How has yoga changed your life?

I had been practicing yoga for about 7 years, when in 2007 I was diagnosed with breast cancer.   At the time, I didn’t realize how much I relied on my yoga practice to get me through the next few years.  It made me strong enough to cope with this challenge.  My breathing was a life saver, finding calmness and peace during treatments and surgery.  After my surgery, I was so limited with my body.  Balasana (child’s pose) seemed impossible.  During this time I just kept showing up on my mat and slowly my body responded and began to let go and open up again.  It was a humbling experience.  I am still challenged with chaturanga dandasana, but what is the rush?  I am grateful for my practice, the stillness and peace it brings into my life now.  It

Read more ...

We have all heard the saying “sit up straight” and we have all experienced that it’s not that easy. Posture is influenced by many factors such as our work, our daily habits, our exercise and the aging process. Imbalances often result from long-term compensation patterns and adaptations. Physical changes occur to the body’s anatomy and functional dynamics, often increasing the risk of pain and injury. However, prevention and early treatment in the form of posture education may be the perfect prescription.

Read more ...

How do we take our yoga practice off our to-do schedule and into our hearts? Living consciously – which is the fancy way of saying be happy is what we all want. My evolution with yoga is a combination of hard work, the very best kind of desperation, and a longing for the divine. We'll go over three of the topics covered in the yoga sutras to begin to build a foundation to live our yoga and then I'll give you some of my simple real world tips for yogic living.

Roni's Opening to Class:

Feel your own existence and remember that sensation when you saw an amazing magic trick. Embody that sense of wonder as you think about your life. Life is a confusing, emotional, breathtaking kaleidoscope of moments. Right now you are in this moment. You can't be anywhere else so be fully here, on your

Read more ...

We Pretend We Don’t Know What’s Wrong

Be honest … we usually know exactly what we have done or are doing to create the results we are experiencing. We know what we could change, but we don't want to make the simple straightforward adjustments that are necessary. Often, if we are going to suffer through the process of change, we want it to be in grand style!

- I'm detoxing for a week

- I'm going to read all the books

- I'm going to throw money at it

- A vacation will solve this!

Inevitably we find ourselves back on the couch with our familiar results, scratching our heads and wondering why this is happening to us while rolling our eyes at the people we think never struggle with our affliction.

I know three things for sure about human beings –, we are hilarious, we are pure

Read more ...

So I just put out my first meditation CD, but people look at me funny when I say, “It was so easy, I recorded the whole thing on my phone!”

I’m here to offer you a “no more excuses’ moment. Your meditation practice should not suffer another day or be delayed one more minute. We have the technology!

It’s time we learn to use our phones for calming down, not just to remind us why we have to speed up. Below I have the 4 Steps to Phone Meditations for Health, or if you would rather see me in person check out the video I made for this blog post at: https://www.youtube.com/user/MassageRedefinedLLC?feature=mhee

Step One: My Kingdom for a Goal

Without a goal in mind, meditation can be difficult. So first we have to know WHY we want to meditate and formulate our mobile phone

Read more ...

I have come to firmly believe that there are certain universal laws. These laws do not exist to conflict with religion, but rather to work with it as a vessel for God to make himself undeniably visible in our lives. These laws are the ways that we can wrangle the wild animal of free will and not be victims of a chaotic world but instead, wielders of life. This universe functions in certain predictable yet mystical ways. I've attempted to break these down into 5 main universal laws, each independent and yet relying completely on the others. People who understand these laws can live fulfilling and empowering lives, those who don't will continue to suffer in a never ending fight with themselves and the world they believe they live in.

Law #1 What you think regularly becomes your belief system

Read more ...

“Fear is a powerful adversary.  Fear keeps us trapped inside boundaries.  Fear keeps us from learning something new, from making discoveries, from making new friends.  Fear prevents us from reaching our full potential and from truly living our experiences.  Take your fear, place it on a raft, push it out into the abyss.  Defeat the enemy.  Be fearless.”

As we look ahead to the dawning of a new year, we find excitement from the brimming possibilities life and hard work can bring.  We set goals, intentions and go full steam ahead with plans.  I believe taking time to reflect on the past year is also noteworthy as well, as it can bring much insight into areas of our lives we might like to change for the better. Usually, I pick an evening before the New Year to sit down and make

Read more ...

Dr. Deepak Chopra has spoken about asking many of his patients why they wanted to get better. They would say things like I want to be able to get back to my job, I want to take care of my family, I want to see the world and he would ask why they wanted those things. And if you keep asking "why" and follow the line of answers down to the core, the final answer is usually the same … because I want to be happy. Everything we do and don't do is an attempt at happiness. Buddha was born in India 2,500 years ago and he dedicated his life to the study of happiness and the cessation of suffering. Buddha's four noble truths are often described as being similar to a physician’s diagnosis. He tells us what the disease is, what causes it, and that there is a cure. The final truth refers to "The

Read more ...

Dear 2013,

YES. I say YES to everything you have in store for me. YES to every stumble and every tear. YES to every hug and every kiss. YES to the things I will lose and YES to all that I will gain. YES to wrinkles I will acquire and YES to what the mirror tells me. YES to my life just as it is, and YES to it changing in ways I never saw coming. YES to the new people I will meet, and YES to those I may lose. YES to the fear, YES to the pain, YES to frozen moments and YES to momentum. YES to work and YES to rest. YES to unexpected bills and YES to abundance. YES to love.

So if you still don't understand know this; I say YES to everything that is about to happen to me and everything that will not. Before it ever happens I bring a YES to my life. There is nothing you can throw at me that

Read more ...

Each time we stretch our bodies, we are having an effect on our energy.  In Chinese Medicine, energy is defined as “chi” and it is circling within us and all around us.  As Diane Connelly says in Sarah Powers book, “It is only by chi that the planets move , the sun shines, and human beings live and breathe.  It is spoken with reverence because it is the basis of life and when gone awry, the basis of disease.”  Most of us talk about energy in our everyday lives.  We know when we have it and we know there are times we don’t have it.  We understand this feeling.

Chi moves through our bodies in paths called Meridians.  You can think of them as energy rivers that course through every area of your body.  And just like a river needs to move to be healthy, so does

Read more ...

"Peace comes from being aligned with the present moment. Wherever you are, you feel that you are home - because you are home." -  Eckhart Tolle

Roni's Opening to Class:

This is a room filled with imperfections, with black sheeps and wanna-be's. We have let people down, gotten lost, said the wrong thing, slept when we should have worked, broken something valuable and tripped in public. We are a mess. We come right now to our mats with all of our failures and bruises and even shame. Because this yoga mat that I am sitting on now is the most absorbent thing on the planet. It soaks up all the fear, the mistakes, the stories, the lies, the despair. It absorbs it all. On this rectangle I am supposed to be a mess, in this room of mis-fits I fit in. Perfect is boring, it’s predictable, not a

Read more ...

The topic today can be boiled down to three words, the idea of which will change your life if you let it. Those three words are "Sounds have Power." Sounds have an incredible power over us. What is sound? It is a form of energy as sound vibrations are invisible yet powerful. The human ear can hear roughly 16 to 40,000 vibrations per second. Of all of those millions of possible combinations of vibrations there is a specific combination that is very dear to you personally. Your name, this particular combination of syllables is the most powerful sound in your life. We inherently know the power of sounds to alter us. How do you feel when you hear certain sounds like classical music or heavy machinery, laughing or screaming? When we play music we love loudly it makes us happy, but when someone

Read more ...

Why do we do what we do? Why do we behave the way we behave? Some physiologists have identified 6 main human needs. People find ways to meet these needs in positive, negative, or neutral ways, but every person finds a way to meet them in some way. We have some genetic propensities, but we all learned different ways of meeting our needs as we grew up. With the raw absorbent eyes of a child, we soaked up the different techniques available to use to feel the way we desire to feel. We all had different life experiences that have added up to the ways that we each meet our basic needs, but you have some go-to responses, some highly predictable ways of interacting with difficulty or success.  I was fascinated by the ways we can positively and negatively meet our needs. Because the way we react

Read more ...

Below are three Enemies of Gratitude, meaning that when these things exist in our minds or hearts then gratitude cannot. The environment that these emotions create cannot sustain the life of anything that has the ability to propel us closer to the people we want to be. Here are three of the enemies of gratitude that Roni discussed in class.

Jealousy
This is one of the most unintelligent emotions human beings have. If you want something, you have to greet it everywhere you see it. If you want success, you have to develop a friendly relationship with success. Everywhere you see it you must greet it, be excited for it, whether it be a competitor or a person who hasn't been kind to you, or someone you feel hasn't worked hard enough for it … it doesn't matter. If you want a relationship,

Read more ...

I've been thinking about the recession and its effect on our concept of abundance. I spend a lot of time talking about the importance of our spiritual and emotional life, which is the foundation of the balance and joy we are all seeking. But here's the thing, most people spend 8 hours or more every day at work. What we do for a living, or better put, how we do what we do for a living is also fundamental for that joy. You may expect me to preach selling all of your belongings and becoming a monk or missionary somewhere. And some people are called to do just that, but many are also called to financial abundance. What I'm saying is that it is okay to desire these things, to dream big in EVERY area of your life. We talk about believing in abundance, but if we really believe it then that means

Read more ...

“So, let me get this straight. There are centers of energy in the body, they are ‘open’ or ‘closed’ or somewhere in between, and depending on how open or closed they are translates into how healthy you are physically, mentally, and emotionally.” One part of myself said to another.

“Right.” The other part of myself said.

“You might not understand it now,” this part continued “but you will be overcome with so much happiness when you fully realize how connected the body is.”

And this is how the dialogue started between me, myself, and the Chakras. Now, I teach about the Chakras frequently. Every time a massage client comes in with pain, every time I talk with a student who is looking to overcome an obstacle in their life, and every time I stand back and

Read more ...

I spent the past 4 days immersed in the Tony Robbins conference. Tony is a motivational speaker, but even more so he has spent his life studying neuro-associative conditioning. This is basically learning to use the way your brain works to create triggers and reactions that will cause you to think and feel the way you want to think and feel in any given situation. He spent a lot of time talking about the foundational importance of physiology, or the way we use our bodies. He taught in an intellectual way about what you already know from your life's experience: If you don't feel good physically, you won't perform at your best. This doesn't just mean having an injury or being tired or even sick, but even more critical is how we choose to sit, stand, walk, or any of the tiny ways we

Read more ...

Why do I love Yoga?

To answer this I must first tell you a little bit about the Big E. As a former 2 x All American at Ohio State University and all throughout my fighting career, I've always had workouts that have been about contracting my muscles and making them more explosive. Which is pretty much all I knew. Then in 1998 I tore my rotator cuff, only to come back 2 years later and tear my other rotator cuff at the Olympic trials. So after years of training and doing everything from Tae-Bow to Cross- fit to P 90X, I never really found anything that challenged me mentally or physically like wrestling and fighting did. Then a great friend of mine Jamie Keene introduced me to Yoga at Bella Prana.

I walked in assuming I was going to straight kill it. Boy was I wrong. Fifteen seconds into my

Read more ...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the relationship I have with my belly, and the relationship our culture has with this area of our bodies that has led me into what has often been a tumultuous relationship with this crucial part of my anatomy. Now I'll go ahead say before you get annoyed at me that I am not saying that I am fat. You could really apply much of what I am about to say to whatever body part bothers you the most. For many women it is the thighs, others the butt. Though I don't think it is quite as emotionally aggressive, men definitely suffer from this mental condition as well.

Our Western culture has ingrained in us that the state and appearance of our body parts has a direct correlation to our value or worth to others. You don't need me to tell you how; we all know

Read more ...

Student of the Month - Steven Klein

I have always been involved in athletics and weight training as long as I can remember, and fitness has always been a priority. I first practiced yoga in a studio last November in my hometown, Charlotte, NC, and I was hooked immediately. I had practiced yoga in gyms before over the years, but it just wasn’t the same. I’m not quite a year into my yoga practice, and already I couldn’t imagine my life without yoga. I’ve never had one day that I said to myself, “Gosh, I wish I wouldn’t have practiced yoga today!”

When I’m in a rut, or life throws me a “curve ball,” yoga provides a sanctuary to look within, reminding me to stop looking outside myself for answers especially during “tough” times.

When I practice yoga, I get a great

Read more ...

My Dear,

You are cordially invited to loosen up. You're invited to stop thinking that everything revolves around you. You are welcome to not take everything personally. Please join me for this one and only chance to go with the flow. You're invited to not need everyone to like you, and to speak with voice and guts that God gave you. Join us for a wild and racuous experience of imperfection. You're invited to realize that no one else is looking at that perfect curve you call a roll...but we are checking you out. Because you're invited to be seduced by your own shape and to wink back at your wrinkles. The attire asks that you wear your own skin fully, no accessories needed. No need to bring a dish, all that you could ever desire will be provided.  But please do bring a deep breath and

Read more ...

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP — ugh, the alarm sounds and I think about hitting the snooze button, sleeping just a little bit longer, skipping my early morning yoga practice today. I can do it later, I think to myself, a little more sleep will feel good. But I know I won't do it later. Once I had children, evening yoga became a thing of the past. It became too hard to leave the family at the end of the day to go to a yoga class. So, I don't hit snooze. I don't, because I remember how good I will feel after I've done my practice. It may not feel good to get up now, but I know it will be worth it later.

Many yoga texts and meditation traditions talk about the “auspicious hour,” the time right before the sun rises, as the correct time for asana (yoga postures) and meditation. I never thought

Read more ...

I have just returned from a month long teacher training at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Massachusetts.  Why at 72 years of age would I put myself through such an intense and physically exhausting experience?  Well the question really is “How could I not?”

I came to the yoga mat at 70.  As I learned to connect my mind, body and spirit a miracle occurred.  The bulimia that had been my constant companion for 55 years, the eating disorder  that had seen me hospitalized 3 times in my life, that ruined my teeth and my self esteem disappeared!!  This shameful addiction ruled me no more…I was free. I learned to love my body and brought myself to the yoga mat over and over to continue to breathe life into my spirit.

Now as I am in my 72nd year I am driven to share the

Read more ...

Focusing on one task at a time allows us to be present. Doing more than one thing at a time divides our attention. When we read and eat at the same time, for example, part of our mind is on what we are reading and part on what we are eating;we are not getting the most from either activity. 

Similarly, when we practice yoga and our focus travels from our mat to our work, then to dinner, then to a conversation we had last week, then to a phone call we are planning,etc., etc., we certainly are not getting the most out of our yoga practice, nor are we giving adequate attention to the other things we are thinking of. 

While many people focus on the physical aspects of yoga, the psychological aspects run even deeper and offer a richness and benefit  that can be even more rewarding than bodily

Read more ...

If you didn’t already know…hot yoga and Bikram yoga are two very different practices.

Hot yoga is a version of Hatha yoga or “Power Yoga” performed in a room that is between 95-100 degrees at humidity between 50% to 80% where the teacher is free to place their own spin on each class. Like many Flow Yoga classes, Hot Yoga is a fusion or combination of many different styles of yoga that is typically unique to each specific teacher and different from class to class.

Bikram yoga was created in 1974 by Bikram Choudhury. Each class is 90 minutes in length and is comprised of a series of 26 postures (asana) and 2 breathing exercises. The room is 105 degrees at 40% humidity. Bikram yoga seeks to replicate yogic conditions in India which are believed to purify and detox the body, aka

Read more ...

I had the chance to talk to a Buddhist Monk about some things that had been bothering me lately. He listened patiently for five minutes of rambling and finally said "You are suffering because you want something to be different than it is...that's all." Now you feel combative when you argue with a monk but I found myself thinking "Yeah but it would be crazy to want something sad or unfair to happen". He only repeated back to me "You are suffering because you want something to be different than it is". As I thought more about this, or more accurately, as I wrestled with idea I was reminded that this suffering he spoke of always boils down to the meanings I am placing on things. Whether or not something is good or bad has everything to do with my definition of good or bad, that situations

Read more ...

Yoga instructors, and other teachers ‘on the path’ are, dare I suggest, attached to the ever-popular concept of ‘mindfulness,’ or, ‘mindful awareness.’ We often rely on the assumption that students will know what we mean when we toss around these words, and be able to access this state on command.  The truth is, the Buddha was advocating for mindful awareness, long before Eckhart Tolle or your favorite yoga instructor, though it is only in recent years that the mindful awareness fad is beginning to show up in unlikely places, like corporate workplace wellness programs, for example.  If you ask me, it’s never too late for the mindful awareness phenomenon to work it’s way into the busy, often chaotic lives of modern, mainstream America, and it is certainly a welcome option

Read more ...

Happy Hour Help: Top 6 tips for a Successful and Healthy Happy Hour

Picture this: You sit down to happy hour at your favorite restaurant and a friend to your right orders:  “To start, I’ll have the mixed veggies. To drink: a sparkling water with a splash of low sugar cranberry juice and a lime…”  Said no one at Happy Hour EVER!  Even if these items were on a happy hour menu, who would actually order them?  They would subject themselves to a disappointing happy hour and extensive reticule by colleagues and friends.  No question, it is difficult to eat healthfully at happy hour while you're ready to blow off steam from a stressful work week.  But it is doable. Here are my top 6 tips for a successful happy hour!  These tips will allow you to continue your healthy lifestyle

Read more ...

When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace.  ~Author Unknown

When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady.  But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life.  Therefore, one should learn to control the breath.  ~Svatmarama, Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Inhale, and God approaches you.  Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you.  Exhale, and you approach God.  Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.  ~Krishnamacharya

A healthy mind has an easy breath.  ~Author Unknown

If you woke up breathing, congratulations!  You have another chance.  ~Andrea Boydston

Breathing is the greatest pleasure in life.  ~Giovanni Papini

Smile, breathe and go slowly.  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Breath is Spirit.  The act of breathing is Living.  ~Author

Read more ...

Quotes by Wayne Dyer from Roni's Class:

A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe.

We don't attract what we want, we attract what we are. What we all are is the beliefs we have about ourselves, and what we are capable of.

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.

Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.

Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also

Read more ...

Recently, at the start of a yoga class, the instructor guided the room to set an intention or think of a mantra for our practice. Naturally, my mind went blank. How often does that happen? Wanting to get more than just the physical benefits of yoga, I started to research and reflect on the importance of what yoga can do for the mind and spirit. The catalyst for this was a quote that I found by Amy Ippoliti, a yoga teacher in Colorado, that said, “yoga actually is the process of skillfully turning challenges, failures, hurts and mistakes into opportunities.” This perspective inspired me to contemplate my own obstacles and the ways in which I approach them. Through this reflection, I honed in on my strengths and weaknesses and the ways in which yoga continues to guide me towards a

Read more ...

Today's class is called "It's not All About Me!" and I wanted to talk about an idea that changes my life when I remember it. That is that there are as many realities as there are people on the planet. We each live in our own special world with our own special definitions and our own ten commandments of what is important and what isn't. We make everything about ourselves, not always because we are egoic, but because we believe that everyone else is living in the same reality. It isn't necessarily selfish, its just an uninformed, unconscious way of living. Here's the truth: no one cares about you, they care about themselves. Harsh but true. Every conversation you have you're thinking that you are teaching someone something and they're just wondering how what your saying applies them. So

Read more ...

Most of us found yoga as stressed out and tired adults, seeking a way to calm our busy minds and find peace in an otherwise non-stop world. For me, I found yoga as a college graduate - completely frazzled, trying to find a job and worried about everything. Yoga helped me manage a chaotic life and learn to breathe.

As I grew stronger in my practice I would always wonder, what if I had found yoga as a child or a teen? Would I have been more relaxed and focused? Would I have learned to manage stress and make better choices as I was presented with the challenges of growing up? While I don’t know for sure, my gut tells me that having the practice and teachings of yoga as a child would have been very beneficial, especially in today’s world.

The latest generation of children and young

Read more ...

As we start a fresh new year, this is the time everyone talks about new years resolutions and planting seeds of intention.  Sometimes what we want to manifest is extremely apparent and other times we have to search for our seed.  We may look for signs to guide us and then question the signals received.

The other night I had a sign that left little room for questioning.  As I was sleeping, I felt two hands shake my shoulders and yell “WAKE UP”.  I did just that – jolted awake.  After I found all peaceful and quiet with everyone in the house, I was left to wonder where in my life I had been coasting along.  I decided this must be my intention for 2012 – Wake up!  Areas where I have been stagnant and stuck signaled that it was time to wake up and be bright!  Words that have

Read more ...

"You don't have to have a lover, to have love in your life." - Jenny McCarthy

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around." -Hugh Grant, Love Actually

“Sometimes

Read more ...

"At some point, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you. Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well – that would be the end of the universe. But....try dropping it. Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid-flight, after all. The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood. Life continues to go on. Why are you so sure that your micromanagement of every moment in this whole world is so essential? Why don’t you let it be?"
- Elizabeth Gilbert

Sometimes we have to

Read more ...

I have come to understand more and more that beauty is an experience that we have not a sight we see. Below are the quotes used during Roni's classes on the idea of Beauty:

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” - Elisabeth Kubler

“Pretty is something you're born with. But beautiful, that's an equal opportunity adjective.” - Unknown

"No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.” - Oscar Wilde

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart” - Helen Keller

“I pull you from your tower, take away your pain. Show you all the beauty you possess,

Read more ...

"Silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation."

"I have lived on the lip
of insanity, wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door. It opens.
I've been knocking from the inside."

"In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves."

"You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?"

"What you seek is seeking you."

"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy."

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?"

"Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

"My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up

Read more ...

Eckhart Tolle wrote “Evolve or Die”. During a trying time in my life I had those words hanging in my room. That sentence resonated with me on every level. I literally felt that things either had to change or things were going to end. The other quote that hung on my wall said “The recognition of insanity is the beginning of sanity”. To me this meant that I didn’t have to try to tackle my whole life and everything about myself I wanted to be better. At that moment all I was able to do was call the crazy crazy every time it popped up. Over and over in my mind I met my own thoughts and said “you’re not true”. We have all had that moment, at the end of a job or a relationship where we sat there and thought “Well I can’t keep feeling like this, something has to

Read more ...

Tricia Schuster is a Bella Prana student and the creator of the Zirit Lifestyle! What is zirit? In short it is the combination of "Zany" and "Spirit", two things we must have at all times to foster true joy. She has now created a blog on www.zirit.com where you can read more about the zirit philosophy, and read more about her inspiring and fun way of looking at life. To the right you will see Tricia front and center with other Bella Prana students who turned a night in Ybor into a zirit moment!

Below is her most recent blog post:

"I am not the abnoxious-yoga-pusher even though I know you are all saying to yourself “if I have to hear about Tricia’s yoga classes one more time I think I might vomit”..and I am not my compulsion of plucking stray hairs..I am not my rollerblading

Read more ...

Excerpt from Interview with Roni Sloman:

"This is what I would like to tell Christians. The evidence of the physical postures of Yoga is as much as 5,000 years old. It pre-dates the major religions. The people of India just happened to be the ones who took this practice and dedicated themselves to perfecting it. Because of its overwhelming effects on the strength of their bodies and the balance of their minds they naturally incorporated it into their lives. It is not a religion, it is a practice that science supports to be one of the most beneficial things you can for your body. The life principles that accompany yoga are also not a religion, but a way of living. Can it be a religion? Sure. Anything can be a religion. When I read the Yoga Sutras, the principles set out for a

Read more ...

I became a Christian at the age of 15, a transformation that you never would have expected had you known me as a child. I remember standing in religion class with my little finger in the air telling the Priest that people just needed to something to believe but that didn’t make it true. And then the shift…I won’t go into the details, mostly because I don’t understand them myself. But on December 31^st 1993 something changed and all the sudden the idea of a God made all the sense in the world. I remember saying to him “I’m gunna give this thing a shot, but if you don’t show up, then neither will I.” It’s 15 years later and I can tell you, he showed up. The problem with my search was that I was looking for answers, to understand God, to be able to answer questions clearly

Read more ...