Posts In: parenting

Morning Meditation Spot

July 24, 2019

by Laura McCorry

Walney Pond

When I think about meditation, I think about sitting down someplace like this: quiet, peaceful, with yellow butterflies (the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail) flitting from blossom to blossom.

But being Mama to two little ones, I don’t always get to sit down when I meditate.

Sometimes meditation is simply the awareness of my own breath, breathing in, breathing out. Answering a question about turtles. Bringing my focus to the warmth of the sun on my back. Feeling a small fist close in a vise around my index finger as we walk further along the path. Breath in, breath out.

Even if I had arrived to this spot without the children, who both pull me away and bring me back to the present moment, the world interposes itself.

I can hear the rumble of a backhoe across the street, and the rush of traffic on a major road just on the other side of the park. I stay focused on the butterflies, and the dragonflies, but then come the bees, and the mosquitoes, and the ticks.

It’s hard to welcome it all in, to simply brush away the undesirable (and sometimes it’s scary). But this is the practice – of both meditation and life.

It’s not just quiet and butterflies. Life is also noise and chaos and the wide kaleidoscope of living things all sharing the same living earth and life-giving sun. Breath in, breath out. Can you see that we are all one?

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(AT)yogaonesandiego(DOT)com

To Be a Sponge or a Sieve

October 15, 2018

by Laura McCorry

I’ve been feeling lately like all of my life is effort and struggle. The daily work of keeping myself and my children clothed, clean, fed, and rested requires physical stamina and takes up most of the day. Once they’re in bed for the night, I’m often too tired to engage in an activity that brings me joy or restores my spirit (like writing or yoga.) Instead I’ll turn to the things that patch my heart (call my Mama, listen to podcasts, add a few more rows to a crochet project) so I can go to sleep and take up my work again the next day.

When I did make it to yoga class, the teacher’s steady voice slipped past my ears into my heart: try to find the balance between effort and ease.

There are words you know by heart. Words you’ve said aloud many times. And yet, when someone else says these words, they can sound completely new. How do you soften your response to life’s trial?

One afternoon, both of my children were crying hard. I noticed my jaw was clenched and I felt completely overwhelmed. I realized I had been a sponge trying to soak up all of their emotions, in order to give them the space to unburden and let go – but that I hadn’t granted myself the same relief. I desperately needed to reframe my mental approach so I could find the ease, because the sponge was over-saturated.

A sieve under running water was the image that stuck in my head and which I’ve called to mind when I feel the flow of emotion from those two, dear tiny humans, my children. Sieve, noun. A device for separating wanted elements from unwanted material (thanks, Wikipedia.) It hasn’t transformed my daily experience into one of constant ease, but it has lessened the burden of effort.

This too, is yoga. Off the mat yoga, away from asana, the physical postures. This is the deep yoga, the words you hear in class working their way slowly into your heart and mind and into new expressions in your life. Try to find the balance between effort and ease. Let that which no longer serves you slip away. You can choose your response to life. Not just in a warrior pose, but everywhere, at all times. Wishing you, dear reader, the blessings of equanimity.

Laura McCorry

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Contact: laura(AT)yogaonesandiego(DOT)com

The Yoga of Parenthood

February 27, 2017

by Laura McCorry

The Yoga of Parenthood

I’m a yoga teacher who doesn’t do yoga at home.

At least, not in the way many people understand yoga –
I don’t unroll my mat in the living room while the toddler naps,
even though many days I want to and feel like I should.

My yoga practice doesn’t look the same as it used to,
but neither do I. My body is not the same, nor is my heart.

My yoga is the not-so-silent meditation of watching steam
curl up from the teapot. Three minutes of breathing, of focus
while the little person at my feet repeatedly calls my name.

My yoga is a square of chocolate eaten behind pantry doors
that reminds me to stay present, that this moment will pass,
that I am still myself and sometimes, I don’t have to share.

I feel the fiery embrace of yoga, my muscles holding the pose
of grocery bags over one arm, my child held close in the other.
This is tapas, too. This is the work of daily refinement.

Yoga doesn’t care whether you move through life fast or slow
as long as you are awake for this moment, right now.
We spend forty seconds admiring some clover rooted in earth.

It takes us thirty-five minutes to walk around the block,
my child doesn’t feel time pulling with her thousand fingers.
This, the sacred gift of childhood, to grow rooted in being.

My yoga teaches me to live the way my heart already loves,
and how to choose being over doing, as many times as necessary.

Laura McCorry

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

Yogi Reads: The Awakened Family

November 30, 2016

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.

“This book will take you on a journey to transcending your fears and illusions around parenting and help you become the parent you always wanted to be: fully present and conscious. It will arm you with practical, hands-on strategies and real-life examples from my experience as a parent and clinical psychologist that show the extraordinary power of being a conscious parent.” – Shefali Tsabary

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.

Posts In: parenting

Morning Meditation Spot

To Be a Sponge or a Sieve

The Yoga of Parenthood

Yogi Reads: The Awakened Family

we are one.

Family, Black and woman owned business since 2002.