You Are Only as Good as the Quality of Your Sleep

Yoga nidra is often referred to as yogic sleep due to the fact that it promotes a state of consciousness that is somewhere between being fully awake and sleeping. As a sleep meditation teacher, (Yoga Nidra facilitator) I help people take advantage of what Yoga Nidra offers in order to improve their sleep.

Why? Because I know this fundamental truth: we are only as good as the quality of our sleep.

You want to be the best you can be. You want to excel at home, at work, and in any environment in which you find yourself. But the truth is that your ability to excel is impacted by the amount of restful sleep you get. So if you are not getting enough restful sleep, your ability to excel is hindered.

Why Good Sleep Matters

My role as a sleep meditation teacher gives me the opportunity to work with all sorts of people in the States as well as the UK, Europe, Asia, and Canada. One thing I've noticed is that it's easy to find reasons to justify a lack of sleep. But there is no escaping the fact that both the body and mind need rest. And they need plenty of it if a person is to operate at peak performance.

According to the Sleep Foundation, here's what quality sleep can do for you:

• Improve your mood by helping you deal with stress better.

• Improve your heart health by regulating your blood pressure.

• Improve blood sugar regulation, reducing the risks of certain diseases, like diabetes.

• Improve mental function, including memory and cognition.

• Give your immune system a significant boost.

• Help you better manage stress in your day-to-day life.

• Improve physical recovery after exercise and/or athletics.

• Help you maintain a healthy weight by regulating both appetite and metabolism.

The human body is a fantastic creation capable of doing amazing things. Ditto for the mind. But both mind and body need time to refuel, repair, and rest. All three are the primary benefits of good, quality sleep.

Finding Your Rhythm With Sleep Meditation

The Sleep Foundation's Dr. Abhinav Singh refers to sleep as "a rhythm.” As a musician, I love that comparison. Not only do I agree with this good doctor's assessment, but I also know that finding your own rhythm is one of the keys to consistent restful sleep. And that's one of the things that Yoga Nidra or sleep meditation is all about.

One principle of to facilitate sleep meditation is rhythmic breathing. Sleep meditation practitioners can learn to control their own breathing to help reduce stress and anxiety. This is one of the things that helps them reach a more relaxed state. The rhythm of one's breathing sets the stage for meditation practices that lead to the state Yoga Nidra seeks to find.

Turning to sleep meditation to help find that rhythm can help create a daily sleep-wake cycle that encourages a person to excel. If that's what you're after, I hope you will consider sleep meditation. And as a sleep meditation teacher, I can help.

Tips for Improving Your Sleep

In addition to sleep meditation and yoga nidra, there are other things you can do to improve your nightly sleep. Without getting into detail, they include things like:

• Maintaining a regular sleep schedule

• Creating a relaxing environment for sleep

• Being careful about caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine

• Getting regular exercise

• Avoiding excessive screen time before bed
  

Apart from coming to your house and setting up your perfect sleep environment, I cannot help you with all these things but what I can help you with sleep meditation. That is my area of expertise and one I would be happy to share with you. Remember this: you are only as good as the quality of your sleep.

Yoga Nidra Class Near Me: Free Yoga Nidra Class Sunday + Updates

Happy Friday to you!

I hope your week has been great—full of self-awareness, optimism, and doing things for your wellbeing. 

PSA

I invite you to make it a habit that each day you do something healthy for your body, mind, and spirit. 

Personally, I wake up early to do yoga and work out, I plan out what I’m going to eat, and I listen to or read something every day that nourishes my spirit. 

What are your body, mind, spirit habits?

As we step into the weekend, I wanted to give you a few tid-bits.

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Free Yoga Nidra Class This Sunday

Every Sunday I teach a live online Yoga Nidra class 9–10:15 am MT. 

This is the 5th Sunday of the month so this week my live online Yoga Nidra class is FREE. Click here to register and instead of payment, click “It’s the 5th Sunday of the month, this one’s free” button on the registration form. Then, you’ll get an email with the Zoom link and information about class. 

Even if you can’t join live, register anyway because everyone gets the replay so you can listen to and/or watch the entire class as well as just the Yoga Nidra practice. 

This week we’ll explore how love and joy are both portals to experience our ultimate being.

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Yoga For Stiffer Bodies

Saturdays 7:30–8:30 am MT

Live via Zoom or in person at Mosaic Yoga

By donation 

I absolutely love this class. It’s a great opportunity to join a fantastic community of practitioners and do an intelligent, therapeutic, and active yoga practice but totally on your terms.

Class is 60 minutes and consists of a generous warm up, familiar and new poses, and a nourishing cooldown and stretchy poses. It’s the perfect way to start your weekend.

Join me for Yoga for Stiffer Bods live, either via Zoom or in person at Mosaic Yoga in Salt Lake City, Utah. For Zoomers, click here and see the Zoom button at the top of the page (same link for all of my classes).

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Advanced Yoga Nidra Training

Also, I noticed that I’d originally scheduled my Advanced Yoga Nidra teacher training to overlap with Easter so I’ve changed the dates a bit. Now, the Advanced Yoga Nidra teacher training will be over two weekends: April 26–27; May 3–4.

I’m really excited about this training. I only offer it once a year and it’s a chance to really go deep into the absolutely transformational practice of Yoga Nidra. 

We are going to do a deep dive into topics like:

• Purpose: Self-discovery, sacred sleep, and waking from the dream

• Tools: Expanding your toolbox—Drawing a bigger map, Speaking your voice, and wielding weapon-grade love

• Practice Makes Progress: Mastering Yoga Nidra dyads, discovering and building YOUR classes, and developing personal projects

• Direction Frequency and Resonance: advanced recording techniques, sharing platforms, and finding your voice to reveal your students

If you haven’t done the first training, reach out to me and I can arrange a special price for both the level 1 and the advanced training. You’ll have just enough time to do both!

Join us!

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Yoga Retreat France

I have only 3 spots left in my French Riviera yoga retreat happening June 7–13, 2025. This will be a retreat of a lifetime and I don’t want you to miss out. Please grab your bestie and make it happen.

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Yoga Business and Teaching Mentorships

Lastly, I love mentoring other conscious entrepreneurs how to start or boost their business. I recently had a few mentors graduate which opens up a few spots.

If you're interested in a free discovery Zoom call where we can discuss how to get your mad skills out into the world and make a positive impact while also making a great living doing what you love, please book an appointment below. 

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You're a beautiful person. You matter, you're good enough, and pretty kick-ass.

Please share your incredible gifts with the world. 

PART 1 The Pilgrim's Journey: From Searching To Arriving

“You’re not tourists,” she proclaimed. “You’re pilgrims.”

The June morning sun shone through the large windows of the yoga room and rested on Nórín’s golden hair, the rays chasing away the chill left by the persistent Irish rain of previous days. 

Nórín Ní Riain and her son Moley Ó Súilleabháin, were spending the day with our yoga group to share spirit in the form of poetry, song, stories, and a sacred walk to the Tobar Phádraig, St. Patrick’s holy well. 

Nóirín Ní Riain—Photo By Kim Dastrup

Nóirín Ní Riain at Tobar Phádraig, St. Patrick’s holy well.

As I sat there on the floor listening to Nórín speak, her simple comment about being a pilgrim sent bells ringing in my brain. 

I had been leading and co-leading yoga retreats, like this one to Ireland, for a dozen years or so and I had been chewing on something in my mind. I love to organize and invite people on these yoga adventures, to these beautiful places, not just to practice yoga in different scenery but for a chance to create a bigger change in body, mind, and spirit for each of us. 

Nórín helped to clarify this for me: these retreats are more than just simple tourism—they are personal and group pilgrimages. 

What are pilgrims and pilgrimages? How are retreats and life in general pilgrimages?

I believe that pilgrimages start with a question and a keen willingness to start walking in faith, often toward unknown horizons, to see where the path will lead you and what you may discover along the way. 

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The Darkness Before Light (Connecting to Idyll)

A few days after our enchanted day with Nórín and Moley, we were invited to visit Richard Hearns’ home and art studio. He’s a world-renowned painter who lives and works a short drive from the Burren Yoga Retreat where we were hosting our retreat. He graciously welcomed all 17 us—complete strangers—into his home. His wife, Boo, made us scones and tea. He proudly showed us around their verdant garden and gave us a private showing of his art, even reciting a memorized essay he’d written about the spirit of his work. 

Especially after our experience a few days earlier with Nórín and Moley, it seemed quite clear that one can’t a stick in this part of Ireland without someone ready to share a song, poem, or some sort of recitation. 

Richard showed us several of his paintings including two pieces that he’d just finished that work beautifully together as a duo: Idyll and … (wait for it) … Pilgrim. 

As Richard pulled the first of these paintings, Idyll, out from the back room and set it upon the floor, Seneca let out a spontaneous gasp. She said that she was immediately struck by the skill and depth of the painting. On first sight, without any analysis or interpretation, the painting simply moved her.

Richard explained that the word Idyll is an older English word that means a picturesque scene, something ideal, or, more poignantly, something that is ultimately unsustainable.

As Seneca continued to look at the painting, she saw the pathway of a journey. In this painting there are layers, steps in hues, from a light gray area through a valley of darkness to arrive at a brighter sky, maybe a brighter day laying in promise behind the formidable terrain. She said that the valley merely represents life itself and that there is as much love and beauty even in the darkness of the valley as the break of light beyond. 

As I look at this painting, in this valley of life, I see an illuminated path—an alluring invitation to travel from what’s not ideal—the gray mere subsistence of being—through the darkness, following the light, into something brighter.

Like many good paintings, poems, or other works of art, Seneca says that in Idyll she sees a thousand stories and meanings. Though the paint is dried on the canvas, the painting is constantly changing by the meaning it evokes.

One of the meanings I see in this painting is the pilgrim’s journey of hope. 

This vision of the pilgrim's journey through darkness toward light would resonate deeply with me during my next pilgrimage.

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A Columbian Pilgrimage

Recently, I took a personal pilgrimage to a healing retreat in the mountains of Columbia. This time, I was a participant, not the leader. Having been to this retreat 6 years prior, I returned to receive further blessings, healings, and do deepen my spiritual work with one of the greatest spiritual leaders I may ever know, a healer, shaman, and cosmic jester named Tita Juanito. 

This place is holy for me, a place where I’ve received some of my biggest revelations, downloads, and insights. For years, Taita has been coming to me in my dreams and telling me that I was late, that it was time to come back. It took six years but I finally made the pilgrimage back.

I prepared with weeks of cleansing in body, mind, and spirit, by meditating, adhering to a very clean diet and media consumption. 

Intentions are powerful ways of facilitating transformation during retreats so I decided that Pilgrim would be one of my primary intentions for this retreat. On my retreat, I purposefully didn’t bring many things to read or distract me—just my journal, 3 of my favorite fountain pens, and a few books by poet and author David Whyte, all of which spoke to the idea of pilgrim.

For me, writing is a way of discovering deeper truths so in the days leading up to the retreat, I explored my pilgrim intention by writing many pages in my journal. 

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Some ideas that emerged on the page were: 

Sacrifice: A pilgrim must be willing to sacrifice. A pilgrim not only sacrifices the comforts of their life at home, but must be willing to also sacrifice themselves, must be willing to give up the person they thought they were. They must sacrifice the life they thought made so much sense. 

Discovery: A pilgrim is in a constant state of discovery, wields a healthy dose of curiosity, and can suspend judgement as new things are revealed. 

Receptive: While a pilgrim may be on a journey toward something or to gain something, more importantly a pilgrim must be receptive and available for whatever comes along the path, often something they never expected or hadn’t even conceived of. They must receive some wholly unimagined version of themselves that they may stumble upon along the way. 

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The Evolution Of The Pilgrim

One of the great benefits of retreating from every-day life and immersing yourself in a new experience—be it Ireland or Columbia or anywhere else—is that by doing so it makes you available for incredible insight. It does this by opening both your heart and mind. It opens your eyes because you’re no longer anesthetized by the every-day. 

There’s real magic to simply getting you out of your old routine. 

The Dark Night Leads To The Light

I believe a pilgrim says yes to their own evolution and that usually involves some sort of death of their old self to either a small or larger degree. This can sometimes come in the form of a simple soul update and sometimes in the form of a dark night of the soul, a crisis of ego, or soul death. 

During my Colombian pilgrimage during one of the ceremonies, I experienced a very intense dark night of the soul. It was so difficult that I almost abandoned the retreat to return home only a few days into the 10-day retreat. But something kept me there and I found the courage to stay. I am happy that I did because of the life-changing revelations that were in store for me toward the end of the retreat. 

Sometimes, the being that had only known itself as a caterpillar is called to abandon everything, isolate themselves, and morph into the being that they meant to become. This growth usually comes with pain but pain with beautiful results. 

 This is what I see in the painting Idyll

Arriving

Bringing my pilgrim theme into the retreat setting in Columbia, I made myself receptive to any insight about pilgrimages. One night during a sacred ceremony, as I stood outside transfixed at the brightness of the moon, my mind was illuminated with the idea that a pilgrim eventually evolves from their sacred hunger of searching—striving, and traveling toward something—and eventually lands into a state of constant arriving. 

A pilgrim discovers that though they may be traveling in a particular direction, toward some goal or destination, with open eyes and hearts, the pilgrim discovers that the ground at their feet is holy ground, that each step is “here,” the arrival they thought was somewhere else. But there is no “somewhere else.” There’s only here. 

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David Whyte

David Whyte has a beautiful essay in his book Consolations about the Pilgrim. 

He says:

The defining experience at the diamond-hard center of reality is eternal movement as beautiful and fearful invitation; a beckoning dynamic asking us to move from this to that. The courageous life is the life that is equal to this unceasing tidal and seasonal becoming: and strangely beneath all, stillness being the only proper physical preparation for joining the breathing autonomic exchange of existence. We are so much made of movement that we speak of the destination being both inside us and beyond us; we sense we are the journey along the way, the one who makes it and the one who has already arrived. We are still running round the house packing our bags and we have already gone and come back, even in our preparations; we are alone in the journey and we are just about to meet the people we have known for years. …

We give ourselves to that final destination as an ultimate initiation into vulnerability and arrival, not ever truly knowing what lies on the other side of the transition, or if we survive it in any recognizable form. Strangely, our arrival at that last transition along the way is exactly where we have the opportunity to understand who made the journey and to appreciate the privilege of having existed as a particularity, an immutable person; a trajectory whole and of itself. In that perspective it might be that faith, reliability, responsibility and being true to something unspeakable are possible even if we are travelers, and that we are made better, more faithful companions, and indeed pilgrims on the astonishing, never to be repeated journey by combining the precious memory of the then with the astonishing, but taken for granted experience of the now, and both with the unbelievable, and hardly possible just about to happen.

Whyte, David. Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words (Kindle Location 808). Many Rivers Press. Kindle Edition.

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Yoga Nidra

Since the idea of arriving is such a key element in the arc of a pilgrim’s experience, practices that prepare us for arriving at this exact moment, this exact place, are indispensable. 

I can think of no greater practice to arrive at this exact moment than meditation and yoga, but more specifically Yoga Nidra. 

While I was in Columbia, even though I went as a participant, I was asked to teach Yoga Nidra each afternoon as a way of practicing presence, integrating the teachings in ceremony, as well as resting from often rigorous or difficult ceremonies that would last all night. 

Yoga Nidra is a potent yet gentle way of agreeing to simply welcome, recognize, and witness whatever is directly at your feet, resting in this moment in your Awareness. It helps us arrive at the present moment better than any other practice I’ve ever known. Indeed, Yoga Nidra is so powerful and expert at helping us arrive at an exquisite experience of the present moment, that the first time I worked with a shaman in sacred ceremony, one of my first thoughts was, “Oh, I’ve been here before with Yoga Nidra.” 

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Wendell Berry Says in his poem “A Spiritual Journey”

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,

no matter how long,

but only by a spiritual journey,

a journey of one inch,

very arduous and humbling and joyful,

by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,

and learn to be at home.

Each opportunity to practice presence through things like Yoga Nidra is a microdose of our own total enlightenment. It does this precisely because it trains us to not only stop looking outside ourselves for the answers, but also that everything we’ve ever searched for is somehow at the ground at our feet, at the tips of our fingers, and that all we must do is to open our eyes and hearts to see. 

Closing

I invite you to consider your own pilgrim journeys. 

What do you consider to be the traits of a pilgrim or pilgrimage?

Remember how Richard pulled out two paintings, Idyll and Pilgrim? Well watch for my special Saint Patrick’s Day message on Monday where I’ll share more about sacred pilgrimages and the holy wells of Ireland.

In the meantime, if you’re ready for a pilgrimage, please consider joining me at my next yoga retreat in the French Riviera.

Make A Difference with Yoga Nidra

Truly, life is good and it's a daily practice to savor it.

Yet sometimes it's hard to think about enjoying ourselves when there is so much trouble in the world. As individuals what can we do about the world's problems? Can a single person even make a difference?

Our biggest problem is the false notion that we are separate from one another. We fight other nations, political parties, and beliefs when the struggle has always been within. We will never achieve harmony in our outer world until we first achieve it in our inner world.

We must learn to respond rather than react to our personal and global circumstances. Reaction perpetuates the cycle of separateness, while compassionate responsiveness builds the world we want rather than fighting against the one we don't.

Yoga Nidra Training: Be The Change

Any true change we wish to see must start within, and I've found no greater tool than Yoga Nidra. This practice has shown me my personal wholeness and the connectedness of all things. It's empowered me with clarity of action while maintaining peace, teaching me that I can hold both peace and anger simultaneously as I work toward positive change.

I've helped tens of thousands of people realize their own innate wholeness through teaching Yoga Nidra. Now I invite you to join my next live teacher training, starting Friday, January 24 2025.

This training is perfect for yoga teachers, meditation instructors, coaches, therapists, school teachers, parents, or anyone passionate about making a positive impact.

When you complete this course you will:

- Feel confident to teach Yoga Nidra like an expert

- Understand Yoga Nidra deeply enough for effortless delivery

- Know how to satisfy your students' unique needs

- Stand out as a teacher, therapist, or coach

- Make a meaningful impact on your students and the world

- Be prepared to earn money as a Yoga Nidra facilitator

Unlike other programs that only provide scripts, you'll learn to create your own specialized content. You'll receive over 100 pages of proven scripts to start teaching immediately, plus learn to develop your own to meet specific student needs.

The Yoga Nidra Teacher Training Structure:

- Live in-person or Zoom lectures

- Specialized Yoga Nidra recordings

- Breathing and mindfulness exercises

- Teaching roadmaps and worksheets

- Over 100 pages of scripts

- Lifetime access to materials

- Personalized Q&A

- Peer collaboration

- Practice teaching

- Real-time script building

Additional Benefits:

- Private Facebook group for peer support

- Updated 160-page manual

- Completion certificate

- Weekly live online class access during training ($48 value)

- 30-minute private consultation ($100 value)

- Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Credit

The program consists of two segments:

1. Yoga Nidra immersion - Develop your personal practice

2. Teacher training - Master the art of teaching and facilitation

You'll also learn how to create well-paying teaching opportunities and build your "Mechanism of Influence" to attract clients and create a global audience.

Refresher courses are available at a reduced cost for previous participants.

Join us. By January 27th you can be a certified Yoga Nidra teacher ready to make a positive impact on the world.

Be the change and help others do the same.

Please join me.

Yoga Nidra Teacher Training: Fix The Crazy Don't Add To It

Man, there’s a LOT going on in the world right now: fires, war, climate, calamity, political doo-doo … you name it.

The world needs qualified Yoga Nidra teachers more than ever to help respond to rather than react from all what’s going on and help make the world a better place. 

Do you want to help the crazy rather than add to it?

Let me teach you how to facilitate Yoga Nidra!

Join My Next Live Yoga Nidra Teacher Training

I’m offering my next Yoga Nidra teacher training January 24–27 and I’d love to have you join. 

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How Can Yoga Nidra Help?

Yoga Nidra can help you and others to calm stress, achieve a feeling of meaning and purpose in the world, and live their life in a spirit of compassionate responsiveness.

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Can I Teach Yoga Nidra if I’m Not A Yoga or Mediation Teacher?

This training is not limited to only yoga or meditation teachers. It’s also perfect if you’re a school teacher, coach, therapist, or parent. 

I’ve spent years developing and teaching my Yoga Nidra teacher training: Facilitating Transformation with the Yoga of Sleep which is one of the best Yoga Nidra teacher trainings in the world and lauded by websites such as Mind is the Master and Yogi Times.  Many people from other disciplines and modalities take this training to help them with the people in their world—clients, students, kids, etc.

This is my best Yoga Nidra training yet and I’d LOVE to share it with you!

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When’s The Next Live Yoga Nidra Teacher Training?

January 24–27, 2025. 

Live: in-person in Tucson, AZ or via Zoom from wherever you are.

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You’ll get:

• Over 100 pages of Yoga Nidra scripts so you can start teaching Yoga Nidra today

• 150 pages of a very detailed manual so to accommodate different learning styles

• 30 hours of expert instruction—cuz you can’t learn this stuff in an afternoon. 

• Specialized Yoga Nidra practices that actually support you to learn how to teach Yoga Nidra

• In person or Zoom so you can join from wherever you are or in-person if you learn best that way

• Lifetime access to all audio/Video replay of all the sessions so you can watch any session you have to miss or so you can rewatch the material as often as you need

• Personalized attention to meet your individual interests and needs for this practice

• Yoga Alliance continuing ed credit if you need it to keep your YA membership active

• Personal 1:1 consultation so you can learn how to personally thrive in this practice

Most of all, you’ll leave feeling prepared to teach varied and specialized Yoga Nidra practices to benefit your students using the power of your own voice rather than being a parrot of your teacher. 

Please reach out with any questions!

Please join me!

Making Waves Great Salt Lake & Live Yoga Nidra Teacher Training

Yeah, today I’m excited to share about a collective poem I contributed to about saving Great Salt Lake as well as my next live Yoga Nidra teacher training.

A Word To Save The Waves

My very good friend,Nan Seymour—a dear friend/sister with whom I’ve been co-leading nature + yoga + writing retreats for the past 9 years—has been doing an incredible job, tirelessly raising awareness about the endangered Great Salt Lake. 

I love this lake and love Nan and so when she asked if I would write a poem about this majestic but imperiled lake, I jumped at the chance. 

Many people contributed and the results were a collective poem. I was thrilled to see that it was recently published as a book called Irreplaceable, A Collective Praise Poem For Great Salt Lake.

Tonight, you’re invited to a FREE event, a collective reading of this poem and I’ll be privileged to read my humble poem.

I’ll also get to blow my sax a little bit. 

At this free event, we will be honored with opening remarks from Lisa Bickmore, Poet Laureate of Utah as well as a screening of the short film Irreplaceable, directed by John Meier. 

Can’t wait!

When: Wednesday, November 20th from 6–7:30 pm 
Where: Natural History Museum of Utah located at 301 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108
Cost: FREE

Please come!

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Live Yoga Nidra Teacher Training

Also, I am excited to let you know about my next LIVE Yoga Nidra teacher training, January 24–27, 2025

I’m excited to be hosted by Rianne Maldonado of Wrae Aesthetics in Tucson, Arizona. 

Training available via Zoom or in person, Tucson, Arizona. 

 
Stand Out As a Teacher, Coach, or Therapist

Let’s face it—there are a billion yoga teachers, coaches, and therapists. This Yoga Nidra teacher training will help you become a Yoga Nidra expert and will help you stand out from the rest in your industry.

Yoga Nidra is SO more than just guided visualizations. Explore how this powerful but gentle medium facilitates massive and lasting transformation from anything to confidence, addiction, stress, sleep, and even spiritual awakening.

This engaging and nourishing training empowers you to become an effective teacher to meet the unique needs of your students and clients, to help them make important transformations in their own lives.

People are waiting to experience Yoga Nidra in only the way YOU can deliver it!

Stand out as a teacher and to facilitate lasting transformation for your students and clients.

What’s Unique About This Training:

• Superb quality—Organized, easy to follow, flexible for your schedule, dynamic as per your learning style.

• In-depth study—you’ll learn from a Yoga Nidra master and graduate a Yoga Nidra expert.

• Highly effective—this training is ranked the top Yoga Nidra trainings in the world by Mind Is the Master.

• Be Original! Most trainings teach you to be a rote version of your teacher. This training teaches you the larger principles, roadmaps, and concepts that allow you to tap into the wise teacher inside of you to be a truly effective teacher by teaching from the power of your own voice

• Yoga Alliance Continuing Education credit.

What Is The Price Of Wearing The Mask?

Happy Halloween!

Regardless of whether or not you’re dressing up for Halloween, we all wear masks. 

I’m not talking about Covid masks.

I’m talkin’ the happy mask. 

The helpful mask.

The promise that I’m not really really really bugged by what you’re doing right now—I swear!— mask. 

The other day, in a mentor session with my mentor student Danielle Washington (check out her stuff, she’s amazing!), we were exploring this theme of wearing masks and how to use this in a theme while creating a Yoga Nidra practice and a great question came up:

What is the price of wearing the mask?

Sure, some of those masks may be necessary sometimes. 

But ever feel like you’d like to get to know that person under the mask a little better? 

Ever feel like you just can’t be yourself?

Ever feel the need to just take the masks off and be exactly who you are, without filter, without the need for anyone’s approval?

Yoga and Yoga Nidra help us to first recognize the masks we are wearing, then to see that what we are is something infinitely larger and more complete than that mask. Once we understand our True Self, we can go back and choose to wear or not wear the mask.

Point is, that the mask is actually a pointer to what you really are. 

I invite you to get in touch with your True Self, regardless of the masks you may or may not wear.

Please join me for yoga or Yoga Nidra this weekend where we will get a chance to connect with our True Self. 

This month in my once-a-month Restore Yoga and Yoga Nidra workshop (2-hour rest-fest), we’ll be exploring masks and the cost of wearing masks. 

Live Yoga Nidra Training: What Do You Love?

Everybody’s got their thing. 

Julia loved to cook. 

Picasso loved to paint

source: https://blog.zoneswimwear.com/post/houdinis-water-torture-cell-explained

Houdini loved to submerge himself in water upside down, locked by his ankles with padlocks to see if he could get out alive. 

Whatever. 

We all gotta lean into whatever we love, right. 

Me? I love teaching Yoga Nidra. I feel I was BORN for it, you know?

I love helping people not only find massive benefits in their life through practicing better rest, better sleep, and managing stress, but also with other important things. Things like aligning personal and global perspectives, about sourcing a sea of creativity within, and relaxing deep enough to finally turn off the chatter in the incessant hamster wheel of the mind. With Yoga Nidra a person can tap the part of themselves that already knows the solution to life’s biggest and smallest problems and allows those solutions to rise to the surface. 

I love that you don’t need any prior experience of yoga or meditation to do Yoga Nidra and that a person can get massive benefits even from their first session. I love that it offers even the newest of practitioners—often people who roll into class in cuz their wife told them that unless they learn to chill the $%^& out they would need to find a new place to call home—an easy way to experience effortless and lasting rest. 

And when you’ve spent as much time as I have practicing, teaching, thinking and writing about Yoga Nidra, the topic gets really expansive. So I love exploring the nitty-gritty of not only what Yoga Nidra is—its history, its method, its purpose—but alo why it works, the neuroscience and psychology of it. 

For me, I love to connect the dots between Yoga Nidra and myths, storytelling, poetry, and my own personal life stories—YOUR life stories—to see how it’s such a powerful and available pointer that reminds us of who we truly are and how we are all truly connected. 

Who knew you could get all of this from a guided nap?

In addition to teaching Yoga Nidra I also love, love, LOVE teaching OTHERS how to teach Yoga Nidra. I think what I love most about it is training other people how to facilitate massive and positive benefits in the lives of the people who are in their particular niche, those they encounter regularly whether they are clients, students, family, or members of a particular community. I love teaching about how Yoga Nidra is more than just guided meditation, more than another guided visualization. So much more. It’s more than checking out and dreaming yourself into bliss. It’s also a pathway to awakening to the truth of who you are. That’s why I call my method, Waking Up with the Yoga of Sleep.

What do you love to do?

Do you love to make a difference in people’s lives? 

Maybe you’re a teacher, a therapist, a coach.

Maybe you teach yoga or meditation. 

Maybe you’re a school teacher.

Could Yoga Nidra be one of the tools you use regularly to help you do whatever you love to do? Could it help you stand out in your field? Could it help those you’re in contact with every day?

This weekend begins my next live Yoga Nidra training where together we will dive deep into the art and science of Yoga Nidra and explore how it can help you to facilitate positive transformation for your clients, students, family, and especially for yourself. 

What is the particular niche of people you hang with regularly, whether through your job, history or situation in life? Could they benefit from Yoga Nidra offered in only the way that you can offer it?

So, whether you’re connecting with others through coq au vin, cubism, or conjuring an escape, Yoga Nidra can help you help others in massive ways.

Now’s the time for you to learn to teach Yoga Nidra for yourself and for others. 

Check out the details below. 

Live and In-Person
and via Zoom

Salt Lake City, Utah

An in-depth Yoga Nidra training
for teachers, coaches, and therapists
interested in facilitating powerful transformation
for self and others.

May 11th & 12; 18th & 19th

Yoga Nidra and Small Kindnesses

Today, I am excited to tell you about my next live Yoga Nidra teacher training, Restore Yoga workshop, as well as offer you this incredible poem …

I heard Helena Bonham Carter read this poem and it stopped me in my tracks. Granted, she could read the IRS filing instructions and it would sound inspiring and poetic. 

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Small Kindnesses

By Danusha Lameris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

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I love the notion of “these fleeting temples we make together” the container of love made by a simple gesture, a kind word, a smile. 

To me, this poem epitomizes that fascinating intersection I like to play at and study, that crossroads between our humanness and our beingness. Here, we can celebrate the messiness of being human, knowing that behind the hot mess that is being human, there is a foundation of goodness, and compassion. 

We are Source and Source is love. 

I love practicing our ability to compassionately respond to life’s ups and downs instead of reacting to them. Practicing this essential skill through Yoga Nidra is like learning to become a ninja of life, except of course that instead of mastering nunchucks and throwing stars, you get to lie down and practice napping your way to enlightenment while drifting on clouds of bliss. When you get done, you get to go back out into the world and show up as your best, most responsive self.

To help us all practice this essential life skill, I invite you to join me for  my Restore Yoga and Yoga Nidra workshop and my live, in-person and online Yoga Nidra training. 

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Live Yoga Nidra Teacher Training:

May 11–12; 18–19, Salt Lake City and via Zoom

Yoga Nidra is far more than guided visualization—it's a profound pathway to personal transformation and even spiritual awakening. In this comprehensive 30-hour training, you'll become an expert in harnessing the life-changing potential of Yoga Nidra. I’ll guide you to gain a mastery of this ancient practice. You’ll emerge with the skills to guide your students into deep states of conscious relaxation, facilitating lasting shifts in their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Whether you're a yoga teacher, coach, or therapist, adding Yoga Nidra to your repertoire will allow you to profoundly impact the lives of those you serve.

Stand Apart as a Truly Transformative Teacher: Facilitating Transformation with the Yoga of Sleep

In today's crowded wellness landscape, becoming a Yoga Nidra expert is your key to standing out. This training goes far beyond teaching you rote scripts—you'll learn the overarching principles and roadmaps that allow you to teach from the wisdom of your authentic voice. Gain the ability to dynamically craft experiences tailored to your students' unique needs. People are yearning for the powerful transformation only you can provide through the ancient art of Yoga Nidra. Seize this opportunity to become a master guide on the journey of self-discovery and radical growth.

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Restore Yoga and Yoga Nidra Workshop:

Sunday, May 5th 12–2 pm at Be-ing Community

Normally this is held at Mosaic Yoga but there is an event at Mosaic on the 1st Sunday of May. So, on May 5th I’ll be hosting this workshop at a different venue:

Be-ing Community 355 N 300 W. Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

$39.

In this class we will dip into the timeless with resting poses, poetry, and a decadent Yoga Nidra practice. This 2-hour class will incorporate supported and resting postures using yoga props (provided if you don’t have them). I try to use minimal words to allow for a generous and open spaciousness. You can also expect poetry and music to help connect your soul with timeless presence.

Also available via Zoom. Please email me in advance to tell me you’ll be Zooming in.

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May we all bend over to pick up the lemons that spill out of a stranger’s grocery bag.

May we all learn to access our highest good by exploring the depth that exists in the dance between our humanness and our beingness.

And may it begin with a simple gesture of kindness, a word like … YES!

Lament Over Daylight Saving Time

Today I want to discuss some of the benefits of Yoga Nidra, how rest and napping help rejuvenate you, and how crazy Daylight Saving Time is.

It’s Daylight Saving Time.

You know what’s weird? Time. 

Yes, time. 

What’s also weird is that a helpful student chimed in to let me know that it’s not “Daylight Savings Time” but rather Daylight Saving (no s) Time. Good to know. Thanks!

Today is one of the worst “time events” that happens twice a year. 

That’s right. Today the U.S. switches to Daylight Saving Time. Well, everyone but Arizona and Hawaii. It’s nice to know that some states have kept their sanity. 

Why Daylight Saving Time?! 

Every organism on this planet has some sort of a rhythm and sleep cycle that is dependent upon the circadian rhythm, the natural rhythm of the daylight hours as dictated by the seasons. This rhythm directs cycles from when to sleep, when to eat, when to migrate, etc. It makes sense. 

What doesn’t make sense to me is the fact that as humans we are advanced enough to send Gobots to Mars 203 MILLION miles away and have them send pics back to us in real time as it rolls around collecting specimens and amusing itself yet we don’t have the smarts to keep to the natural rhythm that all organisms on this planet have been following since, oh, the beginning of life on this planet. Instead humans create a rhythm of life based not on the seasons or the natural impulses of our bodies, impulses that have been ingrained into our very DNA, but rather an artificial rhythm set to a clock that is designed to make us more productive and earn more money. 

If that were not bad enough, then every 6 months we have to mess it up with adding or taking away Daylight Saving Time. 

I don’t need to have an opinion about it … but apparently I do. 

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Putting Daylight Saving To Rest

Luckily I’m not alone here. Thankfully some really smart people like Kenneth P. Wright Jr. Ph.D at the Sleep and Chronobiology lab at the University of Colorado Boulder thinks that for optimal physical, mental, and emotional health we should do away with Daylight Saving Time and stick with one standard time, for crying out loud. (If you care about a reference for Write’s work, whether or not I’m not making this up, you can click here.)

But until we all come to our senses and ditch Daylight Saving, those of us who are in the US are waking up an hour earlier today (except Arizona and Hawaii—starkly different places but who at least share a modicum of sanity). 

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Solutions For Fatigue

So, here’s what I propose. 

More napping. 

Yes, more napping. I mean, I’m about a third the way into Scott Carney’s book about Dreams and I love how he is exploring the fact that throughout history and cultures, before the industrial revolution and electricity (light bulbs meant people could work longer), people would follow a more natural pattern of sleeping and sleep about 9 hours a night and would also take a siesta in the afternoon which follows the natural rhythms of a person’s body. 

This is both sane and healthy. 

You know, sleeping a solid 7–9 hours is normal and healthy. Then, it’s natural to start to wane mentally and energetically after about 8 hours of being awake, after lunch time, usually. This is the PERFECT time to take a bit of a nap. It’s not being lazy. It’s being healthy. 

You don’t need to nap for long. In fact, 20–30 minutes will do absolute wonders for your overall wellness. Plus, you don’t even have to fall all the way asleep. You can just rest. It’s a revolution!

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More Productive with Yoga Nidra

But what about being productive and all that? 

Well, turns out that when you follow this more natural cycle of sleep and allow yourself a sanctioned nap in the middle of the day, your brain functions even better, your emotions are more regulated and for those who care … YOU’RE EVEN MORE PRODUCTIVE.  

To boot, you have better ideas, tend to think out of the box more often, and are generally more creative and able to learn. In fact, many of the outliers of art and industry— math and science geniuses, tech gurus, writers and artists—are ardent nappers. 

Yep.

And guess what? Listening to a Yoga Nidra recording serves this need for a mid-day nap PERFECTLY. 

So as a way of compassionately responding to this insane biannual change to/from Daylight Savings, I’m offering you a free Yoga Nidra for deep relaxation. 

You’re welcome. 

And if you’d like to make this resting and napping a regular part of your life, please join me for my weekly live, online Yoga Nidra class, happening at 9 am MDT. You can participate from the comfort of your own home (hell, your own bed). We’ll breath, move, talk a little, but then the main event will be me leading you through a luxurious Yoga Nidra practice where you get practice waking up to your True Being through the process of engineering that liminal state between waking and sleeping. That’s the Nidra state. 

Truly we are waking up with the yoga of sleep. 

Even if you can’t make it live, by registering, you’ll get the replay so you can do this Yoga Nidra practice any time you want, as often as you want. 

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So next week, as your dragging your butt around the office, sluggish and tired from the time change, tell your boss that at about 2 pm every day, you’ll have to excuse yourself, that you have an urgent 30 minute appointment which involves you lying down, closing your eyes, and napping your way to enlightenment. 

Your boss will thank you later. 

If you need a note from your yoga teacher for permission, let me know.  

I’ll send one. Or better yet, just print this one =>

Hope to see you at the Live Online Yoga Nidra class and enjoy this free Yoga Nidra recording for Deep Relaxation. 

Together, we can get through this nightmare that is Daylight Saving!

The Yoga of The New Year

This is going to be your best year yet!

As you begin this new year, I invite you to muster the courage to dream big. Really big. 

What is something you’ve always wanted to do, become, or complete? 

You have a Universe inside of you. You’re made of Source and as such, have the potential to accomplish and receive all things. 

Your spirit is indomitable. Your creativity, limitless. Don’t be afraid to imagine what is possible for you in 2024. 

This is the imaginative and spiritual part of growing into the next version of yourself but it doesn’t stop there. Just dreaming, hoping, and scheming won’t get you there. 

Next, since we aren’t ONLY spiritual beings, since we are spirit married to physical, practical beings—give your dreams some legs by mapping out in realistic terms how to accomplish those dreams. 

Remember to start small knowing it will grow into something big. 

If you want to run a marathon but haven’t been running in a while, have enough foresight to start by walking, then running/walking, then running. Commit to being in it for the long-term which means that there will be ups and downs. 

Don’t give up when things don’t work out the way you’d hoped. It’s just another chance for calibration and learning. 

Because at the end of the day, it’s not about accomplishing your goal. 

Not really. 

It’s about who you become in the process. 

Accomplishing your goal is just the happy byproduct. 

Whatever you dream up for 2024, having a regular meditation practice is of the first order. It clarifies, relaxes, and hones your body, mind, and spirit. It’s like the underlying framework for all other work to be done. 

White-Eyes—Seeing The Divine In Everything

Today, I want share one of my favorite winter poems, White-Eyes by Mary Oliver. 

First of all, if you haven’t already, ‘tis the season to sign up for my 31-Day Meditation Challenge. It starts January 1 and lasts all through the month. The challenge is simply to meditate any way you wish for 15 minutes a day, every day for the entire month. I’ll be supporting you every step of the way with daily emails, live group meditations sessions, and plenty of recordings, poetry, links, and stories to make the experience very rich. 

Give the world a gift by practicing drawing inward, getting quiet in heart and mind, so you can present a YOU that is more mindful, less reactive, and rooted in compassion. 

It costs only $31 and you can get your tuition back if you complete the challenge. Make a meditation posse and sign up!

Onto the poem!

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Mary Oliver

What I love so much about Mary Oliver's poetry is that so often in her poetry she is speaking to the eternal, the Everything, God, or the Universe by simply reflecting what she sees in nature.

And like in her poem “Bone” I love how she willingly admits that she doesn't fully know what God is but is "playing at the edges of knowing" and that perhaps it’s not about knowing at all, but rather it’s about “seeing, touching, and loving.”

It’s about being present with senses and heart.

Through her poetry, Mary Oliver helps us all to create a touchpoint to the Divine that is present both in our outer and inner worlds and opens us to seeing, touching, and loving as she steers us away from trying to make it all make sense. 

Her poem White-Eyes is about seeing the Divine in something as simple yet complex as the wind dancing through the tree tops and the snow silently drifting down from the heavens. It’s an exposé about how with the “right eyes” or with attuned sight, we might be able to see the loving Divine present in all things.

I hope you enjoy it. 

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White-Eyes

BY MARY OLIVER


In winter

all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

          where the wind-bird


with its white eyes

shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

          Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

but he's restless—

         he has an idea,

          and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings

as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

          is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.

In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

          he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,

I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

          while the clouds—

which he has summoned

from the north—

         which he has taught

          to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall

into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers

               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,

that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

          into snow.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on what this poem says to you.

Drop me a line, I read every email I get. 

May we all be our best by remember those essential phrases:

• I love you.

• I’m sorry.

• How can I help?
  
  

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Live Classes, In-person and Online:

• Yoga For Stiffer Bodies on Saturdays at 7:30–8:30 am at Mosaic Yoga

• Live online Yoga Nidra class Sundays at 9 am. Access the live class or its replay from anywhere in the world.  

• Vinyasa Mondays at 12 pm at Mosaic Yoga

• I teach a Restore Yoga and Yoga Nidra workshop on the first Sunday of every month at Mosaic Yoga

• Plus, mark your calendar for January 1 because I’m hosting an in-person yoga class to begin the new year. Together we’ll plant our Sankalpa, the seed of our intentions, through ritual, movement, meditation, and breath. Mosaic Yoga.

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Yoga Retreats 2024