2013, newly diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, 14 years into my relationship with chronic pain affecting my back, arms, knees, and feet. Living with chronic pain is challenging. Everyday tasks are difficult, sleep is disturbed, days once filled with satisfying work and hobbies are now organised around medical appointments interspersed with isolation. The definition of chronic pain… {read more}
Here’s a new yoga word for you: satsang. Satsang means to be in the presence of true people, where sat means truth and sang means assembly or gathering. Satsang is a way to connect with others on the spiritual path. I’ve long felt lonely on this path, have you? There was a time when I… {read more}
I’ve written before about attachments and the yama aparigraha (non-attachment). The idea is that strong attachments or aversions to anything (objects, people, places, feelings) cause suffering. This is because impermanence is a fact of life. Objects break, people die, places change, feelings come and go, and to the extent that we are attached to them, we… {read more}
A few weeks ago, I taught a late-evening hot power yoga class at a popular fitness centre. The room was dark and sweaty, the lights dimmed low and the sun already set. It was a busy class, more than 40 students filling the room from wall to wall. We were about halfway into the 75-minute… {read more}
Yoga offers ancient solutions to modern problems. But you could also say yoga offers ancient solutions to ancient problems, because when things go sideways in our lives, the themes are as old as the sun. Grief, loss, disappointment, illness, anger, pain, frustration, loneliness: none of these are unique to the modern world. Your girlfriend may… {read more}
Yoga offers ancient solutions to modern problems. But you could also say yoga offers ancient solutions to ancient problems, because when things go sideways in our lives, the themes are as old as the sun. Grief, loss, disappointment, illness, anger, pain, frustration, loneliness: none of these are unique to the modern world. Your girlfriend may… {read more}
