time has come to change.  So let go of the blaming and put that fabulous energy into changing your situation.

Cultivate tolerance for discomfort.

You can either be uncomfortable in your old habits, or uncomfortable in your new habits, so why not choose with awareness?  Once you start, it becomes easier every time. Remind yourself that following your old habits may bring short-term relief, but longer term suffering.  Find ways to take care of yourself during this time, whether it’s yoga, massage, tea, time with friends, or a trip somewhere that grounds you.  Cultivate your capacity to take pleasure in the little things, moment to moment.

Reach out to your community.

You are not alone.  You are wired like a human being, and we’re all programmed to create habits in order to become more efficient.  As your awareness increases, you may realize that some of your autopilot tendencies aren’t ideal for you.  Reach out to others who may be experiencing similar growing pains.  There is comfort in community.

In the spirit of radical change and letting go, I’m including some inspiration below from different sources, even Dr. Phil   The first is about the Hindu goddess Kali.  Put this girl in back pocket when you need to up your potency for radical transformation!

Here’s a blurb from Anita Revel’s Goddess Site:

Kali Kali’s esoteric attributes are PASSION and physical and sexual energy. Be alert to those who undermine your self-confidence – Kali is here to hurl your life onto a new path that will ultimately prove to be more fulfilling than your current path.
SUGGESTED MANTRA:  AWAKENING SUGGESTED AFFIRMATIONS: My new life path reveals itself to me I say goodbye to destructive influences There are rainbows in every rainfall I am awake to my life’s calling I welcome Kali’s strength & recuperative powers I trust the Universe to provide It’s OK to release my juicy anger I can say “no” to negative influences ESSENCE: Goddessence KALI 100% pure essential oil blend GEMSTONES: Ruby, garnet, bloodstone, tourmaline, smoky quartz (red stones)		Kali 100% pure essential oil blend for the Base Chakra - Reclaim your independent spirit If you are feeling “stuck in a rut”, use this Base Chakra blend to energise your intention. The blend of five 100% pure essential oils represents strength, unwavering willpower and insight. It helps you purge elements of destruction in your life and reclaim your independent spirit by directing your life onto a new path – your true path. Walk with confidence and know your place in the world.
MORE ABOUT KALI According to ancient Hindu tradition, Kali is the mother of us all. Kali is often depicted as a bloodthirsty harbinger of destruction, but this is so that through death we can experience the wonder of rebirth. Hence, when our lives seem as though they are out of control, this is Kali telling us that we have not chosen the right path. Through Kali’s strength, we are forced out of complacency and fear to find the right path for ourselves. HER MODERN ENERGY Kali has unwavering judgement, strong willpower and penetrative insight. She also characterises how we feel about our attachments to people and possessions, and how we react when we are threatened with losing them. Don’t be afraid to shed – Kali offers you the strength to rid your life of excess baggage, to confront the forces that threaten you, to destroy the elements of destruction in your life. Once this is done, you can celebrate new life! DO THIS Kali is related to our root chakra, home of the kundalini energy. When our root chakra is in balance, we feel secure, alert, stable – our lives are full of active and positive energy. If you are not feeling like this, it is no wonder Kali is speaking to you today. Sit on the floor, close your eyes, and while nurturing a related gemstone, feel your spine grow and take root in the earth. Feel the strength of the earth energise your spine and your body. You are indestructable! You are strong! You can shake the weight from your shoulders and conquer the demon shadowing your life. Go Warrior Woman!!

From the Buddha Dharma Education Association:

If we contemplate desires and listen to them, we are actually no longer attaching to them; we are just allowing them to be the way they are. Then we come to the realisation that the origin of suffering, desire, can be laid aside and let go of.

How do you let go of things? This means you leave them as they are; it does not mean you annihilate them or throw them away. It is more like setting down and letting them be. Through the practice of letting go we realise that there is the origin of suffering, which is the attachment to desire, and we realise that we should let go of these three kinds of desire. Then we realise that we have let go of these desires; there is no longer any attachment to them.

When you find yourself attached, remember that ‘letting go’ is not ‘getting rid of’ or ‘throwing away’. If I’m holding onto this clock and you say, ‘Let go of it!’, that doesn’t mean ‘throw it out’. I might think that I have to throw it away because I’m attached to it, but that would just be the desire to get rid of it. We tend to think that getting rid of the object is a way of getting rid of attachment. But if I can contemplate attachment, this grasping of the clock, I realise that there is no point in getting rid of it – it’s a good clock; it keeps good time and is not heavy to carry around. The clock is not the problem. The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside – put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary.

You can apply this insight into ‘letting go’ to the desire for sense pleasures. Maybe you want to have a lot of fun. How would you lay aside that desire without any aversion? Simply recognise the desire without judging it. You can contemplate wanting to get rid of it – because you feel guilty about having such a foolish desire – but just lay it aside. Then, when you see it as it is, recognising that it’s just desire, you are no longer attached to it.

So the way is always working with the moments of daily life. When you are feeling depressed and negative, just the moment that you refuse to indulge in that feeling is an enlightenment experience. When you see that, you need not sink into the sea of depression and despair and wallow in it. You can actually stop by learning not to give things a second thought.

You have to find this out through practice so that you will know for yourself how to let go of the origin of suffering. Can you let go of desire by wanting to let go of it? What is it that is really letting go in a given moment? You have to contemplate the experience of letting go and really examine and investigate until the insight comes. Keep with it until that insight comes: ‘Ah, letting go, yes, now I understand. Desire is being let go of.’ This does not mean that you are going to let go of desire forever but, at that one moment, you actually have let go and you have done it in full conscious awareness. There is an insight then. This is what we call insight knowledge. In Pali, we call it nanadassana or profound understanding.

I had my first insight into letting go in my first year of meditation. I figured out intellectually that you had to let go of everything and then I thought: ‘How do you let go?’ It seemed impossible to let go of anything. I kept on contemplating: ‘How do you let go?’ Then I would say, ‘You let go by letting go.’ ‘Well then, let go!’ Then I would say:

‘But have I let go yet?’ and, ‘How do you let go?’ ‘Well just let go!’ I went on like that, getting more frustrated. But eventually it became obvious what was happening. If you try to analyse letting go in detail, you get caught up in making it very complicated. It was not something that you could figure out in words any more, but something you actually did. So I just let go for a moment, just like that.

Now with personal problems and obsessions, to let go of them is just that much. It is not a matter of analysing and endlessly making more of a problem about them, but of practising that state of leaving things alone, letting go of them. At first, you let go but then you pick them up again because the habit of grasping is so strong. But at least you have the idea. Even when I had that insight into letting go, I let go for a moment but then I started grasping by thinking: ‘I can’t do it, I have so many bad habits!’ But don’t trust that kind of nagging, disparaging thing in yourself. It is totally untrustworthy. It is just a matter of practising letting go. The more you begin to see how to do it, then the more you are able to sustain the state of non-attachment.

About letting go of love, from Dr. Phil:

Have you been dumped, betrayed or left so heartbroken that you didn’t ever want to love again? Are you still stuck on an ex and don’t know how to move on? And how do you know when it’s time to let go and look for love somewhere else?

For 12 years, I had a job I loved as the editor of House [read more...]]]> I loved this article from the NY Times Magazine.  At some time or another, most of us have experienced a slide out of the comfort of our lives.  Whether it’s been through trauma or an internal shift, we’ve experienced a descent that leaves us clutching our habits and stripped to the bone.  Dominique’s journey reminds us that transformation does come, and that joy arrives in smaller packages than we might expect.

Losing It, by Dominique Browning, from the NY Times Magazine

For 12 years, I had a job I loved as the editor of House & Garden, a magazine that celebrated the good life. It would be an understatement to describe this enterprise as part of a company not primarily in the business of philosophical, spiritual or moral soul-searching. Condé Nast’s roots and branches are in the material world. The good life at House & Garden generally meant cultivating your own backyard rather than being involved in the body politic. I pushed against the limits of making a so-called shelter magazine by publishing articles about spiritual issues and the environment, but I always felt clear-eyed about how things stood. I spent more than a decade in the belly of the beast of muchness and more. That was a precarious place to be when the real estate bubble began to leak.

The folding of the magazine was ruthless. Without warning, our world collapsed. No one was expecting it, though with five publishers in 10 years, we had our share of turmoil. I came to work on a Monday in 2007, went to the corporate offices for a meeting, had a different meeting, got the news and was told to have everything packed up by Friday. Security guards were immediately ­posted by the doors.

In the four days we were given to pack up our belongings, I was overwhelmed with an urge to hoard and began stuffing every House & Garden paper bag, pencil and notepad I could get my hands on into a box, so that I would never run out of office supplies. I salvaged enough to run a small corporation from my kitchen. I didn’t think of this as stealing. I thought of it as a twisted sort of recycling — part of the strange new economy of severance into which I had been thrown. Everything with our logo on it was destined for the Dumpster anyway.

Even so, a few weeks later I realized I had some gaping holes in the inventory: I had no ink for my printer. The pages of my résumé looked faded, ghostly. You would think I was fading, too, but I wasn’t. I was getting plump. All I could think about was food. This was the beginning of being hungry all the time. My addled brain interpreted the white noise of unemployment to mean that I was going into hibernation, that I had to lay in reserves. After the closing of the magazine was announced, my public line was, “We had a great run, we took a magazine from zero to 950,000 readers in 10 years, fabulous renewals, we won awards, published six books. . . .” I was a zombie. “Great run . . . 950,000 readers . . . six books. . . .”

But privately, I was in a whiplashing tailspin. My nightmare had finally come true. For years, I had a profound dread of unemployment that went way beyond worrying about how to pay the bills. I would like to say that this was because of the insecure nature of magazine publishing, but my anxiety had more to do with my own neuroses — though I didn’t think of it that way. Work had become the scaffolding of my life. It was what I counted on. It held up the floor of my moods, kept the facade intact. I always worried that if I didn’t have work, I would sink into abject torpor.

I have always had a job. I have always supported myself. Everything I own I purchased with money that I earned. I worked hard. For the 35 years I’ve been an adult, I have had an office to go to and a time to show up there. I’ve always had a place to be, existential gravitas intended. Without work, who was I? I do not mean that my title defined me. What did define me was the simple act of working. The loss of my job triggered a cascade of self-doubt and depression. I felt like a failure. Not that the magazine had failed — that I had.

The thing about running a magazine is that there is always too much to do. I liked not being in control of my time — I was always busy. I didn’t want time to think things over, things like feeling guilty about spending more time with my office mates than with my children; feeling sad that those children were leaving home; or feeling disappointed in love or frightened by terrible illness. Everything else, in other words. The demands of my job kept me distracted. Besides, no one else was paying my mortgage.

With the closing of the magazine, my beloved family of colleagues was obliterated. And so was the structure of my life.

Within hours of leaving my office for the last time, I could hardly bring myself to care about my reputation. I just wanted to eat. I began calling every employed person I knew to take me to lunch. I wanted to fill my calendar with the promise of meals, even if they were only penciled in — this, after all, being Manhattan. Only food could ward off the rage, despair and raw fear that overcame me.

How had I managed to get this far in my life completely unprepared for the unknown — which I had always known was out there?

During my first post-employment lunch, my panic was full-blown. It was all I could do to keep myself from wrapping a dozen breadsticks in a napkin and tucking them into my bag. I floated the idea, actually, and my companion laughed slightly, nervously, gauging the level of my seriousness. I managed to control myself. He is a good friend and gave me loads of advice, which I heard through my frantic chewing. I ended the meal extracting a promise of several more meals in the future; I wanted friends bearing menus.

After a few weeks of being unemployed, I began to settle into a routine — of getting up.

“Today is Saturday,” I said to myself one morning. I repeated this several times, trying to convince myself to get out of bed. Saturday is what I came to think of as one of the nice days, like Sunday — that is, when I considered days at all. “Today is Saturday. No one is working today, so you are no different from anyone else,” I would say out loud.

In fact, I found it hardly necessary to be aware of what day it was. One of the pleasures of a workday morning had been to rise early, have a cup of tea, walk through the garden and get to the train on time, where I could read the paper front to back. Now that I did not have to get to work, I no longer had a structured time to read the daily paper, so I would pile it into a stack, thinking I would get to it later, until I realized I was creating a weekly daily.

I missed Fridays especially. They once meant relief, time for rest and housekeeping. Now every day was Friday. Or Monday. Whatever.

Time hangs heavily on the unemployed soul. If I ate an egg at 8 a.m., by 9:30 I was starving. I became obsessed with eggs, gazing on their refined shape in wonder. Perfect packets of nutrients. I ate eggs all day long. When I had a job, I never thought about eggs.

I would feel busy, and then, when I was in bed again, realize I had done nothing. The last time this happened I had a newborn and was so exhausted from nursing through the night and keeping an eye on the sleeping infant all morning that I couldn’t get into grown-up clothing until late in the afternoon. For heaven’s sake, I hadn’t even thought of it as grown-up clothing since I was a 5-year-old dressing for kindergarten. Frankly, I no longer saw any reason to get out of my pajamas at all. A long coat covered everything up when I went out for food.

The pace of my life had become so slow that I was struggling to keep up with it.

“How are you today?” my sister Nicole asked whenever she called. She phoned several times a day. “How was your morning?” my sister wanted to know.

“Incredibly busy. Unbelievable.”

“What were you doing?”

“Sleeping.”

In this way, being unemployed is a lot like being depressed. You know how there are millions (O.K., a handful) of things you swear you would do if you only had the time? Now that I had all the time in the world — except for the hours during which I was looking for work — to read, write, watch birds, travel, play minor-key nocturnes, have lunch with friends, train a dog, get a dog, learn to cook, knit a sweater, iron the napkins and even the sheets, I had absolutely no energy for any of it. It made no difference that music and books and nature had long been the mainstays of my spirit. Just thinking about them exhausted me. I had absolutely zero experience in filling weeks — what if it became years? — with activity of my own choosing. Being unemployed meant being unoccupied, literally. I felt hollow.

“Today is Saturday. Get out of bed.”

Saturday meant that I could feel a little bit normal. Saturday is not a workday. What mattered was that everyone else’s Saturdays were different from Mondays and therefore the same as mine. I rose early. I made a breakfast of the leftovers from a post-employment lunch and then I put on a hat and mittens. Did I mention that we were all fired just as the holiday season was upon us? So much for Thanksgiving.

I headed into the streets. The early sunlight slanted across the shop windows. Everyone hurried past me. Suddenly I noticed that the men on the sidewalk looked strange; they were in overcoats and polished leather shoes and carrying briefcases. The women were dressed up. They had introspective, determined, grim faces. Strange for a Saturday.

That’s when it hit me.

It wasn’t Saturday. It was Friday.

After a month of unemployment, it had come to this — foraging for my dinner, at 4 in the afternoon. In my own kitchen. I had developed a habit of eating leftovers from meals enjoyed days earlier; my breakfast of spaghetti and meatballs at dawn sickened me by noon. Before too long, I was hungry again, but balky, wary of my own housekeeping. Better to have a drink. Safer.

Normally I like a bottle of Guinness stout when I need a nutritional hit, but I’d gone through my supply. I spotted a nearly empty bottle of Lillet moldering at the back of the refrigerator. Sugar and liquor only improve with age, right? I emptied it into an oversize breakfast cup and read the recipe on the bottle. A twist of lime? Who keeps limes? I threw in a slice of lemon. Then a few more. Half a lemon. Vitamin C. I like to rehearse the nutritional content of my food, and there are times when a drink qualifies as a meal. I took a sip, and it wasn’t half-bad, or, I suppose, it was only half-good. Note to self: Next time, make an effort. Have a whiskey sour. More vitamin C.

Drink in hand, I decided it was time to wash the windows on the second floor. I could use a little exercise, I thought. Funny how sugar works: suddenly a surge of energy. Cleaning was an activity I had thrown myself into in recent days. I might be a mess, but at least I could control the mess in my house.

“How are you today?” my sister asked. She was down to calling two or three times a day. “How was your morning?”

“Incredibly busy. Unbelievable.”

“What were you doing?”

“Vacuuming.”

I got a big sponge out from under the sink, filled a bucket and climbed the stairs to my bedroom. A few more sips of the Lillet to fortify me for the job, and my mind was racing. As I reached for the corner with my sopping sponge, sucking on the lemons at the bottom of my cup at the same time, I imagined the casement snapping under my weight.

I watched myself fall out the window. I watched my cup shatter on the flagstones.

I looked down from the window and saw myself splayed on the stone terrace, my back cracked and spine twisted — like the lime that’s supposed to be in my drink? — my head resting at a birdlike angle. This is where they (who?) would find me four days later, when it occurred to them (who, though?) that I hadn’t been seen for a while, hadn’t kept an appointment (do I have any?) and hadn’t called the children.

The children? I can’t help it. I think of Alex and Theo as children still, though they are grown and out of the house. The children were not going to be the ones to find me broken-necked on the terrace. Frankly, no one would. I’d rot.

I decided I was in no condition for housekeeping this evening and dropped my sopping sponge into the bathtub. O.K., so now I had watched myself hit bottom. That’s what you have to do to get better, right? Anyway, I was hungry. For a change.

There were three jars of peanut butter — protein! — on the shelf. I didn’t even bother to find my reading glasses so that I could choose the freshest jar, but I took down a dessert plate, just to maintain standards. I fished around in the utensil drawer and found a spoon, unscrewed the lid and dredged deep. I dolloped the stuff onto the plate — an extra helping so I didn’t have to go back downstairs for seconds. I put the plate of peanut butter, a half bottle of wine, a glass and a linen napkin on a tray and climbed back to my bedroom.

I started to lift my glass in a toast.

“To nothing.”

I thought better of it.

“To life!” I said out loud. Then I gave myself another one of my hourly lectures. Buck up. Just because something failed doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Just because something has ended doesn’t mean it was all a mistake. Just because you’ve been rejected doesn’t mean you’re worthless and unlovable. Sound familiar? It should, if you or anyone you know has gone through a divorce. This felt like the same thing.

Worse. I had no control over any of it. And no one was holding a safety net for me. For years I relied on only myself, but my confidence was shattered. Now what?

I began keeping notes about how I was feeling, what I was doing. Writing had always been my way to absorb things; I often wrote out my troubles. It even crossed my mind to write for a living. I had not changed my lifestyle while I was working at Condé Nast, so I had saved some money. I knew that writing wasn’t lucrative, having spent my career supporting writers. But I figured if I got consulting work and lived carefully, I could subsidize myself. Then I developed a strange typing problem — and I am a world-class typist, having spent years as a secretary. I kept mssng the “i” key — thngs kept comng out whtout t. There was certainly nothing wrong with the middle finger of my right hand. Mssng the “i” meant constant retypng. That was the end of wrtng.

Within months of House & Garden folding, the entire economy was in freefall. Advertising was vanishing, layoffs and buyouts were announced. I was beginning to feel like an antique, an artisan whose skills were no longer even respected, much less needed. Editing? How quaint. Managing creative people? All we’re trying to manage is to get rid of more of them.

It was strange and maddening to be forcibly retired. Even the generational rhythms were out of whack. It seemed just yesterday that my father retired. How could we have reached the same stage of life together?

Four months after being laid off, I decided to sell my house in the suburbs of New York. The stock market was sliding perilously. I didn’t want to spend my savings maintaining the mortgage and high taxes. I wanted to be out of debt.

It took me ages to create my home — 25 years, and all the years before that of daydreaming about how I wanted to live. This was the home I thought I would grow old in. It was a forthright, dark, wood-shingled, center-hall colonial revival, nearly a hundred years old. It was supposed to be my Forever House — the home you think you will never leave, the house you love beyond all others, where you’ve recaptured only what made you feel safe and happy in your childhood and left the rest behind. The Forever House is where you’ve passed along the values you admire to your own children — and filled the rooms with laughter and tears.

I called a real-estate broker, a cheerfully competent person who arrived disconcerted at the kitchen door, unwilling to brave the front path overhung with gnarled, carefully pruned azaleas. They gave the entrance character. Was I thinking, Character doesn’t sell, when I made my home? No. I was thinking, This looks good. To me. We toured the house: “And over here is the laundry room, with bookcases built in — ”

“I’ve never seen so many bookcases!” the broker said. “People don’t want bookcases. They don’t even want libraries. They want media rooms. Where did you say you hid the TV?”

I could see her mind whirring as she began to figure out just what type of character she had on her hands . . . single, unemployed, not going out much, reading instead.

We walked through the kitchen. She eyed the walls warily.

“Interesting color. Very.”

Isn’t that what people say when they can’t think of anything nicer to say?

“You’ve decorated your house so beautifully,” she continued. “This kitchen is gorgeous. Now you’re going to have to clear all the counters. Books. Knickknacks. All the stuff. I love what you’ve done with this house. Make sure you put it all away.”

Knickknacks? Maybe houses are like children. You can see yours only through eyes of love. Soon strangers would be tromping through my house, passing judgment, but the only way to have an open house is to shut away everything that made it your home.

“Don’t worry,” the broker went on. “You don’t have to be here. You shouldn’t even be in town! I’ll handle everything. Don’t forget! Counters! Walls! Personality! Cleared!” The broker smiled graciously. She was fantastically reassuring.

I felt as if I were in the presence of a dying beast. If Wendy and her brothers could have a big dog for a governess ­— well, this house could be my Nana. It was steadfast, if creaky; it gave me years of solace and protection. Every once in a while, when I thought of how I was about to abandon it, I would lean into a wall and kiss it. I loved my house.

I could not step past the threshold of a son’s room without becoming engulfed in memories, triggered by things as slight as the worn patch on the armchair where my elbow rested while cradling a nursing baby. This was the home I imagined my children would return to visit, with their children, whose first steps would be taken in the garden, their tiny fists curling around the white azalea branches for support, just the way their fathers’ had. I wish we still lived in a world in which houses were passed down through generations, but our sense of home has become portable. That may be one reason we invest our possessions with so much more meaning — they, rather than rooms and gardens, carry the memories.

The house sold quickly. It struck me that I had lost House & Garden, the job, and was now losing house and garden, the life. What took years to create was about to be undone in a matter of minutes. Come to think of it, kind of like being blasted out of a career.

I had access to a city apartment owned by a friend, but I couldn’t commit to living there all the time. It made me too sad — an unresolved chapter of my last decade. I decided to move to the small, coastal Rhode Island town where, after divorcing years ago, I bought a run-down Modernist house that had been on the market for years. I was rebuilding it. I know I was lucky to have such a choice — no, not just lucky! I had worked hard to save enough to buy that house. It was a wrenching move. I was haunted by the anxiety that it wouldn’t be the last, either. This was just the beginning of letting things go — starting with the Forever House.

I called Alex. “How can I give this house up? I’m walking around thinking this has become the museum of my happiest moments. I’m making a big mistake. Don’t you think? The museum of my happiest moments. . . . ”

Alex was used to me by now.

“Time for a new museum, Mom.”

Spring blew in so wildly that year that it seemed unnatural, or perhaps I just noticed what spring feels like once I wasn’t sealed in a climate-controlled building all day. Weather — the actual experience of it, not the forecast — is one of the more dramatic discoveries to come with a slower pace of life. There were days at the office when I didn’t know whether it was muggy or cool, or if it had rained. It dawned on me that there was something unsavory about having been so cut off from nature that I was surprised by the golden hue in the slant of light at four in the afternoon — on a weekday, no less.

I took to wandering in my garden at all hours. As if to give me one last chance to change my mind about leaving, spring unfolded in splendor. The daffodils multiplied generously and spilled across the front in a riot of gold. Bunches of hellebores appeared in March and nodded their prim white, mauve and purple caps for more than two months; when I bent down to turn up a small head and peer into a quiet, trusting face, I winced at the thought of leaving them vulnerable to whatever depredations a new owner might visit upon them. I apologized in anticipation. I strolled the paths, examining the thick, furry spools of the unwinding ferns; the gnarled purple fingers of the peonies clawing out from the damp, fragrant earth; the green stubs of the Solomon’s seal; the sharp tips of the hosta encircled by improbably large patches of bare ground that would soon be hidden by gigantic leaves, bearing aloft the fragrant white wands that seduce the moths at dusk.

With all the anxiety about the move, my brain flipped a switch, and I went from sleeping all the time to being utterly lost in sleeplessness. In exhaustion, my memory faltered. Black holes gaped open before me as I spoke; in the middle of a sentence I groped zanily for safe passage to the next word. During the moments of sleep that I could snatch, I had vivid, disturbing dreams. I was being born — I was blinded by a bright light — and seconds later I was dying. I was reaching for the telephone to call an ambulance but couldn’t remember which number to dial: 411? 911? 411? 911? 411? 911? What did I need? Help? Information?

I turned to the wisdom of the ancients. I went to Ovid, where women run from rapacious gods, and Dante, where women writhe in purgatory, and Homer, where women unravel their work, and finally I pulled off the shelf the old black leather-clad King James Version of the Bible I was given in high school. I read feverishly from cover to cover. I had forgotten how much of it is about fear — over and over again, the response to change, even to the miraculous, is fear. I was fighting fear. And what was I so afraid of? Being alone with myself long enough to wonder what is the purpose of my life?

I turned most frequently to the Psalms, whose gorgeous, intricate, sensual prayers blanketed me in wonder. There I found my anthem for that year, the most eloquent expression of grief I ever read: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.”

One night, at four in the morning, in a panic of sleeplessness, I went to my piano and on impulse pulled an old volume of music off the shelf, J. S. Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations. I picked my way through the first aria, which has a quiet, dignified, spare quality. It is elegant, contained; it holds much in reserve. The music did nothing for my sleeplessness; if anything, within hours I was more completely, wonderfully awake than I had been in a long time. Unexpectedly, I felt a peace suffuse my bones as I lost myself in Bach’s lines. My own anxieties were no longer drumming through my brain; my mind, that hobbled old draft horse, stopped loping along in the same rut it followed night after night. It was locking into someone else’s harmony.

Bach has become a nightly visitor. I am obsessed with him: his musical tricks, jokes and puns; his charismatic energy and passion; his resilience through tragedy; his rigorous discipline; his bedrock belief in a force greater than anything human.

I have to teach myself, all over again, how to practice, how to silence the critic in my head. I have to remind myself that the repeats matter, that respect for the rests is important. What my fingers lack in speed, my heart makes up in feeling. If I have to, I will crawl through sarabandes and quadrilles, letting the dance fill my soul.

Slowly, slowly, the months go by, each one a variation transposing loss, loneliness and anger to gratitude and hope. I no longer dread the advent of another rosy dawn. As I stop struggling so with fear and simply accept the slow tempo of my days, all those inner resources start kicking in — those soul-saving habits of playfulness, most of all: reading, thinking, listening, feeling my body move through the world, noticing the small beauty in every single day. I watch the worms, watch the hawks, watch the fox, watch the rabbits. I open my heart to new friends. I settle into my new home; its healing balm has been there all along, nestled in a sofa that beckons me to pick up a book, hovering outside the window inviting me to take a walk. I find room in my life again for love of the world, let the quiet of solitary moments steal over me, give myself over to joy. What a surprise! That I can cook a meal for my children, or take a long walk on the beach, or watch an osprey wheel through the sky, or set down a page of thoughts — these are moments of grace. Old Testament loving-kindness, the stuff of everyday life.

One adventure is over; it is time for another. I have a different kind of work to do now. I am growing into a new season. At the water’s edge, watching the tiny, teeming life of that mysterious place between high and low tides, the intertidal zone, I begin to accept the relentless flux that is the condition of these days. I am not old and not young; not bethrothed and not alone; not broken and yet not quite whole; thinking back, looking forward. But present. These are my intertidal years.

In those sleepless nights, when I am at the keyboard, I connect with something I may have once encountered as a teenager and then lost in the frantic skim through adulthood — the desire to nourish my soul. I do not have the temerity to think I have found God; I think instead that I have stumbled into a conversation that I pray will last the rest of my life.

I cannot move through the music the way I hear it in my head. Nothing works the way it used to. My hands feel stiff. But every once in a while, I accomplish a passage adroitly. Fingers dance over keys. I take all the repeats. I observe the rests. I enjoy myself. And I am happy for small-boned miracles.

Dominique Browning writes a column for the Environmental Defense Fund Web site and has a new blog, SlowLoveLife.com. This piece is an excerpt from “Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas and Found Happiness,” to be published next month by Atlas & Company.

Well, two weeks later and I’m happy to report that traveling light was an excellent idea.  (Although my bag did come back [read more...]]]> When I went traveling to India this last month with my mom, I packed everything in a small backpack, determined to be a minimalist.  It was an experiment to see if I could really get away with traveling light.  “Aren’t you impressed,” I asked my boyfriend.  “I got everything into here!” I brandished my backpack proudly.  He looked at my bag skeptically, “I’ll be impressed,” he said, “if you still think that was a good idea when you get back.”

Well, two weeks later and I’m happy to report that traveling light was an excellent idea.  (Although my bag did come back a bit more stuffed than when I left.)  I was a bit dirty, I’ll admit, but it was incredibly satisfying to let go the usual defensive materials I like to shore up.  No extra books for reading, no “clothes for every occasion,” no mascara, no “just in case” items, and few distractions.

In celebration of traveling light, I’m sharing this article I found by Michelle Cook.  It’s that time of year: clean out the closets, dump off the waste, and let in the fresh air!

Spring Clean Your Body, by Michelle Schoffro Cook

Spring is upon us–at least in theory. Every year I get spring fever. I can’t wait to get outside, open all my windows to let some fresh air in, and get down to cleaning my house of all the clutter that tends to build up over the winter. I think spring is the best season of the year. It’s a season of birth and new growth. Flowers, trees, grass and shrubs all start budding with life. This spring, help breathe new life into your body by incorporating some simple detox suggestions to your day. Reducing the toxic burden on your body can spell: improved digestion, increased energy, clearer sinuses, normalized blood pressure, fewer allergy symptoms and hormonal imbalances, strengthened immunity to viruses, sharper mental abilities, better sleep quality, fewer mood swings, healthier skin, and much more. Here are 9 ways to spring cleanse your body without the harsh regimes or deprivation of most detox plans:

1. Throw out the trash…from your diet, that is. I probably don’t have to tell you what constitutes “trash”–fried foods, sugary foods, and the 3 Ps: processed, prepared, and packaged food since they tend to be full of trans fats, sugar, and food additives.

2. If you can’t read eat, don’t eat it. Read labels on the healthy food selections you choose. As a general rule: most of the harmful chemicals you should be avoiding have long and complex names. If you can’t read the words on the package, don’t buy it, and don’t eat it. Better yet, choose fresh foods that come directly in Nature’s packaging.

3. Drink at least 8 to 10 cups of pure water daily to help flush out toxins. For a really great detoxifying drink, add the fresh juice of one lemon to a large glass of water first thing in the morning. Lemons help alkalize your body chemistry, contain more than 20 anti-cancer compounds, and help cleanse your liver, kidneys, and colon.

Happy New Year!  The Divine’s dream for 2010 is for a year of JOY! The work that we did in December, practicing pure giving and receiving from the Heart Center, was wonderful preparation for the New Year. We are now ready to open to a greater experience of joy, which is what the Creator wishes to express through Its creation!

A good question to ask yourself is “Does my vision of joy match The Divine’s vision of joy?” [read more...]]]> Aadil and Mirra of Purna Yoga share a vision for 2010.  Read and be inspired to connect more deeply with your own beauty and joy.

Happy New Year!  The Divine’s dream for 2010 is for a year of JOY! The work that we did in December, practicing pure giving and receiving from the Heart Center, was wonderful preparation for the New Year. We are now ready to open to a greater experience of joy, which is what the Creator wishes to express through Its creation!

A good question to ask yourself is “Does my vision of joy match The Divine’s vision of joy?” Since the ego may not always agree with The Divine’s perception of joy, I offer all of us this prayer: “I am willing to allow Divine Joy to flow and be felt through my human form.” While you say this to yourself, hold the intention to exhale what you perceive to be joy and to inhale Divine Joy instead.

True joy comes from an experience of BEAUTY. Beauty is The Divine’s joy. In order to experience The Divine’s flow of joy, we must become friendly in all ways with our experience of beauty. The Divine’s dream is to move into the physical world, and this happens through the expression of beauty, because where beauty is, so is joy.

What is beauty, exactly? Beauty is the ideal expression of The Divine. Beauty requires that we take care and give a little more of ourselves, inside and outside. (You may begin to notice that a “pretty” person is not always beautiful, so start exploring why this is the case.) Beauty is all about refinement, precision, and detail, through care and clarity and cleanliness and color – lots of color!

Shaggy clothes and a messy home tell our nervous system that it’s okay to get away with being less than who we truly are. Beauty – and therefore joy – are felt in the body when we wear beautiful colors, fabrics, and designs. Take a look at the clothes you wear. Do they make you smile?  (A smile is a clue there is beauty and joy around you!) Look around your home.  Does it also smile?  Does it express your refinement, care, and detail? Surround yourself with beauty in your home, your body, and your thoughts, with the images you see and the things you taste, touch and smell. When you do this, your nervous system can relax, which allows more of the Divine’s energy to flow through you.

Please join us in this prayer for 2010:

“I am ready to feel the joy of The Divine and to express the beauty of The Divine.  Let everything I do be an expression of beauty. Today I choose to let go of any perceptions of joy and beauty that come from my ego.  I ask the Creator to use my physical form to express Its beauty and Its joy into and through the material world, giving birth to a Divine world now.”

With love,
Mirra and Aadil

There are times when you know just what to do, and life seems to rise up and support you and your ideas. And then there are times when it is all a little murky, and you might feel a bit lost. Thankfully, you have your yoga practice to come to—a time to tap into a deep connection with yourself and remember who you really are and what is most important [read more...]]]> This is an article shared with me by a friend.  I found it to be full of useful tools to help clarify our sense of connection and purpose.

Create a Life You Love

There are times when you know just what to do, and life seems to rise up and support you and your ideas. And then there are times when it is all a little murky, and you might feel a bit lost. Thankfully, you have your yoga practice to come to—a time to tap into a deep connection with yourself and remember who you really are and what is most important to you. Nothing could be better.

When you bring the spacious awareness you experience in your yoga practice to your whole life, you’ll experience the kind of presence that will make you stop in your tracks, engage your senses, and find joy in daily life. But for most of us, accomplishing that is easier said than done. Often it requires a conscious effort to examine the status quo, push in new directions, and find fresh approaches to evoking that same sense of grounding, connection, and happiness we find on the mat.

Here, then, are 10 possibilities to help you get there. Put these ideas into practice one at a time, or try several at once. You might want to welcome one of them into your life as an offering to the New Year. Whatever approach you choose, here’s to feeling more alive, more present, and more aware of what makes you happy.

1. Get Energized About Your Future

Your yoga practice helps you live in the present, but life in the world demands a certain amount of decision making and planning. What’s your vision of where you want to go and how you’ll get there? When you take a proactive approach, your dreams are more likely to become reality. Knowing what you want is, of course, the first step.

If you need help discovering your life’s path, start by talking it out, says Nancy Wagaman, a life coach in San Diego. You can develop a goal list and create affirmations, she says. You can draw a picture of your future—even pray for guidance. “There are so many ways to energize the new vision you want for your life. The more you energize it, the more you draw that energy to that vision. And the universe tends to support you,” she says.

Of course, your vision may change over time, but the important thing is that you’re an active participant in your future.

2. Plug Into Your Spiritual Self

Reconnecting with your innermost self can open the doors to an entirely new and unpredictable path. At 33 years old, Susan Nicolas was a yoga teacher living in San Francisco and dating. But her singular focus on meeting a husband and starting a family was causing her heartache. On the advice of friends, she signed up for a vipassana retreat. During 10 days of silence and insight meditation, she came face-to-face with her attachment to getting married and to the unfinished dynamics of past relationships. “Through a lot of struggle and occasional glimpses of true stillness, it seemed the obstacles in my life dissolved,” she says. “I felt more in touch with my true self than I ever had.”

Getting away from routine relationships and environments makes it easier to drop into stillness and examine the undercurrent of your life. Once you do, you can plug into a connection with your divine nature. On retreat, you can also practice accessing your true self so that you can call on it anytime in your life.

A month after her retreat, Nicolas unexpectedly reconnected with an old sweetheart who is now her husband of eight years. “The experience during those sometimes difficult 10 days was like removing a stopper in the mouth of my life,” she says. “Everything simply flowed forth as it should.”

HOW TO Check with a favorite teacher or retreat center for upcoming dates. Even a weekend away that includes meditation, yoga, rest, and silence can be enlightening if you set an intention to retreat.

3. Let Go of the Old

Writing, drawing, doing yoga—there are many pathways to bringing all that’s inside of you out and into the world. For several years, Tiffanie Turner, an architect from San Francisco, felt creatively blocked. As an experiment, Turner began writing three pages in her journal each morning. After a few weeks, she noticed some dramatic changes in her life. “I drop off a lot of baggage in the morning and feel clear for the rest of the day,” she says. Turner found that her anxiety levels decreased, too. “I write down things that worry me in the morning, or a horrible dream that would normally stay with me all day. And when I do, these things pretty much don’t exist for me any more.”

“Once you let go of thoughts that aren’t truly serving you, you’ll feel lighter, more creative,” says Courtney Miller, a yoga teacher in Manhattan, who includes journaling in her yoga workshops. “It’s as if you have more space inside for noticing what makes you happy.”

HOW TO Dust off your journal, commit to a designated time frame each day, and stick to it. If writing isn’t your thing, try drawing your thoughts and feelings.

4. Serve Others

If you haven’t yet noticed, time spent trying to fulfill your desires usually isn’t that fulfilling—even when you achieve or get something that you think you want. But when you turn your attention to the needs of others, you often feel a huge sense of satisfaction. Focusing on other people enables you to be engaged without having to figure out what’s in it for you. And seva (selfless service) can be very empowering, showing you that your actions really do make a difference in the world.

HOW TO You can walk pups at the Humane Society, teach yoga at a community center, or bring your talents to an after-school tutoring program—the possibilities are endless. Many organizations ask for a six-month commitment, though, so it’s important to find something you’re passionate about and have time for. Log on to volunteermatch.org and type in your interests and Zip Code to find a perfect volunteer fit.

5. Honor Your Physical Self

You often hear about spacious awareness in the mind, but it can also be found in your sense of physical self—in the way you move externally, and then process things internally. That’s why San Francisco chiropractor Colin Phipps does a seasonal cleanse about three times a year. He says that the cleanse cultivates awareness by giving him emotional clarity and providing a healthy ritual to follow. “It’s a conscious effort to become much more attuned to my sense of self and where I am in the world,” he says.

HOW TO Elson Haas, an integrative-medicine practitioner and author of The New Detox Diet, recommends a simple winter detox that anyone can follow: For three weeks this winter, base your three meals a day on soups, salads, fruits, and veggies. Drink lots of water and herbal teas, and stay warm. Omit sugar, alcohol, caffeine, wheat, and dairy—and don’t eat between meals. When the seasons change throughout the year, carve out anywhere between 3 and 21 days to repeat some version of the detox. “When you move toward fruits, veggies, and water, you are moving toward things that are less congesting and moving along the pathway to health,” says Haas. Find more detox tips at elsonhaas.com.

6. Be Daring

There’s a lot to be said for having the discipline to stick with a specific style of yoga, getting to know it well, and working through resistance to aspects that you know you don’t like. But exploring a new style of yoga can be revitalizing. Experimentation and play in your practice can teach you to be, err, more “flexible” in all of your life and more aware that there’s always more to learn and explore.

Jay Maldonado, a 29-year-old director of a literacy program who lives in Brooklyn, says her long-term study of one style of yoga left her with a good understanding of alignment but not a lot of spiritual depth. So she pounded the Manhattan pavement looking for something that resonated. She found it at Laughing Lotus, a studio whose philosophy centers on joy and playfulness. “It opened the doors to my creativity and self-expression, and just really enjoying who I am,” she says. “It allowed my yoga practice to become something that’s not so regimented. Instead, it evolves every day.”

Maldonado is also transgendered, and finding a new style helped her greatly during her transition. “As my practice became freer, everything else in my life freed up, and I made the changes I needed to honor myself as a transgendered being,” she says. “When you delve into the scariness of something new, that’s usually the shock that you need to awaken your spiritual practice and passion.”

HOW TO Chant if you normally focus on alignment, or experiment with holding poses for minutes at a time if you’re used to a more flowing practice. For other ideas, go to yogajournal.com/styleguide.

7. Soothe Your Mind

Meditation quiets a busy mind and cultivates a witness who can watch what’s happening in your life with a bit of emotional distance. The benefits are enormous—many meditators say they have more clarity, experience less anxiety, and feel better physically. Most of all, the practice offers an experience of calm and contentment.

Are you willing to commit to meditating every day for 30 days? If so, you might find your whole life transformed. “An agitated mind squanders such an amazing amount of energy,” says Richard Faulds, a senior meditation teacher at Kripalu Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. “If you can still the surface of the mind, you’ll say ‘Wow! This is who I really am!’ You get a taste of something that’s really quite profound. You will want to sustain it.”

HOW TO Faulds recommends meditating on the breath for 20 minutes each day. To do this, follow his guidelines: Find a comfortable seated position. Bring yourself to the present moment by breathing, relaxing, feeling, watching, and allowing any thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations to come and go. Instead of reacting to those things, simply be aware of them. Deepen the breath. Watch the breath. Let go of all technique and come into effortless being. You can find another Kripalu Yoga guided meditation at yogajournal.com/kripalumed.

8. Notice Your Surroundings

When you’re reassessing life, it’s tempting to spend a lot of time focusing on yourself. But it can be transformative to connect with the world around you, to meet your neighbors, to enjoy the changing of the seasons, to take an interest in what’s happening in your community. Simply being aware of your environs creates a sense of interconnectedness—and suddenly you can’t not care about how your actions affect people and your environment.

One way to feel that connection is to make a commitment to eating seasonal and locally grown foods. “Once people become dedicated seasonal eaters, suddenly they become aware of things like water issues, ranchers’ issues, and political issues in their community,” says Deborah Madison, author of Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets. Plus, these foods taste better, do less harm to the environment by reducing resources needed for shipping, and put you in touch with the cycles of nature.

HOW TO Eating seasonally and supporting farmers is as easy and delicious as visiting your local farmers’ market or joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program—a fancy term for a farm that grows and delivers produce near your home. Visit the United States Department of Agriculture’s website (ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/map.htm) and click on your state to locate a local farmers’ market, or check out localharvest.org/csa to find a CSA.

9. Create Community

Karen Habib had been plagued for years by a feeling of emptiness that she couldn’t quite name. Habib, who lives in Manhattan and worked in corporate marketing at that time, craved meaning, community, and a place where she could feel grounded amid the hustle and bustle of New York. So when the opportunity arose for her to move into the Integral Yoga Institute in the West Village, she went for it.

When you live in close quarters with other people, they can certainly press your buttons. But when that happens, Habib thinks of a statement attributed to Integral Yoga founder, Swami Satchidananda: “The stones in a river start out rough, but with the current continually bumping and polishing them, they end up being beautiful.” Since moving into the institute, Habib has gained clarity to pursue a life-long interest in interior design. She has also discovered a renewed sense of vitality, strength, and gratitude. With her yoga community, she now has a sacred center to come home to, daily yoga classes and workshops at her disposal, and a place to meet like-minded yogis she can relate to. “When I walk into the center, I breathe and sit to do pranayama and think, ‘God, am I lucky!’”

HOW TO While you may not choose to move into an ashram, you can find some kind of sangha (community) at your local studio or through a favorite teacher. Many studios offer immersion programs that meet weekly to discuss philosophy, practice asana, chant, and spark renewed vitality, strength, and gratitude for the practices. Or you can organize your own group by inviting friends, posting flyers that give information about the meetings, and hosting yoga meet-ups in your town (visit meetup.com to post events).

10. Make a Nature Date

It’s easy to overlook the most obvious accessible antidote to stress, worry, and busyness: the outdoors. Sense the earth beneath your feet, watch birds soar, feel the wind on your face—these are all reminders that your troubles, and even your joys, need not be all consuming; you are part of something bigger.

Carol Tonelli, a Spanish interpreter living in San Francisco, heads to the ocean for a swim when she wants to reconnect. “There, I can surrender to the water, to the sun, to the flow of life,” she says. Immersing herself in natural beauty, says Tonelli, allows her to release stress and to access a deep sense of serenity that carries her through tougher times.

HOW TO Whether you decide to head for the mountains, streams, or sea, take time out of your schedule to make a nature date once a week. When you’re outdoors, allow your thoughts and concerns to float away like clouds. Stay present to the natural beauty that surrounds you; cultivate a sense of gratitude for the abundance that is right in front of your nose.

Nora Isaacs is a former Yoga Journal editor and author of Women in Overdrive: Find Balance and Overcome Burnout at Any Age (Seal Press).

One Conscious Breath from EckhartTolle TV [read more...]]]>

One Conscious Breath from EckhartTolle TV on Vimeo.

When you allow yourself to be what you are right now, magic happens. When you know in your heart that there is nothing more to be than what you are right now, you experience yourself as being perpetually more amazing than you ever thought possible.

How do you discover “what you are right now”? Be ruthlessly compassionate with yourself. This means acceptance, acceptance, acceptance. Infect yourself with self-acceptance. This allows you the freedom to honestly assess where you’re at.

Now you can be ruthlessly honest with yourself; your [read more...]]]> There is nothing more to be than what you are right now.

When you allow yourself to be what you are right now, magic happens. When you know in your heart that there is nothing more to be than what you are right now, you experience yourself as being perpetually more amazing than you ever thought possible.

How do you discover “what you are right now”? Be ruthlessly compassionate with yourself. This means acceptance, acceptance,
acceptance. Infect yourself with self-acceptance. This allows you the freedom to honestly assess where you’re at.

Now you can be ruthlessly honest with yourself; your ruthless compassion gives you a sweet cushion for anything you discover to be less than desirable when you hang out with where you’re at right now.

What do I mean by “ruthlessly honest”? Here’s an example: When I work with clients, especially for the first time, I observe their posture. As my clients stand and walk around, I often see them reorganizing or holding themselves in a posture they think is “right.” This is a “counterfeit” or “artificial” posture. This isn’t a natural posture. It is a posture they think they should have. We’ve all done this at one point or another. I could tell you stories about my own “counterfeit” postures (yes, that’s plural), but
that’s a book unto its own. . . .

The point is, this “should be” posture is often indicative that we are trying to be something other than what we genuinely are right now. By allowing our thoughts of what “should be” to dictate, our genuine posture is, unfortunately, suppressed. Not to mention that it takes a lot of energy and effort to hold oneself in an unnatural position.

If you apply this postural analogy to your entire life, maybe you can begin to see more clearly where you are faking it (hint: compassionately hunt for the “should-be’s” in every aspect of your life).

Allow yourself to be completely as is. Hang out with what you are right now. This gives the innate intelligence of your whole system the space to express itself. The expression of this intelligence is incredibly healing. It is the stuff magic is made of. I’ve seen it work wonders time and time again.

If the thought of hanging out with yourself with ruthless honesty scares you, consider yourself human! This fear is a very natural experience for everyone. However, please realize that if you feel scared or threatened by this kind of honesty, you are an especially perfect candidate to hang out with it. . . . Courage friend, courage.

One fine day, perhaps even tomorrow, after you’ve played with this ruthless compassion, honesty, and innate intelligence stuff for a bit, you may just discover yourself naturally coming across your ideal posture/career/relationship. Heck, maybe even life. . . .

All the best on the adventure, and, of course, Namaste.

Heidi Lauber, massage therapist
Momentum Manual Therapy