When people ask me whether I've been to India, I always answer, "Not in this lifetime." That is not a lame attempt at humor but comes from inner knowing that my connection with India was there before I was born. I see Yoga as India's crown jewel and her greatest gift to the world.<br />
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     We’ve all been there. Sitting on our mats in an open room surrounded by yogis with jars of green goodness, lotus tattoos, and exuding inner peace. They stinkin’ glow with the “inner light” we’ve been trying to harness for years by juicing, sweating, and pushing ourselves harder. It’s discouraging, it’s shaming, but if met with a dose of self-compassion and awareness, it’s a beautiful part of our process.

<strong>The holidays are supposed to be filled with joy and celebration, right?</strong> But so often it can be tough to get in the spirit as you juggle a mile-long To-Do List and a full activity calendar, all while fighting the threat of getting sick. Here are 6 things you can do to help you stay happy and healthy this holiday season:<br />
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Yoga and Ethics Through the practice of Yoga we can tap into our highest human potential, which gives us the ability to transcend our human condition of pleasure and pain. If we don’t have a genuine longing for self-transformation we will not have genuine Yoga. Yoga is about purifying ourselves on all levels, which includes body, mind, spirit, speech, actions and our thoughts. This is about cultivating ethics for ethics is the foundation of Yoga and the gateway to God-realization.

They had to drag me to my first yoga class. I always thought yoga was not for me. I was not ready to sit on a mat and talk with something higher than myself. I am a sports person and not a dreamy softy. That was my idea of yoga. I was so wrong. Right after my first class I felt like a load had been lifted off my shoulders and I asked my teacher for a book to learn more about yoga. I needed to know what this was all about. How could just one class have given me the feeling I touched something magical? From that day on I was a student and soon became a teacher.

Why Retreat? Who needs to retreat? When to retreat?
One word~ HEALTH... physical, mental, emotional, intellectual and beyond!

Yes, because when you take the time to care for yourself you rebuild your health and well being. We generally do not slow down and care for ourselves in a meaningful way until we start to show symptoms of fatigue, a cold, skin rash... the list of subtle and not so subtle symptoms is loooong! As we start to enter the holiday season there are so many opportunities to become over stimulated, exhausted, and run down.

Recent clinical research shows promising proof that practicing yoga can have beneficial effects for those going through cancer treatment and for survivors of cancer. In a lecture about this topic, Dr. Lorenzo Cohen, PhD, Director of Integrative Medicine Program at MD Anderson, shared some of his research findings. In a collaborative study with the Vyasa Group, Dr. Cohen worked with women who were in radiation treatment for breast cancer.

I'm holding a grudge. That's bad for a yoga teacher, right? But I can't seem to help myself as I walk through a class of women (and a lone, older gentleman) moving and sweating in time with the fast beat and thrumming base playing during their nightly Zumba class. Each of their faces look bright and happy, but concentrated and present as they follow the movements of the teacher.

Lao Tzu said, “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” I would have called BS on the above quote until the day I lost control of my life wheel, while heading towards the life I thought I was meant to live. I had a plan, a good one, a solid one, and a fun one. I guess I got too cocky or maybe just a bit too comfortable because the direction I was heading took a major detour, then another, then another, until I was completely lost.

Reprogramming the Human Bio-computer