healing

During the month of May we celebrate Mother’s Day. It is a time when we honor our biological, adopted and surrogate mothers. It is a time when we remember the incredible and awesome nature of the “mother spirit.” Whether it is in the animal kingdom or the family of human beings, most mothers are fierce protectors of their young. They intuitively know when something is happening with their child. I was always amazed when my mother tuned right into me. This wasn’t always good news for me, but it most certainly reminded me that we were connected in an extraordinary way.

Yogi Darren Main asks yoga teachers to reflect on the ethics of being a yoga teacher. Main views ethics as a foundational necessity for any yoga teacher so that they can create a safe space for students to flourish and grow. He believes teachers must root themselves in the Yamas and the Niyamas in order to be a good example for students both on and off the mat.

I took a lot of the summer off to rest and rejuvenate. It was a really powerful time for me and I used it to contemplate and reflect on many areas of my life. It is very interesting to me that when we slow down, the opportunity to witness our thoughts and behaviors amplifies.

One of the things that I noticed is that there are times when I will resist something or someone only to discover that the event or person is bringing me an amazing and unexpected gift. I paused and asked myself to explore the habit of resistance. It’s a habit I often see in my clients, so we work on dismantling the need to resist without reason. And then, here I am, watching the same behavior in myself. (We never really arrive, do we?!)

Tommy Rosen is a California-based yoga teacher specializing in yoga for addiction and recovery. He has been on the path of sobriety for more than 20 years now, and he has found that the most powerful tools in healing from addiction are a combination of yoga, meditation and the 12-step recovery program. His biggest take-away for addicts is to reach out to their communities, as he believes that collaboration is the best method for healing. To learn more, visit TommyRosen.com.

Sound can be used for good, and sound can be used for ill, says Suzanne Sterling, a performing artist known for her joyful chanting at yoga festivals and other gatherings around the world. (Some examples of using sound for good are sonograms or sound waves being used to destroy tumors.) You can harness the power of sound to create healing inside the body. To do that, Sterling says, you must learn to keep sound within the body — to turn your body into a cathedral that resonates harmonic, restorative health.

I want to start this conversation by making the point that I am extremely grateful for the time in which I live. I love information and the many ways that we can access this information.

However, I do want to talk about a question that has been on my mind for some time: As a culture, are we addicted to technology?

Last month, I spoke about the process of my expansion into a new arena of leadership and transformation as I hosted a teleseries for people around the world. Well, the Venus Transit event was June 5, 2012, and it was extraordinarily successful.

Powerful teachers gave their time and talents to support people in stepping through this once-in-a-lifetime portal to experience healing and growth. More than 7,800 people around the globe registered, and a powerful community was created. Participants accessed the call via the Internet and phone for three hours of intentional creation. I want to stop here and say that my team — Lisa Livingstone and Jean Hendry — brought skill, care and excellence to this process in powerful ways. We were all on a steep learning curve and still managed to find the humor and joy in the midst of many unanswered questions.

I am telling you all of this to let you know what happened next. The day after the call, we began to prepare for the Venus Transit University sessions that began on June 11th and continue through the beginning of July. As the conversations moved and tasks were undertaken, I had a thought: “Are you savoring the accomplishment?”

I had to pause and really take in what that meant.

We often find ourselves “asking” for expansion. We ask for expansion into a more powerful way of living and being; expansion in our thinking; expansion in our abundance and affluence; expansion in our relationships. The interesting thing to me is that when we are in a space of desiring expansion, we don’t often consider the totality of what that means.

If hope were a season, it would be Spring. Flowers are budding, bees are buzzing, trees are leafing and birds are building nests. Life picks up its paintbrush and makes a splash across Nature’s canvas. Its message:

“No matter where you are today,

Something new is on its way.”

While Spring gives evidence in the world around us, life flows just as hopefully within us. We usually relate to our physical world as solid and fixed. But it is not — it is alive, active and changing at every level, seen and unseen. Science now demonstrates that everything is energy, particles dancing with each other all the time. And I have learned this lesson in my bones.

One afternoon three years ago, in the fullness of Spring, I went out to buy groceries, stepped up onto a sidewalk and fell. I did not take another step for four months. Unable to stand, as I waited on the curb for the ambulance, I kept my mind focused on the desirable outcome. But I knew the truth. Even in those first five minutes, something in me responded, “Okay. If this is what’s next, let’s go.”

Hope.

Sometimes I sit. I sit through the storm and I shake and I wonder if the

Winds will blow me away. I wonder if I can endure the violence, the rage,

The anger. I forget what it was like to feel safe and be at peace, to live in