Well, it's about time!  Some Viniyoga colleagues and I are finally promoting oursleves!  We've created a website, and we're looking for a space for a yoga studio.  Visit our website:  www.viniyogaaustin.com

We'll be doing private sessions first, and when we get a space, group sessions.

I'd love to help you develop your practice.  Call me!

The subconscious mind is wicked, isn't it? If you suppress something long enough, it will seep into the muscles of your back and torment you. Very sly. It will get your back to do the talking.
What is your back trying to tell you, and how long will it be before you stop and listen?
I have had back pain off and on for 15 years, and I am just now listening. And I am healing.
I can't tell you what your back is trying to say to you, but I can tell you that there is hope.
You are not your diagnosis. You may not even have one. You are, however, a beautiful and complex creature. Your mind and body are connected, and it's time to introduce them to one another. It is never too late. Yoga teaches us to start where we are.
So where do you begin?
Get comfortable, if you can, and take a few deep breaths. Listen and believe that you will someday hear the answer.

www.viniyoga.com

It is my sincere desire to develop will power.  I think about it daily, now.  Yes, I have a history of going to the little coffee shop around the corner occasionally and getting a Mocha Caffecino shake, but at least I try not to.  I want to give up sugar.  Why is that so hard to say out loud?

Speaking of sweet things...  My husband, Malcolm, went to the grocery store for me the other day.  He came home with a gallon of Blue Bell Coffee Ice Cream.  I've eaten half of it already.  How can it be that I have so grossly understated my deepest desire to the one man who knows me better than anyone?  I know why, actually.  Because if I tell him, he'll hold me accountable.  He'll be a constant reminder that I have not been strong enough.  That's important to admit.

I did an asana practice this morning, and then I did a meditation on my solar plexus chakra.  (For those of you who don't practice yoga, that means I did a few stretches, then sat and focused on how my belly is related to my inner strength and will power.)  Then, I got up and dumped the remaining ice cream into the sink.  For the rest of the day, I will not eat sugar.  This may not seem like a big deal, but it's a step in the right direction.  I don't want to become a diabetic, like my mom.  I want to be strong and healthy.  Every step in that direction is a success.

Cultivating will power is a daily practice.  I will be happy with little successes.  I cannot change over night.  And if Malcolm reads this and starts pestering me about my sugar intake, I will ignore him.  This is up to me.

Remember what you want your life to be like.  Think about it every day.  This, in itself, is will power.

It's a cold and rainy March day in Austin.  Go figure.  I planted tomatoes last week, and this week a cold front moved in.  I was just starting to thaw out from winter.

I blame the nasty weather for the fact that I'm at Starbucks right now.  Since the front moved in, all I can think about is coffee.  So instead of obsessing and denying myself this simple pleasure in life, I'm sipping a Caramel Macchiato, and I'm not feeling guilty.

You may think I'm a lost cause, a yoga teacher who can't give up coffee.  (If you do, you're wrong on two counts.  First, I'm perfectly capable of giving up coffee.  I've done it lots of times.  And second, it's not the coffee.  I drink decaff, now.  It's the sugar I'm addicted to.)

Let's just keep everything in perspective.  Ten years ago, I got into yoga for severe back pain and migraines.  The pain was unbearable sometimes, and I was constantly frustrated and often ashamed.  Now, I'm strong and healthy.  I can't remember my last migraine, and it's been well over a year since I had any significant back pain.  I'm making progress, slowly, but surely.

If you practice yoga for the sake of perfection, you're missing the point.  It's not about perfection.  It's about liberation.

I am here in Starbucks, sipping my decaff Caramel Macchiato loaded with sugar, celebrating my liberation from so much pain.  It's cold and rainy outside, but the weather will change.  Spring is on it's way, and maybe this year, I'll give up sugar...

I'm home from the ashram.  Suddenly, no one waking me up at 6:00am for practice.  No more forced vegetarianism.  Not that I wouldn't like to become a vegetarian, but considering the fact that in the past few days, I've eaten a Whopper, beef enchiladas, and chicken and sausage gumbo, I don't see it happening anytime soon.  I usually don't eat that poorly, but I needed to get that asceticism business out of my system... 

I did practice this morning, though. And, I taught this afternoon.  And, now I feel like taking care of myself, again.  Practice does that.  It's a constant reminder that I deserve to be taken care of.

Yoga will change you in ways you can't imagine.  For instance, this morning, after my practice, I forgot all about my morning cup of coffee.  At first, I thought, Wow!  I'll just put the coffee pot away, and quit altogether.  Then, I remembered, I don't like asceticism, so I left it out.  I may want a cup tomorrow, and if I do, I'll drink one.  But, I'll practice first.

Practice, practice, practice... 

My parents have started to fall.  Between the two of them, they have fallen a total of five times, only recently.  The degree of injury and agony has varied, from annoying cuts and bruises to painful broken bones, an ankle and a pubic bone.  It all started with my mother.  She is 71 years old, and the most restless woman I know, besides myself.  When you are in the room with my mother, it is like being in the room with a gigantic electron.  She bounces off the walls.  She even bounces off of her recliner, where she sits for no more than fifteen seconds or she passes out.  She is franticly busy and noticeably breathless most of the time. 

Some of my mother’s falls have actually been comical.  She has fallen off of her treadmill twice.  No lie.  She walks on her treadmill and watches T.V. at the same time.  No time to sit down, and besides, the doctor told her she needs to walk.  The first time she was ejected from the treadmill, she was walking and watching the news, and she got a little warm and tried to take off her sweatshirt without stopping.  It got stuck around her neck so she could not see, and she was thrown back and slammed into the wall.  No serious injuries that time.  We even laughed.  The next time, however, she was going too fast, lost control and fell forward, chipping her tooth on the control panel on the way down, busting her lip, and skinning her knees.

Not surprisingly, Mom is now banned from the treadmill, which means she walks in the street.  There are no sidewalks in her neighborhood, and I worry.   After her second treadmill incident, she fell on a downtown sidewalk, trying to keep up with my father, the other gigantic electron.  That time, she broke her pubic bone.  How can I ever relax now, knowing she is walking in the street?  I can see her in my mind’s eye, legs spinning, arms shooting back and forth, her mind on her grocery list.  Is she watching for cars? Will she see them in time?  Is she walking, now?

Then, suddenly, I remember.  I am walking, now.  I am at an ashram in the Santa Cruz Mountains, walking up a path called The High Road with my yoga buddy friends.  We talk a little, but mostly, we are silent.  It is in those quiet lulls that I pay attention, and I know that I am walking.  When I focus, I can hear a flood of sounds, the soft thud of footsteps falling on redwood needles, twigs snapping, pant legs whisping, my water bottle sloshing.  When I pay attention, I am no longer the second most restless woman on the face of the earth.  I am transformed.  I am aware, and I am part of the forest.  If you want to learn to walk, you first have to pay attention.  This is my life’s biggest challenge.

The High Road is carved through the Redwoods like a tunnel, but light pours through the branches and shines on it, and because it has rained, everything glistens.  I am amazed at the colors.   Vivid greens, shades of earth, all brown and golden, specks of white, even black and ash.  “That tree got hit by lightning,” someone says.  My mind wanders, and I bring it back.  Pay attention, Beth.

You never can tell what you might see if you pay attention. Some things I would rather not see, like the huge, chartreuse green slugs crossing the path.  But, there they are, in vivid color, too.  I accept them and move on.  I can see my feet.  Right foot, left foot.  Watch that stump, there.  Be careful.  The path is sometimes rocky, sometimes smooth, and the images are sharp and clear in my mind, even the slugs, and I am glad. 

I see a branch that would be perfect for a walking stick.  It reminds me of my father.  He always used a walking stick when we would walk out on my grandparent’s ranch.  I worry about him, too.  Not long ago, he fell off the deck at his house and broke his ankle.  The original story was that he was reading and walking at the same time, and he stepped off the side of the deck.  Now, he denies that he was reading and says that he just had his mind on something else.  I do not know what to believe, but either way, I worry.  Then, I hear the echoed croak of a tree frog, and I remember that I am walking on a path at an ashram in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

As distracted as I tend to be, it has been easier for me to focus, here.  Ashram life is simple and quiet.  The weight of my own life, filled with excessive details, is not a burden here.  But, I will be going home, soon, and the only mountain I will be seeing is a mountain of laundry that always sits on the floor by the door to the utility room.  I do not live in an ashram, and I do not want to.  But, when I walk, I want to know that I am walking.  I am tired of being frantically busy and noticeably breathless.

What truckload of obsessions can I give up in my life?  What million petty details invade my head and cloud my mind, like the fog that rolls in through the Redwoods?  What vivid images am I missing because I am not paying attention to what matters?