What Would Bruce Springsteen Do?

I just heard Bruce Springsteen say something that stopped me in my tracks. He said:

“… the price we pay as a society for our toxic individualism and patriarchy is our permanent estrangement from one another. If I can’t connect to you, I can’t connect to us. Whether it’s racism, class differences, or any of myriad other social plagues, its cost is always the same: a broken and dysfunctional system that prevents us from recognizing and caring for our neighbor with a flawed but full heart.”

Heart, brimming. Mind, blown.

No wonder they call him The Boss. 

So, allow me to put this into a little bit greater context.

The essence of any practice is interpersonal work. I relate to the wise words of one of my most influential teachers Judeth Hanson Lasater who said, “All my gurus share my last name.”

In other words, there’s positively no greater laboratory than intimate and personal relationships to do the arduous but joyful work of transforming into who we are destined to become. 

To that end, my wife and I love to read or listen to books that help us to stretch into the people and the couple that we are destined to be. Currently we are reading the book US by Terry Real. It’s about evolving past a you-and-me kind of mentality into a deeper relationship that builds an “US.” This has immense personal benefit as well as benefit for any couple. 

I have found Terry Real’s other stuff astoundingly insightful and directly applicable and even just a few chapters in, I would recommend US to anyone interested in uncovering then working through the unconscious programming we acquire as kids and perpetuate forward into our current relationships and to our own communities, partners, and kids, often with difficult or disastrous results for ourselves and our nearest and dearest. This book is designed to help us confront, then move past, our old ghosts, break the cycle of negative coping behaviors, and finally start acting like functional and emotionally healthy adults for feck sake!

One of the reasons this idea of US impressed me so much is because, kinda what The Boss was saying in not so many words, is that as we learn to see ourselves as an “US” in our most personal relationships, by extension we simultaneously discover how humanity is an “US.” 

Learning this lesson is how the world transforms from the you vs me mentality, through the you and me mentality, into the apotheosis of human relationship which is the US reality. “US” is Oneness. Doing so heals us from the natural but terminal human malady of the illusion of separateness. Doing so wakes us up to the truth of what I call our Both And Nature: I am you and me AND everything else. 

Cool. What does this have to do with The Boss?

Well, I love The Boss, the one and only Bruce Springsteen. So, what could be better than an incredible book like US than US with a forward written by the one and only Bruce Springsteen? That’s right. Perhaps the thing I love most about Bruce is his powerful and well-crafted lyrics. It’s no surprise, then, that his forward to this powerful book is also well-crafted and powerful. 

I was recently at the gym listening to this book and Bruce’s words popped into my AirPods and completely arrested me, leaving me standing there looking vacantly into my gym locker. As people were pumping iron all around me my mind was pumping the simple thought, “This is incredible! I gotta share this with everyone I know.”

And so I am taking the liberty of sharing this with you. Here is the forward in its entirety which I found on Oprah’s website: 

By my early thirties, I’d become aware enough to know, as things stood, I’d never have the things I wanted. A full life, a home, a wholeness of being, a companion, and a place in a community of neighbors and friends all seemed beyond my grasp. I didn’t have the judgment, the courage, or the skills to bring a real life to fruition. I was one of the most successful musicians on the planet, but work is work, life is life, and they are not the same. Even more frustrating, the things that made me good at my job—my easy tolerance, even hunger, for the isolation of creativity, my ability to comfortably and deeply reside within myself and put all my energy into my work for days, weeks, years at a time—doomed my personal life to failure. I lived a lonely but seemingly secure existence. Then at thirty-two I hit an emotional wall and realized I was lost in a deep dark forest, largely of my own making, without a map. So began forty years of trying to find my way through the shadowed trees, down to the river of a sustaining life.

With help I realized, in early middle age, that I was subject to a legacy that had been passed down from generations in my Italian-Irish family. A long and stubborn stream of mental illness and dysfunction manifested itself in my life as a deep, recurring depression and an emotional paralysis. I had a fear of exposing my inner life to anyone besides twenty thousand complete strangers at your nearest arena. The eye-to-eye democracy of real adult love struck fear and insecurity deep in my heart. Meanwhile I could feel my life clock ticking on the things I wanted to do and what I wanted to become.

So how do you transform that legacy? How do you break the chain of trauma and illness whose price is compounded with each successive generation? As Terry says, “Family pathology is like a fire in the woods taking down all in front of it until someone turns to face the flames.” Slowly I began to face those flames, mainly because I couldn’t stand the idea of failing my own children, my family, in the manner that I felt I’d been failed. And at the end of the day, the way we honor our parents and their efforts is by carrying on their blessings and doing our best to not pass forward their troubles, their faults, to our own children. Our children’s sins should be their own. It’s only through the hard work of transformation do those of ours who have come before cease to be the ghosts that haunt us and transform into the ancestors we need and love to walk beside us. Working even a small piece of this into my life took a long time, and I’m still a daily work in progress. My children will have plenty of work to do on their own, but we all have to learn and earn our own adulthood.

Looking more broadly, the price we pay as a society for our toxic individualism and patriarchy is our permanent estrangement from one another. If I can’t connect to you, I can’t connect to us. Whether it’s racism, class differences, or any of myriad other social plagues, its cost is always the same: a broken and dysfunctional system that prevents us from recognizing and caring for our neighbor with a flawed but full heart. Terry’s writing is loving and kind, clever and strong, and he’s written a beautiful and important book, particularly for the moment we are in. It helps lead the way to a more powerful and noble society based on the tenets of love, justice, and respect. He has laid out a process by which we can begin to understand our place in our own families and our society. I’ve worked hard, and I’ve been lucky. Over the years I’ve found some very good guides through that dark forest and down to that river of life. For my wife, Patti, and me, Terrence Real has been one of those guides, and this book is a map through those trees.

Be safe and journey forward, Bruce Springsteen

What a Boss!

If you do decide to buy this book, and I hope you do, might I suggest buying it from your local bookseller? There’s something special about books and actual bookstores and I believe that the people running them are like literary angels. Here’s my favorite local bookseller in Salt Lake City who would love your business and no, I’m not endorsed by them in any way. I just like to celebrate awesomeness. 

And just like I celebrate the awesomeness of The Boss, Terry Real, and great books like US and places that sell books, I also celebrate YOUR awesomeness. But you rising up to your potential isn’t just awesome, like let’s give each other a high five and say good job thinking our job is done so we go on our individual way thinking, “I’mna go make myself an ‘I’m Awesome’ tee shirt,” kind of awesome. It’s awesome cuz you becoming your best is what saves the world. It’s true. Regardless of whether or not we have met in person, I believe in you and the amazing potential you have inside to change the world. I know that as you continue to grow into the kind of awesome that you are meant to be, the world will be a better place for it. Changing the world starts with you inching your way toward your best self.

And yes, as humans are all fatally flawed, but like The Boss says, you learning how to accept and navigate your brokenness is the first step to “recognizing and caring for our neighbor with a flawed but full heart.” 

And as soon as we transform into an “US,” we discover that just like Alice Walker said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Truly an “US” is what we’ve been waiting for. 

My favorite way of practicing the “US” reality is through the transformational practice of Yoga Nidra. Please consider joining my next Yoga Nidra immersion and teacher training happening August 15–28, 2022 where we learn to master the art of facilitating this practice of our Both And Nature, this “US” reality, which is necessary for this world to survive and then to thrive.

My prayer is that we all continue being “a boss” in all that we positively benefit the world and that as we do so, we all wake up to this “US” reality that saves ourselves, our families, our communities, and the world. 

A Vision of Gratitude

My family and I are living in France but are gearing up to have an expat Thanksgiving. I’ve been thinking of a few very important Thanksgivings for me as well as the importance of gratitude and feel that this email is kind of important, one that points to the essential spiritual practice of gratitude.

The first Thanksgiving I want to tell you about is when in 2002 I’d just arrived in Korea with a 1-year contract to teach English. The school was composed of both native Korean teachers as well as native English-speaking teachers from many different countries around the world. Though there were only a handful of American teachers, the owner of the school thought it would be a great bonding experience for all the teachers despite their nationality to come together and celebrate Thanksgiving.

The biggest problem was that Koreans don’t eat turkey— don’t even know what it is, really. But, thanks to a large US military base stationed in Seoul, about 2.5 hours away by train, nothing was out of reach … if you were willing to pay for it (read black market). One of the teachers of the school grew up in a military family and was no stranger to the black markets that often surrounded military operations.

A full-day’s journey and several hundred dollars later, he arrived back to the school with a mostly-frozen turkey. One problem remained: nobody had cooked a turkey before and given the cost of money and time, everyone was paranoid that they’d mess up the turkey. I volunteered.

I researched the many different ways that one can cook a turkey and chose a way that I hope would produce a nice bird. The pressure was on but I cooked it and it turned out wonderful and nobody got food poisoning. Despite how perfectly cooked the bird was, Turkey didn’t translate for the Korean teachers who passed with a hard “no.” The English-speaking teachers couldn’t understand the roasted silkworm larvae, the fermented soybean paste, and the cornucopia of squid presented in every form imaginable (and many unimaginable.) Everyone found common ground on the roasted veg, the rolls, and the desserts (despite how sickly sweet they were). I’ll never forget that Thanksgiving.

Another Thanksgiving I’ll never forget was last year, 2020 in Utah. After what had already been one helluva year with the pandemic, around the beginning of November, my mom began in-house hospice as the result of run-away cancer which started in her colon and had eventually riddled her body.

By Thanksgiving, she hadn’t left her bed in a week and hadn’t eaten in several days. In my family, my mom is the Queenpin of Thanksgiving so without her at the helm, the crew was going to have to steer that ship. My brother did most of the cooking but Sen and I stepped in as well; I was in charge of making mom’s famous rolls, a crucial and beloved element of our Thanksgiving dinner which, I must say, turned out beautifully.

The meal was a very special and tender-hearted affair—small and meaningful with only 6 of us, those who were closest to my mom, gathered around the table with my mom on a respirator in the other room. And though my mom wasn’t conscious and couldn’t join us at the table nor eat, it was nonetheless heartwarming to know that she was with us for this last Thanksgiving. My mom died two days later.

A few weeks later, I had something like a dream about my mom. Actually it felt so much more meaningful than an ordinary dream that I can’t help but call it a vision. In my vision, my family and I were sitting at something like a meeting in church and my mom was at the pulpit looking happy, well, and absolutely radiant. She was dressed in a beautiful emerald green skirt and jacket, the color of hope, renewal, and rebirth. She was speaking to all of her beloved family and friends in the audience with genuine joy. “I’m just so grateful. I’m just so grateful,” she repeated over and over again with absolute sincerity. This was her only message. Around her were a small band of Native American shamans who were chanting and drumming, building in an incredible crescendo. At their apex, my mother suddenly burst into flames. She didn’t catch fire but rather became transformed into flames—a phoenix reborn through fire. Everyone in the audience was taken aback with shock, everyone except the shamans who seemed to know exactly what would happen and who simply continued their rite of drumming and chanting.

As we prep for Thanksgiving, the bitter-sweetness of last year lingers; it is difficult to be without her. Still, her gift of gratitude survives her. Truly, my work, both vocationally as well as my personally, is one where I get to explore that eternal part inside of each of us that never dies. I believe that what my mom was telling me in my vision is that an eternal element that links us all together is gratitude. Surely gratitude is one of the greatest practices one can practice in this lifetime.

This year, we are living in Nice, France and we get to spend this Thanksgiving with adopted family. Nana Chris is also from the US and is the mother of one of my yoga students and dear friend from Utah. Nana Chris happened to be living in Nice the first time we came here to live around this time in 2018. Having never met us previously, she showed up to an introductory lunch at one of her favorite restaurants with a large bag full of gifts for us and our little Elio, and took no time to adopt us as her family. It was so nice to have someone we could relate to while we were being brand new in France, our first time living here as a family.

Being back in Nice, we are so grateful for her and are looking forward to a very French Thanksgiving with her. We couldn’t get a turkey this year so instead Chris’ butcher, Demian (she’s on a first-name basis with all of the shops in her neighborhood) has ordered us a very special and particular French chicken. We’ll also be serving and making stuffing from what we consider the best damn baguette in the known world. In fact, when I told the man at the boulangerie that this was the best baguette I’ve ever eaten, he blew off the statement as if it were already a proven fact. I may as well have told him that they have discovered that the earth is in fact round. Instead of pies, we will be buying some truly exquisite French pastries. We also bought a beautiful bottle of wine to share. Adopted food, country, and family will certainly be the theme to this year’s Thanksgiving.

Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Regardless, do you have any very special holidays you can remember? Regardless of whatever holiday you celebrate, what I think is a more important question is what are YOU grateful for? If you’ll permit me, I’ll start …(a-hem).

I’m so grateful for my love, my partner, my muse, the Goddess who is my wife, Seneca. We are great partners and she supports me, loves me, and helps me grow in every way. I’m so grateful for her vision and sense of adventure. I’m also infinitely grateful to be the papa to little Elio and the stepdad to our older son Liam (1st grade and grad school, respectively).

I’m immensely grateful for loving and supportive family members, including parents, siblings and truly fantastic in-laws. I’m grateful for friends, many of whom are the kind of family you get to choose rather than what you’re born or married into.

I’m grateful for YOU! I love to have a job that connects me with you, wherever you are living on this globe. Truly we are connected in small and large ways through the inimitable practice of sharing ideas, life, and spirit. Thank you for who you are to make this world a better place and for your connection, kindness, and support to me.

I’m grateful for a career where I get to share my ideas and share spirit in a way that I hope makes a difference in the world by helping people to become their best person. I’m grateful that my career helps me as much as anyone else by driving me along my own path toward self-understanding.

I’m grateful to be able to travel, to be living in France (a country I adore), and for the opportunity to learn more about what I find to be a fascinating culture and a beautiful language.

Drop me a line, I’d love to hear about your memorable celebrations as well as whatever you are most grateful for at this moment.

May gratitude be among our essential spiritual practices as we work our way through the fierce heat of living and may we all transform into the angels of love we are destined to be.

PS

Also, this weekend I’ll be hosting my most requested Yoga Nidra workshop: Teaching Yoga Nidra Dyads. A Yoga Nidra dyad is a transformational, 1:1 Yoga Nidra experience where a facilitator leads a practitioner through deepening layers of relaxed Awareness via a mindful dialogue which helps the practitioner illuminate their greatest Awareness. This unique form of guided meditation is a very powerful method to work 1:1 with your clients. It can also help with healing in body, mind and spirit, and can offer clarion insight into one’s purpose and the very nature of their being. This will be hosted via Zoom and recorded so you can either join live (and even practice with other participants) and/or watch the replay. Please join me! Counts as Yoga Alliance continuing education credit.

I’d like to remind you that today, I’ll be a part of a free open mic meditation session via Zoom where I, along with a few other meditation teachers, will offer some wonderful and calming guided meditations. This will be happening from 8–9 pm GMT (3 pm Eastern, 2 pm Central, 1 pm Mountain, and 12 pm Pacific). The event is hosted by meditationcourses.co.uk and while it’s free, you will need to reserve a ticket. No matter where you are in the world, you can join from the comfort of your own home.

A Selfie With The Most Famous Woman In History

I’m really excited because France has finally opened up to tourism again and in about a week I’ll be heading to France to lead a much-awaited retreat at an unforgettable château in the rolling and bucolic hills of Bordeaux. Before arriving in Bordeaux, I’m also leading a “pre-treat” to Paris where I’ll personally guide guests for three days of walking tours around some of my favorite quaint Parisian neighborhoods, with perhaps some impromptu yoga on the lush lawns of the Tuileries Gardens. 

My intention for this entire retreat is to practice several days of regular, deep presence and thereby truly uncover the secret to savoring life. I proffer that presence is the pre-qualifier for pleasure. Without presence, you could be standing in front of the Mona Lisa or being served an exquisite French meal and the experience would totally be lost on you. But, with presence, even the most mundane bowl of oatmeal could be a delicacy. So, why not have both: the Mona Lisa and the presence to truly appreciate it. 

Speaking of the most famous woman in the world, here’s something I wrote about my first trip to Paris where I saw the Mona Lisa for the first time and became aware of a very curious phenomenon about not actually seeing her at all. Check this out and I’d love to hear what you think…

In 2011, I was in Paris for the first time, visiting the Louvre, perhaps the finest art museum in the world. While there were many paintings I'd been waiting my entire life to see, and I know I'm cliché here, the Mona Lisa was primo on my list.

I mean almost 60 years ago, they tried to insure the Mona Lisa for 100 million dollars but had problems because many felt that the sum was much much too low, and that was 1960s dollars! Fun fact: Napoleon used to have the Mona Lisa hanging on his bedroom wall and would spend hours in rapture starting at it. 

I’d waited years to see the Mona Lisa and finally in Paris, giddy with anticipation, I made my way to the Louvre, a monstrous institution, through the Denon wing densely packed other priceless yet unnamable art, and found room #6 which houses the one and only Mona Lisa. I was dying to get a glimpse of the most (in)valuable painting in the world. At last, I turned into the room where the Mona Lisa hangs and at a distance, I could see the renaissance rockstar enshrined on her own dedicated wall, protected behind a guardrail, bulletproof glass, and flanked by two bouncers.

Suddenly, the hallowed hush of the Louvre was irreverently replaced by the din of excitable tourists. As I approached her, I was pressed in a hot vice of adoring fans, all craning to ogle the most mysterious woman on canvas. The venue felt transformed into an arena at a rock concert where I was squeezing through hordes of fans, desperately hoping to make eye contact with that infamous seductress and her inimitable half-smile. 

As I jockeyed my way forward, I began to notice something very peculiar. Nobody was even looking at the Mona Lisa. Not really. Instead, everyone was looking at the viewfinder on their smartphones, tablets, or cameras. More than taking a moment to drink in this priceless work of art, most people were worried about getting the perfect selfie with Mona in the background. 

And as I looked around at the crowd, I started to notice a distinct pattern. Many people would fire off several photos of some priceless art, including a few hundred selfies with the Mona Lisa, then without so much as a pause, they would scurry off to some other art masterpiece to do likewise. For what? So they could  brag to their friends that they were in the same room as the Mona Lisa… but never really took a second to actually see it? 

Still, I have to admit that something about this phenomenon is natural human behavior. Hasn’t everyone been guilty of experiencing something extraordinary—a resplendent sunset, an aromatic cup of coffee, or a masterpiece like the Mona Lisa—and we’re afraid the moment will end, so we try to capture it with a photo because doing so and posting it to social media will somehow make it permanent, right?

And have you ever tried to show some innocent, unsuspecting person the photos of that moment? It goes like this, “Here’s the great hotel I stayed at, only it’s so much nicer than the photo suggests, you should really see it. Oh, and here’s the most amazing latté I had at the perfect café, but you had to be there, this photo doesn’t do it justice. Here’s the Mona Lisa but she’s much smaller than you’d expect. . . ” 

This is when you look up to see your friend’s eyes gloss over or start to check their watch. The photos don’t translate because the optics of the picture represents only the smallest part of what you hopefully experienced in the moment. Or which perhaps you didn’t experience . . .

Ironically, trying to capture any moment prevents you from actually having it in the first place. It’s because you’re thinking about the future you want to create around the object rather than experiencing it in the present. To really experience any moment requires practiced presence with all of your senses. Your senses are an incredible tool for presence. 

Without being present to the experience, when you’re back at home, looking at your dozen or so selfies with the Mona Lisa, you’ll have no connection to that moment. The photos will mean about as much to you as they would to your friend whom you abused with photos of your latté. The photos won’t recall an experience you thought you had because you never really had the experience to begin with. 

And this is getting a little Zen here, but since our identity is the product of our ability to pay attention, if you weren’t present with all of your senses, there was really no “you” to have the experience in the first place. 

I’m just as guilty as the next guy of trying to capture the moment with a photo. But by bringing my unconscious actions to consciousness, I can deliberately make a choice to do something different. 

So never take photos of amazing things, right? Never post anything on social media? No, let’s not be luddites. But maybe try having the moment first, then if you want to, take a photo to remember a moment you truly experienced. 

And sometimes, try allowing yourself to simply experience a moment without a camera. Soak it up and be 100% there by consciously involving all of your senses, raw and unfiltered. 

Before there were cameras or smartphones, people had to use memories to recall experiences. Go old-school and create a real mental repository of experienced events. What did the light look like in the gallery? What does the smell of paint on canvas evoke to your imagination? What sounds did you hear in the gallery? What were the textures and temperatures you felt on your skin? How did it taste? And remember that if you try to taste the Mona Lisa you better be prepared to lose a tongue.

I realize that it’s a little glib to simply say , “be present.” But practices like yoga and meditation help us to establish presence as our default when we are having any experience, whether mundane or extraordinary. And with presence, even an otherwise mundane experience can prove to be extraordinary once your senses come alive.

Without presence, even the miraculous or priceless moments (read experiencing the Mona Lisa) will pass you by without leaving an impression. I'm thinking about those simple but perfect moments like hanging with our kids, focusing on good work, or experiencing live music, dance, or poetry. To receive the gift of these moments truly requires presence. 

The immortal poet Rainer Maria Rilke speaks to being existentially destitute as the result of lack of presence in his rather stark poem, Already The Ripening Barberries Are Red.

Already the ripening barberries are red,
and the old asters hardly breathe in their beds.
Those who are not rich now as summer goes
will wait and wait and never be themselves.
Those who cannot quietly close their eyes,
certain that there is vision after vision
inside, simply waiting until nighttime
to rise all around them in the darkness
it's all over for them, they feel old and tired.
Nothing else will come;
no more days will open,
and everything that does happen
will cheat them.
Even you, my God. And you are like a stone
that draws them daily deeper into the depths.

He’s saying that without presence, without any poetic imagination for things as they are or could be, you’ll never experience the heaven which is here. Indeed, he suggests that even the notion of God offering you a future heaven is itself like a stone drawing you deeper into the depths of hell, the product of unconsciousness. 

Sometimes in a yoga class, I see the fidgets, the distant stares, and the vacancy of someone whose mind is somewhere else. It happens to all of us sometime or other. Still, I want to say, “Come back. We’ve missed you. Be here now. Be there later.”

When you sense you’re having an extraordinary moment, or hell in any moment, try closing your eyes and running through all of your senses for a minute or two. Then open your eyes and add the most dominant sense. Ask yourself, how does this make me feel? Truly involve all your senses to practice being completely present to the experience. 

This might all sound like a Mr. Miyagi mantra and probably is. But hey, that dude could break boards with his forehead so that’s gotta count for something. Plus you can’t break boards with your forehead if your head is somewhere else. 

I invite you to practice being fully present in all your experiences whether mundane or extraordinary. Be completely present by using all your senses and truly experience the moment. 

When that's done and you’ve actually stimulated the neurons enough to make a memory, then you can opt to pull out your phone and take a selfie to remember the momentous occasion. 

Drop me a line. I’d love to hear what you think about taking selfies and more importantly, the practice of being present enough to enjoy any situation. 

Live Yoga Nidra Training Starts Tomorrow!

The best courses not only give you knowledge and teach you a new skill, they also change who you are. 

Please join me for my live Yoga Nidra Training. 2 weekends: July 31–Aug. 1; Aug. 6–8, 2021 live via Zoom. Space is limited!

Yoga Nidra Is My Greatest Teacher

I’m absolutely passionate about Yoga Nidra. Yoga Nidra has taught me more about myself, the Universe, and my purpose in the world than any other practice and I can’t wait to share what I’ve learned with you. This is why I can’t wait to tell you about my live Yoga Nidra teacher training starting this weekend.

You may be reading this because like me, you’ve experienced one of the many profound benefits that Yoga Nidra can provide: deep emotional healing, body/mind/spirit wellness, unparalleled relaxation and stress reduction, and profound insight on the forever-journey toward spiritual awakening. Plus, you may want to develop the skills to teach Yoga Nidra like an expert. Or, maybe you’ve heard other’s rave about this practice and you’re curious to learn just what it is that makes Yoga Nidra so special. Either way, I’m glad you’re here, you’ve come to the right place. 

If you’ve ever thought about teaching Yoga Nidra, now is the time—the world needs it more than ever. Also, the world needs more qualified Yoga Nidra teachers, and this course is designed to teach you to become a Yoga Nidra expert, delivering this healing practice in the power of your own voice— because there’s no one who can teach like you can. 

One of the things I’ve learned about Yoga Nidra is that even though practicing it is very easy and can lead to profound transformation, being an effective Yoga Nidra facilitator can be very difficult. This is why I’ve created Facilitating Transformation with the Yoga of Sleep, an enlightening, engaging, and enjoyable Yoga Nidra teacher training where you will learn the art and science of teaching Yoga Nidra using the power of your own voice. You’ll also learn how to apply your expertise to acquire and create excellent teaching opportunities through live or online group classes, workshops, courses, private sessions, and even how to lead yoga retreats and other paid events. I’ll even teach you how to create digital products to sell and share your teaching gifts with the world. In short, you’ll learn how to make a massive impact while making a great living doing what you love. 

What’s So Great About Yoga Nidra?

Often called the “yoga of sleep,” Yoga Nidra is a several thousand years-old form of guided meditation that is uniquely designed to powerfully connect the body, mind, and spirit to wake you up to the limitless power within. Though it’s an ancient practice, Yoga Nidra couldn’t be a more relevant and potent tool to meet the complexities and demands that we face in everyday modern life.

In my 13 years of teaching Yoga Nidra, I’ve seen thousands of people benefit from this essential practice in both simple and profound ways, including:

• Optimized performance, learning, and creativity

• Diminished stress and depression

• Better sleep

• Lower blood pressure

• Improved relationships

• Pain management

• Greater sense of purpose and meaning

• Greater perspective over life’s problems

• Improved self confidence

• Powerful spiritual insight

• Managing compulsions and addictions

My Journey of Teaching Yoga Nidra

When I completed my first Yoga Nidra teacher training in 2008 and started incorporating the practices I’d learned into my yoga classes, I quickly became frustrated as a teacher because I knew how powerful Yoga Nidra could be, but it soon became clear that I wasn’t nearly as prepared to teach it in my classes as I needed. First, I couldn’t make the impact I wanted to because the scripts I was given in my training were far too general—they didn’t meet my clients’ specific needs, and I was never taught how to deliver customized Yoga Nidra. What any experienced teacher can tell you is that just like in yoga asana, one size doesn’t fit all. Second, my training didn’t teach me how to leverage my own voice, so my teaching didn’t feel authentic and my students could tell. I knew I could make the largest impact if I could teach from my own voice, experience, specialization, and interest, but I hadn’t a clue how to do this at first. Third, as much as it pains me to say this, though I’d had transformational experiences with Yoga Nidra, many of my yoga students found Yoga Nidra to be, well… too boring. They may have enjoyed it the first time, but hearing the same tired script over and over again was putting people to sleep...in the wrong way. 

But, my early struggles facilitating Yoga Nidra turned out to be an enormous gift, because it taught me that this ancient practice was in no way designed to be a rote experience. My struggles in teaching drove me to dive deeper in my studies and to practice more Yoga Nidra. And doing so, I learned volumes about the essential principles of this fascinating practice. Soon, I began incorporating these principles into my Yoga Nidra classes, now with the ability to innovate, adapt, and deliver profound Yoga Nidra experiences that were customized to my clients. My teaching became fresh, authentic, engaging, and transformational. And faster than you can say “savasana on steroids,” my Yoga Nidra classes, workshops, and courses were packed. Even my clients who were previously bored by my Yoga Nidra classes came back to stay. 

Since then, I have facilitated thousands of hours of Yoga Nidra for my clients, and this beautiful practice continues to reveal deeper and deeper transformation, both for my clients as well as myself, more than I ever realized was possible in those early days of teaching. I even discovered how teaching Yoga Nidra itself is a pathway to greater learning and spiritual awakening. 

My approach to Yoga Nidra caught the eye of other yoga teachers and it wasn’t long before I developed a novel teacher training program, where I taught that once you have a deeper understanding of what the principles and techniques of Yoga Nidra are pointing to, you can deliver them in any context for any client, using the unparalleled power of your own voice.  

Offering my Yoga Nidra teacher training program helped me to discover another passion of mine, which is helping others reveal the expert teacher that is already inside of them and empowering them to share this essential practice with the world. 

What makes this course stand out over other Yoga Nidra trainings?

To be a transformational teacher your teaching must be based on your own very personal and powerful experiences, and not simply by repeating someone else’s information. In fact, this point is so important that I’ve created this course in two distinct parts. The first part, called Waking Up with the Yoga of Sleep, exists solely to facilitate your own deep transformation through practicing Yoga Nidra. The best courses not only give you knowledge and teach you a new skill, they also change who you are. This course facilitates your own personal transformation by using Yoga Nidra to help you experience:

•  A deep personal inquiry to know your True Self

• The Universe embraces you in the fascinating dance between form and consciousness

• Mapping the beautiful illusions: Understanding the Koshas

• How everything in your life is inviting you to wake up the person you’re destined to become

• The secret power of Presence 

• Uplevelled states of consciousness leading you to uplevelled stages of consciousness

You’ll wake up to your True Self through the power of Yoga Nidra as you experience and learn about the fascinating angles of this ancient practice, such as:

• Storytelling, poetry, and the mythic landscape

• Philosophy and history of the practice

• Mantra and mindfulness practices 

• Science and psychology foundations

Then, once you’ve done a deep dive into your own soul in the first section, now knowing even better what Yoga Nidra is pointing to, the next section is dedicated to teaching you how to become an expert Yoga Nidra facilitator. Not only that but how to boldly offer this practice to the world based on your own experiences and in your own voice. You’ll learn the essential tools, principles, rudiments, and techniques that will empower you to adapt any Yoga Nidra session to meet your client’s needs. You will also learn how to improvise your own Yoga Nidra classes and write your own Yoga Nidra scripts based on your personal interests and specializations.

What you’ll get in this course unlike any other is:

• How to facilitate any Yoga Nidra class by following the The Yoga Nidra Roadmap and Yoga Nidra Dyad Roadmap

• How to create the container and hold the role of a true teacher

• The art of facilitating deep observation

• 15 essential tools necessary to master the art of facilitating Yoga Nidra

• How to be an extraordinary teacher to your students with supportive integration

Lastly, included in the second section is the crucial but seldom-taught information about how to actually be a successful yoga or Yoga Nidra teacher because knowing what to teach and being a successful teacher are very different things. As someone who has graduated hundreds of yoga and Yoga Nidra teachers, and who has been in the industry for 20 years, I see the stark—and frankly unfair— gap between new teachers and experienced teachers in their ability to generate well-paying teaching opportunities in communities, the workplace, and online. Most yoga and Yoga Nidra teacher training courses contain little or no information about how to be a successful teacher, often because the lead trainer is a “yoga rockstar” and does not teach in the community—they simply can’t relate to most of us who are out there every day teaching in our communities. Sadly, the result is that too many new teachers never get the chance to start teaching because they were never taught how to acquire good gigs. My many years in this industry has taught me how to make an excellent living teaching yoga and Yoga Nidra (I earn 6 figures a year) and I’m here to tell you that there are many more good paying Yoga Nidra opportunities than there are good teachers to teach them. I’ve designed this training to teach you the industry secrets to help you begin to earn money right away doing what you love. Allow me to debunk the myth that you have to be a “yoga rockstar'' to be a successful teacher. You don’t. 

In this course, you’ll learn exactly how to acquire and create great paying teaching opportunities, including:

• Public and online classes, workshops, and courses

• Private students and groups, including Yoga Nidra dyads

• Yoga and meditation retreats

• Teaching corporations and institutions

• Paid speaking events 

• Creating digital products creation to earn passive income

This training is an investment in your own body/mind/spirit wellness, one that will teach you to become an expert Yoga Nidra teacher, and one that will teach you how to make this training pay for itself and then continue to pay you for many years to come. 

This Is My Best Training

I’ve taught dozens of Yoga Nidra teacher training courses, both in person and online. The paradox in teaching a subject is that by teaching it you actually learn that subject deeper. Each time I’ve taught a Yoga Nidra teacher training, I receive progressively deeper insight into transformational teaching with Yoga Nidra. I’ve spent three years combining, distilling, and refining the essential tools and principles, roadmaps and methods to offer what I believe is the best Yoga Nidra teacher training course on the market, one that will teach you to become an expert Yoga Nidra facilitator much quicker than it took me. While I feel that this is my best Yoga Nidra training yet, the real proof is in the teachers that have graduated it. 

Here’s what others are saying …

“Scott’s training was an absolute joy. Not only does Scott possess a wealth of knowledge about the practice, he brings the teachings to life through his energetic presence, compelling storytelling, and heart-centered teaching. This offering is truly unique, and I’d highly recommend Scott’s guidance to anyone interested in going deeper with the incredible practice of Yoga Nidra.”

— Eden Orion, Yoga Nidra Graduate and Meditation Teacher

“I signed up for Scott Moore’s online Yoga Nidra teacher training course after discovering his scripts online and absolutely loving them. The course was very relaxing and easy to follow … I now feel much more confident in facilitating Yoga Nidra after completing this course. The price was very reasonable and Scott is SO generous, he gives us scripts to work with, meditations that I listen to daily, and online recordings for life. I now have a fantastic Yoga Nidra library to tap into whenever needed. The course itself really helped me to become connected to my inner Self and to become more fully aware of the power inside of us. Thank you Scott Moore for everything!”

—Amy Pople Yoga Nidra Graduate

“I have never met Scott [in person], yet I have found him to be one of the best instructors I have ever had. He is  knowledgeable, interesting, and kind. He also responded to all my questions in a supportive way, and just made himself available. His teaching website was easy to navigate, and he required that some beneficial work be completed by the student. Just a great program!  No wonder he was listed on the web in the top 5 Yoga Nidra Teacher Trainings.” 

—Andrea Mathwich

What’s Included In This Course

You’ll get: 

• Two illuminating weekends of Yoga Nidra wisdom, relaxation, and knowledge and practice of how to teach this transformational practice, via Zoom.

• Recordings of each session in case you have to miss a part or simply want to reference it later.  

• Full and life-time access to my online Teachable course which has all the same curriculum and more for continued and deeper study.  

• A 160-page manual for study and support

• 100 pages of Yoga Nidra scripts. These scripts will also serve as a template for you as you create your own scripts and classes.

• A 30-minute private consultation with me. 

• Dynamic, easy-to-follow lessons, practices, and assignments 

• Specialized pranayama, mindfulness, and mantra practices to help prep your for each lesson

• Specialized Yoga Nidra practices that optimize your learning (this is incredible!)

• Resources to help you plan and organize yoga and meditation retreats

• Fascinating myths and stories to illuminate the teachings

• The science and psychology of Yoga Nidra to explain why it works

• A suite of resources with dozens of supplementary Yoga Nidra recordings, PDFs, links, books, poetry, myths, articles, and more.

Check out the course modules to see everything that you will learn …  

Section1: Waking Up With The Yoga of Sleep

The first weekend will be an organized curriculum of 10 modules complete with specially-designed  and relaxing Yoga Nidra practices, fascinating lectures full of interesting stories, science, psychology and philosophy, as well as breathing and other mindfulness exercises. 

This section is about taking care of YOU and will help you wake up from the illusion of being a limited being and as you experience your life as beautiful and miraculous. This section will help you feel as if all the colors in your life have been turned up to 11.

Module 1: Begin The Journey

Start along your path as I show you the map and trails you’ll follow on the course of your Yoga Nidra adventure.

Module 2: What Is Yoga Nidra? Waking Up with the Yoga of Sleep

What is this ancient practice and how does it help you wake up?

Module 3: Yoga Nidra: An Inquiry to “Know Thyself”

Socrates will be your guide on this inner odyssey to hear the Oracle’s special message just for you.

Module 4: The Greatest Love Story of All Time: Shiva, Shakti, and YOU

You are the lovechild of consciousness and form. See how the world exists as a love note to you.

Module 5: The Koshas: Mapping the Beautiful Illusions

See the world dancing before your eyes, evoking your consciousness to wake up.

Module 6: Non-Dualism and Your Both / And Nature

Ancient myth illuminates the higher dimension of your True Being.

Module 7: The Secret to the Universe is HERE: Presence

The secret to the Universe is literally at your fingertips as you learn to practice presence.

Module 8: Stages and States of Consciousness

Upleveling your state of consciousness uplevels your stage of consciousness.

Module 9: Why Yoga Nidra Works: Science and Psychology

Take a look under the hood and learn how spirit and philosophy is supported by science and psychology.

Module 10: The Big Message & FAQ

The simple and profound truth, how Yoga Nidra applies to every-day life, and listen to me answer some common questions.

Section 2: Facilitating Transformation with the Yoga of Sleep

The second weekend will take what we’ve learned in the first weekend to apply it to learn how to facilitate this incredible practice for others. In this section you will learn how to teach Yoga Nidra like an expert in the power of your own voice using the specific tools and techniques unique to my method, how to be a successful Yoga Nidra teacher, and how to make a positive impact on the world while also making a living. 

This course has three parts, each with several modules. Each part has practices and assignments including Yoga Nidra practices, teaching assignments, and class-building assignments. 

Part 1

Module 1: Introduction and Overview

Familiarize yourself with the tools to find your voice in this practice.

Module 2: The Yoga Nidra Roadmap

Learn to read the map of an effective Yoga Nidra experience to facilitate transformation for yourself and your students.

Module 3: Creating the Container & The Role of the Teacher

Learn the subtle and essential art of set and setting for a transformational Yoga Nidra experience and understand your primary roles as a teacher.

Module 4: Facilitating Observation & the Three Heavies

Facilitate Transformation by effectively pointing to presence with 3 key objectives.

Module 5: Essential Tools Part 1

Master the tools that will help you facilitate transformation in a Yoga Nidra practice.

Module 6: Essential Tools Part 2

Master the tools that will help you facilitate transformation in a Yoga Nidra practice.

Module 7: Essential Tools Part 3

Master the tools that will help you facilitate transformation in a Yoga Nidra practice.

Module 8: 2 “Yoga Ninja” Tactics

Uncover the 2 GAME-CHANGER tactics that completely revolutionize the practice of teaching Yoga Nidra and will help you to teach like an expert almost immediately.

Module 9: Connecting The Dots—Building an Effective Yoga Nidra Class

Together we’ll work through the step-by-step process of building specialized Yoga Nidra classes for yourself and your clients.

Module 10: Yoga Nidra Dyads and Self Practice

Turn facilitating Yoga Nidra on its head and the transformational power of allowing the practitioner to direct the Yoga Nidra experience as you learn the Yoga Nidra Roadmap and the art of Facilitated Awareness.

Module 11: Accessibility and Healing with Yoga Nidra

Reveal how to make this beautiful practice available for all by eliminating discriminating language, marketing, and practices from your teaching. Discover the role of Yoga Nidra toward healing.

Module 12: Integration

Provide the essential integration tools for your student to learn to apply Yoga Nidra in their every-day life and discover the miracle of their own life.

Module 13 FAQ

Clarify any questions you may have about teaching Yoga Nidra.

Part 2: Sharing Yoga Nidra with the World

This section is dedicated to learning how to become a successful teacher. I’ll share with you the industry secrets to acquire and create well-paying online and in-person yoga opportunities, how to build interest for your classes as well as format classes, workshops, courses, and even retreats. You’ll learn how to support your students and maintain a positive teacher/student relationship. I teach you how to make an impact while also making a living. 

Module 1: Introduction

The world needs you to share this practice in only the way that YOU can.

Module 2: Developing Interest

Make your skills available to those who need it.

Module 3: Formatting Classes, Workshops, and Courses

Presentation is everything. Create an offering that will give your students what they need and keep them coming back for more.

Module 4: Virtual Offerings & Supportive Tech.

Broadcast Yoga Nidra to the world with simple and effective tools. Use the “minimum viable product” and learn to scale your offerings.

Module 5: Private Sessions

Tailor a Yoga Nidra experience to the specific needs of an individual. Intake, format, and support for private individuals and groups.

Module 6: Retreats

Learn the insider’s tips to leading retreats and provide life-time memories and transformation for your students while giving yourself a “paid vacation.”

Module 7: Supporting Your Students

Establish the learning trajectory for your students to support them along their journey.

Module 8: FAQ

Questions and insights about the course

Part 3: Finishing Up and What’s Next

Module 1: Resources and Recap Progress

This broad recap will cement the knowledge and experience into your soul to ensure your confidence in teaching right away.

Module 2: Resources Reminder

Re-familiarize yourself with the vast array of supportive resources that come with the course.

Module 3 Finish Line

The big fat message. What it all means. What’s possible.

Module 4: Graduation Requirements

Prepare for your graduation: assignments, requirements, and certification.

Part 4: Building Your Mechanism of Influence

Module 1: Make and Impact and Make a Living

5 simple, actionable tools to help you make an Impact and also make a living doing what you love to do.

Resources Included in This Yoga Nidra TeacherTraining

Audio Recordings: 

• Dozens of Yoga Nidra recordings 

• Mantras

• Pranayama practices

• Mindfulness practices

Gentle Yoga Practices (Videos)

• Restore Yoga Full Practice

• Short Prep-For Nidra Gentle Practice

PDFs

• 160-page manual

• 100 pages of Yoga Nidra scripts

• Yoga Nidra Class Building Worksheet 

• The Yoga Nidra and Yoga Nidra Dyad Roadmaps

• Prop Setup 

• Yoga Retreat Locations 

• List of Koshas

• Yoga Nidra Prop Set UP

• Yoga Nidra Door Hanger

• Pranayama Practices

• Mindfulness Practices

• Chakras

• List of poems used in the training

• Essential links to books, websites, articles, podcasts, and interviews

I’m very proud of this Yoga Nidra teacher training, it’s my best work yet. 

There is nobody like you and your skills, talents, and personality have the power to impact certain students in only the way that you can. The world is waking up and in the process, we all desperately need effective Yoga Nidra teachers to transform us into what we may become. 

People are waiting for you to step up to your higher Self, to become an expert Yoga Nidra teacher, and to facilitate transformation in only the way you can. This is the course to help you find your voice and share this transformational practice with the world. 

Space is limited so that I can offer the best and most supportive environment for each student. Plus, this is the last live course that I’ll offer this year. 

Will you join me?

About Your Instructor

Scott Moore is a senior teacher of yoga and mindfulness in the US. He’s taught classes, trainings and workshops in New York, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and L.A. as well as in Europe and Asia. Scott is the author of Practical Yoga Nidra: The 10-Step Method to Reduce Stress, Improve Sleep, and Restore Your Spirit. When he's not teaching or conducting retreats, he loves to write for print and online publications such as Yogi Times, Conscious Life News, Elephant Journal, Mantra Magazine, Medium, and his own blog at scottmooreyoga.com. Scott also loves to run, play the saxophone, and travel with his wife and son. Check out his yoga retreats and trainings in places like Tuscany, France, and Hong Kong , his online Yoga Nidra Course and his Yoga Teacher Mentor Program. Scott is currently living in Barcelona, Spain with his family.

What They Didn't Teach You in Your Teacher Training

I’m gearing up to teach my Yoga Nidra teacher training which kicks off this weekend. One of the things you’ll learn is something that other programs purposely don’t teach you. What I include in my curriculum is not only how to teach effectively and from the power of your own voice, but also how to make a great living as a teacher, because knowing what to teach and being a successful teacher are very different things. I’ll teach how to become a successful teacher. 

Let me share with you an unfortunate truth about the yoga industry. Most yoga and Yoga Nidra teacher training courses contain little or no information about how to be a successful teacher, often because the lead trainer is a “yoga rockstar” and does not teach in the community—they simply can’t relate to most of us who are out there every day teaching in our communities. What’s worse is that many teachers directing teacher trainings don’t want their teachers to know this stuff for fear of having to compete with their students for gigs. They don’t give their teachers in training the information to succeed as teachers which seems to imply that if you know how to lead sun salutations, ujjayi breath, and have the right intentions, good yoga gigs will magically manifest for you overnight. It just doesn’t work like that and sadly, the result is that waaaay too many new teachers never get the chance to start teaching because they were never taught how to acquire good gigs. As someone who has graduated hundreds of yoga and Yoga Nidra teachers, and who has been in the industry for 20 years, I see the stark—and frankly unfair— gap between new teachers and experienced teachers in their ability to generate well-paying teaching opportunities in communities, the workplace, and online. 

I have a wildly different approach. My many years teaching yoga and Yoga Nidra has shown me over and over again that there are far more good-paying teaching opportunities than there are teachers to teach them. My experience has taught me how to make an excellent living teaching yoga and Yoga Nidra (I earn 6 figures a year) and I want to show you how to do this, or better. 

I’ve designed this training to teach you the industry secrets to help you begin to earn money right away doing what you love. Allow me to debunk the myth that you have to be a “yoga rockstar'' to be a successful teacher. You don’t. 

In this course, you’ll learn exactly how to acquire and create great paying teaching opportunities, including:

• Public and online classes, workshops, and courses

• Private students and groups, including Yoga Nidra dyads

• Yoga and meditation retreats

• Teaching corporations and institutions

• Paid speaking events 

• Creating digital products to earn passive income

This training is an investment in your own body/mind/spirit wellness, one that will teach you to become an expert Yoga Nidra teacher, and one that will teach you how to make this training pay for itself and then continue to pay you for many years to come. 

I also offer mentor programs for existing teachers (or frankly anyone with a side hustle) to build for themselves what I call their Mechanism of Influence, how to make a global impact while also making a great living. 

Last year, a yoga teacher reached out to me during the worst part of the pandemic. She was a single mom and a yoga teacher who was suffering desperately from a lack of work during the pandemic. Teaching yoga is her primary mode of employment and the yoga studio she was working with closed down permanently because of COVID. She desperately wanted to learn how to make a good enough living to provide for herself and her daughter during the pandemic and beyond. We worked closely together for about 8 weeks and I taught her how to build a basic but functional mechanism that eventually allowed her teaching to make a massive impact while also paying her what she’s worth. Because of our work together, she has been making an extra 5k/mo, getting tons of new clients, and spends MORE time with her little girl.  She’s finally offering all those wonderful classes, workshops, courses, she’s always wanted to teach. She’s gaining tons of new clients who are discovering her from all over the world. She called me in tears the other day and told me that she’s now making enough money that she could finally move out of her crappy apartment in a sketchy part of town so she and her daughter can feel safe and comfortable in what she’s calling her dream apartment. She’s making a big impact while also making a great living. 

Of course she did all the work and I’m very proud of her for that. She simply needed to be pointed in the right direction, get the right information, and know the best way to apply her efforts. 

If you’re interested in learning how to create your own Mechanism of Influence and/or learning to teach Yoga Nidra like a boss, click on the link below to either enroll in my Yoga Nidra training happening this weekend and the next, or schedule a call to discuss a mentor program. 

Yoga Teacher Mentor Program

Make a massive impact on the world while making a great living doing what you love.

The World Is Coming Back On Line. Are You Ready?

Across the world, yoga studios, therapists offices, schools, etc. have been mothballed to wait out the pandemic. Some are gone for good and others have somehow managed to stay alive. Many are starting or planning on opening sooner than later and when they do, are you ready to join in and make a serious impact on your community? Are you a yoga teacher, therapist, coach, parent, or leader?

The pandemic has changed the world in profound ways and our communities desperately need avenues to practice personal wellness in body, mind, and spirit, now more than ever. To do that, our communities need teachers and facilitators who can skillfully help people recover from the past very difficult 18 months, to restore their spirit, recover from stress, and remind them of their innate wholeness. Your community needs you to teach Yoga Nidra, the best practice I know that helps people practice resilience, gives immediate relief from stress, and affords people an expansive world view to help them remember how powerful they truly are. Though Yoga Nidra is very easy to practice, it is very difficult to facilitate effectively.

This is why I’ve created a Yoga Nidra training that teaches you all that you need to know, not only to become an effective Yoga Nidra facilitator, but to do in the power of your own voice, because after all, there’s nobody who can teach like you can, with your unique skills, experiences, and personality. You will impact people’s lives in ways that nobody else can.

This weekend starts my live Zoom Yoga Nidra training, an in-depth 40-hr. training that spans two weekends, July 30–August 1 and August 6–8. It’s live so you’ll be a part of a vibrant and consciously-minded cohort from all over the world. It’s on Zoom so you can participate from anywhere in the world from the safety of your own home. You can ask questions, practice with others, and experience the transformation of this practice in real time. It’s also recorded so that you can review the information as often as you’d like and if you have to miss part of a session, you can always go back and watch it on your own timeline.

Included in this training is 40-hours of instruction, an informative 160+ page manual, over 100 pages of Yoga Nidra scripts, access to my complete pre-recorded online Yoga Nidra course, connection to our exclusive Facebook page for dozens of others who are currently in the program or who have completed the program. Plus, each person receives a 30-minutes private consultation with me.

By the time you are finished with the training, you will be a certified Yoga Nidra teacher who understands the intricate complexities of this profound and much-needed practice. When the world opens up again, you’ll be ready to offer this vital skill to your communities.

This will be the last live training I do this year and space is limited so I can provide the best support for each of the students.

Your community needs you to teach Yoga Nidra. Are you in?

Brimming With Joy

Sometimes, I just want to punch in some coordinates into my phone just so I can hear the comfort of a familiar voice tell me where to go in life. Today, I want to tell you a story about how Yoga Nidra facilitated me feeling a breath-taking rapture that gave me some enormous clarity for my purpose in life at a time when I desperately needed it.

For me, Yoga Nidra has been perhaps the most illuminating practice I’ve experienced in my life. It’s taught me more about myself and the Universe than any other practice. If you don’t know, it’s a guided meditation where you lie down and get extremely relaxed, and drift into that fascinating, in-between state of consciousness, an experience that actually stimulates profound awareness. As you listen to a facilitator lead you through the practice, you gain a beautiful and broad perspective about life, problems, and the simple joy of being awake to the beauties of this world. I’ve been studying and practicing Yoga Nidra for more than 13 years and anymore when I do Yoga Nidra I am led through the very same process of keen awareness as I am facilitating for my students. 

But I wasn’t expecting this …

One day, when I was living and teaching in New York, I was on the subway, heading from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side to teach a Yoga Nidra class. The train rumbled and swayed as it crossed the Manhattan bridge and if I could see past the glare on the water, I’d be able to see the Statue Of Liberty out the window. But I wasn’t feeling free. I spent the entire trip uptown worrying about whether or not New York was the right place for us.

We had moved to New York for my wife’s job but I was also eager to try to “make it” as a yoga teacher in a city that has some of the finest yoga teachers in the world. My wife is brilliant at what she does, yet her job, placing her at the top of her field, was leaving her feeling very flat and unfulfilled. She worked long, hard hours and we hardly saw each other. Often, we’d meet on the sidewalk, her walking home from work, me walking to teach a class and pushing the stroller with our 2-year-old. We’d exchange a quick kiss, hand off the stroller, and she’d head home with our son while I went off to teach. Like no other time in our marriage, we were stressed and we were struggling. 

Seneca had started bringing up the idea of perhaps moving away from New York to try something new so we wouldn’t feel so stressed all the time. I felt conflicted because I wanted us to stay and try to make it work in New York. Every bump and sway on that crowded and hot subway bounced my brain with that bullshit phrase, “If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.” I didn’t know what we should do, whether to struggle longer and try to “make it work” in New York or to cut our losses and move somewhere else. I didn’t have a solution.

That night, I taught a Yoga Nidra class at Pure Yoga in Manhattan. My theme for class was to tap into the abundance of one’s heart energy. I’d been developing as a Yoga Nidra teacher for the past decade or so and as I was leading the class, I simply closed my eyes and sourced something that was both inside of me and outside of me. I no longer felt the worry and angst I’d experienced earlier. Instead, I felt as though I was channeling pure love. Though I couldn’t name it at that time, I had somehow taught myself to experience the same Nidra state of mind that my students were experiencing, while I was teaching. I had discovered teaching Yoga Nidra as its own pathway to waking up, it’s own spiritual practice, and teaching that class about sourcing the heart lit me up like fireworks. 

After class, I walked down Amsterdam Avenue on my way to catch the red line back home to Brooklyn and because of this Yoga Nidra practice that I’d just taught and simultaneously experienced, my entire being felt an absolute surge of well-being and love. I was absolutely brimming with joy. At that moment, it felt as if my eyes suddenly had a super-human focus, like I could see more than 79 blocks down Amsterdam Ave, all the way to the Hudson and that they could see every detail, from the birds landing on the light posts to the dirt in the gutter and all of it felt somehow like an expression of limitless love. I floated down the street with a smile on my face feeling like nothing could ever be so perfect. As I passed people on the street—everyone from the homeless guy to the stressed out business guy—it felt like I could feel into everyone’s heart and could feel everyone’s inherent goodness. Everything felt special, good, and magical, as if each object in the world were somehow a love note from the Divine just for me telling me, “Look at this. I made it for you.” 

As I walked to the subway, I still didn’t have any greater clarity about whether or not to stay in New York but nor did I have any worry. What was crystal clear was that I was doing the work that I was meant to do and that no matter if I lived in New York or New Zealand, Utah or Uganda, it didn’t really matter so long as I was doing what I love to do. I knew that as long as I was sharing this message of connection with the world, that the world would somehow help me “make it” wherever I was. 

This experience of walking down Amsterdam avenue, bursting with joy and love for the rats and birds and homeless folks on the street, reminds me of poet William Wordsworth (late 1700s, into the 1800s). There was a time when Wordsworth was feeling stressed, just like I was. His parents died when he was young and he and his sister were raised, quite begrudgingly, by some relatives who were counting the days for him to grow up and move out, preferably employed so he could take his sister with him. As Wordsworth was becoming a young adult, he was receiving enormous pressure from his guardians to take on a respectable and financially secure job as a clergyman. The problem was that he didn’t want to become a clergyman. He was passionate about poetry and dreamed of making a life as a poet. Announcing that you want to be a poet rather than a clergyman would be like telling mom and dad that you’ve decided not to go to law school so you could explore a career as a rockstar. 

Well, one morning Wordsworth was walking home in the early twilight through the hills and grasslands near his home by the Lake District in Northern England, his mind contemplating his future. In those magical blue-black hours of first light, he became spellbound and fiercely present to his beautiful landscape—those green hills, the ocean laughing at the distance, and the vapors rising off the dew like an intoxicating smoke raising his spirits. His senses were turned up to 11, giving him something better than an out-of-body experience, a completely in-bodied experience. His heart was a supernova of peace, love, and joy. And in that moment of intense rapture, Wordsworth received a massive download from the Powers That Be that poetry was what he is meant to do in life, and what’s more, that he would actually be doing the world a massive disservice if he didn’t pursue poetry. He received this message loud and clear. Though he didn’t have all the details yet, he nonetheless knew that the details were secondary to the simple clarity of knowing that he would become a poet. 

And from that moment forward, Wordsworth never doubted. He went on to be, well, William Wordsworth, essentially the Michael Jordan of the Romantic poets. William and his sister Dorothy were very close (she was a great poet in her own right) and together they devised a way that they could continue living and working together. Dorothy worked with him his entire career to help him become the poet that we are still talking about more than 220 years later. By becoming fiercely present that day walking through the hills, William Wordsworth was able to hear what plans the Universe had in store for him, something that worked out greater than his wildest dreams. 

The poem that speaks of his revelation to become a poet goes as follows and is from his magnum opus, The Prelude.

Magnificent 
The morning was, a memorable pomp,
More glorious than I ever had beheld.
The sea was laughing at a distance; all
The solid mountains were as bright as clouds,
Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and the lower grounds
Was all sweetness of a common dawn –
Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,
And labourers going forth into the fields.
Ah, need I say, dear friend, that to the brim
My heart was full? I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me: bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be – else sinning greatly –
A dedicated spirit. On I walked
In blessedness, which even yet remains.

Yoga Nidra was the catalyst that facilitated a fierce presence for me in order to have my own Wordsworthian moment as I was walking down Amsterdam Ave, totally brimming with life’s fullness. Yoga Nidra is only one way of cultivating such presence, but one that I feel is unique, approachable, and very effective. Maybe Yoga Nidra can facilitate your Wordsworthian moment. 

What is your calling in this world? What is the Universe telling you that you must do for the world, “lest you be sinning greatly?” Are you a teacher, a therapist, a coach, or a parent? How might learning to facilitate Yoga Nidra, this beautiful practice of exquisite presence, help you to create clarity for your own life’s purpose as well as your clients, students, family members, or community? Teaching Yoga Nidra may or may not be your calling but it may be a wonderful tool to help you excel in whatever the Universe has in store for you. 

Please consider joining me for my live, online Yoga Nidra training. It’s going to be illuminating, relaxing, and empowering. Learn how to facilitate incredible clarity for your own life and for others.

I only do this a few times a year and I’d love to have you join me. 

2 weekends, 40 hours: July 31–Aug. 1st; Aug. 6–8, 2021, 9 am to 5 pm MDT. Zoom. Recorded for your own convenience in case you can’t make all the sessions and so you can resource the materials as long as you’d like.  

Plus, as soon as you register you’ll also get complimentary access to pre-recorded online curriculum as well as access to 2 weekly live Yoga Nidra classes for the duration of the training. This is for your own benefit as well as to learn how to host your own online Yoga Nidra classes. 

Please enjoy this free Yoga Nidra practice ($7 value) Waking from the Dream, Opening To Awareness (43 minutes) to facilitate your own clarity and heart power.

Moving Into Stillness

To start, today I’m grateful. I’m grateful for the month of June. For me, there’s a lot of celebration in June: My wife and I will celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary, Fathers Day is in June, and my birthday is in June, a birthday I get to share with my son, Elio, AND my twin brother. I love chocolate and I often call June the month of chocolate because of all its celebrations. I’m also very grateful for very dear friends, for the chance to play my sax recently with my old band, and for the opportunity to get out recently on some trails and run. I feel like I’m living my best life at this moment and that has me feeling abundant, joyous, and very, very grateful. 

In a way that doesn’t diminish all my gratitude, I don’t mind sayin’ that life has been a little nuts lately. My family and I are preparing for a great adventure. The details aren’t firm yet, so I’m a little reluctant to say too much about it but needless to say, there has been a metric-ton of preparations, changes, and hard work involved in the past several months and especially the last 2-3 weeks. I’ll let you know when our plans are firm, plans which point to living in a truly exquisite place. 

I plan on keeping Salt Lake City as a base for teaching and visiting family and friends but will be expanding my base with plans to teach retreats, trainings, workshops, and classes in various places in the US, including New York as well as in Europe, and Asia. If you’re interested in joining me for one of these adventures, please consider joining me this September for a retreat in Bordeaux with a “pretreat” in Paris! It’s going to be a blast and I’d love to have you join me. 

So yes, our family is in the throes of change as we prepare for our next adventure and frankly… I’m tired. I’m excited for what lies ahead, yes, but MAN it’s been a lot of work to prepare for this next adventure. 

With all this change I’m experiencing, it’s easy to get thrown off center. However, with the right kind of awareness, any turbulence of life, even the kind of crazy I’ve been experiencing lately, can actually point me to absolute centeredness and this paradox of moving into stillness reminds me of the Shiva Nataraj or the Dancing Shiva, a Hindu statue that illustrates how the indefatigable motion of the universe not only has the power to center me but also puts me into the current of my own personal and spiritual evolution. 

In this statue, Shiva is depicted with a calm, serene facial expression, lips turned up in a wry smile.Shiva is waving several arms (hey, I could have used a few extra arms, recently), posing beautifully and expressly as if the sculptor captured this figure mid-dance. 

In this statue, Shiva is quite hermaphroditical with female hips, a slight bosom, and of course depicted in the gesture of dancing. In ancient vedic wisdom, the male god Shiva represents pure and absolute consciousness, the underlying beinginess of all things. The female god Shakti is the dancer who, through her movement, creates all the change, form, and energy of the universe. The marriage of Shiva’s consciousness and Shakit’s motion results in the birth of everything conceivable in the Universe, including us and our lives. Truly, we are the love children of this marriage of consciousness and form, a radically expansive expression of their both/and union. Therefore, the Shiva Nataraj statue doesn’t represent only Shiva, but rather the realized both/and nature of a merged Shiva/Shakti, consciousness aroused by form. For that reason, for the rest of this article, I think it’s fair to reference this representation of blended genders and purposes with the pronoun, “their.” 

Surrounded in flames, hair on fire, and standing on an impish creature which sometimes looks like a baby (don’t worry, it’s actually a benevolent act which I’ll describe in a moment), this Shiva/Shakti image transmutes language, time, and the chaos of the universe into pure presence and depicts at least 5 steps which both help me to appreciate the ceaseless and sometimes seemingly chaotic motion of life while also pointing me to my own greater spiritual advancement.

Looking at this statue, in their upper right hand, Shiva/Shakti is holding a drum which symbolizes beating a life, pulse, and rhythm into all things in the Universe, a generative gesture which speaks to the season of spring when things are born. Modern physics attests to this universality of movement, that everything from the smallest particle to the largest galaxy—hell, even the Universe itself—is in some form of vibration, frequency, and change. This change includes light, sound, color, and even thought. As a fellow musician, I love the idea of DJ Shiva/Shakti laying down the solid backbeat for the tribe of all things as we dance around the central fire of one effulgent Source. 

Shiva/Shakti’s second hand on the right side is holding the abhaya mudra, an open-palmed gesture, one that suggests a generous holding or sustaining of what was born. If their first hand on the right side represents spring, then this hand certainly represents, “summertime, and the livin’ is easy . . . .” This gesture gives us hope and engenders gratitude for things as they blossom, grow, and mature.

Yet, Shiva/Shakti warns us against becoming too comfortable with anything because in their first hand on the left, they are holding a flame, suggesting that as easily as they can birth and sustain something, they can and most assuredly will raze it to the ground. I think of this act of dissolution as the autumnal cycle, like the eruption of fall leaves, bursting into the flames of color. There is no malevolence in this killing. In fact, the serene look on Shiva/Shakti’s face suggests that even the process of dying is all part of life’s textured tapestry, it’s partly what makes life so good and could even be seen as a great act of compassion toward us, like when an old situation needs to die so that we can move on to the next great adventure. 

Of course, after the fire, when we are in our darkest place, frozen in the winter of our pain, our inclination may be to importune the heart of the deity and supplicate for restoration. Shiva/Shakti, however, shows us that they have other plans. Instead of opening their heart to us and restoring us to the way things were, Shiva/Shakti’s other left hand is actually concealing their heart, almost as if to add insult to injury, saing, “Nah. The key into the heart of God doesn’t come that easy. You gotta work for this, kid.” 

Shiva/Shakti’s right leg is standing on a small, impish creature, something that either looks like a baby or sometimes a pig or demon. More than once, an inquisitive and well-meaning yoga student has asked me, pointing to the statue, “Um … why is that person standing on a baby?” This thing that looks like a baby is called the Apasmara, and represents the unrealized, ignorant, or less-developed version of ourselves. When we’ve been conquered, humbled, and suffered the coup de grace, Shiva/Shakti goes one step further and stands on our corpse. Yet this gesture is actually one of great benevolence. This is because Shiva/Shakti is literally taking a stand for our highest good by putting asunder the old version of ourselves. It’s like Shiva/Shakti is giving the old version of ourselves the honorary funeral rites and burial. Often, true transformation, indeed apotheosis, can only come after such a dark night of the soul as suggested by this statue. Transformation requires death and resurrection.

Finally, while Shiva/Shakti is doing their honorary Riverdance on our ignorant selves, with the only limb that Shiva/Shakti has left, they lift their left leg upward in an invitational gesture to rejoin a brand new cycle of rebirth, sustaining, dissolution, concealment, and revelation, and thus it continues for infinity. Surely, this eternal cycle symbolized in this statue represents a circular notion of time as well as the fact that our personal and spiritual evolution is also not linear but rather circular, each turn around the cycle lifting us in an upward spiral, ever higher along our pathway to personal and spiritual evolution.

In the statue, the Shiva/Shakti personage is wreathed in flames, suggesting the intense refinement and of our evolution. Yet, despite this intensity, even despite the fact that their hair is on fire, Shiva/Shakti comports an unwavering expression of stillness, serenity, and even joy. This statue shows us that in the eye of the storm of all this change rests an unperturbed stillness, a presence and Awareness which is the foundation upon which the dance of everything can occur. 

So, as I am experiencing a season of transformation in my life, one that I chose for myself mind you, I must remember that all of the crazy I’m experiencing is pointing me to a simple lesson: to be present and to join this dervish dance of personal growth. All this change points to the often disguised but undeniable truth that there is only here, that there is only now. 

As my next stage is born and I commence yet another cycle in this unending cycle of evolution, I’ll most certainly keep you up to date.

I invite you to take a moment of contemplation and consider the different cycles you may be experiencing in this moment — stages of life, relationship, or career, to name a few — and acknowledge which part of that cycle you’re on at this moment. Then, consider all the ways that the moment you’re experiencing at this moment might invite you into stillness as you are growing into your next and higher version of yourself and becoming the person who you are destined to become. 

PS

One more note of gratitude and an invitation …

I am so grateful to have discovered a way to make a living doing what I love to do—teaching, writing about, and training others to teach yoga and meditation—and to be able to do it from anywhere in the world. If you’re interested in giving birth to a new cycle of your personal evolution, in learning how to make your side hustle into your main hustle or how to turn your passions into your profession, and in making a massive impact on the world while also making a living—oh and like I said, to be able to do it from anywhere—please drop me a line. Let’s set up a free meeting, in person or via Zoom, where we can discuss some simple steps that you can take today to start to make that dream or idea into a reality. Especially as the result of people who have lost their jobs because of COVID, I’ve had the great pleasure of coaching several people lately about how to pivot their professions and start to put themselves out into the world in a way that also puts bread on their table. I’d love to discuss your ideas with you to see if we might be a good coaching match. Reach out to me clicking here

Namaste,

Magic And A Military Burial

My friend and fellow yoga teacher John is a delightful paradox. It’s likely that your mental picture of a yoga teacher does not include a barrel-chested guy in his 50s with a neat salt-and-pepper beard, a happy face, and whose day job is working as a master auto mechanic. Yet this is John. Who better to understand the mechanics of a posture than an actual mechanic? Whether in yoga or in his auto shop, John’s goal is to do his part to help fix the world, either by aligning your poses or aligning the front end of your ride.

John’s true gift, whether in the studio or at his shop, is connecting with people. One way he does this is through stories. John told me a story once that I absolutely love, a story which he gave me permission to share, and which illustrates perfectly an essential life skill and spiritual principle that is often very difficult to arrive at, but which offers deep insight into the very nature of our being.

THE IMPASSE

Several years ago, John’s father owned a dog by the name of Hobo, and both of them were getting on in years. When Hobo passed away, John’s dad was devastated but always kept Hobo nearby, his ashes resting peacefully in a box. As often happens with aging partners, John’s father passed only six months after Hobo.

John has two siblings, but it fell to John to care for his dad during the last few months of his life. He also served as the executor to his dad’s estate. John told me that he gets on well with his sister but his relationship with his brother was quite strained. Prior to their father’s death, one thing that John and his brother disagreed about was what to do with their father’s remains when he passed. Their father was in the Navy during World War II and John wished to cremate his father and perhaps spread his ashes somewhere his father loved. John’s brother wanted something very different, to bury their father with the pomp and circumstance of a military funeral decorated with the proper honors.

When his father passed, as the executor, John was pressed to make a decision about what to do with his father’s remains and decided to cremate them. John kept two boxes of ashes, one of his fathers and the other of Hobo's, atop of the sacred automotive altar of his Snap-on tool chest in his auto shop.

As a Navy man, John’s father always had a reverence for the San Francisco Bay, because it was the port from which he was sent to war and which greeted him when he returned alive. John and his sister discussed the matter and decided that they would honor their father by spreading his ashes along the waters he loved so much.

John’s brother on the other hand demanded that John send him their father’s ashes to receive the honor of a proper military burial. They were at an impasse. In the end, John relented and sent his brother a box of ashes for burial.

As John was telling me this part of the story, he got a wry smile on his face and said, “And to this day, Hobo is perhaps one of few dogs in history to ever receive the honor of a proper military burial.”

I LOVE this story for so many reasons. First, the image of Hobo receiving a burial with military honors gives me a good chuckle. In many myths and spiritual traditions, the trickster is actually revered as a sacred entity because it has the power to alter the perception of our rigid thinking, the mindset that often mired us in the problem to begin with. John was the trickster of this story and in so doing actually served his family beautifully with a higher truth that could not be perceived by their current mindset. John was able to orchestrate everyone feeling that they got their way, and so it reminds me of a vital life skill and spiritual principle, the Both/And mindset or our Both/And Nature.

TANTRA

One of the ways of understanding this Both/And principle is through the lens of Tantra, an ancient eastern school of thought which suggests that everything in the universe is part of a larger whole and that everything in that whole is sacred. In many ways, the practices of yoga, meditation, and perhaps even auto mechanics, are the methods of discovering and remembering this universal wholeness. Our wholeness is our Both/And Nature, the composite of opposites that gives birth to everything else. It’s the magical place that exists at the crossroads and transports a person beyond opposites

In the Both/And mindset, opposites may come together to create something completely new. Often, this new thing contains magic, divinity, or at least the answers to a paradox, a crossroads, or an impasse. Many myths, spiritual traditions, and even the origin stories of gods themselves, whether Christian, Hindu, Native American, or Greek, have derived from some marriage between opposites that have given birth to something entirely new, holy, or magic. The Both/And principle is about blending opposites to create an apotheosis, the highest version of both opposites.

Anathema to universal wholeness is the notion of existing as separate beings from each other and from Source. Again, our contemplative practices are designed to help us remember our essential wholeness. The ancient Gayatri Mantra (Rigveda 3.62.10) states, essentially, that since everything comes from Source, I am no different than the very thing I’m searching for. This mantra expresses the epitome of our Both/And Nature.

YOGA NIDRA: TRAINING FOR CLARITY

Yoga Nidra is perhaps the one of the greatest practices I know of to help us effectively explore our Both/And Nature, one that can help us gain the mindset to creatively work through life’s problems, blockages, and paradoxes. In part, this is due to how it works directly with paradox as a mode of transcending paradox.

If you’ve never done it, Yoga Nidra is a relaxing form of guided meditation where you lie down, close your eyes, and listen to me guide you to pay attention to many different parts of your being such as your body, emotions, thoughts, etc. By learning to welcome, recognize, and simply witness all these parts of your being, you reveal the Universal element which is common between all these seemingly different parts: your Awareness.

During this process of Yoga Nidra, as your mind is becoming very relaxed, I guide you to become aware of apparent opposites (opposing body parts or emotions, for example), first individually, then to be aware of them at the same time. The experience of holding them simultaneously in your Awareness creates a cognitive dissonance which obliterates the paradox as you find yourself being the thing that is beyond opposites, Awareness itself. This process gives the practitioner immense clarity over any paradox, challenge, or impasse. The Both/And mindset isn’t just for monks meditating in a cave, it’s something we can use at home, at work, in our relationships, and in the world.

Experiencing myself as Awareness through the practice of Yoga Nidra, often by holding opposites, has been among the most illuminating experiences of my life and this is why I love to share this practice. When a person begins to identify as Awareness, it’s easy to want to dismiss normal life as something lesser than this beautiful new concept of Self. However, to do so simply creates another binary, an opposite, which keeps one trapped in that which is fundamentally opposite to Awareness, or this Both/And Nature. Instead, where the rubber hits the road with practices like Yoga Nidra, is to use Yoga Nidra to help you realign your identity as Awareness itself and then to marry that awareness back to your normal life: your job, your family, and your relationship to the world. True to form, when the apparent opposites of Awareness and your life merge, what is born from that marriage is a life that is full of magic.

Walking through life with a Both/And mentality, you may find yourself reacting less to life’s problems and instead responding to them with greater compassion. You may begin to notice the simplest of the world’s presentations and perhaps see them with complete delight. Even life’s problems and difficulties can take on an air of possibilities and beauty. Plus you can gain the perspective to see beyond those problems that seem insurmountable. In essence, this Both/And Nature can give you the sight to be able to see the world with brand new eyes.

BEYOND BINARIES

This poem excerpt speaks perfectly to this idea:

A Great Wagon by Rumi

Translated by Coleman Barks

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

~

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep.

I would love to kiss you.

The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,

What a bargain, let’s buy it.

I invite you to bravely face the paradoxes in your life with your full compassionate Awareness, knowing that magic can happen when you expand your vision into a Both/And mindset. To help practice this vital skill, I invite you to join me this Saturday as we embark on a wonderful journey to the crossroads. On Saturday, April 24th, from 9–11 am MDT, I’ll be hosting an online Restore Yoga + Yoga Nidra workshop where we will combine these two practices and the result will be nothing short of magical. You’ll leave feeling clear-minded, rested, and with the magic to see the beauty of your life.

Reset and Nourish Yourself for Spring

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Ayurveda with Sunny Rose Healey

My good friend, Sunny Rose Healey, at Mamayurveda, is a superb Ayurvedic practitioner. This means she practices Ayurveda which is the sister-science to yoga and is designed to balance your humors, qualities, or doshas. I have the deepest respect for Ayurveda because it acknowledges the fact that every person’s pathway to wellness is unique and by observing our own daily changes in things like appetite, sleep, and elimination, we can self-direct ourselves toward balance. Other times, we are out of balance and need some guidance to help us get back into balance. This is where people like Sunny come in. She knows how to prescribe the right kinds and dosage of certain Ayurvedic herbs and practices to help get you back on track.

Yoga Nidra and Ayurveda

One of the things Sunny offers as a way of getting back on track is a seasonal reset to help you jump into the next season with your best foot forward. I’m privileged to be able to participate in Sunny’s next seasonal reset by offering a very restful Yoga Nidra session, specifically designed to support people on the reset program with sunny.

Sunny is a genius and I wanted to post her latest newsletter here to give you an idea of what she’s up to. I hope you’ll visit her site and take a look at the incredible things she’s offering. Perhaps you’ll even join me for a Yoga Nidra session to reset your doshas.

Here’s what Sunny says …

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Are we coming out of a yearlong winter into the light of spring? ​

Oh so many views on this time–but there's no doubt it's been one of the toughest years in a long while. We could all use some love and nourishment right now.

Energy is rising as the days grow longer - Ayurveda teaches us how to harness these natural energies and direct them for optimal benefit - toward resetting habits, mental patterns and better self care. One way to work with the energies of the moment, is to cleanse at some level.

I've spent the last couple weeks contemplating a community offering (read on for that!) turning soil, moving plants, and sorting out broody hens. Plus wading through juniper pollen - New Mexicans know how intense this is.

I look forward to reconnecting with you through my newest offerings (now and down the line). If you have any requests or questions please hit reply, I'd love to hear from you.

​​News for you​

- I am offering a Nourish & Reset Spring session (yes! we're doing this) - see details below, register here if you've been waiting for this announcement.

​If you're exhausted, disheartened, or if the last year has taken on toll on you, I urge you to consider this program. We will gently cleanse, yes, but we will also nourish and tend to our bodies, hearts and minds. Consider that perhaps in a more vulnerable state, this may be just the thing, and more appropriate than an intense cleanse.

- In the shop - I have some seriously decadent goodies in the works!

A skincare line is coming ... handcrafted by me, and the epitome of slow beauty. Even now I'm beginning the month long process it takes to make one of the new toners. The line will have highly active and beneficial, luxe and all natural, organic ingredients such as immortelle, squalane, raspberry seed oil...

New soaps are on their way too - we'll have Golden Rose and Evergreen Charcoal kicking off the soap line made by my dear friend Rebeka Rose, Vital Soapworks.

​Stay tuned for the release of these beauties from Mamayurveda Medicinals

In the meantime, use code SPRING15 at mamayurvedamedicinals.com through April 15 to receive 15% off your entire order!

Nourish & Reset Spring Session registration is OPEN!

April 30 - May 9

10 days of exquisite self care, nourishment (and optional cleansing)...

this is an online program that offers you springtime specific recipes, cleansing practices, movement, and rituals for body, mind & soul

A few of the Details (see there rest here)

Tune in each day:​

• Morning and evening sadhana including ritual cleansings, Breathwork and other essental Ayurvedic dinacharya elements

• Suggested menu w/ delicious springtime recipes

• Guidance for adding cleansing elements to your 10 days (optional)

​Receive & Practice - Satsanga via:​

• 2 live webinars with Sunny, where we’ll do a group practice and take space for questions and discussion

• 2 live movement sessions with Maré

• 1 live yoga nidra session with Scott

Register:​

a) Program without supplies is $99 (discounted for 2021 from $149!), find your own supplies (detailed list w/ links provided) - with this option you can order your own basic supplies for $50-$150, depending on what you already have and what you need.​

OR

b) Program plus Luxe Kit for $299 (there are only 10 kits so sign up now if you want this option!) - this is a complete, done-for-you system and all you need for practices and food aside from your perishable ingredients.

*Want a Luxe Kit with your Nourish & Reset? Don't wait! Only 10 kits available

Learning To Be A Student

I hope you’re starting off the week wonderfully.

Here’s an article I posted in Conscious Life News that I thought was worthy of reposting. Enjoy!

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“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.”

— Shunryu Suzuki

What Kind of Cup Are You?

There is an old zen story which asks, what kind of a cup are you? Are you a cup that is too full, not able to receive any more? Is your cup turned over refusing to do it any other way but your own? Or is you cup turned up, empty and ready to receive what the master has to offer?

When I lived in Korea, I often attended meditation retreats in the mountains with a dear friend Jin-Soon. Jin-Soon was a devout Buddhist and suggested that we go on a light hike up the mountain to her favorite temple. About two hours from our city was Geryangson mountain which housed several Buddhist temple.

It was late Autumn. We hiked, swimming in the warmth and light of the sun, especially after the biting cold of the morning. Eventually, We came to a small temple and quietly, we took off our shoes and stepped inside. Already sitting inside the temple were 2 female monks, both with shaved heads, sitting on mats deep in meditation. I wondered how long they had been there or planned to be there. They looked as though they may as well have been permanent fixtures in the temple. It felt so peaceful and quiet inside that little meditation temple.

Jin-Soon gathered mats for us placed near the door and we sat down and began our own meditation. The sun shone through the window of the door in a perfect rectangle that surrounded my body like a picture frame. I was warm and quiet. I don't know how much time we spent there. Time just dissolved.

Honoring Angels

Somewhere in the middle of my meditation, I began thinking about Ryan, a friend of my sister whom I had met on several occasions, who had died earlier that year along with his sister. It was a tragic event and even though I didn't know Ryan very well, and his sister not at all, I still felt a deep grief in their passing. I had made a promise to my sister to light a candle for them the next time I visited a Buddhist a temple. I had lit a candle several times for lost loved ones in cathedrals but I wasn't sure that such a ritual was even done in Buddhist temples.

Once we had finished our meditation, I asked Jin-Soon about whether or not people honored the dead in this fashion at a Buddhist temple and if so, how I might go about getting candles lit for Ryan and his sister. She kindly walked me to a small kiosk not far away and helped me buy two 14-inch candles. With candles in hand, I walked to the main temple, a large, imposing edifice, took off my shoes, and reverently entered the door.

The Rite of a Student

Yoga Nidra Training

Just inside the door was an old monk whose face was very wrinkled, the evidence of a lifetime of smiles. He saw the candles in my hand and I motioned that I wished to place them on the alter. He beckoned me to follow his lead and walking to the center shrine, three gigantic golden buddhas each 15–20 feet high, sitting performed a dramatic bow, he performed a rather elaborate bow, lowering himself to the floor then standing up again with his hands together in a prayer motion. I followed him the best I could, not quite remembering every step of the bow. Then, together, walked together to the alter and placed the candles gently on the alter. I retreated slowly backward and made motions to leave. My monk, however, had more to teach me.

He held up seven fingers and gestured to me that it was now necessary to complete seven more bows. Again, he repeated his dramatic motions and bade me to follow his precise movements to complete the ritual. In that moment, I had suddenly become his student. After many frustrating attempts, I finally learned the sequence: Standing with legs together, hands in a prayer stance, kneel down to the floor without using your hands. Cross the left foot over the right. Then, placing the palms on the floor, bend forward to touch the forehead to the floor. The butt must come down and touch your ankles in this position which was clearly easier for the the old monk than it was for me because my teacher couldn't figure out why I couldn't perform that part and corrected me repeatedly on this point. With the forehead on the ground, turn the palms up lifting the hands off the ground a few inches. Replace the hands on the ground, palms down, uncross your feet, and press yourself up to a squatting position. Then stand up, feet together. Finally, with hand pressed together in a prayer, make a deep bow toward the Buddha. With my every attempt at a bow, my monk hovered over me and corrected me (sometimes rather forcefully) where I forgot. When I completed my offering, my monk gave me a gentle bow and an enormous smile. I reciprocated in bowing and smiling my deep thanks to him.

The Grace of a Student

Despite my awkward offerings, I'm nonetheless convinced that Ryan and his sister were somehow sitting as angels in the rafters, happily laughing at my tutelage and grateful for my gesture. I'm sure of it.

According to you, what are the qualities of a good student? For me, principal among the qualities of a good student is grace, the grace of allowing yourself to be taught, to have an open cup.

As a life-long yoga teacher and practitioner, I will always consider myself first and foremost a student of yoga. Even as I am teaching, I am learning in the process. It's a beautiful paradox, learning while teaching. Whether by formal teaching of a master or from the masters degree from Knocks University (the school of hard knocks) if your eyes are open and heart humbled, there is always something to learn.

With the beginner's mind, there is always now. There is always wonder. There are always possibilities.

I invite you to embrace the beginner's mind in all of your practices, passions, and in the study of life.

---

Scott Moore is a senior teacher of yoga and mindfulness in the US. He’s taught classes, trainings and workshops in New York, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and L.A. as well as in Europe and Asia. Scott is the author of Practical Yoga Nidra: The 10-Step Method to Reduce Stress, Improve Sleep, and Restore Your Spirit. When he's not teaching or conducting retreats, he loves to write for print and online publications such as Yogi Times, Conscious Life News, Elephant Journal, Mantra Magazine, Medium, and his own blog at scottmooreyoga.com. Scott also loves to run, play the saxophone, and travel with his wife and son. Check out his yoga retreats and trainings in places like Tuscany, France, and Hong Kong , his online Yoga Nidra Course and his Yoga Teacher Mentor Program. Scott is currently living in Salt Lake City after living in Southern France with his family.

Crime Pays

One of my greatest spiritual teachers in life has been my car. My ride serves me as a tangible and relatable metaphor for my body, my life, and what have been the life-changing practices of yoga and meditation. These practices are perhaps the most effective vehicles that transport me to my ultimate destination and purpose in this Universe. My car is a close second.

A shattered car window obliterated any obstruction from my seeing the complicated intersection between justice and compassion. A constellation of motorcycle accidents blessed me with life-changing gifts I would have never imagined. When my truck was literally stolen from out of my hands, the Universe was directing down a twisted road that ultimately led to understanding kindness and generosity.

Though I didn’t always understand it, in retrospect, I realize that the mishaps of my vehicle have presented me with some sort of car koan: It is only by your ride breaking down that you will arrive at your destination. Now, I see that the mechanical mayhem I’ve endured throughout much of my life is the action of a benevolent Universe trying its best to bless my life and give me a lift further down my road of spiritual evolution, even if my actual ride rests motionless on the side of a dark and lonely highway, it’s hazard lights blinking weakly into the darkness.

My ride often reminds me of a valuable teapot. When I lived in Korea, once, a monk gave me a box of expensive tea while reciting the inscription on the box, “Zen and the taste of tea is the same.” At tea houses, the teapots with the most pronounced veins, cracks stained by their decades of use, were deemed the ones with the most spirit. Like those valuable teapots, I am beginning to understand that the derelict nature of my vehicle often demonstrated a spirit much beyond what I could perceive in the moment.

This is one of those stories …

There was a time in my yoga career when I was teaching as many yoga classes as possible in order to make ends meet, sometimes as many as 27 classes a week. I loved teaching but I just hadn’t learned yet how to make it fincancially sustainable yet.

Around 2006, I had just picked up a new yoga teaching gig at the new Soma Yoga studio, the one on 1700 South in Salt Lake City, Utah, if you know it. One day, I showed up early to class, parked my car in the lot outside of the studio, and thought that I’d go on a walk for a few minutes before class to clear my mind and grease the wheels a little bit before being “on” in front of a yoga class.

In those days, I didn’t own a lot of pockets; my wardrobe consisted mainly of yoga clothes. Instead, I’d sling a bag over my shoulder as I drove from yoga gig to yoga gig. If you are someone who also rolls with a purse, particularly a big one, then you might relate with the completely absurd accumulation that can happen with such a satchel. You start off with only your keys and wallet in there and before you know it, you find yourself lugging around 27 pounds worth of pens, punch cards, and half-eaten bagels.

So, before heading out on my walk, to save my shoulder from lugging the metric ton of detritus I had accumulated in my bag, stupidly, I threw my bag under the seat of my car before closing and locking the door, keeping only my keys. My bag was out of sight for sure but had a significant proportion of my essential yet meager possessions including, my ID, debit and credit cards, check book, $42 in cash, and my brand new iPod, the ones that looked like a small pack of gum, remember those? Classic!

I’d only been walking for a few minutes when I decided that on second thought, I’d better just go to the studio and set up early. Maybe I’d run though some poses to warm up. As I arrived back to the parking lot, I was walking toward my car to grab my bag and looking through the glass of my driver-side window, I noticed with some curiosity that the window on the passenger side was remarkably cleaner than that of the driver’s side window. Was someone washing windows in the parking lot? “They did a thorough job,” I told myself, “the window looks so clean that it almost looks like there isn’t a window … wait a minute?!”

The spray of broken glass on the asphalt near the passenger door confirmed my fears. Someone must have seen me throw my bag in the car, walk around the corner then, in the 3 or 4 minutes that I’d been walking, smashed my window and stole my bag. My 42 dollars! It was probably more than I had in my bank account at the time. My iPod! I stood by my car feeling equal parts violated, angry, and stupid.

Without any time to process this shock, my students began arriving at the studio. Soon, the studio was filled with eager yogis, waiting for me to teach. I had no choice but to surrender my emotions. I sat on my mat in the front of the classroom full of students, closed my eyes, and placed my still-shaking hands at my heart before chanting three long OOOhhmmmms. Into my head, came the Leonard Cohen lyrics, “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” I wondered what light could penetrate that dark feeling in my heart.

But I had to teach a class. And strangely, instead of being distracted by the shock of someone breaking into my car, this real-life experience was a splash of cold water in the face to wake me up and become extremely present. Raw and with all pretense stripped away, I proceeded to teach one of the best classes I can remember ever having taught.

After class, I filed a police report and borrowed the $145 I would need to fix my window.

Several weeks later I was surprised and exhilarated to receive a call from a detective investigating my case. He told me that they had found the guy who broke my window and stole my bag. I hoped that the detective would then announce with an air of sweeping heroism that they had opened a case, their best and brightest had worked tirelessly to solve the mystery, and by the fruits of much hard work, my property would be returned to me, that justice had prevailed. But he did not.

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Instead, he spent 15 long minutes trying fruitlessly to explain how the guy who had broken into my car and stolen all my stuff (known henceforth referred to as “the perp”) had tried to use my checks and ID to operate some complicated check scheme worth much more than my $42 and iPod, that “the perp” was recognized by security cameras at the bank or something, and that essentially they drove to his house and arrested him without much drama, bla bla bla. I wasn’t following the bravado of the detective’s drawn-out overly-complicated caper about check fraud. Boring. And frankly, I didn’t care if it didn’t involve getting my 42 bucks and iPod outta hock. What I did glean from the story is that they had caught “the perp,” that he was in custody awaiting a trial or sentencing or something, and that I was invited to attend the hearing if I wanted. If I couldn’t get my iPod back, at least I’d be morbidly gratified to see the punk who’d stolen it.

On the court date, I drove to the courthouse, parked and locked my car (window intact), and this time shouldered my bag, new and uncharacteristically free of the usual “memorabilia.” Once inside the courthouse, through the security portal, and out of view of the scrutinizing security guards who wondered with their inquisitive eyes why I wore a purse, I walked the maze of marble hallways and found the courtroom assigned to this hearing. I picked a seat in the back and sat down feeling nervous, like somehow I was the one who was on trial. I looked around and there were a LOT of people in that room. It was clear than many of the people crammed into that room were there to see what might happen to their loved ones who were in custody.

I had never been to a hearing. I was expecting smart, snappy lawyers in expensive suits examining and cross-examining witnesses, shouting intermittently, “I object, your honor!” before bringing some crucial piece of evidence to slay the jury’s prejudice and right the scales of justice. But it wasn’t like that at all. No, instead, I’d describe this as a public viewing of a meeting between two lawyers and a judge as they hammered out their schedule for the next 3 months. The many people in the room made it hot, oppressive, and claustrophobic. I felt more as if I was at someone else’s family reunion being hosted at the DMV than sitting in the hallowed halls of justice I’d seen in movies and TV.

After maybe an hour or so, they finally announced the case for “the perp” and into the courtroom strolls a scrappy kid, early twenties, spiky haircut, and cocky despite the manacles and prison-chic jumper he was wearing. A tired-looking judge stared over his glasses at a thick file while shuffling papers and began mumbling dates interspersed between unintelligible “legalese” to a pair of lawyers who were alert but far from agitated regarding either the conviction or releasing of “the perp.” I’ve had more lively conversations with my wife about what kind of apples to buy at the grocery store than this trio had about the situation at hand. But from what I could discern, in just a few minutes, they’d decided that something else needed to happen at some other time so this really was just a meeting to schedule another meeting several weeks later. And just like that, it was over. Those involved shuffled out the door to make way for the dozen or so other people there to schedule or reschedule other events. I left as well, somewhat deflated by the lack of resolution of my case but firmly resolved NOT to attend anymore of this dramaless drama. I wasn’t getting my stuff back and I didn’t need to add insult to injury by attending long, drawn-out scheduling meetings. Getting emotionally involved in this situation felt like a prison sentence in itself. So I let it go.

On the way out the door, I was surprised to bump into Brenda, one of my regular students at my Intro To Yoga class I was teaching on Wednesday nights a different nearby yoga studio. “Hi, Brenda! What are you doing here?” “Oh, I’m a defense attorney. This is work. What are YOU doing here?” she asked with a skeptical curiosity. I relayed my brief non-drama about the hearing. She told me how much she enjoyed coming to yoga but found it difficult to get out of work early enough to make it to class. I asked her if she thought that perhaps she and other colleagues at her work would be interested in some in-house yoga, either on their lunch break or after work. She positively lit up at the idea and said that she would ask around to see if anybody else would be game.

A few weeks later, I began weekly after-work yoga classes for Brenda and her colleagues in the law library of their offices, a hushed space dampened with old, plush carpet and lined ceiling to floor with limitless rows of stately volumes of law books. Once a week, we would roll out our mats, turn off the fluorescents, and align our movement with our breath as I helped them unwind from their day of defending people like “the perp.” They helped me to realize that many of their defendants are innocent and many who aren’t innocent are often unfairly sentenced because of the system’s prejudice toward the prosecution. Either way, they reminded me that everyone is entitled to have someone smart in their corner who speaks dates and legalese.

I soon discovered that despite the unmitigatedly dull hearing I had attended, being a defense attorney was a much more stressful job than I had imagined. These attorneys needed some way to breathe a sigh of relief and let go of some of the unseen tension they gained in and out of the courtroom. During one yoga class, one of the defense attorneys broke out of a warrior pose and began pacing around her mat, radiating anger like heat waves off a barbecue. I asked her if she was ok and she told me with a forced calm that she was working through some intense anger about a case she was involved in, that someone’s life was literally held in the balance.

Those classes after work with the Legal Defenders gave us all a way to find balance in our lives and we grew close in the process. Though I’d see them only once a week, sometimes more if they also attended classes at the yoga studio, over the years we became true friends. On numerous occasions I was invited to Legal Defender staff parties and I met their kids, spouses, and bosses. They met my family as well and supported and witnessed me during many ups and downs in my life and career. Together we were engaged in the practice of life.

I loved teaching the Legal Defenders and taught that class for many, many years. Eventually, I moved out of town and I had to hand the gig off to a fellow and trusted teacher who continues to teach this class today which is now in its 14th or 15th year!

Not long ago, having moved back to Salt Lake City, I had the opportunity to sub my old class with the Legal Defenders. Since I had left town, the Legal Defenders had moved buildings. Instead of the muted and quiet carpet of the law library, now we unrolled our mats over the modern natural-fiber jute rugs in the hip, custom-built lounge area complete with an espresso bar, ping pong table, and swinging chairs that hang from the ceiling. The Legal Defenders are still the low person on the legal totem pole, but at least now they are consoled with a decent espresso. Many of the original students continue to attend the class after all these years and upon my return we celebrated a happy reunion and reminisced about the many things that have happened over the years since we began this class: marriages, divorces, retirements, kids, and adoptions.

After leading the class through some movement to release stress and loosen up tight muscles, I directed the students into an extra-long savasana. I learned years ago that they desperately needed it. As I was sitting quietly in meditation, I found myself thinking about the string of events that had led me to be where I was at that moment.

I thought, “Thank you, ‘the perp,’ you have given me a lot. You afforded me a unique true-crime, insider’s-view of our legal system (sometimes boring AF), you’ve facilitated an enduring and enjoyable gig for me, and most importantly, you paved the way toward the richness of several friendships that have endured 15 years and counting.”

Then, as I sat in meditation, I performed a rough calculation of the amount of money that I had personally earned over the years from this after-work yoga class and it totaled well over $25,000. More than enough to replace a passenger-side window … and buy a new iPod.

Everyday Mindfulness: A Guide To A Life Well-Lived

I was sent a book called Everyday Mindfulness: 108 Simple Practices To Empower Yourself And Transform Your Life and asked to review it. I found this book to be a breath of fresh air! 

Melissa’s approach to creating a every-day practice for 108 days is both simple as well as profound. Each day is a separate mindfulness practice with three headings: Purpose, Practice, and Reflection. It serves as a basic guide to establish a simple but regular practice of seeing experiencing your life with greater clarity and purpose. 

She’s broken the practices up into six different categories to practice mindfulness in a variety of ways so that we can truly begin to see lasting changes in our lives on all fronts. For example, there’s a way to practice eating mindfully, drinking enough water, and even creating a “Home Spa.” The book is helpful because it gives you a format to do some of those things that you know you’d like to be doing for yourself anyway. 

I like it too because it supports the notion that mindfulness isn’t just about meditating, but that it’s about living a more full life, like the like you know you always want to live and could live if you only had the focus to do so. 

I appreciate her warm and concise writing for its clarity impact. This is a great book of mindfulness both for the novice and the expert practitioner to help them move into a life well-lived.

I enjoy this book and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in a more mindful approach to life. 

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How To Live Your Life at 11!

Here’s an article that I just published in Conscious Life News. Take a look …

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I'm always talking about the balance between effort and ease in a yoga class. Understanding the balance between over and under exerting yourself is the secret to going the distance in your yoga asana. Likewise, it's a lesson that we can apply to our every-day life. 

When exerting or stretching, I always encourage students to do so at a level 7 of 10, or less. I invite them to find that place I qualify as "comfortably intense." It's counterintuitive but doing so will help them arrive much quicker, effectively, and safely to where they are attempting to arrive than just trying to effort their way to get there.

In a society that values productivity over almost anything else we confound doing more with getting more. Such is not always the case in practices like yoga. What's really happening behind the scenes is that we are working  just enough but not too much in order to place ourselves into the current of Prana, or life-force energy, that will take us much further down the path of where we are trying to go than forcing the path our way there.

Prana is a river of energy that is flowing within us and around us. Think of it like an actual river with the current traveling fastest in the center of the river and moving languidly on either bank of the river. One bank of the river represents effort and the other represents ease. If your goal is to move down-river and your efforts to swim only move you horizontally across the river, that is to say either toward one bank or the other, your job therefore is to swim just hard enough to get into the current but not so hard that you swim past the strongest part. When you find the balance between effort and ease, you'll find it relatively easy to stay into the current of energy and you'll find yourself quite literally in a flow state. 

This principle is applied on a physical level in our yoga asana classes but can also be applied to other parts of our lives, in body mind and spirit.  In our meditation practice, we can suffer from either too much or too little effort. In our spiritual practices we can suffer from too much or not enough effort.

Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, is a great reminder for this balance. His entire being is one of non-duality as he is half animal and half human, one long tusk and one short tusk, a large fellow who rides around on a tiny mouse. Often depicted in a Ganesha statue is a plate of cookies he is carrying with him. His ample belly shows that he's not a stranger to his plate of goodies. What he is saying by this is that no matter how serious you are about your practices in body, mind, and spirit, it's important that you always find enjoyment in them. Feed your soul in the process and allow your soul to get fat. 

Tantra is a school of thought that focuses on our growth. In fact, Tantra means to stretch into your greatest being as effectively as possible. I know what you might be thinking. Often, the word Tantra conjures of esoteric  " coupled yoga poses" that are reserved for the bedroom, or for some of you, any room in the house, as long as the kids aren't home. And while finding balance in your love life is a part of Tantra, the school of thought is much richer than just that. Tantra is to move beyond the realm of the ordinary to understand and embrace your full potential, in every area of your life, a potential which is probably much vaster than you think. The driver for Tantra, that is to say the way that we can optimize every part of our life, is Prana. Getting into the flow of Prana is the secret gateway to make every aspect of our lives (even "esoteric coupled yoga poses") thrive. Again the two things that most often prevent us from getting into that flow of Prana is either under effort or over effort. 

Here's the big reveal: by operating at a level 7 or less of effort in our lives, we find that our lives thrive at a level 11! Get more by finding the balance between effort and ease. 

This week, I encourage you live your life at a level 11 by exploring all the ways in which you might be able to find greater balance, including your job, play, exercise, your diet, your relationships. . . EVERYTHING. Let go of the doing more to get more attitude and instead try finding balance to get into the flow. In the flow, there's no limits to where you might arrive. 

I invite you to practice living FULL-OUT! DON'T MAKE ME GO ALL-CAPS ON YOUR ASS! Do it! And watch how by so doing, you'll see how those around you start to step up as well.     

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Heart In The Dark

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Live Yoga Nidra Training

Before we get into the story and speaking of getting to the heart of things, in about a week, I’ll be hosting my live, online Yoga Nidra immersion and teacher training by Zoom.

I’m really, really looking forward to it. I’ve got a few spots left, and would love to have you join. I’ve split it up into two weekends. The first is an immersion, designed for those interested in the transformative power of Yoga Nidra, a deep dive into this fascinating realm which quite simply is a practice that helps you wake up to realize your greatest potential and become the person you were destined to be.

Ultimately, this is an inquiry into your very nature of being to discover how beautiful and wondrous your life can be, and how much this yoga of sleep can benefit your stress, sleep, and perspective on the world and its problems. The next weekend is designed for those who might be interested in teaching Yoga Nidra and/or just really geek out on this fascinating subject. I want to show you how to facilitate lasting transformative for yourself and others through relaxing Yoga Nidra practices. I’m really proud of the robust curriculum I’ve developed and would love to have you join me.

Onto the story …

Running Into Darkness

Several years ago, some friends and I were spending an afternoon along the shores of the paradoxical desert of Great Salt Lake, the large and salinated lake that gives Salt Lake City its namesake.

If you’ve never been there, it’s a fascinating place, definitely worth the trip. Great Salt Lake exists now as the dregs of a 30,000-year-old ancient lake called Lake Bonneville which once spanned what is now half of northern Utah and eastern Nevada, a once-great lake held in a massive geological bowl known as the Great Basin. Everything’s “Great” in Utah! Even as a puddle of its former self, Great Salt Lake currently stands as the largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere.

The salinity of the water is a whopping 27%, compared to 3.5% of typical ocean water, depending on the ocean. Day-travelers of the 1920s would flock by the train-load to the briny resorts of Great Salt Lake to float in, and almost walk on (faith depending), the uncommonly salinated waters. After a long day of floating, they’d rinse off to dance the night away doing the Lindy Hop and the Jitterbug in the desert days of prohibition and under the censoring eyes of Mormon church authorities.

The previous 30,000 years notwithstanding, in only the last century, the lake has receded considerably short-sighted legislation which amounts to nothing short of greed, stealing from the water inlets today so that there’s not lake tomorrow. Today, the landscape of Great Salt Lake would be utterly unrecognizable to our liquorless, Lindy Hopping great grandparents but more on that another time …

The receding lake has revealed its phenomenally flat and briny lake bottom which today attracts a new generation of tourists, not to its buoyant waters but to the lack thereof. Now, flocks of tourists come to what’s called the “Bonneville Salt Flats” to get high off a different natural resource: speed. The “Salt Flats,” (what happened to the ubiquitous “Great”?) is a several-mile-long, flat but grippy, salt-crusted terrain which acts as the perfect runway for thrill-seeking speed merchants striving to set new land speed records, the fastest being over 760 mph.

Even without the presence of an occasional rocket-propelled car, the shores of the Great Salt Lake offers a surreal landscape, even for the more pedestrian visitors: a flat, vast playa of endless white sand, crusted with salt which scintillates in the afternoon sun. To walk on this alien terrain is a sensational feast for bare feet.

On this day that my friends and I visited the wide, flat shores of Great Salt Lake, we were walking barefoot along barren brine and decided to conduct our own kind of race. We felt drunk with space and our feet yearned to explore every inch of this sand, flat and unspoiled in every direction. Each person agreed to close their eyes and run, completely blind and at full speed, in any direction for exactly 100 paces before opening their eyes. Eager for simple adventure, we closed our eyes and held our breath as someone shouted, "GO!"

Eyes closed, my legs began to sprint, bolting into the darkness of the afternoon sun. I noticed that with my primary sense muted, my other senses bloomed. A pungent potpourri filled my nostrils, one of sulfurous mud, dry salt, and miles of decaying brine shrimp. The salty air lit on my tongue, drying my mouth, and burning my lungs as they groped for breath between staccatos of unfettered laughter. My arms and legs scissored in orchestrated opposition as every muscle contracted to blast my body forward through raw space. With each step, the salty crust of the sand briefly pricked my naked soles before crumbling into a carpet of soft velvet. For several paces, my ears traced a steady decrescendo of my fellow racers’ feet, breath, and laughter dwindling into the quiet distance. Soon, I was running alone in the darkness.

Once alone, I was surprised to feel a primal and powerful fear kick in, the one that said in not so many words, “You’ll get hurt if you stray from the tribe into the unknown.” A sliver of worry lodged itself into my brain. “Didn’t you see some ominous-looking spikes sticking out of the sand somewhere in the direction that you’re running?” Horrific and gruesome images of running teeth-first into a post or impaling my bare feet on a sharp stick did wonders to dampen my sensory smorgasbord and all my attention now clutched the worry of what might happen to me as I ran blindly.

Steeling my nerves, I did my best to push these images from my mind, locking my eyes shut and quickening my pace. Suddenly, a spontaneous laugh burst from my chest, some automatic expression of wonder and worry.

. . . 53, 54, 55 . . .

My paces were whizzing by but with each step I couldn’t shake the fear of stepping blindly onto something dangerous. Worry had now evolved into genuine fear. “This is stupid,” I told myself, “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

. . . 71, 72, 73 . . .

New and more graphic images of dangers began infecting my mind, reaching for some emergency brake in my nervous system.

. . . 83, 84, 85 . . .

By now, panic had spiked. I felt the same as if I were running blind and headlong at full speed toward a cliff.

Only fifteen paces to go. Raw animal instinct clawed at my eyes to open, yet an iron resolve welded them shut. In one last burst of flying into the unknown, I let out all the stops. I pushed the throttle of my legs as fast they would go and sprinted madly forward into the darkness. Laughing was now replaced with a raw, full-throated scream, equal parts exhilaration and naked terror.

… 98, 99, 100!

On exactly my 100th step, my legs froze in space, refusing to take another step as my body wobbled to maintain equilibrium on the now unfamiliar feeling of solid ground. As I stood there panting, I slowly opened up my eyes and looked down to examine my feet to see them completely unmarred except for a generous coating of salt and mud. I stood there for a moment, feeling immense gratitude for these selfless feet, willingly thrusting me through unknown space as I ran through the darkness toward fear. After a moment, my gaze lifted to search for those ominous spikes that haunted my run. Nothing. Only flat, salty sand for miles. Of course. The misperception of my mind only invented the images.

What a rush! Who needs a rocket-propelled car?

This story reminds me of an important yogic concept called the Kleshas as explained in the Yoga Sutras, an ancient book of great wisdom. The Kleshas explore the relationship between perceptions and actions. Our misperceptions are called Avidya, a Sanskrit term literally meaning misperception. Unsurprisingly, one of the most common ways of misperceiving is Dvesa, misperception due to fear. Our misperceptions often cause us to react from fear, and in my case to completely invent beliefs, invariably causing suffering for ourselves and others. If we can avoid misperceptions and learn to see with true sight, we can respond to the vicissitudes of life with compassionate responsiveness instead of fearful reactivity.

On my blind run, I knew that there were no obstacles in my path yet my brain invented them based on past experiences causing me to run with fear. And while it was all fun and games that day on the shores of The Great Salt Lake, we tend to run through life with considerably less abandon, our misperception causing fears to push on the brakes of our higher selves and limit our strides toward what our destiny calls us to do and be.

But how does one learn to see correctly? Ironically, perhaps we can only see correctly when we attune our perception with something infinitely more refined than our eyes, a fine-tuned instrument designed to perceive truth. In The Little Prince, a modern book of great wisdom, this one masquerading as a children’s novella, one of the characters, the wise fox, shares his secret with the Little Prince when he says, “One only sees rightly with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.” Until we wake up from the misperception of fear and learn to truly see with the heart, we are destined to suffer as well as cause suffering toward others.

When we do learn to see with the heart, it will likely reinvent our entire concept of the world, or at least our relationship to it. At that moment you’ll be born into the The Great Truth (another “Great”), that everything in the Universe is boiled down to one single element: love. It’s what poetry and pop songs have been telling us forever. Funny how perhaps THE most important eternal truth can sound like a platitude plastered on a meaningless Hallmark card. Nonetheless, it’s Truth with a capital T, but one that must be experienced and practiced over a lifetime and not merely repeated mindlessly as you mouth the words to your favorite Beatles song, elbow cocked out the window, cruising down the 405.

The English title of one of my all-time favorite movies is a beautiful, life-affirming film called Wings of Desire, a German film by Wim Wenders. If you haven't seen it, find it and watch it immediately, but bring a glass of milk to wash it down cuz it's richer than an entire Black Forest Cake.

In the film, an angel named Damiel, played by Bruno Ganz, lives a black-and-white existence, one of only knowing and observing but categorically void of the spectrum of the human experience, notably of doing, feeling, and loving. As an angel, Damiel feels a bitter longing, for though he can read people’s minds (he likes to hang out with his angel friends in the library to hear the thoughts of readers), his attempt to do anything other than observe others, to help or comfort, falls pitifully short, a tragic truth illustrated in a heart-breaking scene where Damiel is sitting next to a suicidal man on the high ledge of a building, hearing his desperate thoughts, but can do nothing to stop the man from jumping to his death.

Besides helping people, Damiel also yearns for the human experience of love. Damiel falls for a woman, a trapeze artist, ironically wearing false angel wings as part of her act, and resolves to cash in his actual angle wings in order to live one life—fully-human, sentient, and loving—rather than suffer an eternity of the drab, albeit safe, existence of an angel.

The price to enter a human life is his angelic armor, his protection from the inevitable pain and heartache endemic to the human experience. The cinematic effect is perfect because as he becomes human, he leaves the black and white angel world and is born into an entire cosmos of colors, the full rainbow of a human existence.

Damiel is welcomed into his new human life by one of this world’s most well-known faces—pain. Gaining consciousness after his fall from angelic grace, he inspects a small gash on his head and pulling his finger from his wound, meets both blood and color for the first time. With a child-like inquisitiveness, he stops a passerby on the street and asks, “Is this red?” to which the man simply makes a wider birth so as to avoid this obviously crazy and bleeding person on the street. Indeed, someone who sees with such purity, unjaded by previous experience, would seem crazy to the vast majority of us who are locked in our tired and unconscious ways of seeing the world.

Next, Damiel has been watching mortals enjoy coffee for hundreds of years and can’t wait to drink some himself. He finds a street vendor who gives him a cup. It’s much too hot but he doesn’t know it yet and in his lust to taste this dark, aromatic elixir, he burns his tongue quite badly.

Yet, despite being greeted into his new life with the harsh hand of pain, the gash on his head and burning his tongue, instead of being disillusioned with human life, Damiel marvels at its richness and celebrates these sensations as the immutable truth of truly living.

At one point in the movie, the newly-mortal Damiel happens upon another angel-turned-mortal who, interestingly, is Peter Falk playing Peter Falk. Falk is on set in Berlin filming an episode of Columbo. Who better than a classic, salty sleuth to play out the mystery of what it means to be human? Peter Falk can recognize those who used to be angels who are now walking the earth and reminisces what it was like to be an angel but muses over the joys of life. After a brief conversation with Damiel, Peter Falk hears the call to return to the film set and as he is walking away, Damiel desperately calls after the angel-turned-TV-celeb to tell him everything there is to know about being human. Peter Falk doesn’t break stride and turning his head slightly, calls out over his shoulder, "You have to figure it out for yourself, kid. That's the fun of it!"

Sometimes, you have to shut your eyes and run full-out into the darkness of life to understand what it means to be alive.

As I’m writing this, the ominous cloud of COVID-19 has been darkening life for more than a year. It’s caused us all a lot of pain and covered the entire world with a heavy blanket of legit fear. It’s made the future ambiguous, it’s ruined plans, and worse, it has put a wedge between this world’s most valuable resource: each other. For me, it feels like we’ve been running in the darkness for a long time and I know I’m not alone when I say … I’m tired.

Global pandemic aside, doesn’t it feel so often that life is really one long journey into the darkness? Who knows what lurks over the next horizon or hell, even into next week? Yet, can we learn to see this ambiguity as something to celebrate if only to serve us to remember that we are alive? Even in our fears and failings and dying there can simultaneously exist wonder and beauty. Poet David Ignatow points to this paradox when he says, in his an excerpt from his poem, THREE IN TRANSITION (FOR WCW),

I wish I understood the beauty

in leaves falling. To whom

are we beautiful

as we go?

His poem points to the fact that even in our failing, in our most difficult times, there is a part of the Universe that finds us astonishing in that going. Having lost my mother to cancer days after Thanksgiving in 2020, during an already crushing year blighted with COVID-19, I saw first-hand how something so tragic as my mother passing bestowed a beauty to life. My mom’s death illuminated something Universal within the entire family, even and especially in my mom. Somehow she lives and spends her nights visiting me in my dreams. My mom’s death points to life. To whom are we beautiful as we go? Or to what?

Yoga and meditation are simple practices that point us inward to discover and remember that portion of the Universal that exists inside of us. Being familiar with the Universal part within us is in part what it means to see with your heart. Having heart-vision grants us the capacity to see a magnificence to the most difficult of circumstances, the beauty of a textured and well-lived life.

The late, great Leonard Cohen said, “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”

Also, with this sure knowledge of the heart, we are less persuaded by Dvesa's power of misperception due fear. Another tired but nonetheless true statement is that love conquers fear. Perhaps this, too, is only something we can learn by closing our eyes as we lean into the darkness and learn to trust our most reliable sense. And from this courageous place, we will face what fears remain with presence and boldness. The Latin word for heart is Cor. To be courageous doesn’t mean an absence of fear, but to be full of heart.

As we run through the dark path of life’s journey, we will undoubtedly encounter fears.

May we learn to be courageous, seeing the world and the people in it rightly, as Universal elements of love. May our practices of yoga, meditation, and love wake us up to the Universal within all of us. And while we may not know exactly when this darkness will end, may we run through this uncertainty screaming, laughing, and loving, knowing that at very the least we are alive.

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

~Wendell Berry.

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Quiet The Mind

The Yoga Sutras by Patanjali is a collection of Sanskrit verses, compiled sometime between 500 BCE and 400 CE and directs someone toward how they might achieve the ultimate state of yoga called Samadhi, or Oneness with all things. The Yoga Sutras can get pretty esoteric but they start off quite straight forward by explaining very succinctly what yoga is. It says in the second verse, "Yoga chitta vrtti nirodhah," meaning Yoga is the cessation of fluctuations of the mind.Yoga Sutra 1:2. In other words, by learning to quiet the mind, you enter into the state of Samadhi.

Yoga Is More Than Poses

Often times when we think of yoga, we think of asana, or yoga postures. However, the postures are simply another tool to help practice achieving the real purpose for yoga which is to calm the mind and gain Awareness. Certainly, there are many benefits to an asana practice including health, reduction of stress, sleeping better, etc., but it should be stated that these are the fantastic byproducts of calming the mind. Whether by practicing asana, meditation, or pranayama (breath work), we are truly practicing calming the fluctuations of the mind to enter into the space of clear seeing and Awareness.

The Yoga of Good Work

Nowhere in the Yoga Sutras does it mention that a practitioner can only achieve this state of calming the mind while on a yoga mat, in the studio, or doing yoga poses. Therefore, anything that helps us to practice find focus, develop Awareness, and concentration could be considered a yoga practice. We can apply this notion of focus and concentration for any kind of work we might do and any work we might do could prepare us to arrive at Samadhi. You can see a person who enters into that state of Oneness when they lose themselves in a performance, dance, or any other work that transcends a person.

Getting quiet and drawing in to stillness is necessary for any good work to happen. It's this quietness, this stillness, that allows the busy waters of our mind and emotions to settle enough for us to see what's down in the depths our being.

When we can enter this state of Oneness, even momentarily, our work becomes effortless because we are no longer attempting to do the thing, we become the thing. Work on this level, be that our job, parenting, our passions or whatever, generates from this deep relationship with our true being. Our work, therefore is simply an extension of our deeper selves, the Self that knows everything.

Our work, our medium is, as one good friend says, the loudspeaker of the soul.

Here are a few simple practice that you might try before any work, be that yoga practice, contract law, or parenting, to practice calming the waters of the mind.

Practices that Quiet The Mind

Yoga Nidra

Yoga Nidra is by far and away one of the most effective and most relaxing ways of changing your state of consciousness, one that helps you uplevel your stage of consciousness and then… yes— change the world. Nidra is a Sanskrit word meaning sleep, and Yoga Nidra is often called “the yoga of sleep” because it is a form of guided meditation that uses relaxation and a system of organized and layered awareness to take you through a journey into a liminal state between waking and dreaming consciousness. It is here, in this liminal state, that you discover that your mind, body, and spirit together contain a pathway that leads to the gates of perfect presence, wholeness, and Oneness.

Yoga Nidra is a potent catalyst for massive personal growth, giving you the direct tools and direction to become the person you are destined to become...the greater You who is destined to change the world.

In a beautiful paradox, the yoga of sleep is actually about waking up to the powerful being that you are. Some of the most powerful forces in the world can also be the most gentle, just like a whispering wind and the soft laps of a river which carve massive and formidable stones from canyon walls.

Yoga Nidra openes your eyes and wakes you up to the very nature of your being, that of limitless power and beauty. It opens your ears to hear the ancient wisdom of sages whispering to you that your true identity is that of Awareness itself. The gentle practice of Yoga Nidra leads you down a pathway to feel your truest essence, one of boundless equanimity, pure love, and absolute clarity. This practice helps you feel yourself existing as a resounding and Universal YES!

There Is Practice

Simply sit, close your eyes, and acknowledge what you sense, all of your senses. Without value or judgment, simply state what you are experiencing. Rather than identifying with the pronoun "I" simply say in your mind, "There is the sound of traffic, there is fatigue, there is worry, there is an incredible urge to rush to Hatch Family Chocolates and eat 40 pounds of truffles." You know, whatever thought, emotion, sensation occurs. Simply state what is. Try not to identify with it. Just watch it.

Count Your Breaths

Choose a number and count your exhales down from that number to zero. When you loose your place start back at that number. If you get to zero, start back at that or a different number. Keep you mind only on your breath. This is a deceptively difficult practice, I feel.

Mantra

Mantra means to transcend through the use of your mind. Simply find a phrase that means something to you, a scripture, a poem, some tidbit of inspiration, and repeat it in your mind. Words are powerful. You are your word.

I invite you to practice stilling the waters of your mind before doing any work to see how it leads to you fulfill your purpose of becoming one with all things.

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The "E" Word

There is a new four-letter word, the "E" word. This word is "The Economy." Strangely, it's neither four letters long nor even one word. Regardless, hearing the phrase (brace yourself), "The Economy'' probably conjures worry and a knot in the stomach. Whether directly or indirectly, we are all being affected by what's happening with (here it is again) "The Economy."

Unfortunately, hard financial times often makes us feel like we need to circle the wagons, draw in our resources, and look out for our own interests. The scarcity of financial means sometimes leads to scarcity of good will toward each other.

But despite the fact that many of us are suffering a bit financially because of COVID-19, the loss of jobs, plans put on pause, etc, there is another form of abundance we can all cash in and rely upon. This abundant resource is each other. Us. You and me. Even with social distancing, instead of shielding ourselves from others, we can enrich ourselves and others during this tricky financial time by investing our sincere humanity, our love, compassion, trust, and laughter. We can invest in the coffers of the well-being and happiness of each other. We are each other's bail-out plan and support in the essential economics of human capital. We are a resource without a deficit and yes, one that is even more vital than dollars. We are each other's interest and one that will receive an immediate return on investment each time we share a little of love and care from our endless account of humanity. This is yoga's (read union) true meaning, the one-ness of all.

Tough financial times actually affords us an opportunity, the opportunity to draw together and build friendships and communities because sometimes that is all that is left. Community is what's essential. Community will get us through. Ask your grandparents who may have lived through the Great Depression. We can help each other out in myriad ways, even with the pandemic prevalent and vaccines still scarce.

A few ways we might help out could include :

• Telling your community of job opportunities you might be aware of.

• Declutter your space by sifting through unused stuff and both simplify your life by getting rid of anything you’re not using and offering it to those in your community who might need it. Take a look at the incredible work being done by my friend Courtney Carver and her book, Soulful Simplicity for excellent ways to be so much more by owning so much less.

• Do an online yoga or meditation practice. Your energy and spirit feeds each other. Be creative! Tough times move us toward fun creative solutions that we'd otherwise never have discovered.

I love my job. I love it because I am constantly fed by your generosity and spirit. One thing I treasure is connecting with you on a personal as well as group level. I am often allowed a sneak peak into many of your hearts and get to see first hand how yoga has affected your lives. Countless times, I have looked into your eyes as you've spoken volumes to me by the tender tears rolling down your cheeks and perhaps mixed in a few words to describe some of your unspeakable challenges. You've shared with me your immense peace and joy and your stunning moments of clarity. You've shared with me the ways in which yoga has been your lifesaver, an island, an oasis. I'm deeply honored to play a small part in your unfolding.

I’d love to connect! Let’s share some human capital by having a virtual coffee date! I’d love to hear about what’s going on in your life, how COVID-19 has affected you, and what you do to help you keep your spirits up. Wherever you are in the world, let’s connect and together we’ll invest in the account of human good will.
Also, reach out to others and stay connected with people via Zoom or phone. Social distancing doesn’t have to mean heart distancing.

email me to connect at scott@scottmooreyoga.com

Scott