Essential Exercises to Elevate Your Yoga Practice

One of the reasons we love a consistent yoga practice is the integration we experience on and off the mat of mind, body and spirit. In the body, stretches such as forward fold or crescent lunge increase our flexibility, cat cows and twists benefit our spinal mobility, holding postures such as Warriors and planks build […]

Move over plank and boat pose, today we are going to explore another core strengthener: Side Plank.   Side plank requires focus and balance. It is another pose that you will find the more you engage your muscles, the lighter you will feel.  This pose works the deep core muscles of transverse abdominis, the oblique muscles, […]

“I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. WHERE? Down in my heart!” When I was a child, my classmates sang this on long bus rides. We sang it in a round, our voices tumbling over each other, and then we introduced the second chorus to the […]

The farmer had a friendly and familiar face. His fields, which were adjacent to the playground, wrapped around two sides of the school. The children waved to him as he rode past in his tractor, and in winter, they skated on his pond at the bottom of the sledding hill.  My brother and I were […]

Desire. A loaded word. Desire suggests passion, romance and pleasure; or it can evoke cravings, shame and unmet longings. We might describe our desire as a hunger, itch, thirst, drive or yearning. Americans, searching for significance, long for the freedom to express and go after the desires of their heart. Or we feel the need […]

The seasoned fishermen had been fishing all night, and yet their nets were frustratingly empty. The Lord urged them to take the boat to deeper waters, and in faith and obedience, they took Him at His word instead of trusting their own experience. They went deeper. The yield was so great that the nets could […]

“You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.” When I was an elementary school counselor, we used this metaphor to teach children that once words left their mouth, they were impossible to put back. Just like with words, some people squeeze the tube a little bit and regret saying mean or unkind words. Then, […]