yoga

I lost it the other day. My elder daughter was being horribly mean to her younger sister. When I came downstairs to see what the commotion was, she was taunting and teasing her. The trauma of the interaction was written all over her four-year-old sister’s face. I realize that this is relatively common among kids but I had been watching the news just prior and was feeling overwhelmed by the inhumanity and intolerance that seems to be bubbling over everywhere, so to see my offspring taking pleasure in another person's pain was simply too much to bear.

Surrender and resilience are both words that come up frequently in my line of work. As a social worker, mental health professional, and employee assistance provider the meaning of resilience and the art of fostering resilience is woven into so many of my days. At first thought, resilience is about strength, hardiness, steadiness, ability to withstand pressure. During an exquisite Yin Yoga session, the concept of surrendering flooded my mind as the instructor urged us to settle into the pose, surrender to gravity, and allow your body to go where it needs to be.

Deciding to lose weight can be great for your self-confidence, and your health, too. However, that doesn't mean that it always feels easy. Whether you're just starting out, and struggling to see the progress you would like, or you've been working at it for a while and find yourself hitting a slump, it can be possible to hit roadblocks on your weight loss journey. That doesn't mean that you should necessarily feel discouraged. With a little effort and some lifestyle tweaks, it can be possible to see the changes you're looking for. 

Generally speaking, when someone sets out to learn a new skill there is a natural human impulse to want to get it right.

Being able to do a yoga pose in a certain way often becomes an extrapolated question of safety. Doing it right means safety. Doing it wrong means injury. Unfortunately, anyone who has engaged in a deep inquiry of yoga knows that looking for rights and wrongs to follow when it comes to practice is not only an unhelpful context but is the primary obstacle to understanding the role of engaging poses as a means towards health and well-being.

We’ve all heard about the amazing things that yoga can do for us, but try explaining exactly what it is and how it works and you quickly find yourself on shaky ground.

There is an innate something at the heart of the matter that simply cannot be measured, only felt. As unsatisfying as this may be, the highly subjective perception of our own experience is the only real basis for any understanding and the very thing that makes yoga so vital.