Relaxation

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” ~Eckhart Tolle There are two ways to live life. One is a more reactive approach, where you fight back when you encounter challenges in your personal or professional life. The other is a more proactive one where you are mindful of the trends within you and around you

“I understand the life around me better, not from love, which everyone acknowledges to be a great teacher, but from estrangement, to which nobody has attributed the power of reinforcing insight.” ~Nirad C. Chaudhuri I was brought up to understand that family is family.  So I have naturally given great weight to the importance of

“Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to let go.” ~Jackson Kiddard Fellow perfectionists, I’m guessing you know what it’s like: the constant need to control life and other people to ensure everything goes smoothly and everyone’s okay. It’s a maddening, exhausting habit, since the only thing we can control is ourselves. But we

“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.” ~F. Scott Fitzgerald I love Sophia Loren. There’s a picture of her in my home looking eternally youthful and refreshed. From what I’ve been told it’s due to her nine to ten hours of sleep each night. When I

“It’s easy to judge. It’s more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience, and a willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods. Through judging, we separate. Through understanding, we grow.” ~Doe Zantamata “Why doesn’t he say something?” I was sitting at the dinner table with my partner and friends. Everyone was interacting

“How brave the moon shines in her skin; outnumbered by the stars.” ~Angie Welland-Crosby I have this reoccurring dream where I am about to teach a yoga class. I stand to teach, and no one is paying any attention to me. They are all distracted or in deep conversation with one another and have no

“Remember that not getting what you want Is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama Let me tell you a story. I first read it in a book on Taoism, but I’ve seen it in at least a dozen other places since then, each with its own variation. Here’s the gist: There’s this farmer. His favorite horse

“Confidence isn’t ‘they will like me.’ Confidence is ‘I’ll be fine if they don’t’.” ~Christina Grimmie No one likes rejection. Some people have gotten comfortable with it, perhaps have even reframed it as something positive, but most of us prefer that other people approve of us and our choices. It gives us a sense of

“The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.” ~Eckhart Tolle Eight years ago, I was very depressed. I wanted nothing more than to stop feeling this way and

“You can’t force anyone to value, respect, understand, or support you, but you can choose to spend your time around people who do.” ~Lori Deschene It can be paralyzing. The worry about what other people think about you, I mean. That worry can hinder you from pursuing your dreams. It can stop you from expressing

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” ~Albert Einstein “I don’t want to live anymore. I don’t want to be here. I can’t do this. It hurts too much. It’s too hard.” I’m curious how many times I’ve heard these words over my lifetime. From different people,

As we start a new year, many of us focus on the physical things we want to gain—a new job, new house, more money, or six-pack abs, for example. We think about everything that might enhance our lives and create a plan to acquire them. There’s nothing wrong with that approach—especially if we’re struggling to

“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.” ~Roy T. Bennett When I was a college senior, God, or the voice of God (aka Morgan Freeman) came to my campus to give a talk. At the end of the talk, I beelined toward the mic

“Sometimes the worst things that happen to us put us in alignment with the best things that have happened to us.” ~Unknown Child sexual abuse victims who speak up are incredibly brave and vulnerable. If a child comes to you for support, be mindful of your energy and reactions. If you need to ask them

“Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh Almost universally, many of the problems we face in life are tied to our own expectations.  Expectations of ourselves. Expectations of others. Expectations of

Hi friends! I decided over this long holiday weekend to give myself a break for some much-needed self-care, which I imagine we could all use right now. We’ve all been pushed, stretched, and challenged this year. We’ve all given our all, done our best, and perhaps wondered at times if it was good enough. That’s

“No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living in the now.” ~Alan Watts I went to college a little bit later in life. Because of that, people often mistakenly believed I was operating on a specific (and somewhat urgent) timetable—as though I was running to catch