New Year, Fresh Start

As I sit down to write this the first thought in my head is how can we be here already?? It seems like we blew through 2010, at least this morning it does. At times in the last year it has felt as if I would never get through the day let alone the year. There were hard days, yes but looking back today I see that I made it through and came out the other side stronger and better than when I walked through the door of 2010. In light of all the changes and things that happened in the last year so much happened it seems unreal that it was only one year. Perspective, perception very interesting things. Then this morning I got an email with a quote in it and I just felt this sense of resonance and found myself nodding my head. "What you see is real - but only on the particular level to which you've developed your sense of seeing. You can expand your reality by developing new ways of perceiving." Wynn Bullock.

This just confirmed for me what I woke up feeling this morning, I have the choice to look back with a sense of respect and awe at what I learned this last year or I can tell the story that it was hard and I am so glad it is over. I feel a little bit of both but in reality I am in awe that I can on this day look back at times when I remember feeling that I was hanging on by just a couple of finger nails and hoping that they didn't break while I was hanging and see that it truly brought me to such a better place. Those experiences brought me right to the space I am today and I wouldn't be here with the appreciation, gratitude, respect, and sense of wonder and joy I have without every single one of them. Attitude is everything... I learned that many years ago while playing sports and over the years I have relearned it several times. Today however I have a different understanding of just how true that little sentence is and I have a sense of awareness that I have never had before.

Moving forward I have the opportunity to expand my reality beyond anything it has ever been. I know that I will stumble along the way, I will have days where I am not plugged in as well as I could be and I will strive to remember that each and every experience brings me something to learn about myself and the world I move through every single day. I have the choice to make it be something positive and life affirming or hard and scary. Just like learning a new yoga pose, it is all about approach. If you approach a new pose with the attitude that it will be hard and you bring perfection expectations along with it, well it will be hard and you very well may not meet those expectations. As I tell all of my yoga students, we all have to start at the beginning, none of us really knew how to do yoga before we started practicing. Yoga is never about comparing yourself to someone else or competing with yourself, it is a humbling, expanding, ever changing and growing experience with yourself. It is about more than just the physical body and the asana's and it has a habit of creeping up in your life without you sometimes realizing that you just pulled some lesson you learned on the mat into your daily life off the mat. Approaching a new pose with the attitude that you may very well stumble, fall, feel frustration and wonder if you will ever "get it" opens you up to learn, have fun and laugh along with asking yourself to move outside your comfort zone. Now if I can do that in yoga on my black mat I can certainly do that in my every day life too.

Giving up attachment to a certain outcome is amazing and freeing. Like doing half moon pose for me is amazing and freeing and like flying. That was my least favorite pose to learn at first and it is now my favorite. There is a sense of openness in my heart and body that no other pose really gives me. It is all about expansion in the pose, expanding open with the front of the body, letting the heart revolve open, drawing energy up the standing leg and sending it through the body and drawing the lifted leg outward, expanding away from the body. Now taking that and looking at life, it would be easy to collapse inward with pain and disappointment, close your heart, contract into yourself. It takes the same amount of effort to do that as it does to expand and open and lift. It is all about energy, drawing it in, sending it through the body. What feels better, expanding or contracting? Speaking for myself expansion wins every single time. Every single time I have offered up expansion and openness in my poses I have been met with such a free feeling and my body has changed and embraced it when I allowed it to. Applying that off the mat has brought me the same experience. Amazing things and people have moved into my life with expansion and openness and allowing..... Ah the key word here being "allowing"...

We can as thinking, intelligent beings think up all sorts of things, dreams, wishes, hopes, best case scenarios if you will but if we do not move into the allowing space it will never come to pass. So for 2011 instead of getting bogged down in the hows and the whens of what it is you want to bring into your life, define what you want in terms of the end result. Live every day as if your deepest desires have come to you, be open, allow and create space and expansion. Remember that attitude is everything, it takes the same amount of energy to expand as it does to contract and trust that you will know in your deepest heart what is right for you in any given moment if you allow yourself to listen and be present. Take the lessons that you have learned in the last year and bring the ones forward that resonate and let go of everything else. Most of all allow yourself to love and be loved every single moment of every single day.

Happy New Year!

Namaste

Changing seasons

I realized today it has been awhile since I have posted and then I read a little article that got me thinking it was about time I posted. I saw a posting on Facebook from someone I am following called Earth Empress. She posts some very cool recipes and thoughts on life etc. Today she posted about a book by a man named Robert Rabbin called Authenticity Accelerator. As I have been on a journey the last couple of years to live my own life more authentically I clicked the link to see her thoughts on the book. She gave it raving reviews and posted what Mr. Rabbin's considers to be the 5 principles for authentic living. The 5 principles encompass only 10 words:

Be Present

Pay Attention

Listen Deeply

Speak Truthfully

Act Creatively

Nothing earth shaking or really new in those words but direct and to the point and fairly easy to remember and process. Or are they? The suggestion was to read through them twice then look away and try to recite the 5 principles. The one or two that you blanked on could be the ones you need to have in your life most right now... Interesting concept. I had only one that I couldn't recite, Pay Attention.... I would have said listen deeply because my brain tends to move fast or as my friend Cyn says at warp speed.

Pay Attention, that I will have to ponder on for a few days to determine where I need to be paying more attention in my life. I love how simple and direct those 5 principles are, all 10 of those words resonated deeply with me. So for the rest of my week I plan to not only work on paying attention in my life but to be aware of how I move through my day and checking in with those 5 principles. It is so easy to get busy with life and all the things we have to do and all the places we have to be, especially this time of year with the holidays approaching.

I would like to challenge you to do the little test with the words above and for the rest of your week bring awareness to which of those you had trouble with and how it could apply in your life. Slow down, dial in, stay plugged in and observe what happens when you do.

Namaste
Sherry

Back to School

I took the end of summer off from blogging to finalize the sale of my house, move twice in three weeks and get settled in my new space and find a new routine in my new surroundings. It was a daunting experience and the one constant through all of it was yoga. I never stopped teaching during that time period thankfully, it was the one thing that helped me to keep at least one foot on the ground when I was feeling like I would fly away because I was untethered.

Now we are in September that time of transition from summer to fall, from the lazy days of summer into the back to school mode. Even if you aren't still in school thoughts turn to cooler days and nights, sweaters, shoes versus flip flops and just what new things to add to the wardrobe for fall and winter. It is also a time where I focus in my life and my yoga classes on feeling rooted and grounded into the earth's energy. Feeling the rhythm of the earth changing as my own rhythm slows down to match it. My yoga practice changes a little as well as my daily walks.

As I think about the word transition in both the seasons and my life I decided to look up the word in the Merriam Webster dictionary. Transition: 1. a: a passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another. b: a movement, development, or evolution from one stage, or style to another. 2. a: a musical modulation. b: a musical passage leading from one section of a piece to another. 3. an abrupt change in energy state or level.

I like the musical part in #2 and the abrupt change in energy state or level is interesting as well. I also love these descriptive words: passage, movement, development, evolution, modulation. Life is always in transition, you get somewhere and there is change, passage, movement, development, evolution and modulation. Being flexible like a tree in the wind, adaptable like a chameleon and able to roll with the punches as my mother always said is necessary to live life fully and openly and with joy.

We have the choice to fight transition. Trust me I am a world class fighter, over achiever, hyper extender and all around resister at times in my life. The older I get the more I can relax into the transitions, movement, passages, developments, evolutions and modulations. This ability however came only after I have learned the hard way what fighting and resisting brings with it. I have stepped in many holes over the years, sometimes the same ones over and over to learn whatever it was I was supposed to learn at the time. In the last 2 plus years I have had to learn more than I ever wanted to and the biggest one was not resisting transition, well with a big side helping of patience...

Looking back now over the expanse of time behind me I can say this, it was hard as hell, I struggled more days than I want to really think about. I was at times filled with fear and worry, doubt and uncertainty. I had help along the way from many wonderful people in my life who each brought something to me just when and how I needed it. I also always had yoga, every single day, whether I was on my mat or not. I am a student of yoga, have been for 25 years. I am a teacher of yoga, have been for 9 years. I teach because I have a desire to bring the benefits of yoga to as many who wish to join me on the journey and better their lives with yoga. I have a student who tells me a class with me is like a great stretch and a therapy session all in one. I teach from what I know, I teach from my heart and I want every person who does yoga with me either in person, via my DVD or from my YouTube channel to walk away feeling better than when they started. I am not perfect as a student of yoga, I can't do every pose or fold myself into some of those pretzel positions. Well I could try but I wouldn't walk for days after and who wants to not be able to walk. I teach about transitions from breath, to movement and back to relaxation. I offer up a yoga that allows people to find success, their own success in the space they are in that moment.

All of those things and so many more from yoga are what helped me make the very big transition over a spans of time. I have to say looking back that though it was hard I managed to in spite of my habit of resistance move through, evolve, develop, change and move (in the literal and figurative sense). I am responsible for getting here and so grateful to be right where I am today. I know that I can adapt, be flexible and stay connected even only by one little toe and passage will happen and I will find the grounded space I need.

What is something that you are resisting right now in your life? Are you fearful, uneasy, worried etc because you feel a lack of control? Would releasing a little bit of the control give you some ease? What things do you do for yourself to give yourself space to relax and feel grounded, connected to your heart and it's deepest desire for you in this moment? When was the last time you sat down and asked yourself any of the above?

Take a few moments and sit in a simple cross legged pose, up on a blanket will give your hips a lift to open and release a little. Bring your palms to meet at your heart, take a deep inhale and exhaling close your eyes. As you continue to breathe, relax your belly, let your breath deepen and expand. Relax your face and jaw, release your shoulders down your spine and let you weight melt down into your sit bones. Now imagine growing roots from your sit bones, roots like a tree has roots, down into the earth, feeling that connection into the earth's energy. Every inhale drawing that energy up through the roots and up your spine. Relax your heart open with every exhale, dropping down into your heart center, the deepest part of your heart. Let something float up for your that is your heart's desire in this moment, it doesn't have to be something big. Let it come up for you and don't worry about how to make it happen just think about what it looks like to be there in that space, how it feels, smells, tastes. Breathe it in deeply. Now think about what is one thing you can do in the next 24 hours to bring your heart's desire forward in your life. Take a deep inhale, exhale and let it go, trusting that your heart has all the answers that you need in this life. Slowly open your eyes and continue to breathe deeply for a few more moments.

Namaste,

Sherry

Both feet on the ground

Here I sit in front of my computer when I need to be doing other things. I have accomplished quite a bit today, most of my errands and I made the conscious decision not to work out today, just not enough energy. I considered just pushing through and working out anyway, work through it and come out the other side. In the end however I chose to head out and get my errands done instead. I got more done than I anticipated and still have loads to do but I decided to take a pause and sit down and write.

I taught class this morning feeling disjointed, having not slept well and feeling the intense feelings of the fact that I must be completely moved out of my home in 2 weeks. I felt like I didn't have both feet grounded firmly. I had one foot hanging in there ok and trying support the wobbly other foot and leg and the rest of my body feeling like it was blowing in the wind. It's an odd feeling, I have pretty great balance, even on the wonky days. I spent some time walking on the beach, looking at the low, low tide happening. I walked all the way around the point that takes you right out into the shipping lane in Puget Sound when the tide is low like this. I tried to sit in the sun but for some reason today the sun decided to shine and the rain decided to hang around and play too. Nothing seemed quite right.

As I walked back to my house my phone rang and a friend was on the other end of the line. We ended up talking for over an hour and it was relaxing and comforting to spend time talking to him. He is a great listener, asks great questions and always has great responses. He also offered some interesting new ideas for me to explore and gentle encouragement when I really needed it. I hadn't planned to share all that was blazing around in my brain pan but he has such an easy way about him that I felt like it was ok to share some of those fiery thoughts. By the end of the conversation that other wobbly foot was firmly planted back beside the other one and I felt some balance that I had been sorely lacking.

The funny thing was I had tried many of the other things for me that usually bring balance, yoga, meditation, walking the beach, talking to friends. Why this particular friend at this moment in time was the one that stepped in to fill that space I don't know but it happened and though at first I meant put on a bright shine to things I let myself be honest on this particular phone call and was happy to find that it helped bring me right back to where I found balance.

Being vulnerable can be a scary experience, I see it so much in new yoga students and always do my best to welcome them into a safe and fun experience. Asking for help whether it is with yoga or any other aspect of your life is hard at times and there may be times when you are rebuffed and left feeling that you never want to do that again. Then the right person or circumstance steps forward and you have to trust that it is right to move into that space. I firmly believe that everyone we meet and have in our lives is there for a specific purpose and those change with time and you may not realize what it was they were to bring until much later. Staying open even when you want nothing more than to run and hide allows what you need to come to you.

So take the time to be honest with yourself and what your needs are, do your best to take really good care of yourself and when things still seem out of balance hang in there. Don't shut down, stay open, know and trust that what you need will step forward to meet you if you allow yourself to be open to receive it. And don't forget to keep your breath moving deeply into your body and relaxing with every exhale.

Namaste,

Sherry

Letting go....

It's been a little while since I have posted, many things changing and moving in my life precluded me finding the time and thoughts to sit and post. I am in the process of moving out my old life and moving into a brand new space. I have found myself going through things that I have had in my life and deciding is this something that I need to keep, do I love it, will I have room for it?

I start my yoga classes with breathing, drawing the focus inward, drawing the breath deeper, drawing the attention into the breath and at one point on the exhale giving the direction to release, relax and let go. Letting go of your day, your week, where you came from, where you will go and anything that may be weighing heavy on your heart and mind. Permission to let go, sometimes we need someone else to give us that permission.

The last week has been stressful, clearing out, selling what I no longer need or want, trying to figure just what will fit into a new much smaller space to live and along with that letting go of the memories both good and bad that are tugging me backward instead of forward. I haven't slept as well as I would like and well I have been stressed out about that too.. I got a comment from a friend that I have heard before, "strange to hear that a yoga instructor is stressed out.". Well even yoga instructors can and do get stressed out. I don't live in blissed out yoga zen 24 hours a day. My personal practice is just as much a journey for me as it is for any other student of yoga. Just because I also teach doesn't make me immune. What it does do for me is that it gives me a way to explore, learn and then pass on what I have experienced to my students in the hopes that I can help someone who may be struggling with some of the same things that I do...

I know from experience that holding on tightly doesn't work and many times makes things worse. I have had to get really good with change, release and letting go in the last 18 months. Do I like it any better than before, not so much... But I do know that I can and will move through and come out the other side and the more I resist the harder I make it for myself.

So today was a garage sale that unloaded a lot of my stuff, I sold some furniture to a friend that I no longer want and every penny goes into my new furniture fund. It was hard work going through all that stuff and deciding what to sell and for how much but I feel so much lighter and excited to pick out new things that are just mine, to build a new home that is a reflection of the me I am today. I will be homeless for about six weeks until I move into my new space and this has concerned some people but really for me I am looking at it as a vacation!! A vacation from my life as it was giving me space to relax and release before moving into a brand new space that feels so good. A healing space and one that will be what I create just for me.

As someone who holds on to things thinking I may need it at some point or it has some sentimental attachment for me I had a lot of stuff, some of it I forgot I even had. A few of the things that mean the most to me will go into my new home but once I got over the sense of loss and honed in on the sense of openness and room for new and wonderful things to come in to fill the cleaned out spaces I felt light and happy and free.

So what is it that you may be holding on to, what things do you keep dragging with you mentally of physically from space to space? Do you need all that stuff? Wouldn't you love to feel free? Close your eyes, drop your breath down into your belly, relax your shoulders down your spine with your exhale. Check in with your heart and think about letting go of something, small, big and anywhere in between. Just start somewhere and allow yourself to release and know that you will be safe and life will be there for you. A little lightness is good for the soul, the heart and the mind... And remember you are not the only one letting go, I am right there with you.

Namaste,

Sherry

Hesitation, apprehension and doubt, Oh My....

Last night was my "graduation" from the WA CASH entrepreneur class. We had a sales contest, food, an overview of the class and the presentations of our certificates. Stuart our leader for the class had a list of three things he wanted us to answer. When it came time for me to stand up and get my certificate and speak, well it went something like this....

Stuart introduced me and said that he was happy to know someone who had been on TV in reference to my story on the local news. I think I thanked him but the rest is a blur because at that moment it came over me so hard and fast like the waves at Waimea on the North Shore Oahu in February. I lost it, me the one who could get up and give a great elevator speech, me who can talk about yoga until the cows come home, me who usually is never at a loss for words, me who teaches multiple yoga classes a week in front of groups of people. I turned into a blubbering idiot due to that wave of "Oh my god I just realized how far I have come in nine short weeks!"

When I walked through the doors for that first class nine weeks ago I was hesitant and apprehensive about being there. I had to come a long way each week to get there, 45 minutes each way and I felt that I knew a lot about business and what I wanted to do. I was doubtful that I would get enough to make the investment of time and my limited funds to continue. I went because my friend Judy told me I should contact the Worksource people and when I did a lovely woman named Carolyn talked to me for some time and told me she could help me find a job but she felt I was headed in the right direction and that she felt that the class with Stuart would do me good. After that first class as I was driving home I realized just how juiced I was from attending and getting up to give my elevator speech that first night I did pretty great for a first run and on the fly. I know my product, I know my services and well I spend a lot of time talking to people while I teach so I am comfortable in front of a group of people. It was wonderful to spend time with people who were all trying to find their way with a business as well. Our coaches were wonderful and I made some really great friends in the class.

Since that first class so many amazing and wonderful things have happened.... I met my friend Nate Murphy who does PR and marketing. We spoke and he proceeded to tell me that he felt that I had a great thing going on and would like to help me with some exposure. I was thrilled and passed him my head shot along with some of my marketing materials and off he went. I had no idea what that might look like. As a result of our time together he has given me multiple ideas on things I can do to expand my brand and to get exposure. He is the man who put me in front of the reporter who did the story on me on KCPQ Channel 13 in Seattle and I was off and running.... I was quoted briefly in a story for CNN Money online and on June 11 I will have a feature article about me in 11 publications in the Sound Publishing family in Kitsap County. Now none of this has resulted in huge sales of videos or people signing up for private sessions but it sure has done a lot to get my story out there and along the way I learned a lot more too.

I am not that great of planner when it comes to my life, I like to go with the moment. I don't like restrictions and I love to have the option to change my mind whenever the mood strikes. I don't like feeling boxed in and yet on some levels I love knowing the space I move in and the routine around it. I am however a risk taker and good at listening to what feels right and when I get the fear to kicked to the curb ideas flood my head and the wheels churn and people show up to help me do things I never thought I would ever do. I had to write a business plan, oh man that was a struggle for me... Mostly because I have multiple pieces to my business and no firm set idea yet on what the magic mix is to be able to support myself doing what I love. I did however get in and sit down and work the numbers and put things together in a way that made sense to me so that I could have a clear idea of just what I would need to make financially to have my business be viable. I put it all together with my logo on the cover, my flyer on the inside, my business card and a copy of my DVD and was happy to turn it in last week for Stuart to review.

Each week I refined my presentation around my story and each week I set up a list of 3 things to do before the next week. Sometimes I was successful and other times not so much. Then last week I answered a Help a Reporter Out request and the result is the story on June 11 in 11 publications. There is a symetry to those numbers. A funny thing happened while I was telling the woman writing the story about what I do to stay sane while still looking for a job. As I shifted into talking about my yoga and what that has done to help me stay sane and how teaching has been a huge source of sanity for me we started talking about my finding a job and how I was shifting my view to thinking I would have to create something for myself and sell it to the right person. It's hard out there for job seekers right now and what I know after everything that has happened in the last 18 months is that I don't want to go back to doing what I was doing, that I have a calling, my path and purpose to do more with my yoga than I thought. As we continued to talk an idea that had been tumbling around in my brain came into sharper focus. An email the day before had things churning and tumbling and the conversation with the writer sharpened it down some more. At the end her comment was " you need to get your proposal put together, put on your selling hat and get out there and sell this. You have a wonderful idea and the passion behind it, don't stop."

The next couple of days more things aligned, I spoke to people, new ideas joined in and the tide started moving forward faster than I anticipated. More people have stepped forward with help and to offer their connections and the proposal is starting to take more shape and have some clarity in my mind. I have hesitated doing some things and making some changes and I didn't know why but I suspect that after what has happened in the last week that something bigger and more involved than I anticipated has come forward and it was good to pause. I have people telling me that I will need employees soon.... I haven't even finalized the proposal yet and I have not figured out how to support myself, yet and people are telling me I will need to hire people and my career adviser has asked me to keep her in mind when I need to hire. Now that moment was a mind bender!! She called me "a freakin powerhouse" and told me that her heart gets full just observing me... We spent a lot of hours working together and where I am coming around to right now is eerily sort of full circle in many senses back to where we started when I walked through her door over a year ago.

All of this and so much more flooded in last night after Stuart said he was glad to know someone who was on TV and I blubbered my way through what I am sure was incomprehensible to most of the others there. I learned more than I could have said in the time we had to talk last night, how to listen, how to trust my ability to mine my past for all of the talent I have accumulated, to lean into my confidence and presence and feel comfortable there, that I need to keep talking and telling people about my ideas and plans and engage them to go along for the ride with me and that hesitation, apprehension and doubt are signs of so many other things that in the end mattered not at all. I will succeed because I believe in what I am doing and I will stick with it until I find the right place, the right people and the right combination to shine my light. The last question, what will I do tomorrow? I will wake up and dream bigger than I did the day before because the only limits are the ones I impose on myself and look at how far I have come in 9 short weeks.... Oh and I will walk the beach because it was too many days since I did it last....

Thank you Stuart for your wonderful class, thank you all of the coaches for your time and energy and support and thank you my fellow students for going on this journey with me. Thank you Nate especially for believing in my story enough to want to connect me up with your connections and get my story out into the world. If anyone had told me nine weeks ago I would be on TV and have an article written about me I would have probably thought that sounds great but how in the world is that going to come about. I wish everyone from the class all the success and joy you deserve and never, ever give up! Hold on to your dreams and find a way to figure out the mix to create the life you want to live and live it fully every single day...

Namaste,

Sherry

The seaweed of life

It's a beautiful day here and I saw that the tide was out so I made my way down to my beach for my daily walk. The seagulls are out, the other song birds are singing to their heart's content and the ferry is doing it's ferry thing, back and forth. As I came up on the other side of the ferry dock I usually stop for a few minutes to sit and look out at the water, watch the ferry and enjoy the space. I was sitting looking at some old pilings that have rotted off and are now close to the ground. They are surrounded by seaweed and with the tide out the tops of them are cloaked and covered with seaweed. It will take the tide coming back in and slowly covering the piling pieces with water for the seaweed to float again and uncover parts of the pilings.

As I sat there thinking and enjoying and getting my vitamin D quota for the day I started to think about how things and people in our life can be like seaweed. Those things and people can cover us up, all the way to the top and when the tide goes out, weigh us down. Then we have to have the tide come back in to get that seaweed to float up and give us space again but usually we come close to or actually drown before the seaweed lifts enough to give us some relief. Those entanglements can be awfully hard to rid ourselves of and usually it is our own doing that gets us in that position to begin with.....

We all have lives filled with things, family, friends, work, play, all the things that we surround ourselves with every day. As I have learned to live with more intention and truly staying plugged in to the moments in my life I have been trying to let go of the "SHOULDS" and stick with what truly works for me at any moment in time. Not because I SHOULD but because it feels right in that particular moment. I know many of my yoga students have very full lives filled with kids, spouses, family members, work, activities and that keeps them sometimes from coming to yoga class. They get caught in the gerbil wheel of life and forget that they need to slow down and recharge, refresh and take care of themselves besides passing out on the couch at night in front of the TV.

I also have students that are caring for their ageing parents and having to make decisions on what to do for long term livability, assisted care and for some the ending days. I have talked with enough of these people to know just how hard this can be as well as having been through it with my grandmother several years ago. Trying to decide what is right, dealing with folks that are resistant to giving up freedoms they have known for a very long time, role reversal in some cases and trying to provide some quality of life during illness both long and short term take a huge toll on those that are doing the arranging. Along with that are the questions concerning certain genetic issues that show up and seeing bits and pieces of your parents in yourself and wondering if you will be facing some of the same issues as you get older.

So many obligations we all have in our lives and trying to find space for balance and knowing when and more importantly HOW to ask for help can be daunting. How many times in your life do you say yes to something when you really wanted to say no? How many times do you just do something yourself because it is easier than asking someone else for help or worrying that it won't get done your way? What is it that holds you back from asking from help? Ask yourself this, do you really spend enough time taking care of yourself, recharging your batteries, filling up your cup and here is the biggest one, sleeping? Life is speeding up, more technology shows up every single day, we are plugged in like never before, have more options, more things to do and more choices than we ever have. Are we really any better off??

I was talking with my friend Sadie who teaches yoga in New York City. We were talking about students and consistent practice. Sadie said that in New York people run themselves ragged out to the end before they really start doing things that are good for them. That she doesn't see the number of consistent practicing yoga students that I do. After visiting her there I can see how that would happen, that place never sleeps from what I could tell. Manhattan island is the same square mileage that my island is but with huge differences in population and buildings. It was interesting having conversations with people, eventually they would ask where I was from and when I told them the Seattle area, the response was always, "Yeah, you have that laid back west coast vibe about you". At first I was thinking maybe I was less than for some reason, but then I started thanking them for the compliment. I would rather be laid back thank you, I know what it is to be stressed and strained and miserable.

The last year and a half for me has been about removing some of the seaweed of my life and slowing down and taking time. I have deepened my yoga practice and certainly deepened my yoga teaching as well. I have peeled back some of the layers of past injuries both physical and emotional with my yoga practice. It hasn't always been fun or easy I will say that.... It has given me in retrospect so many lessons, places of growth and expansion in my daily life both on the mat and off. The low tides of the summer are getting ready to show up in the next month or so and it is always so interesting to see the layers of the sea move back and what is revealed underneath all of that. Treasures and decay and life all come together.

So I leave you with this for the rest of your week: What can you do each day to remove a little of the seaweed of your life, to open and make space, to recharge and renew? Your life will function and flow better if you do a little seaweed cleaning and some self-care. Don't put it off, the time is now.... Get yourself some space, do what feels good, recharge, and sleep. I will say what I always say when people ask, yoga has something for everyone, there is a style and a teacher out there for everyone. What will benefit as a result? Your life, your relationships, your family, your clarity, your concentration, your piece of mind, your body, your heart, your spirit, your well-being and yes even your sleep.....

Try this: Stand with your feet hip width apart, with your weight even over the soles of your feet, arms resting at your sides. With an inhale draw your arms up overhead and as you exhale sweep forward with your knees bending and swinging your arms behind you and throw your breath out behind you, throw your troubles out behind you with your breath, throw the tension and stress out behind you with your breath too. Inhale and bring the body back up, sweeping the arms up overhead and repeat. Do that at least 5 times and notice what happens to your body and your mind.... You will feel better....

Namaste,
Sherry