With Apologies to Willie

On the Mat Again

(To be sung to the tune of Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again")

On the mat again, I just can't wait to get on the mat again,

The life I love is doing yoga with my friends, and I can't wait to get on the mat again.

On the mat again, doing poses that I've never done, feeling  things that I may never feel again,

Oh, I can't wait to get on the mat again.

On the mat again, like a bunch of hippies we do Salutations.

We're the best of friends, believing that the world is more than Nations, than Nations.

On the mat again, breathing in and breathing out again, 

Vira Two to Trkonasana is fun, and I can't wait to get on the mat again.

(musical interlude)

(one more time, with feeling!)

On the mat again, like a bunch of hippies we do Salutations.

We're the best of friends, believing that the world is more than nations, than nations.

On the mat again, I just can't wait to get on the mat again,

The life I love is doing yoga with my friends, and I can't wait to get on the mat again.  

And I can't wait to get on the mat again.

(Yee-ha!)

For the real thing, try this: http://www.youtube.com/embed/1TD_pSeNelU

Open Up!

You know how I love my computers.  Instant access to information; frequent, succinct messages between my daughters and myself; the fun of getting email every day!  As a yoga teacher, though, here is my warning:  Sit up straight! 

Computers, phones, mp3 players, and all our other fun and exciting devices have our whole society curling forward.  We hold our smart toys at waist height and round our shoulders as we click away.  We strain toward the computer monitor and lose our perfect posture as we melt toward the machine.  This brings us into a protective stance, curving our bodies inward and making it difficult for our heartspace to beam out the way it wants to.  Our breath becomes constricted, which puts our nervous systems on high alert:  I can’t breathe, why I am protecting my vital organs; what’s happening to me!!!

Open those shoulders.  Raise that iPhone to shoulder height. Put a timer on your computer that alerts you to pay attention to your posture.  Use a lumbar pillow.  Learn some chair yoga (hey, the computer’s right in front of you -- Google it!).  Join a yoga class. Shine that heart out and notice the vitality that flows through you even when you’re hard at work.  

Don’t let your devices drain your batteries!

Happy St. Valentine's Day

Love your neighbor as yourself. 

This brings up a couple of questions:  1)  Who is your neighbor?  2) What if you don’t love yourself all that much?

Here are the answers:  1) Everyone is your neighbor.  2) You are lovable and loved, so jump on the bandwagon and show yourself some love!

Picture the person you love the most.  You want the best for this person.  You want this person to feel love, to experience kindness, and to live their best life. You want to be instrumental in bringing all this wonderfulness to your beloved.

Of course, we all know that you cannot give that which you do not have. If you do not honor yourself, love yourself, and take care of yourself, you are cheating your loved one.  By not turning the qualities of love to yourself, you cannot shine these qualities on another.  The one you love the most is missing out on what only you can give.

We are all created equal (Hey, Tom Jefferson said so in the Declaration of Independence – it must be true!).  We also have free will.  So decide to love yourself as you love your neighbor.

I love you!  Happy Valentines Day!

Computers Are So Cool!

I love the computer age.  Internet, email, Google; all these make life so much easier, simpler.  In just five minutes I can get store hours, coupons, and directions to get there.  That catchy tune playing on the radio?  I’ll find and download it in two minutes.  If the kids want enchiladas for dinner, I can get three recipes in seventeen seconds.  I am connected to yoga teachers, meditation gurus, my church congregation, and cousins I haven’t laid eyes on since before the days of sunscreen.  Woo hoo! It is exciting and fun to have such unfettered access to people, things, and facts.

Tovie prefers hardcover books.

Yeah, I know it can be a time-suck.  One Shiva Rea YouTube video can lead to an hour of vinyasa viewing.  But hey, as long as I’m getting the laundry done and enough sleep at night, what the heck!  I even like these new-fangled Nooks and Kindles.  A book is about the story, not the delivering medium.  If you like the feel of paper, then by all means read from that; the convenience of twenty books in my purse makes my Kindle a treasure.   I don’t have a smart phone, though, and I may never go that way – but only because the screen is too dang small and I’d have to start wearing a magnifying glass on a string around my neck! 

I’m going to skip the cautionary tales and horror stories of stolen identities and lost electricity, because there is a shadow side to everything and you’ve heard it all before.  So blog me a blog, find me a find on eBay, catch me an eCard; I’m just gonna throw the laundry in the dryer and I’ll be right back!

It’s All in Your Head

I love the placebo effect; the fact that if you believe enough in something, it becomes true. A doctor can give you a pill and convince you it will help your condition and although the pill is made of sugar, it really works!  Then the minute you are told the pill is a fake, your symptoms return.   It was “all in your head”. 

There are things going on in the world today – your own world and the collective World – that are dismaying and possibly depressing.  Decide to join those low vibrations and you will be dismayed and depressed.  How helpful will you be in that state? Not much.   If you take the path of joy and energy, simply decide to rise above the pain and feel good, then you can take the bull by the horns and do what is needed to make the world a better place. 

It’s okay if it’s all in your head, because your brain is the boss of your body and it’s your body that leads the charge.  Find what it is that makes you rise above yourself and go do it.  Yoga, service, walking in the woods. (Sorry, Margaritas are not on the list!).  Get yourself ready to make a difference, and then take the first step. You probably won’t be in a position to broker world peace, but I bet you can make your grumpy neighbor smile!

Let it go to your head.

New Jersey Dreamer

I have a great idea!  It came to me in a dream.  It involves lots of work, and some money capital, but I just know it will make us a million.  Of course I want you to be my partner!  You and I work so well together; remember the PTA fundraiser when I developed the idea for the fashion show, and you got all the models together and talked the stores into donating clothes and found that perfect venue?  People still compliment me on that.  This new venture may be a little more complicated, but I know you can do it.  Here, I wrote it down as soon as I woke from the dream; call me when you are ready to go to market and we’ll figure out your share of the profits.  I’m thinking 70/30.  No, I get the 70, of course.  

Without the idea, what is there?

A good idea lands in your lap.  Just came out of nowhere! Maybe a rumor of a job opening in another department, maybe a tune keeps running through your head, perhaps you tasted a delicious cookie you just know would be made perfect by the addition of a little allspice.  Thank your lucky stars, now you can get a better job/write a pop hit/be the next Mrs. Fields!  It’s fate, kismet, karma, (cue Julie Andrews) “there must have been a mo-ment . . . of good”. 

Weeks go by.  You didn’t get the job, you forgot the song, and you haven’t finished reading Mrs. Field’s biography. What went wrong?  It seemed a sure thing.

Oh.  Well, that.  But I was waiting for someone to come over and offer me the job; they know I’m just sitting here being wasted in accounting.  And I didn’t have the right music paper to put down the notes for that song, and it wouldn’t look right on notebook paper.  My oven is broken so I couldn’t test the recipe, and now I can’t remember if it had chocolate chips or butterscotch ones.  I always have such bad luck.

TAKE THE STEP! (Yes, I’m yelling in capital letters).  When an idea falls into your lap it is kismet, but you need to marry it with some action. Apply for the job, write the song, bake the cookie.  Then follow up with the appropriate next action.  Then the next, and the next and the next.  Dreams can come true, but only with help from you.  Not your friend (unless it’s a true partnership).

Dream it, do it.  

The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent

What am I searching for?  When will I be happy, and what will bring about this happiness?  Why does that guy have it all and I don’t?  How do I know I am on the right path? Where do I look for guidance?  Who What Where When WHY?

We search for answers, and for clues that things are as they should be.  A raise at work signals you are doing a good job.  A hug from your teen shows you are connected to your child.  A smile from a stranger affirms that you are connected to the world.  So does it follow that no raise this year means your performance was poor; the cold shoulder from your high schooler proves you are a failure as a parent; someone letting the door bang in your face means that the outside world doesn’t even notice you?

Here is something to consider:  Everything is neutral.  There is no good, no bad, there just Is.  Allowing salary to dictate worth as a person would mean that the Wall Street guy is a better person than the Visiting Nurse who takes care of your aunt.  Each is doing important work, and their value cannot be known by their weekly paychecks.  The guy who rushed by you in the doorway wasn’t slamming the door in YOUR face, he was simply unaware of you, for reasons of his own.  And don’t get me started on teenagers -- they are beginning the important and difficult work of separating from their parents, so just breathe through those years and don’t take anything personally!  

In yoga, we salute the Light in each other, acknowledging that we are all part of the same Light.  We do our best not to judge.  We remind ourselves that the person with the perfect Trkonasana is not better than her neighbor using three blocks and a strap to set her pose; they are two people in different places.  Feeling the connection, knowing that we are each a part of the other, will foster a feeling of peace and love toward all.  And it will help you feel better, too.  Aren’t we all searching for Love, Peace, and Joy?  Where else can these be found, but in each other.