Learning to listen and interpret the messages of our bodies, is probably more challenging than a pull up, but more rewarding than dropping a pant size. Why? Because to build solid and healthy relationships of any kind we must start with listening. In my yoga classes one of my main goals is to teach people to listen to their bodies. This is something that I have been working on for myself for many years and still am practicing on a daily basis.

When it comes to exercise, if we learn to listen to our bodies we are less likely to injure ourselves. I often tell my students “No pain, no gain went out with the 80’s!” Why?... 

Last week I attended a training in Thai Yoga Massage, something I’ve always wanted to do and one thing we talked about frequently was “Metta” which translates to “loving kindness.” In this particular instance it was about performing Thai Yoga Massage with metta towards our clients, however it got me thinking, how can I live my life with more loving kindness, not only to others, but also towards myself?  

Do you ever feel like the people at work “stress you out”? Do you think to yourself “If Suzy Q were different or replaced life at work would be so much easier?” Unfortunately you probably can’t change that person or circumstance at work that is stressing you out (trust me don’t try it, it never seems to work) and complaining about it to someone else doesn’t necessarily make you feel better or solve the problem. I do, however, have a few tricks I’ve learned that...

Have you ever, after a great yoga class or a great massage, thought to yourself “Ugh, I don’t want to get up can I just lay here and take a nap first?”

I often hear this at the end of my yoga classes and on the one hand, it’s great that you are feeling relaxed, however it seems that people generally only seem to allow themselves to relax when they sleep (if that!) and thus equate relaxation with sleep.

I have a firm belief that relaxation is really our natural state, unfortunately that is not the case for most people I meet.  The problem is in our fast paced lives of hurry to get it done, multi task, and go, go, go, we over ride our natural state of relaxation and operate in stress mode most if not all of the time.  Being in a constant state of stress, over time, can take a toll on our body resulting in lack of sleep or poor sleep, adrenals secreting too much cortisol resulting in weight gain, poor digestion and elimination to even just lack of enjoyment for life, because we’re too busy worrying to have fun!

So, you may be thinking to yourself...