Author: Katherine

I have tried to love pilates. It is mindful movement so what’s not to love? I have always been convinced I should have a genetic disposition to love it.

Well, I have to be honest, I’ve never been into it. Believe me, I’ve tried. I have just always been a bit meh; I could take it or leave it. I think the counting, different breathing and lack of fluidity has always put me off.

During this bizarro version of the world right now, lots has changed. For one, my personal yoga practice has shifted. I have been allowing my right shoulder to heal. I hurt it this winter skiing and then stubbornly, I didn’t want to modify my yoga practice. Too many side planks and chaturangas later and I could hardly do everyday things with that arm. Gah. Silly. Anyhoo, my yoga practice is different and more purely self-directed now that I am not teaching classes. The backs and knees and shoulders of yoga students, for example, are not part of my mind chatter lately.

I am also running (not my usual thing), biking (again not my per usual), and now…I am doing a little pilates mid-day and looov-ing it. I know, shocking.

[Btw:That teensy paragraph above sounds like I’m killing it on the fitness front but in reality I am in maintenance mode. There have been considerably more calories going down the hatch every day.]

So all of this is to say…Most body work and movement has the potential to be ’embodied’ if the mind is willing. This is an obvious statement but I definitely needed some reminding. Pilates or whatever your ‘no thanks’ movement activity has been, might be just the shift you need to include more mindfulness into your day and to create additional body awareness during activities you already enjoy. Maybe the activity you are convinced you have a genetic aversion toward is something you will love.

It might be a little like cilantro. It is entirely possible that you have a legitimate claim to swearing off cilantro forever. Or perhaps, you just haven’t tried a salad dressing as incredible as the one I have included below. It might literally blow your mind.

Lots of love to you, your moving body and your taste buds. Enjoy it all.

Green Chile Cilantro Vinaigrette 

1/4 cup of cilantro, 1 garlic clove, 2 Tablespoons of green chilies, 1/2 teaspoon of cumin, 1 teaspoon of sugar (or whatever you use to sweeten), dash of sea salt, dash of cayenne, 2 Tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 1 Tablespoon of orange juice, 1/4 cup of safflower or olive oil.

Blend all ingredients, except the oil, until smooth using an immersion blender or traditional blender. Add oil as the last step pouring gradually while blending until emulsified.

Hello! Happy loooooong weekend. I have just uploaded two new meditation audio files. One is a standing meditation and the other is a simple seated breath awareness meditation. Try them both and let me know what you think.

Here’s Something Else for You to Try

Work with a positive thought pattern during your yoga practice. I have done this with students in some of my classes before.

Allow your attention to rest on your breath and experience how your breath fills out the shape of your body as you hold a yoga posture. Repeat the same positive thought between postures or between a short flow series. Make ‘space’ in your body with your breath to allow the thought in…let go of gripping and tension in your body so there is nothing to block the creation of space.

The thought could be anything that resonates and could be as simple as a single word like, “peace”, or “enough” or “calm” or “safe”.

I have used all of the above and many more at random by pulling word cards out of an envelope. Sometimes a word will find you at exactly the right time. You will know it is ‘your word’ because it feels charged in some way; you will want to hold it close or push it away.

The last two weeks I have been exploring a particular phrase during yoga:
‘I let go of all that is unlike love. There is time and space for everything I want to do.’

This phrase has been so perfect for me right now. I am incredibly appreciative of having this extra time for family, projects, practices and spring cleaning. I have also been aware of negative internal dialogue for not checking off everything on my pre-Covid19 ‘if-only-I-had-time’ wish list. Do you have something similar going on? If so, try to integrate this phrase into your yoga practice and your day.

Much love this weekend and coming week,
Katherine

If you lay down and listen to a guided meditation, do you quickly fall asleep? If you try to sit, does your body complain so loudly that paying attention to anything other than your back or knees seems highly unlikely? If you are answering (yelling) a resounding, “YES!”, then I have a few suggestions.

Here are some easy things to try if falling asleep is your issue:
1. Switch up the time of day to when you feel more alert.
2. Make sure you haven’t eaten a heavy meal in about two hours.
3. Practise in a cooler room, without a blanket or extra layer. 4. If you are laying down sit; if you are sitting stand and try a moving meditation.

Let me clearly state here that if you are enjoying meditation laying down and you have physical limitations to sitting meditation or simply aren’t interested, keep doing what you’re doing. Really.

Here are some things to try to create more comfort in seated meditation:
1. Cushions, cushions, cushions…soften the ground with a larger cushion on the floor and then raise your seat with a firm cushion under your bum.
2. If all the cushions in the world are not going to help, sit in a chair.

Check back in another day or two for new audio files: a guided seated meditation and a simple standing meditation.

Much love, Katherine

I have just posted a new audio file. This meditation has been one that I have been doing for many years. It is beautiful. If it resonates with you, practice with the recording until it is all through you so that modifying it comes naturally without the recording. The recorded version begins with cultivating loving-kindness for yourself, followed by a loved one, then a person you find difficult in your life and finally, the world. It runs for just under 20 minutes.

In my own morning meditation practice this is the last one I do – my grand finale – and it can last far longer than 20 minutes if you have the time.

When I am practising, I allow anyone who ‘wants in’ to be part of it. I begin with myself and move onto my loved ones who may appear for me individually or sometimes grouped. I accept however they come. Sometimes someone very random will appear and I accept them too.

I always move onto a person I experience as difficult or a group that brings up negativity in me so I can practice to cultivate loving-kindness even when I want to contract and reject the difficulty. (Your difficult person could also be a person you love, by the way.) I don’t know of a better more practical practice than this to live purposefully in love and peace. Even political situations or stories of violence can be part of the meditation if that feels accessible or necessary for personal growth. The important thing is not to be caught up in the story. Stay connected to the practice. You allow the person or group to appear and you do your best to cultivate the feelings generated by the repeated words used in the practice. The meditation provides the opportunity to be with the feeling of contraction or gripping and explore openness and compassion.

If this audio file feels too long, start with cultivating loving-kindness for just yourself and then pause the recording at that point. After practising this way for a while, listen to the recording up to and including a loved one and so on until you have worked your way up to the full 20 minutes.

Let me know what you think in the comments or email me (your comments come to my email anyway).

Much love to each of you. Enjoy the sunny and warm weather tomorrow!

ON THE FIFTH DAY
by Jane Hirshfield

On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,
began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak
and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.

Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,

while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking,
of rivers, of boulders and air.

In gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists, accountants,
lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,
of silence.

I have been running the last few weeks after meditation and before my yoga practice.

I am the most fair weather runner who has ever lived, by the way. In the Spring it seems like the loveliest idea after a long winter but when it gets too hot, I reconsider. In the Fall, I think, “I should really start running.” Then, it gets cold and there is nothing in me that wants to stick with it.

Yoga is different. It is a love through thick and thin. Hot weather or cold. Cranky or happy. Chubby or lean. Too busy or at peace. I even take my yoga practice on vacation with me and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It doesn’t matter how I feel when I start my practice or begin to lead a yoga class, I always feel infinitely more connected to myself and others at the end of it. Mindful movement and meditation is the most underrated and accessible kind of magic.

Running is THE thing for some people and their yoga practice is the add-on that keeps them running. The last three weeks for me in particular, running has been a nice add-on to my yoga practice. During this strange time we are in the midst of, I truly welcome a more intense awareness of the relationship between my heart and lungs. I also just need to move more.

I am not professing a lifelong commitment to running but the combination of this with yoga has felt like a match made in heaven lately.

I have been returning from a run each morning sweaty and with movement buzzing through me. I stretch out my calves right away on the stairs into my house then I head to my yoga mat. I get grounded and use my breath along with the foundations of the poses to grow the shapes.

I have been doing a full practice but here are a select few yoga postures that have felt like pure heaven after a run…

The other really feel great postures have been seated forward bend and standing forward bend against the wall, full warrior series, triangle and reverse triangle, bow and camel, downward dog, head stand and simply sitting back on my heels with my toes curled under. If you have a firm rubber ball or a good quality tennis ball, use it to roll out your feet and glutes.

What activity do you like to pair with yoga? Tell me all the juicy details about your love affair. If you have any questions about the postures above, let me know.

Stay healthy and happy, Katherine xo

A yoga student gave me a card on Thursday with this quote he sourced by Albert Camus. It is incredibly beautiful and so perfect to describe what presence gifts us each time we choose to reside in the moment. Magic is right there when we are willing to experience it. The miracle of being alive is in our breath and our heart beat, in the natural world, inside every relationship…with ourselves and others and the world.

I wanted to use this post today to share:

1. this quote (thank you, Jeremy)
2. a kindness experience this week
3. a link to a broader story that made me smile.

I enjoyed Tuesday’s kindness invitation (leave random notes of kindness) so much that it flowed into Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I loooooove leaving surprise notes as some yoga students might guess and having an extra reason to do so was a lot of fun. I left notes for friends, in a few library books and notes in lunches. I also bought some post-it notes and my daughter and I left them randomly in surprise places around our house. The best one I found from her was this one:

So much love to each of you this weekend. I hope yesterday’s quote was an inspiration (“Be kind to unkind people. They need it the most”). It sometimes isn’t easy but it is such an opportunity for presence if you can respond instead of react to negativity.

Today, please take a moment to write a positive review about a product or service you appreciate. I am going to do that now.

Enjoy this youtube link that I came across about a random act of kindness.