All By Myself

With today being Valentine's Day, it would seem odd that my thought for the week is about being by ourselves. But actually, it makes it even more potent, just like the elixir that exists on Cupid's arrow.

My question for the week is-How much time do you spend each day alone? Not with the radio on whilst you're driving, or lounging in front of the TV, but simple being in the act of sitting quietly...just you.

And then you might ask the question...why is this important? Good question. When we get to a place where we are completely at ease and accepting of who we are, with all of our unique imperfections, where we hold our own hearts in gentle compassion we can then begin to truly express this same feeling to all others.

My thought for the week has been prompted by the upcoming yoga retreat I'm holding in Idyllwild in April. It's a time that is cut out of our daily busy lives, where we have the opportunity to hear our own inner voice, with no interruption or distraction. Women who have attended in the past have had many challenges and obstacles in getting there in the first place...kids, finances, travel, other obligations...things that initially might have screamed "NO", you really can't afford to go. But, many did find a way. They would all tell you that it was worth it as by feeding their own soul, they returned to all of the original objections with greater love, peace and appreciation.

I know that when we returned from our 9-day yoga retreat in Australia in October of 2009, even with me teaching the retreat, the residue from its impact lasted for almost three months. THREE MONTHS!! Through the feeling of unplugging, looking after my well-being on all levels of body, mind and spirit, I was able to hold onto that for weeks post-retreat.

You can too. Look into your heart and see if it's asking you to take some time for yourself. Not only to serve your own higher good, but those of others. It's an investment of energy that will continue to resonate well after the retreat has finished.

How's Your Posture?

One of the first things I tend to notice about people when I first meet them is their posture. Unusual perhaps, as many people might notice a person's face or what they're wearing, but I tend to get a snapshot impression of how they hold themselves physically.

Are their shoulders rounded to the front of their body? Is their head jutting forward?

Now, I know it sounds like something your mother would say to you as you were growing up..."sit up straight", but she had a point. As we age, we need to make more conscious choices around our posture. Checking in a bit more frequently with how our skeleton is lined up can have long lasting results, just as not checking in can find us in a slumped over position well before our time.

I believe improving our posture depends on a few things:
1. Awareness
2. Strength in the muscles that create beneficial alignment
3. Flexibility, or range of motion in the joints that contribute
4. Awareness...oh yes...I said that one already, but this one's the first step.

I teach postural awareness on a regular basis and still need to remind myself to engage better posture. When our body is held in a biomechanically disadvantageous position (that's a mouthful), we begin to create uneven stresses across the muscles and joints. If these imbalances are repeated over days, weeks, months and years, we begin to develop a less than ideal postural line which can lead to pain.

Try this to give yourself a postural check-up:

~Stand with your heels against the wall, feet evenly spaced about hip width apart, middle toes pointing forward.

~Roll your femurs (thigh bones) slightly in toward each other and see if you can slip your hand in the natural low-back curve between you and the wall behind you.

~Feel your shoulder blades against the wall.

~Place the back of your head against the wall without lifting your chin (keep it parallel to the floor).

~Place the BACK of your hands against the wall. Now hold it.

~Notice what part of your body is working to hold this position, yet embed this feeling of openness into your cells.

~Allow your hands to relax, but keep your shoulder blades against the wall.

~Now...walk away, relaxed, but with the same awareness of the wall being behind you.

You can practice this anytime you find yourself standing in line, or whenever you need a postural reminder.

And remember to listen to your Mother when she says..."eat your veggies".

Seeking Sleep

It's been a full week of working our annual tennis tournament. Up at 5:15 am most mornings, home somewhere between 6-8:30 pm for six days straight and then onto a somewhat lighter schedule for the weekend of finals.

It's a week where I feel that I "power through it" and at some point during the week, I hit the wall. Having run the tournament for six years now, I've come to expect the impact. What I've also come to learn is to respect what it means...staying with my yoga practice to keep me calm, energized and able to endure. That's not to say that moments don't pop up that I want to scream or collapse, but I've been using my yoga tools all week.

I have continued my morning meditations, packed healthy snacks for the day and brought along two yoga blocks to open my chest and stretch my back during moments of relative quiet (that are sometimes infrequent...but they exist). I also take a deep breath when confronted with someone who challenges me, try to make eye contact with people as I greet them at the desk and feel gratitude that so many people want to be part of this event.

One of the most beneficial practices is getting to bed early and getting the sleep I need to fuel me throughout the long days. It takes discipline and organization to do it, but the pay off is noticeable.

And that leads me to my thought of the week...it's bedtime!

It Takes A Village

This week we are hosting the Babolat World Tennis Classic, a large event seeing some of the best senior tennis players in action.

This annual event has grown in size since its inception but one thing has remained constant; the need for volunteers to run the event.

My thought for this week is around those who donate their time and energy to helping others, whether it be for a tennis tournament, for charity or during a disaster. A few people may be recognized as the organizers or directors, but it does take a village of people for things to run smoothly.

I hold a deep sense of gratitude to all the people who step up this time of year and assist in making our tennis tournament and my subbed yoga classes possible. I have always held a strong sense of independence. So strong, that asking for help from someone else was always difficult for me as I felt it was either a weakness of mine or an imposition for someone else.

The great lesson that our volunteers have taught me over the past six years is that THEY get enjoyment out of the process as much as I need their helping hands.

I try to apply this idea outside of the annual tournament in allowing myself to ask for help when I need it. It IS ok to not be superwoman and able to do it all by myself. Besides, that can get lonely...

Thank you many times over to all who support us, now and throughout the year. We really couldn't do it, without you.

From An Idea, Grows A Story

Recently I saw the movie Avatar and one thing really stood out for me, aside from it being an immaculately produced visual journey, was the realization of an idea.


This weeks thought has been inspired by the process of origination to manifestation. To have the seed of an idea grow from an intellectual beginning into a physical projection is something we all have the potential to experience.

The question is, how often do we have these great ideas but never bring them into reality?

A client recently quoted a book about every person having a novel sitting within them. We all have our different stories. The challenge is stepping into the process of making our vision come into existence.

If you have something sitting deep within that has been in your consciousness for quite some time, not just a flash of an idea, honoring that as valid is the first step. When we acknowledge our inner vision, we can then begin to take the steps of breathing life into it. I think it takes two vital ingredients to make it happen.

Courage and discipline.

To become more courageous we might need to seek a mentor or share the idea with someone who believes in our ability to bring it to maturity. We need to trust our inner voice. That might mean sitting quietly on a regular basis and giving our inner voice an opportunity to be heard, rather than covering it up with exterior distractions.

We then need to set a plan for how we're going to achieve our goal. It might mean establishing a daily practice whether it be for gaining better health, creating a business or writing a book.

Regular commitment to our goal will certainly bring us to a place of seeing all possibilities. Otherwise it just remains a great idea sitting in the back closet of our mind.

If you've had something bursting to get out, now is the time to think about how that can happen. Believe that you can do it. Breathe life into the process by beginning with your own breath.

Inhale deeply. Exhale slowly. Dare to dream...


This weeks thought is dedicated to my brother Ken, who recently finished the first draft of his first novel. I am currently reading his writings which also inspired my thought for the week.

Finding Compassion

A few years ago, I went to a talk by His Holiness The Dalai Lama in Melbourne, Australia. It was held in the Rod Laver arena that is home to the Australian Open Tennis Championships, which translate into holding a few thousand people. It was striking to me how quiet such a huge crowd became when His Holiness entered the arena. That was the first thing I remember clearly...the hushed masses.

The second was the one word that was the theme of the evening and the on-going mission by His Holiness. Compassion.

Recently, the thought around the word and act of compassion has been prominent in my thinking. How can I, an everyday gal, find more compassion within myself and others? What I do know is that it's a great concept and extremely challenging to practice.

Pema Chodron, a well published Buddhist teacher has translated this theme into practical ways of enacting it. To begin to find more compassion for ourselves, we can try to put ourselves into the perspective of others. What is the experience throught their eyes? What is it like to be in their shoes? When we begin to create their experience for ourselves, we often have a shift in us being right and them being wrong.

I had this theory in my head and then, not surprisingly, was given an opportunity to test it out.

During the hectic holiday season, I was on my way to work enjoying one of those beautiful desert mornings with low light and crystal blue skies. I was stopped at a red light that had a "No Turn on Red" sign. So, I sat waiting for the light to turn green. As I came to this stop, I hear the guy in a truck behind me, laying on his horn and can see him yelling at me via my rear view mirror, wanting me to turn right on red.

I rolled my window down and pointed to the sign. His reaction was to continue yelling at me (which I couldn't hear, but could see his agitation). When the light turned green, I turned right. We both came to the next set of lights and he pulled up along side of me to make a left as I was going straight.

Once again, I rolled down my window. He did the same and before I could say anything he defensively says, "yah, yah, Ma'am, I saw the sign...". To which I said, "I was just obeying the law". My unevolved self wanted to call him a name and make some sarcastic comment, but my ever evolving self step in front and shrugged her shoulders.

It really struck me that in that moment, I had a choice to either feel that I was right and he was wrong (and impatient) or to find a lesson sitting within. The lesson rang out loud and clear and it was that the guy probably wasn't having a peaceful morning and was in a hurry. He might not have noticed the crystal blue sky. He needed to be some place. And I had a choice to either feed my momentary anger or to reconnect to enjoying the morning.

Once I realized the choice, I learned the lesson of practicing compassion. Not only for the impatient driver, but compassion for me, choosing to be how I wanted to be.

The challenge for you this week is before reacting, just step into another persons perspective, even if just for a moment. You might be surprised at what you see, feel and experience.

The Light In Me...

The decorations, the music, the parties, the presents and the rushing around are now a thing of the recent past. The quiet after the storm. But is it really quiet?

Do you ever get the feeling that after the holidays we rush back into our daily lives that are just a different type of hectic to the holiday season? For those of us who live in a seasonal place, we are just stepping into the truly busiest time of our year. For the next 4-5 months, our roads are more crowded, we have to look for a "good" parking spot, we might have to wait to get a table at a restaurant and there seems to be one event/gala, golf/tennis tournament, seasonal parties and openings at least every weekend, if not many nights of each week. Phew!

It's no wonder we call it a season, because if it were year round, we'd be really tired!

My thought for this week is to keep the idea of balance in our awareness. That amidst the chaos, we stop to take a breath. But truly, that's underselling how beneficial finding inner quiet can be. It's giving a bit too much weight to keeping engaged and busy as though that feeds our soul more than being disconnected.

This is not a new theme or weekly thought from me, but a repetition of something that is so potent and underpracticed that reiterating it seems more than appropriate given what lies ahead.

During the first few restorative yoga classes that I have been teaching at Rancho Mirage Women's Health Center, you can see and feel the shift from how people begin the class, to how people leave the class. It's as though there is this unfed need for us to rest and renew. Once the class steps into that quiet space, it's as though they've realized how ravenous they have been for this type of nourishment.

It is so easy to get distracted by daily living. Our culture is about the best at doing it, so much so we don't realize it's taking us away from our inner selves. When we begin to open the space in our hearts and recognize our own Divine spark that lies within, we are in a better place to recognize that same connection in others.

That is truly the essence of the word, "Namaste" (Nah-mah-stay).

The light in me, honors the light in you.

If we stay overly busy, disconnected and distracted we don't hear the word "Namaste" within our own souls. When we get quiet, unplug, relax and engage our breath awareness we not only see it in ourselves, but it spreads outward.

In a time such as this, when peace is sought on so many levels, make more of a commitment to finding the peace that lies within.

I have a bumper sticker on my car from www.restorativeteachers.com that says, "Changing the world, one savasana at a time". For those unfamiliar with savasana, it is the final relaxation pose at the end of each class, where each student is supported in a lying down position on the floor. Just imagine if everyone spent 15 minutes in a relaxation pose every day...what a wonderful world this could be.

Namaste'