Author: Katherine

I have always liked the poem below by E.E. Cummings. Read it now and let it reach into you as a reminder to consider what really matters. When we clear away the stories we tell ourselves and let the noise and clutter fall away, we are left with who we really are…these incredible vessels for love. Enjoy.

Let it go –
e.e. cummings

let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear

so comes love

Okay…so before I do a grand reveal on the ‘Easter’ treat that I have been eating a lot of since last spring, allow me to preface this post with: don’t judge it until you eat it. Promise?

I offered to bring some of these beauties to a family get-together last year for Mother’s Day and was greeted with a very tentative and unenthusiastic, ‘Um, okay.” I made them in small little mason jars (they were super cute) and they were practically licked clean. So trust me. This is gonna be good.

Without further rambling, here’s a recipe-like thing to throw together:

1. Make chia pudding at least 2 hours ahead (or the night before) so you have some on hand when cravings strike. 1/4 of chia seeds to 1 cup of vanilla almond milk or whatever you want to use to expand the seeds. Stir or shake well in a jar and leave it in the fridge.

2. In a bowl scoop out two generous tablespoons of the previously made chia pudding, add another generous tablespoon of nut butter of choice, cranberries, chocolate chips, pecans and any fresh chopped fruit of choice (and/or chia jam if you have any on hand).

3. To make it look pretty, layer everything in a glass jar and ta-da! You have a super satisfying and filling snack sure to keep you from solely eating chocolate as a meal over the next few days.

Here’s a picture of three brands I am using at the moment that make this extra yum…

Enjoy!!!

Hoppy Easter!

If you have ever wished that your yoga class could be a solid Savasana session, then do I have an Easter treat for you.

I have just recorded a Yoga Nidra session and have posted it to the site. It is just a smidge over a half hour and is a sweet taste of the practice. Please, please give it a try and let me know what you think.

A Little About Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra, often referred to as yogic sleep, is deeply relaxing and restorative. Anyone can do it. The initial stages alone (breath awareness and rotation of consciousness) magically calm your nervous system. The practice also focuses on cultivating multiple levels of well-being by integrating what in yoga is called the koshas or layers of the self. Investigate more on the koshas if this is of interest to you.

I was first introduced to Yoga Nidra when I went to India in 2007. I practiced daily while I was there and then regularly once I returned home. I was convinced I would never abandon this beloved practise for as long as I lived and then I promptly fell off the wagon. I jumped back on two years later after I had my daughter and was trying to juggle free-lance work and motherhood. I was more sleep deprived at the time than I ever knew was even possible. Yoga Nidra saved my sanity when I literally didn’t feel I had a single moment to spare. I currently practise (in addition to regular meditation) whenever I feel depleted or particularly anxious. It is a gift every single time.

A Little About Sankalpa A Sankalpa (or a resolve) is a short, positive statement in simple language that marks the beginning of Yoga Nidra after you have reached a level of relaxation. Think of it as a way to plant a seed in your mind that is sure to flourish.

There is often an emphasis on allowing your sankalpa to arise ‘naturally’. I believe it does arise naturally. Eventually. In the meantime, don’t agonize over it. At the beginning I knew when I was using a fake-o sankalpa and you will too. It will feel forced. Or you won’t even remember it from one session to the next.

Here are examples of possible sankalpas so you get the idea…

I empower others.

I am adaptable and resilient.

I let go of what no longer serves me.

I learn from each moment.

I am loving and loved.

I listen to my body.

I speak kindly to myself and others.

I am healthier everyday.

I am peace.

I choose happiness.

I communicate with clarity and compassion.

Enjoy the recording. I hope this practise helps you to feel calm and steady. Pass it along to yogis and non-yogi types. Lay down, throw on some headphones to listen and just relax. I have no doubt this would be Easter Bunny approved.

Much love, Katherine

Hello…Thank you to those of you nudging me into action on the blogging front with emails and texts. I am a reluctant user of technology on many fronts…social media and an online presence in any respect hasn’t been my strength.

This is such a strange time for so many of us and as more and more avenues to subtle acts of kindness seem to close, others open.

This morning I was out for a short run and someone along my street had both their garbage collection bins pushed over from the garbage pickup. Normally I would feel good about righting them again but today I paused thinking it might freak someone out to see me touching their bins even if it was meant to be helpful. This kind of second guessing can be heart-heavy. I want to be a source of sunshine in the world but this is no longer possible in ways that feel familiar. At least not for now.

A friend told me a story the other day about witnessing a father using a raised and firm voice telling his little girl while they were on the sidewalk, “I told you not to walk toward people. It’s dangerous.” What kind of imprint does this leave on a child when every person she passes is a threat? There are many disheartening stories like this at the grocery store…online in hate-filled comments and maybe even from people you love in your life who are struggling with fear and anxiety.

Amidst all of this though, there is beauty. I received the loveliest message yesterday from a friend who shared a photo of the sun breaking through the clouds accompanied by what he explained as an internal feeling of hope. I received wedding photos today from another friend whose daughter was married last week (without guests) but who felt that this was what it was all about anyway…she didn’t want to wait to marry the man she wants to be with through thick and thin. Over the last few weeks, I have connected with people I haven’t spoken to in a long time, I have said hello to more people on my street than I have since I moved here ten years ago and I have been part of a writing group that has brought me a great deal of clarity around my feelings of the swift changes to life as we know it.

I also have had more time to think about how I might contribute to the health and wellbeing of others. This blog might be a teensy way toward that end. So I have decided to post some guided meditations and other inspirational things over the days, weeks and more to come.

So to begin…I have posted my first guided meditation for you to try. It is one I have been using lately. It is imagining your own inner light or love as moving from the core of you toward your skin and then falling through the body into the floor and beyond the floor, taking all worries and tension with it. This might be how you work the entire meditation to feel strong within yourself during this time of uncertainty. If you felt steady and it was comfortable to do so, you could expand the light into the world, as a healing gift beyond your skin. You could allow this light to absorb any suffering and then using your body as a kind of filter to release this suffering (the world’s and your own) as you did before. Please try it and let me know what you think. The audio file has been added to the site.

Also…here is a poem I wrote for my writing group that I want to share. Maybe it will also make you feel hopeful..maybe it will make you feel like you have just watched the sun break through the clouds.

Much love to you and every single being on the planet,
Katherine

Something Feels Different

Cruising has become
extreme travel
without a mooring point
without a safe harbour

My body
Definitely, my body
feels different too
It feels just like this
what once was rote
is no longer the route


My mind was proficient
at holding firm at the helm
leading my body here
now there
now here and there
Hurry. More.
Not enough.

The body has now
taken up navigation
What else is
there to do?
Go. Run.
(It tells my mind)
Be Yoga
Breathe

Cruising has become
extreme travel
without a mooring point
without a safe harbour

This makes me
hopeful
about where
the wind might
take all of us
who remain afloat

Pandemic

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

–Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

Happy, happy weekend…So here are the healthy habits I have been tracking this month:
1) more time enjoying winter weather
2) more time engaged with intentionally loving acts
3) more time embracing vulnerability

Here’s how it’s going so far…only meh. Fine tuning is definitely necessary.

The first one (enjoying more time outdoors this winter) has been the easiest. And it should be. Outdoor time = check mark. I have a naturally social and active ten year old who wants to go skating, skiing, walking/hiking and tobogganing. This, combined with my intention to resist hibernation, has legitimately increased my engagement with winter. Yay? Mostly. There has been a catch. My mind. When I go to add a check mark to my habit tracker I think things like…’would I have gone if I wasn’t taking a bunch of kids?’ or ‘the mild weather alternating with gorgeous snow falls and sunshine makes it easy to want to be outdoors so does that really earn me a check mark?’

Do you have a voice like this? A voice that doesn’t immediately whoop it up on your behalf?

I have also discovered that the second and third things I am tracking (intentionally loving acts and embracing vulnerability) are rather slippery to track in the first place because each one is too broad of a category. Add to that the voice of the inner critic and I am doubting how authentic any of my check marks are. I wonder things like…’isn’t that really just practising presence?’ or ‘that one doesn’t really count because…’

Here’s how I am attempting to get around it like a yogi 🙂

• Be more specific about my intention (what am I tracking exactly)
• Acknowledge thinking but choose presence and generosity toward myself instead
• Relax into whatever is with the intention for daily practice

For example:

Outdoor activity time (enjoyed or not, encouraged or not) = check mark. I will not be open to discuss this with my inner critic.

Intentional loving acts and embraced vulnerability need to be more specifically defined to get around ‘that doesn’t count’. My inner critic is just too creative and persuasive.

So this month I get a check mark for every opportunity I find to choose loving-kindness over being right. There will be further opportunities to act with love of course but earning a check has been defined.

I get a check mark for every opportunity I find to practice presence when I  encounter vulnerability (mine or someone else’s).  I might or might not act on it specifically. The better I become at finding these opportunities, the more likely it will be that I will respond to them without interference from my inner critic (or so I imagine anyway…time will tell).

How is tracking going for you?

Recently I received a beautiful call from someone from my past. …one of the funniest people I know, actually. We have a friendship that spans decades and although we make sure to reconnect a few times each year and have shared many personal stories (the good and not so good), our friendship mostly resides in seeing the humour in life together. It is really great to have a friend like this.

A couple of days ago though this same funny friend sincerely owned behaviours from the past (which was very brave and definitely would have been a difficult thing to do without joking about it all) and then as if that wasn’t enough, shared that I have been an important person along the way.

I don’t even have words actually to describe how this breaks me open. And it makes me truly consider in my own life ways I can practice vulnerability. I want to take more risks that matter whenever the opportunity presents itself…with my family, friends and all those I come into contact with each day. I want to practice being the most authentic version of myself and to do that requires the kind of vulnerability my friend has so lovingly role modelled for me. It makes me think of a Brene Brown book called, ‘The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.’ If you are not a big fan of her work but haven’t read this book in particular, give it a try. It is a beautiful and practical book that I am going to revisit too.

Soooooo, I am adding, ‘practice vulnerability’ to my habit tracker list this month.

Much love and I hope to see some of you in yoga classes this week 🙂

I have given a lot of thought to adding another healthy habit in February.

I like themes. I like Valentine’s Day. In fact, I like to think of the whole month of February as a perfect reason to act more loving. (It’s okay if you are rolling your eyes…I won’t know for sure).

So this week, I am giving out little hearts in yoga classes that have been folded with a lot of love. This has a built in reward of just being fun.

I will also reward myself with a check mark on my healthy habit tracker chart for intentionally loving acts like…listening with my whole heart when I might not feel like even paying attention, giving hugs instead of my opinion and watching for what others need with a deep curiosity with the intention to respond in a way that is full of love but also respectful of my own limits (practising love toward myself).

All of this is a TALL order. Wish me luck.

Sending all of you lots of love. Happy Valentine Week!

Okay, here is one of the daily habits I am working on…

Have fun outside this winter.

I love the outdoors. I do. I swear. Something just happens mid-winter (especially when it is really cold) that makes me want to cocoon inside with a cup of tea and a good book. Getting out in it though makes winter fun. I am happier. I am also more likely to notice how beautiful winter is and far less likely to wish away the entire season.

I officially kicked off the cultivation of this new healthy habit on Friday, January 31st. After teaching yoga on Thursday I headed to Ottawa for Winterlude with my husband and daughter. Once we arrived, there was so much going on that it was impossible not to enjoy being part of it all. We went tubing and skating and saw lots of snow sculptures and ice sculptures and we listened to some bands after dinner. I loooooooved it. A big check mark on my Habit Tracker on my first day. Yay!

On Saturday we planned to go cross-country skiing with another family for the day (with a packed lunch even to eat along the way) but there were some hiccups with that plan so we ended up having a long lunch with them indoors instead…so sadly, I didn’t even earn a teensy check mark that day. After lunch we headed back from Ottawa and we were in the car for hours.

Today back at home the universe conspired in my favour though and provided some amazingly gorgeous fresh snow…wooohooo.  The whole afternoon was just spent cross-country skiing locally. I earned my second check mark.

Tell me how you are doing with one of your new healthy habits. I would love to hear about it one day this week at yoga or here on the blog.

Happy, happy winter day,

Katherine

I like the idea of officially nurturing healthy habits once January is well underway. All of that January 1st stuff is way too much pressure. So, if you haven’t received your Habit Tracker Challenge booklet yet….it’s coming to you soon during a yoga class this week. We are about to cultivate some serious amounts of joy, energy and all around wellness THIS week and for at least the next 31 days.

If you see me at a yoga class, please tell me the healthy habits you plan to track or leave a comment. I really want to hear about what you are working on. Sharing with each other creates community and accountability. Check back and read other people’s comments. I will write blog posts now and then over the 31 days. If you leave a comment you can choose to be alerted when I post. Or just check back when you think of it.

Let’s support each other and good luck!

Love (lots of it),
Katherine