Autumn, Crafted.

Can you feel the shift? Autumn is coming and with it one of the biggest yearly transitional shifts for families. New school year, new activities, the shift of schedules,  stress from change. With all this comes a sense of questioning ourselves as mothers. Should we sign up for this? Will that be too much? Are they over-scheduled? Will we ever have dinner as a family again? How can I keep meals healthy? Yep. These questions run through our minds and distract us from the moment. They make us questions ourselves, and it doesn’t feel good. 

What if we answered these questions now? What if we crafted your autumn to meet your needs? What do you wish for this season? We can do that. 

Crafted Autumn Coaching Package: $255

5 (30 min) weekly sessions, email support, self-assessments and individualized resources.

The days are shortening, and space is limited. Please secure your registration.

Vernal Equinox

Spring is here, in the Northern Hemisphere. A yearly renewal and regeneration of the land, and ourselves on this earth. As the world becomes fertile again, we also seem to be brimming with creativity and new direction. 

This is where I am. I feel excited by my fertile thoughts, my fertile heart and mind. I am past the longing for new babes, but the spring reminds me that all my work follows the universal rhythm of conception, pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. Whether we are creating humans or ideas, if we are anxious for the pregnancy to be over we miss the joy of creation.  I've stopped and pondered over this. It has brought back joy and grace to the creative process. Just like being with child, sometimes we are filled with joy and sometimes we are overwhelmed.

This pregnancy analogy led me to a birth comparison that resonates with how I was feeling this weekend. When we labor, we need support, intuition, and education. Even with the best preparation, there still comes a part of labor where it is just HARD, and we wish to give up.  With experience, we learn that if we ride through transition it will soon be time to push. It is like that when we are climbing toward some new accomplishment in our life, there reaches a point like transition.  We wish to give up. We need true and loving support, people who authentically understand what we are trying to do.  We need patience and faith.

Yoga, meditation and mindfulness practices help us ride this wave of insecurity. These practices allow us to observe our minds and hearts with awareness. Without this observer presence (curious, patient and probing), we may bow to fear and change course. With a practice of non-judgement, we can explore our path and wait out the transition phase. As hard as this part is, it's fun. It is the part of yoga, and labor, that I find most engaging. The gentle pushing by not pushing; the hard work of not working hard, and the relaxing into the fear. Suddenly, as soon as we relax into the fear, everything seems less scary and surreally beautiful. There is the magic.

Refreshment, Fertility, Renewal, Creativity. May we revel in the Sacred Magic of Spring. 

The surest way to develop an adversary is to label them the enemy.

Words have so much power. Even in our minds. Saying the word enemy activates an anxious sensation in my spine. When we are in conflict with another, it feels safer to label them as “against us” or at the very least separate from us. Can we be brave enough to remove those labels and experience the conflict without defense? What would that look like? How would things change?

It is hard to understand someone else’s perspective when we are in conflict. Our brain tries to protect us with the fight or flight response, deactivating the parts of the brain responsible for reasoning. If the conflict is dangerous, this may be helpful. Most likely, though, our brain has interpreted our confusion or anger as a lethal threat. We have a lot of responsibility to learn to manage our brains, especially in a world so ripe with conflict. If we want to make a more peaceful world for ourselves and everyone else, this is where the work starts. Can we tend and befriend when confronted with misunderstanding?

If we learn to soothe our brains and bodies when in discussion with others, we will not only be better able to understand them, but we will be better at expressing our views. We have a much greater chance of changing the minds of others when we approach the conversation with calmness, non-judgment, and love. When we approach a conflict in anger, we shut down all lines of communication. What is our objective? If the objective is to find a solution to the conflicts we face, we must recognize anger as a symptom of the problem. We must explore our anger and fear, we must get to know and understand it, then we must set it aside. Setting down our anger is not a weakness, it is not giving up. It is this strength of wrangling our anger into clarity that has the power to unlock problems. 

Are we brave enough to envelop a conflict with love? We can start small. Conflict is scary, but we cannot turn our backs on each other when we don’t agree. We cannot simply not talk to those who disagree with us. We cannot let conflict grow while we look the other way. We must face the scary feelings in our hearts and explore them in safety, on our own or with assistance from therapists, teachers or spiritual advisors. We must know ourselves, our values and our objectives. We must practice those values every day. 

It is hard work to live in peace. It is not easy, and it is our responsibility to do our own work and stand beside one another. 

Resources:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/words-can-change-your-brain-andrew-newberg/1110791630

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_lesser_take_the_other_to_lunch

ONE FINE DAY YOGA SERIES

This series is based on the story One Fine Day. I would recommend reading this story to the children from the actual picture book if possible because the illustrations are so lovely in telling the story. The children in our crew had me read them the tale many many times even when we were not doing yoga and rarely wanted to do the series without reading the book.

As usual we light our candle and say our verse. Then, in this instance, I read the story. When it was over I asked the children to help me tell the story again. 

First we sat with crossed legs and took a few deep breaths. 

Then we remembered how the fox came through the woods and drank the old woman's milk. She was mad and cut off his tail. ( so we inhaled, rolled over our knees placing our hands on the ground and came into down dog)

Next we remember how if the fox wanted his tail back, he needed to replace the milk. He asks the cow for milk ( we come down onto all fours, pushing our tailbones and crown of the head towards the sky, we let our belly hang towards the earth) 

The cow asks for grass in exchange for the milk ( we bring our legs between our hands and come to sitting with our legs extended. Then, reaching our hands above our heads, take a deep inhale- on the exhale we fold forward reaching towards the toes while keeping our backs nice and long and straight)  

Now the grass needs water. So the Fox goes and asks the river for water for the field. (We inhale, and bring our arms all the way up, exhale as we lie on the floor with our arms stretched over our heads)

The river cannot give water without a jug to hold it. (Inhale and try to come all the way up to sitting bring your hands up over your head, once sitting, place them beside your thighs and hop up into a squat, hands in prayer)

The maiden with the jug would like a little blue bead, so the fox finds a peddler with a cart. (Step your feet into down dog, inhale, then as you exhale lift one leg into the air behind you. Take three breaths through your nose and then repeat with the other leg) 

The peddler has asked for an egg in exchange for the bead, so fox finds a hen. (Come into child's pose, placing your chest on your knees, your forehead on the floor and your arms by your sides reaching toward your feet)  

The hen will need grain to give an egg, and Fox finds a miller. By this time Fox is frantic, and the miller is kind and gives him the grain he needs. (Rise up, hands in prayer and bring them over head like a stalk of grain, then inhale, bring hands to heart center on the exhale and bow the head) 

At this point in the story the fox then needs to take the items and exchange them with the other animals, so we go through the series again in reverse. Ending in down dog where the fox receives his tail back from the old woman. He is happy and goes to join his friends.