Disconnected at last...

I was sitting in the gate area at the airport awaiting boarding for my flight to a Caribbean paradise. I just finished a call to my husband telling him we needed to take more vacations as I could already feel the stress melt away just thinking about my destination. I turned off the data reception on my phone before powering it down. No e-mails, no texts, no calls for four whole days. I experienced no sign of panic as the cell phone icon faded out - just peace as I imagined myself on the beach in my lounge chair, cold beer in hand, with the crystal turquoise water crashing up on the shore.

I recalled a recent conversation in which a friend stated with great pride that he had only taken one short vacation in the three years he had been with his company. "Why?" - I asked. It was such a foreign crazy concept to me. "The work just builds up while I am away and they can't live without me", he replied. How sad - for one to believe it, for two not to train someone to cover your work so you can escape and for three for the company to encourage this behavior and somehow think it is a good thing or to allow it.

We need recovery time.

I am often surprised how people cannot seem to turn off their phones for a short hour - whether it is in church or in yoga class - to have a peaceful experience. The world will survive without them, their friends can wait an hour for a response. You have to let yourself escape for your health.

We always rest at the end of yoga class in silence, on the floor on our backs letting everything sink into the floor completely relaxed. For some people it may be the only two minutes all day they really relaxed. It is so good for you. Turn it off. See how long you can last. Don't take that phone with you for one short errand. It is freeing.

I'll Come to Class After I Get Flexible

We all have those lists. Those things we want to do once we get to a certain point in life. Once we weigh a certain amount we will buy those fancy jeans. When we get enough money we are going to take that trip. When the kids are grown up we will finally have some free time...

I hear people say it all the time - "I can't do yoga, I'm not flexible. I'll work on getting flexible and then I will come to your class." I have to tell them - that is why you need to come now - to get flexible. If you wait until you are - the day will never get here.

See you in class.

On My Honor I Will Try

I was presenting on Creativity to a group of over 200 people at a dinner meeting of quality professionals and project managers. I mentioned a psychological study that found the more creative people think they are - the more creative they actually are. I then said we were going to TRY to change their perception of their creative selves and unleash their creative spirit. Then I laughed as I realized my blunder. I explained that I teach a course on Presentation Skills and I encourage the presenters to avoid the use of tentative phrases (i.e. try, hope). They should be confident and say "we will" or "we are going to". I asked the audience if any of them were ever boy scouts and a scattering raised their hands. "Do you remember the boy scout motto?" I asked, and a few of those hands dropped. "It starts off with - on my honor I will" I exclaimed. "How about girl scouts? any former girl scouts in the audience?" and several hands went up. "How does the girl scout motto begin?" I queried. "On my honor I will try... boy scouts will do it and girl scouts will try" I exclaimed. But tonight we WILL - change your perception of your creative self." And they were on board - and we did!

In yoga class I always tell them it is a practice not a performance. That we are going to try to do the poses and do the best we can, while always backing off if it doesn't feel right. And they TRY - and eventually they DO the pose.

Are you "trying" or are you "doing"? Even if you are only "trying" you will find that one day you end up "doing" too.

What's Going On in the Closet?

I am an avid recycler. I will even bring plastic bottles and cans home from an event to recycle them if the party doesn't have a recycle bin. I keep a large plastic tub in the closet under the stairs just for plastic. I returned home early one evening from running errands and had the dry cleaning in my right hand. I opened the closet door to lean in and throw my plastic water bottle from my left hand into the bin, with my back to the door and the door started closing on me, leaving me in the closet in the dark. I knew my husband was home and thought he was trying to be funny and close me in the closet. I started laughing and called out to him. Then I turned and saw that a strap from one of the just cleaned tops had wrapped around the door handle pulling the door closed as I leaned forward toward the recycle bin. I started laughing and came out of the closet. He was across the room smiling but a bit confused - wondering why I was shutting myself in the closet. When we both realized what had really happened, we had a good laugh.

Every event has two sides to it. We need to be open to the possibility that our view is not the only possible interpretation.

In yoga class I try not to assume what people are thinking. Though sometimes I will talk out loud expressing thoughts I imagine they are thinking. From their reactions I find that I am frequently dead on.

Sometimes the stories we are imagining are a lot more fun than the reality. Come out of the closet and be open to the possibility that your view is not the only view.

Smells So Good

I worked in downtown Detroit one summer during college as an engineering intern and remember the morning drive very well. My least favorite part was getting up before the crack of dawn to meet my car pool. It was the getting up part, not the car pool members, that was difficult. They were a fun bunch of older gentlemen. A few of us were always packed into the back seat and the back seat guys would tease, offering the driver money if he would take the next turn sharply so I would fall over. I would grab the handle hanging from the ceiling and laugh that I wasn't going to "fall" for that trick. My most favorite part of the drive was smelling the freshly baking bread as we neared downtown and the Wonderbread plant. The Stroh's brewery smelled pretty good too! Now, I occasionally work in downtown Houston and it has its own unique smells. My favorite here is the smell of coffee wafting from the Maxwell House plant. I've never been able to figure out why something that smells so good tastes so bad to me. I have to resort to Diet Cokes to wake me up in the morning.

Yoga can smell pretty good too. As I walked about the yoga room among my students this morning, I noticed how great everyone smelled, fresh from the shower. I commented how great my yoga students always smell and they laughed. ("Wait 'til the end of class" - one character whispered to me as I passed by).

I was reading an article in the paper today that detailed the royal wedding, including the flowers that were in Kate's bouquet. It included lilies of the valley. My mother always had a patch of lilies of the valley on one side of the house. They were my favorite (second only to the tulips she had growing on the other side of the house). Just reading about the bouquet brought back memories of the scent of those flowers and my mother. Later this evening we were returning to our car after a great baseball win by the Astros. My son and his friend were walking with us. My arm brushed a cascade of flowers growing on a fence and the floral scent filled the air. I turned back to look at the boys and teased - don't forget to stop and smell the flowers!

Don't miss out on the whole experience around you - make sure you take in the scents as well as the sights.

Feel Good Kind of Show

It was definitely a "feel good" kind of show. One of those TV shows that makes you feel great watching it and for days after as you tell other people about it. Tears of joy, excitement, and fun mixed with very talented singers. I found myself e-mailing all my friends about it and talking about it with a big smile on my face the next day and beyond.

I only have two shows that I don't like to miss - a game show and a late night show. Last week a preview aired right before my late night show. It started with four very popular singers who are the coaches on the show (i.e. Cee-lo Green, Adam Levine, Blake Shelton and Christina Aguilera) belting out the song "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley like I've never heard it sung before. It also didn't hurt that the contestant they featured was a good looking cowboy with a great voice. The show was fun and I was captivated. I raced home from teaching my cycle class last night to see the premiere. Expecting a one hour show, I was delighted that it turned out to be two. Incredibly talented singers tried out in blind auditions. Each one's story was revealed and their audition presented along with the battle between the coaches for the singers they liked. Ultimately the singer gets to pick who they work with. If none of the coaches pick the singer, it is disappointing but the coaches still have encouraging and positive responses for them. I can't wait for next week and the next show - The Voice.

I am sometimes tired when I get to yoga class, or frustrated from events of the work day. It never fails that once I start teaching and working with my students, and enjoying their hard work that I forget all my troubles and find new energy. At the end of class I thank them for letting me play with them and we all leave feeling better than when we came in the door.

It's a Feel Good Kind of Class and our Feeling Good Kind of Shows (to everyone else that we come across)!

It's the Little Things That Make a Big Difference

There was a new furniture store in town that sounded interesting - rooms of furniture ready to go. I drove by the brightly colored building many times and finally had a few minutes one day to peek my head inside and see what the fuss was all about. An interesting table with bar high cushy chairs in a chocolate black color caught my attention (when doesn't chocolate anything catch my attention?). It was unusual because of the shape of the table - a rounded triangle. The bench seat on one side reminded me of the bench we had at our kitchen table when I was a kid. It was difficult to get eight kids around a table without a bench on one side. I loved to lay down on that bench after dinner, sometimes resting, sometimes just avoiding the inevitable homework. I didn't really need a new dining room table, so I put a picture of it in my head for future reference. We've been redoing some rooms in the house, replacing a few things, and it came time to redo the dining room. I went back to the store to search for that perfect table that I came across so long ago - and was delighted to find it was still available. It is so perfect for my husband's poker nights and our frequent game nights at the house. In preparation for its delivery, we moved some furniture in the dining room. The china cabinet, weighted down with years of collecting wine glasses and wine to fill them, hadn't been moved in an embarassing number of years. We simply moved it one wall over (ok - I admit - not simply - it had to be emptied first, and strong neighbor boys had to be commisioned to come over and move it - which was easily accomplished with promises of baked goods) and the whole room opened up. It was amazing how a simple thing made such a huge difference. You can walk through the room without running into a table or chair - positive Feng Shui.

In yoga I move about the room during class, gently making adjustments to student's poses. It doesn't take much for them to feel a big difference. I give them modifications and ways to make a start with a complicated pose. I try to remember names, and try to get around the room and make eye contact, a positive comment or a light touch to everyone. It's the little things that make a big difference.