Seasons change and schedules change. There are very obvious things happening like a later/earlier sunrise, a change in weather or perhaps an increase/decrease in work demands, but there are subtler, more individual, shifts too. Some of us feel an end of summer sadness (oh, it’s over so quickly!). Some of us feel freer with kids heading back to school. Some of us feel dread with seemingly so much to do suddenly. For me, when September hits, it feels like the final leg of...
In the US, Labor Day weekend is upon us. Monday (Labor Day) is commonly a day off, and it’s known as the summer’s send off, where people barbecue, lounge by the pool or kick back at the beach. Ironically, it’s about not laboring. It has occurred to me that I’ve never ever had an un-laborous Labor Day weekend. It has always felt unsettled as it is a major cusp, where some things are leaving and new things are coming. There’s a subtle panic of,...
There’s a lot of talk these days about the nervous system and for good reason. We live in a hectic world and our nervous systems are constantly put to the test. I think many of us “soldier on” day after day and never care for our nervous systems. Why is this? For one, because our society indirectly rewards the “type-A go-go-go” personality, making a jacked up nervous system seem like a positive thing. And two,...
If you watch little kids play, you’ll notice: A. they love being on the ground and B. they are very comfortable kneeling. Somewhere along the road to adulthood, our love of sans furniture, and our ease in kneeling, goes by the wayside. Perhaps you think this is just a natural trajectory, and we simply get taller and tighter with each passing year, so by the time we’re twenty-something, kneeling hurts. I’d like to state for the record that, unless there is a legitimate injury or...
“A boat in the harbor is safe, but in time its bottomwill rot out.” – H. Jackson Brown The older I get the more spiritual I feel about the human body. I mean, just wow…what a divinely designed masterpiece, right? We’re lucky to have a body and even when a part of it is injured or out of whack, it’s important to remember there are millions of other parts in perfect flow. An especially vulnerable part of the body is our knees....
There are so many subtle things we can do to help ourselves look good, feel great and shine bright, so many action steps we can take for empowered wellness. One that I’ve been borderline obsessed about lately is stretching throughout the day. I think between stress, cold weather, and lots of sitting around, our bodies lose space. Here’s what a lack of space in the body looks like: 1. feeling and looking shorter and stockier, 2. pain when...
Did you know there’s a chain of gyms called Fitness For Life? (I think it’s the best name ever…says it all!) Well, fitness is for life, for a good, capable, high quality life. Mud doesn’t stop me from taking my two labrador retrievers on a hike. Sometimes I think it should, as the clean up required post-hike is urgent, physically demanding, a little gross, time consuming, and not fun! At any rate, here’s how it typically goes: I get the...
I want to go way back to the day I met Pilates. It was in the mid-nineties and at the time I was fully invested in the workout world, teaching aerobics classes. These classes were all standing, lots of jumping, double knotting sneakers, and moving fast, like a tiger was chasing you. Pilates Mat couldn’t have been more opposite. First off, in Pilates we left our shoes at the door. This was revolutionary to me....
What if I told you there is something you could do every day, that brings increased mobility, energy, and youthfulness…it’s free and easy, requires zero equipment, and could take as little as 10 seconds? Well, that something is elongate your glorious spine! I know, I know…this might seem too good to be true, and you may assume I’m greatly exaggerating its effectiveness, but seriously, have you elongated your spine today? Sitting, at a desk or in a car...
There are year-long courses on breathing and whole books written on breathing. There are breathing specialists and hundreds of breathing studies currently going on around the world. Breathing is a big deal and when it comes to quality of living, society is seemingly getting hip to the vital role it can play. But if you are like me, and you “breathe just fine,” then breathing is super boring. At least that’s how I viewed breathing for most...
