Posts In: freedom

by Laura McCorry

by Olivia Cecchettini

Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“Within every woman is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species.” – Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Summary: Dr. Estes is a Jungian Psychoanalyst who believes that the true spirit of woman has been buried deep in the depths of her soul, to the point that she is somewhat unrecognizable even to herself. Women Who Run With the Wolves is a collection of stories aimed at uncovering the primal woman within.

According to Dr. Estes, there is a connection between women and wolves; she believes they share a psychic bond in their fierceness, grace, and devotion to their families and mate. This comparison defines the Wild Woman Archetype throughout the book. It shows the reader how fulfilling and glorious it is to be daring, to be nurturing, and to be a woman. 

I believe most women can relate to feeling as though their energy has been tamped down by the world… that we all have areas of our lives where we are playing it safe, staying small, and not shining as brightly as we could. What would happen if every woman felt empowered to trust herself? If we came together in community, allowed one another to be vulnerable, and shared stories with authenticity and love? What kind of world would emerge?

Why I Love It: This book is full of inspirational stories that may help you tap into your psyche and open your intuition. I was reminded of life before modern technology made everyone accessible but also less connected. I love that this book reignited my desire for authentic connection, both with my own primal nature and with all of womanhood.

I was still reading this book during International Women’s Day on March 8th, 2017 when so many women (and men) across the country protested for gender equality. I was struck by the sense of community, an awakening among those who have been quiet or scared in the past but who now share their voices. I believe the vulnerability and strength of women can change the world. The time is now – let’s rise together.

Recommended For: All my sisters out there, this book is for you! There is a primal wisdom held deep within us all just waiting to be birthed into our lives. These stories reveal characters who struggle to find this wisdom, before tapping into their innate potential and learning to live more freely from the heart.

I have always felt the call to support and connect with the women in my life. If you are hearing that same whisper or are just ready for change within yourself, I hope this spiritual book will fill you up to the brim like it did for me.

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia’s yoga journey began in 2003. She is certified in Vinyasa, Hatha, and Aerial Yoga and holds a Masters degree in Spiritual Psychology. She believes the mind, body, soul connection is sacred and encourages her students explore and expand within their own bodies and consciousnesses.

by Olivia Cecchettini

The Awakened Family 

by: Shefali Tsabary, Ph.D

Summary: I’ve seen yoga used as a tool for radical self-acceptance, helping people become more aware, present and in tune with their lives. Using many techniques familiar to yoga and meditation practitioners, The Awakened Family encourages readers to shift their perspective on parenting. In this way, everyday situations become opportunities for spiritual awakening.

The Awakened Family is Tsabary’s 2nd New York Times best seller. It invites readers (whether or not they are parents) on a journey of enlightenment. From a young age, our families and society tell us what is expected and what is acceptable. In response, sometimes we hide our true selves when that image doesn’t line up with society’s norm.

Why I Love It: I remembered my own feelings as a child of wanting to please my parents but also wanting to stay true to myself. The line between my own ambitions and dreams was easily blurred by the expectations and suggestions from mentors, family members, and friends. This book acknowledged that sometimes we parent our children the way we wish our parents would have acted in the past, reliving or recreating unfulfilled childhood dreams or needs.

Tsabary encourages the reader to co-create a parenting experience with their children, acknowledging the child as co-teacher with valuable input of their own. This opened my mind to a new way of thinking about parenting, which can lead to a new way of acting. This also reminded me of how similar some of Tsabary’s techniques are to a yoga practice. Yoga opens the body to new ways of feeling and moving, which leads to new ways of being within ourselves.

Recommend For: Individuals wishing to understand and connect more with the children in their lives. The Awakened Family is an excellent read for people trying to understand their family, whether that’s the family of their childhood or the family currently living under their roof.

I believe true life transformation comes through education, empowerment and example. As we transform our old habits of thinking about families, we open ourselves to seeing each individual in our lives for who they are in that moment. Allowing people the freedom to just be themselves in the world, without any expectations, may be the most radical form of love I know. May we experience this love ourselves and may we share it with others.

Ciao,
Olivia

Yogi Reads for Children!

Enjoy sharing these titles with your little ones and please comment below to add to our list!

• I Am Yoga, by Susan Verde and Peter Reynolds. A fun loving, very easy read about the practices of yoga. A perfect book for even the youngest of babies.
• Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles, by Thich Nhat Hanh. This book teaches a playful and fun pebble activity that parents and educators alike can use to introduce children to meditation. Recommended for children ages 1-5.
• The Dot, by Peter Reynolds. A powerful story about creativity and surrender. Great for children ages 1-6.

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia’s yoga journey began in 2003. She is certified in Vinyasa, Hatha, and Aerial Yoga and holds a Masters degree in Spiritual Psychology. She believes the mind, body, soul connection is sacred and encourages her students explore and expand within their own bodies and consciousnesses.

by Monique Minahan

I invite my body into some gentle asana next to a dwindling fire. Only after movement do I find the stillness necessary to enter the city of jewels, manipura chakra; mani meaning jewel and pura meaning city. Now focused, I contemplate the literal flames before me then look to my internal place of fire, manipura chakra.

While its frontal location is at the navel, the chakra itself is said to reside at the level of the spine. I guide my attention horizontally there, to the inner wall of the spinal column and whisper the beeja mantra ram until it settles in my bones like the hum of my breath.

I let my inner vision focus around the space of my solar plexus, literally a complex of nerves in the abdomen that delivers the intuitive “gut feeling” or sinking sensation in the pit of our stomach. The fact that there are no bones in front of the solar plexus seems fitting as this chakra embodies willpower and action; an ability to hold one’s self up. It is the center of heat and strength physically and energetically. The Japanese refer to this area of the body as the hara, or “sea of energy.”

Discerning what’s at the heart of this chakra for me requires patience. Below this chakra is the energy that creates me as an individual. Swadhisthana chakra: my ego, self-esteem, my individuality. Above manipura lies anahata chakra, the energy to channel my unique offering to the world. But here is where those two energies meet. Here is where I find empowerment, authenticity and responsibility. Here is where I transition my individuality to universality. Here is where I struggle with holding on and letting go.

I choose the unifying pranayama of breath retention for this chakra; one that balances both prana-vayu (upward and inward energy) and apana-vayu (downward and outward energy).

I visualize the two forces traveling to the navel simultaneously on the inhale. Only when I feel that they have arrived at the same time do I then perform a gentle breath retention before the exhale. I repeat this for a few minutes before letting my breath return to normal.

When I open my eyes, the fire has dwindled to hot embers. I acknowledge the times in my life when I’ve barely had an ember of light to guide me through the darkness. And I acknowledge the times when a full flame has burned through limitations and freed me to be more authentic, empowered and alive.

I bow my head to that.

Part 4 of a 7 part series. You can find part 3 here: Swadhisthana, The Sacrum.

Monique Minahan
Contributing Writer

Mo is a writer and yoga teacher who believes in peace over happiness and love over fear. She likes to set her sights high and then take small steps to get there. You’ll find her walking the dirt path behind her house with her little fluffy dog, practicing walking her talk by keeping her head high and her heart open. Contact: moniqueminahan.com

by Olivia Cecchettini

“Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom” 

by Colleen Saidman Yee

Summary: Yoga for Life is an amazing memoir written with such searing honesty, it touched me deep within my soul. Colleen Saidman Yee shares both her shadows and her light with vulnerability as she chronicles both her life and her yoga journey. Saidman Yee emphasizes the message “you are enough” and while reading, I felt as though she was writing as my friend, mother, sister, teacher, woman, light worker, but most of all, a real person. She knows the practice and the body inside and out. It’s a book about her life and she shares her story out of a calling to support healing and community.

Why I Love It: Colleen shares her personal journey from rebellious teen with a heroin habit to a supermodel traveling the world to now being called “The First Lady of Yoga” by the New York Times. She’s lived such an interesting life! Most importantly to me, she didn’t hold back from sharing the unedited, un-airbrushed side of her life. We all have sides of ourselves of which we’re not proud, but the path to both Inner Peace and Freedom means bringing those experiences into the light of acceptance.

B.K.S. Iyengar said, “If you don’t want your life to change, don’t get on your yoga mat.” Every time I step on my mat, I come into greater acceptance of myself. Over time, I breathed into the hard, tight places I had stuffed away deep down in my muscles and they began to open up. My chaturangas got stronger and my confidence grew. I took time in savasana to be still and connect to my heart. These simple (though not easy) rituals changed they way I saw things, and the things I saw began to change.

It’s a beautiful, unique process how yoga touches each individual person but it always comes back to the heart. I truly believe that compassion, kindness and love can heal the world and Yee’s book is a reminder of this truth.

Recommend For: Anyone who enjoys yoga and inspirational life stories. Especially in this digital age, it’s easy to compare your day-to-day life with everyone else’s highlight reel. We compare ourselves and feel less-than and unworthy. That’s why the mantra “you are enough” is so powerful because it’s true! We need to be reminded of this over and over again. Without changing one single thing, I believe you are enough, exactly the way you are. Not in a year, not after you get married, and definitely not after you have lost ten pounds. Right this second, you are whole and you are enough.

Sharon Gannon of Jivamukti Yoga sums up Saidman Yee well, stating –

“Like Gandhi, Colleen is stayagraha—meaning possessed by the truth. She tells her story honestly, without pretense, no makeup—totally fearless while at the same time gracefully imbuing every word with infectious joy, gratitude and compassion. You will find no blaming or complaining in this memoir for this is the story of a remarkable woman who approaches life as an adventure, armed with a bewitching ability to transform obstacles into opportunities and the ordinary into something magical. She is living proof that yoga is for life.”

Olivia Cecchettini
Contributing Writer

Olivia’s yoga journey began in 2003. She is certified in Vinyasa, Hatha, and Aerial Yoga and holds a Masters degree in Spiritual Psychology. She believes the mind, body, soul connection is sacred and encourages her students explore and expand within their own bodies and consciousnesses.

by Laura McCorry

You are not fixed. 

Sometimes change is so slow as to be imperceptible. Your cells are always dying and new ones are born to take their place. Every day your hair grows a bit longer. Every day some small new part is incorporated into the whole of you.

All it takes to change your direction in life is one new thought. One different action. One word of love. All that came before brought you to this moment, right now. But the past shouldn’t be given a seat at the table of today.

Have the small acts and thoughts of this hour brought you into alignment with what you know to be true about yourself? If you have strayed from your path, this is when you need to have the most compassion for yourself and the most courage to forget what came before and begin again.

Never be afraid to speak your truth. People will try to hold onto the old idea of you because it is familiar. Don’t be tempted to go along with them.

Listen to the voice inside that speaks your dreams. Give yourself permission to shout who you are to the world. Consistent acts in the same direction add up over time. Small steps matter. You are not fixed – you are free.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Michael Caldwell

If you grew up on the East Coast or in the Midwest, there was one day a year that when it came (if it came) was better than Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, New Year’s, summer vacation and often, even your own birthday. That day was the elusive and magical Snow Day.

Most of the kids I knew dreaded getting up for school every morning five days a week. It was always too early, often dark, sometimes cold, you had to get dressed, you had to eat, wash, brush, dress… ugh! Laborious, uninteresting, mundane, routine, boring, painful!

My mother, so sweet, would have to come into the room and “rise and shine” me. “Good morning, son, rise and shine. It’s a great day, time to get up for school!”

To which I responded by burrowing deep within the sheets and shrouding my head under my pillow. Then there were a few minutes of glorious sleep, only to be reawakened a second time with a less sweet verbal prompt and finally, with all the lights turned on and the covers pulled off – you get the picture.

But the night before a suspected snow day, the speculation would begin via the nightly news. The anchorman would announce, “Areas of (such and such location) are advised that the storm may increase over night bringing high winds and heavy snowfall. The counties of (such and such) are on alert for possible school closings…”

Something jubilant like Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” would sound in my mind. All of the usual nightly stalling and subsequent sneaking out of my room were abandoned. A snow day required focus, rest, intention setting, and full present moment awareness.

In the morning, at least two hours BEFORE my mother’s rise and shine notice, I was Awake. I would be listening to the radio, tingling, vibrating, a transparent eyeball, all senses on high alert, waiting and hoping that our school would be mentioned.

Then the disembodied voice floating out of the box read the list, “such and such schools, closed, such and such schools closed, such and such schools open (oh snap!), such and such schools closed…” What, wait, that one was mine! And I shot off like a rocket to experience glorious adventures, character building activities, life enhancing and affirming interactions, special, rare and wonderful sensations that only a snow day could bring.

This is the joy and immense sense of freedom and possibility that you feel during Yoga One Teacher Training. You are immersed in an open-minded and supportive community, daring to explore your own yoga practice and learning how to effectively share that practice with others.

We hope you will join us for the upcoming course. We trust you will find the experience to be fun, educational, special, informative and life-enhancing.

Save $600 on your investment in yourself when you registered and pay in full by September 30th, 2014. Send us an email at info@yogaonesandiego.com or give us a call, 619-294-7461

Michael Caldwell
Contributing Writer

Yoga teacher and Co-Founder of Yoga One, Michael has been practicing yoga and incorporating its philosophy into his life since 1997. His kind and gentle manner is well suited to leading students of all levels. Michael has published numerous articles on a variety of subjects including yoga, meditation and rock n roll.

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for – an up close and personal interview with Yoga One co-founder and teacher extraordinaire, Michael Caldwell! 

From picking apples in Australia to starting a yoga studio in San Diego, Michael embodies the yogic journey both on and off the mat. Come to his Tuesday night Vinyasa Flow at 6pm or Friday noon Flow class to see what all the hype is about! You can find our full schedule here.

1. What is your favorite style of yoga?

Flow yoga is my favorite style. I enjoy and benefit from the linking of breath with movement combined with the power of now.

2. What first attracted you to yoga when you began your practice?

The connection to my body. Prior to my practice, my body was just a means to an end, a vessel to get me where I was going or a tool to help me accomplish a task. I learned my first few poses from the book Fit for Life during the months Amy and I were in Australia picking apples ten days at a time, ten hours a day in order to make extra money for our backpacking adventures around the world. It was physically demanding work and the sensation, relief and awareness fostered from the few poses ignited a cartoon light bulb above my head that still shines.

3. What is your favorite yoga pose right now?

Always has been karnapidasana (ear pressure pose). I had a slight scoliosis which made it painful to buckle my belt among other things. This pose and yoga in general cured me. Plus when I’m in this position, I feel like I’m underwater, which I love.

4. What pose is still the most challenging?

Any pose where I wander from the present moment.

5. If you were an animal, you would be: Animal the drummer from the muppets!

6. Describe what yoga means in your life using just 6 words: Friends, Fun, Family, Flexibility, Freedom, Feeling

7. What might your students be surprised to learn about you?

I’m probably a little too open with my students. They might prefer to know less. But if they really want to be surprised, they can read my (as yet unpublished) coming-of-age travel memoir tentatively titled Big in Japan (…not so much in South East Asia). The adventures of a 23 year old American male finding his edge in Asia.

8. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for new students?

I would advise new students (of every age) to read Dr Seuss’s Oh the Places You’ll Go! Yoga is an adventure that involves the mind, body and spirit, just like life. I feel the wisdom in this book can help people to be happier and healthier during their yoga practice and in their every day lives.

“Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!”

This month’s Instructor Spotlight is on Missy DiDonato. Not only does she teach the super relaxing Friday restorative class at 4pm, you can flow with her on Tuesday mornings at 9am. Missy is also our much beloved Office Manager (or OM) whose friendly smile lights up the Nook. Pencil in one of her classes on your schedule in the next week and you’re sure to feel the mama bear love! Check out our full schedule here.

1. What is your favorite style of yoga?

I love vinyasa, anusara and restorative. I really try to honor how I’m feeling: some days I prefer one over the others, it just depends on my mood and energy level at that moment. The most important thing for me is to stay connected to my breath and use it to enhance the poses. If I stay grounded and breathing, then all yoga is my favorite.

2. What first attracted you to yoga when you began your practice?

I started practicing yoga when I was 14 years old and like most 14 year olds, I had low self-esteem and body image issues. Yoga made me feel good in my own skin when adolescence was making that difficult. I didn’t know it at the time, but yoga helped me find my place in life.

3. What is your favorite yoga pose right now?

Supported supta baddha konosana. It opens my lower back, shoulders, chest, hips, inner thighs and IT’S RELAXING!

4. What pose is still the most challenging?

Savasana – I’m usually really good at it, but lately I can’t seem to stop my thoughts and completely let go. When I finally do, it’s time to come out!

5. If you were an animal, you would be: a mama brown bear. I’m soft, cuddly and playful but if you mess with me or any of my cubs (a.k.a. friends, family, yoga students) then I get angry 🙂

6. Describe what yoga means in your life using just 6 words: uplifting, freedom, alignment, contentment, breath, light

7. What might your students be surprised to learn about you?

I’m mildly addicted to video and computer games. I play probably once a day, whether it’s Mario Brothers or a puzzle game on the computer. I don’t play “shoot ’em up” games though, my favorites are the ones with cute animals and plants that come to life.

8. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for new students?

Don’t be afraid to try yoga and don’t feel guilty if you don’t like it at first! Just try a different teacher or style and find what works for you. There are so many different variations out there in the yoga world, it’s going to take some trial and error. Take note of how a class made you feel and move on.

Becoming aware of your body and mind is the most important skill yoga can offer. If you can remain aware of how you feel on the mat, then you can take that awareness off the mat. In time it spreads from you to others around you to nature. Being conscious and aware is what this world needs! Be part of THAT movement. Do YOGA! Namaste!

This month we’re checking in with Shauna MacKay who teaches a hatha class on Sunday mornings at 8:30. Click here to see the online schedule, no reservations required for class. One special announcement: as a Lululemon Ambassador, Shauna’s collecting shoes for the “Walk a Mile in Their Shoes” campaign to aid the homeless in San Diego. Drop off gently used athletic shoes in the box at the top of the stairs until the end of March. 

1. What is your favorite style of yoga?

Although I understand why others commit to one style of yoga, I am not a yoga purist. I completed over 500 hours of YogaWorks training, a style that intelligently blends the alignment of Iyengar, the flow of Ashtanga Vinyasa and the individualized teachings of Desikachar. I love taking the best of various styles and adapting them to my own needs and the needs of my students. I value having a giant tool box of yoga resources to draw upon and love continuing my education to keep adding new tools to my collection.

2. What first attracted you to yoga when you began your practice?

Relief from pain! After more than twenty years of running (literally and figuratively), I was tight, inflexible and constricted in my hips, hamstrings, neck and shoulders. Not to mention my heart, which was tied up in knots.

3. What is your favorite yoga pose right now?

My favorite pose at the moment is ardha chaturanga dandasana, or plank pose. I love practicing it and I love teaching it. Sometimes students have an aversion to it because it’s physically demanding, but once they learn to stabilize the shoulder and pelvic girdles and engage the muscles on the front of the body, they access a strength they didn’t know they had. I love the moment my students get it and feel that possibility within themselves.

4. What pose is still the most challenging?

The most challenging poses for me are always backbends like urdhva dhanurasana, wheel. A childhood gymnastic injury left me with a tight lower back, making the posterior pelvic tilt necessary for safe backbends a challenge. Yoga, patience and perseverance have helped a great deal. I am slowly opening up that previously locked area and look forward to more and more backbends to come.

5. If you were an animal, you would be:

I often look to my kitties, Henry and Millie, for yogic inspiration. They are masters of the ability to fully relax in their bodies. Even after stressful situations, they quickly “shake it off” and free themselves to relax in the present moment. And nothing beats the blissful sound of a cat purring at peace.

6. Describe what yoga means in your life using just 6 words:

Lengthens, strengthens, opens and frees me.

7. What might your students be surprised to learn about you?

One of my favorite things to do is cuddle up with my husband and watch competitive cooking, singing or design shows. Whether or not you like the type of food, singing or styling, it’s beautiful and inspiring to watch the performer’s ego soften so the purity of their gift can shine.

8. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for new students?

Your practice matters! Every time you come to the mat, even for a few minutes, with the intention of opening yourself, you have an impact on those around you as well as the world at large. By making more space in your own mind, body and spirit, you are contributing to a more flexible, peaceful and loving world. It all starts with kindness in your own inner world. Just keep showing up. Namaste!

“What do you want to experience in your body today?”

Mara Harris opened her class on Wednesday afternoon with this simple, direct question that was both engaging and unexpected. Many instructors will ask their students if there’s a specific pose or a part of the body they want to focus on and practice that day. While there’s definitely a place for those questions, personally, I always feel overwhelmed by all the possible answers. This is usually what happens in my head when an instructor asks for requests:

How do I feel right now? Fine. But wait, I felt something yesterday, I was sore somewhere, I think it was my lower back. Oh! my glutes are sore… what did I do to my glutes? There was this one pose I learned last week that was really cool, what was it called? I think the instructor only said the Sanskrit name, something -asana, my feet were in some funky position but it felt so good in my hips and thighs…

By this time, a more decisive student will definitely have called out that they’d like to work on shoulders and I do my best to shut down my spiraling self-investigation. But Mara’s question managed to bypass that quagmire of reflecting on past experiences and brought my focus into the present: how I felt that moment and what I wanted to feel in the next moment.

Freedom. Freedom from pain and stiffness. Ease.

That was all that passed through my mind and even though I didn’t voice my thoughts to the rest of the room, they remained within me during my practice. True to the vinyasa style, Mara’s class flowed. It was dynamic. She led us through familiar poses in an unfamiliar way, moving and breathing within and between them. In low lunge we shifted from stretching down the heel of the back leg to coming onto the toes, back and forth, back and forth. Inhale, exhale.

It was like doing yoga in a river, it pushed you along. Even though I knew I could swim outside the current and rest in child’s pose, I let myself be borne away downstream, trusting that she would guide us over the falls and into slower, deeper waters when the time was right. And she did. At the end of class, we had all arrived, floating on the surface of the smooth lake of Savasana. Peaceful and at ease. I wish the same to all of you.

namaste,
Laura