I can't take it anymore. If my mind goes over this worry one more time I'm gonna lose it. Oh gosh darn it.....there it goes again! Cycling through the same patterns. Doing the same thing again expecting different results. Even though it knows this is the very definition of insanity! For a brain you're not very smart!! This is physically painful. Everytime I put myself through this it causes my whole body to tense up, my shoulders to rise, my ...
The Practice of Falling
I fall in my yoga practice. A lot. Just like falling out of a yoga pose, when things fall apart in life it hurts. But eventually the dust settles and lessons from the fall are learned. Out of devastation comes growth. Out of ruin comes awareness. Out of loss comes incredible gain. Even after the unnecessary is blown to bits by uncontrollable circumstances, it's funny how old habits rear their heads. It is so easy to slip back into their warm, sticky, ...
The Danger of “Should”: Telling Your Inner Critic to STFU
I just got back from a weekend in Muskoka. Lymphoma Canada organized a beautiful weekend of yoga, cooking classes and spa treatments for a phenomenal group of women who committed to the cause of raising awareness and money for cancer research. I was lucky enough to be their yoga teacher for the experience. It was a good weekend. Scratch that - a great weekend. I stayed in a hotel in a room with a view that literally brought me to my knees. I ...
Dare to Look Back and Learn
My computer has a message for me. It is telling me “An operation is taking longer than expected. Do you want to abort it?” Pretty strong words for a computer. Especially when it’s talking about downloading some pictures. But it’s got me thinking. This impatient computer has me thinking about life. So many things take longer than we anticipate. Healing after illness, losing weight, getting over a loss, grieving, waiting in line at the grocery store. It all takes so much ...
Travel In Technicolor: Do Yoga
I recently co-lead a yoga retreat in Nicaragua and thought I'd sit down to write a blog about my experience. There’s just one problem….. There’s no way I can fit what happens on a yoga retreat into one blog entry. I suppose I could write a series of blogs going into the details. I could write about the wonderfulness of watching people find serenity in a new country. How traveling to a new place invigorates you with a new sense of purpose. I could write paragraphs, even a novel describing ...
3 Reasons To Travel Light Emotionally
I leave for Nicaragua in three days to lead a Yoga Retreat. In light of this, people have been asking me, “Are you excited??” It's a good-natured question. But to be honest, I don't get super excited before I travel. Jelayna what is wrong with you?? Why are you not floating on cloud nine and buzzing with all the good feels? You're about to travel to a new country, discover new things, meet new people!! This is usually when the #gratitude #soblessed ...
Dear Yoga Industry: Please Don’t Tell Me What To Feel
Please don’t tell me what to feel. More importantly, please don’t tell me to be happy, or seek bliss. This is a message I am bombarded with daily as someone who works in the yoga industry. For me, the message is getting old and falling on deaf ears. Think about it. How is someone supposed to choose happiness when they are in the midst of dealing with clinical depression? Explain to me how someone who is grieving the loss of a loved one, a person who by all rights is supposed to be feeling ...
