Growing up with a mildly Catholic background, the general rule was “If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right!”

If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right!

It wasn’t exactly that everyone around me wanted things in life to be difficult. It was simply that for generations my family lived under extreme pressure and it became the new normal. My father descended from the Irish immigrants escaping the potato blight and my mother’s mother grew up as a refugee in World War II Germany. My parents never had the perspective that life was easy, and that’s the story that was passed along to me growing up.

Combine the generations of laborious living with the high-speed, high-performance messaging of today’s world and you have a recipe for burn out and overwork.

Combine the generations of laborious living with the high-speed, high-performance messaging of today’s world and you have a recipe for burn out and overwork.

...

The value of stillness in a world that doesn’t stop moving is beyond measure.

This month the theme at Yoga One is

BE STILL AND KNOW

Stillness, oddly enough, is an ever moving target. If we stand still long enough we realize that we are actually rocking slightly to and fro, constantly adjusting our position to maintain balance.

This constant movement is even more obvious when we sit down to meditate. Not only does the body stay in perpetual motion, but the mind also flits and flies about in a constant state of flux.

This is what makes intentionally being still so valuable. It is a rare and precious thing.

Getting still isn’t about fighting the momentum of our body and mind. It’s about learning to relate to it in a new way. The theme isn’t simply to BE STILL. It's “be still AND know.”

The knowing comes from recognizing that when we get caught up in the constant fluctuations, we’re likely to miss something.

That something we miss is often...

I am not ___________ enough.

Good

Pretty

Thin

Rich

Smart

However you complete this sentence in you mind, there seems to be a global affliction of I AM NOT ENOUGH.

One of my dearest teachers, Dorothy Espiau, said that these thoughts of not enough are the modern day plagues that eat away at our humanity and cause much of our suffering.

Her diagnosis was that over-consumption leads to the feeling of not being enough. I’ve seen it in my own life running the rat race for money, keeping up with the latest gadget trends, and ever striving for the next best level of my own life.

When we consume more than we create, we tip into a fear response that keeps us consuming more and more and never feeling like we quite have enough.

Enough money, enough talent, enough shoes, enough knowledge.

Yet, there is a balance that can be had and it is not found by receiving it, it’s found by generating it.

Being of contribution, our March studio theme at Yoga One, is a state of generating...

When I was first asked to be a guest writer for the Yoga One blog and share how I experience the monthly teaching focus of Give Up What You Must, I was like “Oh yeah, I’m so down!” I was so excited because I have experience in this theme, I like to write, and have often thought about starting my own blog. I was ready. I sat down to write. I opened my laptop. I started to jot down all of my ideas and thoughts.

Then, it happened.

“I’m not good enough.”

“This isn’t right.”

“Not perfect. Not perfect. Not perfect.”

“You’re not a good writer.”

“Nobody cares what you have to say.”

“So and so’s blog will be better than yours.”

Oh yes. The tried and true negative self-talk. The perfectionist problems. The comparison curse. Fear. They came out to sabotage what I truly wanted.

I got so frustrated. I tried to force myself to get something on paper. The more I forced, the more...

In this life, I wear many hats.  I am a wife, mother of three, high school teacher, yoga teacher, graduate student and Zumba instructor.  I am a person who historically runs on connection, dreams big, and finds interest in basically everything.  I am constantly finding things that have value, interests that I want to explore, beautiful things, people to add to my life, and experiences to add to my bucket list.  

I rarely subscribe to the line of thinking that less is more because clearly, more is more.  The only thing that is less.. is time.

This is the reason that our focus of “give up what you must” has resonated so much with me this month.  There are so many things I want for my life, my husband’s life and the lives of our children. In some cases, these “things” can serve as motivation for me:  I grind harder, work longer and dream bigger because of the hopes that I have for my family. But if I am to be honest,...

I often hold on to my lie – the voice in my head that tells me I’m wrong and I’m not good enough. This lie shows up when stakes are high and resistance is strong.

From my lie I’ve developed behaviors and attitudes which often push me to act in ways which generate harm to myself and others, spiritually and mentally:

I strive for perfection, I critique myself, I compare myself to others, I procrastinate in fear of reaching a perfect final product that I miss the joy in the journey.

In yoga teacher training at Yoga One almost one year ago I stood in samasthiti face to face with my mat partner to recite the Journey into Power Sequence. Seeing my partner eye-to-eye, I felt streams of tears roll down my face. My throat tightened. My breath fluttered. My palms became balmy. My mind replaced my knowledge of the flow with narrative from my big lie. “If I don’t get this right, I won’t succeed. Why can’t I memorize the sequence in order? The...

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I am going to go ahead and say it right now - I am a know it all.

As a kid, I can remember getting scolded when I didn’t know the answer to a question and feeling like I was not smart. At some point, l decided I had better have an answer when asked any question and many times my answers were based on what I had heard someone else say.

Unfortunately, having to have an answer for everything followed me into adulthood and it hasn’t served me well, because the truth is I do not know everything.

Holding onto our beliefs, views, and perceptions is natural for human beings. After all, our opinions are ingrained into us from the very day we are born and some argue even while we are in the womb.

Many of our convictions are handed down from our family, teachers and community leaders that we admire and trust.

Why would or should we question those who have taught us from birth --  then again why shouldn’t we?

When we hold onto the I know attitude we shut ourselves...

By now I’m sure you heard the buzz around Marie Kondo. “Who is this woman and what in the world does she do?” you may have thought to yourself.  Let me break it down for you: Marie Kondo is an author and professional organizer who now has a Netflix show dedicated to organizing people’s homes.

I’ve seen it, I loved it, and I’m not going to lie- I cried during the first episode. Marie, because in my mind we are on a first name basis, motivates all of her clients to organize their homes by “sparking joy”.

Can giving things up really spark joy?

YES. The answer is yes. I used Marie’s methods on my dresser drawers to give up clothes, my closet to give up shoes, our kitchen to give up old dishes, pans, etc. I even found my husband using her methods on his (tiny) side of the closet.

Giving up all of these things that no longer served a purpose in my life was like lifting a weight off my shoulders.

All off these physical items:...

Time for a pop quiz!
Who remembers what the studio theme was at Yoga One in January?
Don’t worry, you all get an A and the grades don’t matter anyway.

That’s right, Drishti!

Drishti is the beginning of the journey into power. It’s when you set your sight on something. It’s when you focus from the wide angle of your life to just one direction.

This is a moment of choice because as soon as you choose to focus on one thing, you have to give up putting your attention on all of the other things. This is the flip side of focus. 

Inherent in putting your attention on one thing is giving up the energy we contribute to other things.

This works at all levels. Physically we can only be in one place at one time, and while some of us may be able to pat our heads and rub our bellies at the same time, mostly we can only do one real thing in any given moment.

On the mental and emotional level, it’s similar. Thoughts and emotions can move much faster than...