I’m over the moon and the recent eclipsed sun to share this with you. I’m also a bit petrified. Because this is new ground for me. My heart is shaky and my throat thick because it feels like I’m stepping off of terra firma. Interestingly enough, offering this program is MY baby step. My unease with venturing into the unknown tells me I’m on track. There is a magnetism I am feeling to share tools of ease and settledness more broadly – tools that allow us to be in the thick of it and still taste joy. I think that statement sounds like a paradox to my rational brain – to be in the thick of it and still taste joy –  and yet my experience tells me it is totally possible. For all. And so I take a deep breath, exhale, and open my heart and creativity for you to consider.

Ready for our baby step? Join an online practice with me:

Embrace the Space –
40 days of body tending

What is it?
A 40 day practice exploration. A weekly 10-15 minute video of a handful of therapeutic yoga explorations for you to repeat as prescribed by you throughout the week.

Each Sunday morning for six weeks, you will receive a 10-15 minute video clip. Depending upon the week and what’s up for me, I’ll pull from my bag of tricks including unique ball work, my signature small range of motion movements, sneaky hard movements in traditional asana, breathwork, reflex integration, rhythmic movement (excellent for anxiety), desk yoga, and pelvic floor / core integration.

More to come below on this next piece but you pick realistic frequency and days for your practice that week. You pick time of day. YOU enter it on the calendar. And you honor it.

You’ll also have the opportunity to make comments and ask questions below the video clip. I will send regular group responses either via email or by new video post to themes that arise in these comments / questions. These posts will act as ongoing support and encouragement for you through connection with fellow students and ongoing guidance from me.

When is it?
Sunday, October 8th – Friday, November 17th

Including regular answers to questions and messages of support from me to the full group of students by either email or video message.

Finally, there will be a small group meeting on Saturday, November 18th from 3:30-4:30 p.m. at Long Life Wellness Center in Cary to discuss what you noticed, what you learned, and any questions as you move forward with your own personal home practice. My homemade chai tea will be in abundance to share! If you live outside of the Triangle area, we’ll have a 15 minute phone call instead. Sadly, it will be sans chai (unless I make my own cup and you make your own).

Why now?
Because I miss seeing you guys in group classes. And because it’s NOT New Year’s. Allow me to rant for a moment… New Year’s is a bust of a time for me to make change. You (meaning cultural norms YOU) want ME to swing from gluttony into purity? Want to see an awesome crash and burn? Just watch this girl with a New Year’s resolution. Or not. Because I don’t really do them anymore. Instead, I use a time when I know things are shifting just a tad already. Like the change of seasons that invites a different pace but not quite as much of a 1000 volt to the heart “CLEAR!” shock to the system. [Close rant.]

Why 40 days?
Because 40 days is the traditional timeline in Ayurveda (an ancient and sophisticated mind-body health system) needed to rebuild tissues or to “set a new groove” (my terms).

Anything else?
Yes. You’ll be accountable for your practice. I can structure the tools for you to utilize but you have to own this change for yourself. I can’t want it more for you than you do.

Here’s how it will go:

Each Sunday morning when you receive your weekly “Body Tending” video link, you’ll look at your calendar for the upcoming week, consider all the things going on in your week, and decide what a practical daily commitment is for you for that week.  Whether you think it is practical for you to do the 10-15 minute practice all 7 days, 3 days, 1 day or anything in between… the point is that you make a date on your calendar for times you know you can honor. You’re making dates with yourself and you’re building a relationship of trust and accountability in your ability to S L O W   D O W N. The key is to make your plan realistic and doable.

Next, you will actually make calendar entries for your practice on the days / times you’ve chosen in step #1. You can do this on your electronic calendar but I’d also like you to write it down on a hard copy paper calendar that I’ll send to you. You’ll block the time off – send an invitation to yourself electronically if you want to make it a real date! This “calendaring” is key to success because you will be experimenting with a new habit and old habits feed on “I’ll just fit it in on the fly.”

New habits grow in the space of a clear plan like, you know, a scheduled realistic commitment on a calendar.

Now you’ll hang up the paper calendar where you will see it every day. Don’t skip this step.

Every day after you complete your 10-15 minute practice, cross that day off on your paper calendar (like my 7 year old does when he is counting down to a lake weekend).

The following Sunday, you will start again at step 1.

IMPORTANT: Take it one week at a time. You might be pulled to say at the start, “I will do this 5 times per week for the entire 40 days!” Pause. Breathe. Step back from your awesome driven self. And go week by week. Please trust me on this piece.

At the end of the 40 days, you’ll pop your archaically awesome paper calendar including crossed out days and all into your bag, and we’ll meet and chat about how it went.

What is the cost?
The cost of the program is $79 including a 10-15 minute weekly video (and all prior videos for the term of the program totaling roughly 90 minutes of content), regular check-ins from me, and the final 60 minute group debrief.

That’s it.

That’s your commitment. Make a personalized plan for your therapeutic home practice each week. Like ACTUALLY enter it on your calendar.  Then, set your alarm (bedroom or phone) for your times. Get up and do the practice clip for that week. Cross off the day on your calendar. Ask questions and make comments as you go along below the video and receive group guidance by email and video message on how to keep chugging along. Debrief with me at the end of the 40 days either by phone for 15 minutes or in a small group setting with fellow Space Makers (oh… you have a group name now!). And you’re accountable. To me and to yourself.

In more concise terms:
Make YOUR plan.
Follow YOUR plan.
Refine and repeat.

Practice is required to gain competency in anything that we do. That holds just as true for the practice of embracing space. I have absolutely no doubt that you can change your story. That you can find more ease and less effort. That there is S P A C E available to you. And that it is closer than you think.

I’m quite excited to work with those who are ready to step up and out. Like my heart is literally pitter pattering as I write this. There is always more. Email me to signup.

Be well,
Rachel

Serving my body daily with movement, stillness and breath tells it that I’m on its side. That I’m not fighting it even when I ask it to “push through” for a sprint. That it will get predictable love and attention within 24 hours.

And with that evolving relationship of listen and respond, my body and I are getting along so much better than we used to. Funny that… communication is the key to relationships and yet I for one spent years in a one sided relationship effectively YELLING at my body on when and how I wanted it to step up. Oops.

Live and learn. But without the flippancy to it. For real, live and learn.

How did I get started on this new pattern of listening and responding to my body? Baby steps. I made a very simple and very realistic plan to regularly respond to its needs. And low and behold, it worked. The change stuck. And I’ve since made many other life shifts in a similar sneaky to my brain / ego kind of way. Baby steps are more difficult to argue my way out of than grand and glorious makeovers of ME. Trainer in the past? Dropped her because I always had something better to do. Cutting sugar and carbs? Too inconvenient with kiddos around. In fact, in the past I generally avoided self improvement because it felt like WAY too much work.

And then I realized there was an entirely different way of changing.

Grand and glorious plans are awesome in theory but I have an equally awesome way of arguing my way out of them. They involve too much life shift for me to absorb comfortably. I perceive that I’m having to give up too much of my way of being and doing with huge life makeovers. But the “ah-ha” from my experience is that once a baby step – which is much more difficult to argue my way out of – takes hold as a new pattern, it can be an incredible impetus for more positive change because I have now experienced my ability to serve my body and feel better.

And I know – I know – that my clients who are feeling amazing ALL have a regular home movement practice. Sure, they might miss a day here or there at times. We all do. But they keep stepping back on the train. And they keep getting better. Breathing better. Feeling better. Less stressed, less anxious, less pain, and better sleep.

Curious? I’ve got something new that I’m offering as a baby step for you. Stay tuned for the next round of my mashed up rantings and musings.

There is always more. Are you ready for it?

Take good care,
Rachel

Let’s do a quick episode recap. Two posts ago, I told you how I crashed and burned in an overdose of vacation and family. Then, in my last post, we started into how I find my feet again after a bout of instability. I talked a bit about how feeling into the tired – and not ignoring it – allows me to respond more accurately to what my body is requesting from me. And thus to feel so much more joy in my life.

Rest and reset time isn’t the only key to what I’m discovering is a lighter and sweeter way of living. Another core component is that of embracing the web of support that exists for me. I’m a master of doing and achieving on my own. A part of me believes that if I don’t do it solo, then it doesn’t count. And another part of me (the part that is quieter and more loving and easier to hear when I am rested), knows I am not meant to do this on my own. That connection and support is an inherent part of my experience as a mother, a daughter, a teacher, a friend… a human.

When thinking of this post, I immediately thought of a photo from our wedding day in which my new husband and I stand surrounded by every guest at our wedding. Friends, family, absolutely everyone. It hangs in my bedroom and when I choose to really see it, it reminds me of how full life is. How much support exists when I choose to embrace it. To feel it. To live hand in hand with it. But unfortunately I thought it unlikely that I could get photo releases from over 100 people for this post. Instead, I’m representing my web of support with this beautiful image of my sister and me. Support to me feels like the qualities of this photo. Light, unfiltered, steady and soft. And it can come from so many places. Not just what you might initially think.

Allow yourself to feel support in your world. Let it pour over you – names, faces, roles. Support may come from your family, friends, colleagues, physicians, nurse practitioners, therapists, animals, yoga teachers, the nail technician that gave you a pedicure last week, your massage therapist, or your acupuncturist. Those whom act as part of your web. Those who give you a soft space to land and to be you just as you are. Those who hold you. Those who give you safe ground to be you. Unabashedly. Honestly.

Try this. Perhaps now and then again on your mat next time you’re in class or practicing at home.

1. Feel you now. Head. Shoulders. Belly. Hips. Knees. Feet.

2. Now. Feel your support. Close your eyes, see the faces and perhaps envision them surrounding you or even standing behind you. Whether 1 person or 10 people, just see them.

3.  Take 5 breaths just feeling and seeing the faces. Release thinking or analyzing.
Just breathe and feel.

4. And now, feel you. Head. Shoulders. Belly. Hips. Knees. Feet.

5. What do you notice?

As my Teacher recently said to me, you must live this life on your own. You must own your actions. You must make your choices. You must discover your results.
But you do not have to do it alone.

It takes a village. Feel your’s.

Be well,
Rachel

Image credit: Wikipedia

It’s always funny to me how the past melds right into the present. My graduate degree is in Human Resource Development. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs returns to me as I walk my path of yoga therapy. Basic needs = physiological needs. Food, water, shelter, and air. We must first answer to the brain stem – the oldest portion of our brain – in fulfilling these needs. It must feel that survival is secure so that we can function at higher levels of analyzing, comparing and processing our world. If the brain stem doesn’t interpret our position as secure, it will (in my experience, not in any technical terms) clog up our ability to be effective in the rest of life. It effectively steals all of our energy to protect us so we have no energy left to enjoy this day.

And so for me, a crux in how fully I am experiencing life – and how I come back to home plate over and over again – always begins with sufficient sleep. I wish I had something fancier to share but when my needs go up (e.g. kids get sick, husband is going through a tricky time at work, I have a difficult problem to address, I have extra deliverables for my certification program) then I know that I will feel more tired.

Tired is a gift, you guys. I used to feel like it was how all of life was meant to be for me but I’ve since experienced it differently. Tired tells us that something is up with our current way of being and doing. Either physically we are going too hard for our system to absorb the shock in it’s current state of integrity, or mentally we’re taking too many hits to proceed without more external support, or perhaps food wise our body is overworking to digest certain foods so it doesn’t have any energy left to give us to function during the day.

A concept that serves me well is “I’ve only got 100%.” When I repeatedly dive into the place where I am running on fumes – with no honoring of replenishing that tank – well, I’m screwed.

“Okay. So, what do you do?”

I pause. When I discover that I’m sneakily speeding up how I do everything, I slow down. I even stop. Not all the time but more times than in the past. And if I don’t stop myself, you can bet your money that a migraine or a hip flare or a broken foot will sure as heck stop me. We can push through and hide behind the “I’m good!” with a fake smile to everyone else. But we can’t hide it from our bodies.

It is up to me to FEEL the tired instead of ignoring it. I still do what needs to be done – feed the kids, manage my business, see my clients, fold the clothes, blah blah blah – but I do it while I feel and honor the tired. I move more slowly. I breathe more mindfully. I put my legs up the wall while the kids are in the tub. I do a nidra during their naptimes. I listen to music that soothes my agitated system. With all these mini steps of feeling into the tired even while I move through life, after the kids go to bed, I will take myself to bed too. And I will go to sleep instead of watching Netflix or shoving 15 cookies in my face. Oh yes – that was totally a longterm strategy for me to ignore the tired! Husband can confirm.

The key here is that if I ignore the tired and push through without feeling it, then I’m up a creek because I won’t be able to go to sleep when I have the opportunity. Adrenaline is cranked up and sending my system into a bit of a tailspin.

#1 on my self care list. Feel the tired when it comes up. Respond with sleep. And listening in carefully for when I need more and when I’m in a zone that it can comfortably flex into a little less.

That’s the tricky and also the beautiful of this all.

There is no prescription. There is no right and wrong. Each person is unique, each day is unique, and each breath truly is unique. It all depends.

Play with it on the mat. Get honest about what days you have more to give – and do so – and get honest about the days you need to turn down the dial on the intensity of your practice. Or perhaps even shapeshift your practice on the exhausted days to skip class and go to bed early. Awareness is the practice. And responding to awareness by embracing choice is ridiculous power.

And so, yes. There is always more.
Be well,
Rachel

The last month has been awesome. My son was tracked out for 5 weeks and we ate up the time. We traveled to see family, family came to see us, we indulged, we were loved by family, we swam A LOT. It was awesome.

And I am friggin’ exhausted. After a certain point, the fun was relentless. For real. John’s face above kind of reflects my state as of last week.

Medicine in excess is poison. An overdose. 

I’ve found that a certain amount of structure to life allows more space to absorb unexpected events. Like a sick kid or a tough week for my husband at work or eating a little more junk than normal or even a sore hip.

But when that structure isn’t there – for an extended period of time like, oh, multiples vacations in the same month and a revolving door of visitors in your own house – it becomes a bit less pleasant to absorb unexpected events. I should elaborate on that. It is downright crappy to absorb anything out of the ideal day to day life. It feels mushy, grey, stormy and thick inside in that place. And I definitely know that place as well as I know a place of smooth, clear, and light joy.

This week, one of my mentors encouraged me to think of my body as a lab of sorts. A place to step back with my judgments, get curious about the happenings, and use what I know to experiment. Sound familiar? Yes, I need regular reminders as well. This body, this life – all of it – is one awesome chance to experience, eat up the joy AND the discomfort, and refine going forward. As I settle back into structure, I invite all the supports that I know I need for times of transition. In some upcoming posts, I’ll speak a bit as to what some of those supports are for me.

For now, consider this. What are the pieces that tend to be in play when you feel at ease? Or for that matter when your practice on the mat feels at ease? In that place where life is ebbing and flowing and you are like water flowing through it. Are their specific people, practices, hygiene habits, foods, etc. that allow you to feel more alive and less numb? If you’re game, actually write them down and consider how often those pieces are part of your everyday. For now, get curious. But don’t actually DO anything. Just be curious and see what’s up.

There is so much more. Man, is there ever.

Be well,
Rachel

In our last connection, I shared a TED talk by an awesome neurobiologist by the name of Lorimer Moseley. If you missed it, you can find the entertaining 15 minute chat here.

Moseley explains how pain is complicated. Pain is more than just the highly uncomfortable sensations you feel when a hammer hits your finger. In fact, the brain creates the specific magnitude of pain with tons of input that include whether you’ve experienced anything remotely similar in the past, your biomechanics, your given state of stress on a particular day (including everything from amount of rest in your system, to easily digestible food to your comfort with your finances), and far beyond. Yes, most all of your inner emotions and outer environment combine to determine the the amplitude of pain that you experience in a given incident. It is extremely complex with so many contributing pieces.

And therein lies the simplicity as well.

Pain results from a combination of many pieces and, in the same manner, the intensity of pain can potentially be decreased by changing the nature of any one of those pieces. With attention to more and more of those pieces over time, chronic pain can shift.

It is complicated, no doubt. Your pain is very real and very complicated. And it can be addressed bit by bit. Step by step. With patience and honesty throughout the facets of your life, chronic pain can decrease and quality of life can vastly increase. I have experienced it myself with chronic migraines. I have seen it in others with chronic back, shoulder and hip pain. Change is possible.

If you’re curious to learn more, take a read through this awesome short resource, Understanding Persistent Pain (also created by Moseley’s team) that hits on the complexity of pain and how one can begin to think about it in approachable component pieces. And if you want to dive deeper on your own, there is an App from his team called Protectometer that can further help to deconstruct your pain inputs. How very cool is that?

The support is truly endless when we’re ready to embrace real change: a different way of seeing ourselves, moving our bodies, and being in our lives. Healing is an awesome path to walk. Come along with me if you’d like.

Be well,
Rachel

“But WHY is this happening?”

I hear this question a lot. My new clients walk in and can decrease pain levels fairly quickly through appropriate movement, stillness or breath practices. They are amazed. Grateful. And then, at some point in the process of healing, for most of us humans (most definitely me included!), the grappling with “I just don’t understand why this is happening to me.” is like a mooring that keeps us from moving forward even more. It keeps us bound to what we’ve known in the past as the right thing. The body we want back. Not the amazing potential for the future when we can be in this body step by step and day by day just as it is.

In this awesome Lorimer Moseley TED talk, well known neurobiologist and pain revolutionary Lorimer Moseley (who is hilarious as well) helps to explain why pain is so darn complex in its totality. It isn’t just that you hit your leg on the table or that you stubbed your toe. There is a host of conditioning and context that comes along with that to determine your individual pain response. Watch and learn. And then, watch again if you’re like me and totally fascinated!

I want to just let this one simmer for you guys. Next time, I’ll talk a bit about how pain is so darn simple as well. Yes, you read that right. And I’m serious.

Let’s start at point A together first. Check out the video for today and let me know your thoughts.
Be well,
Rachel
Rachel@PureResilienceYoga.com
www.PureResilienceYoga.com