The Kindness Calendar
The Kindness Calendar. A beautiful initiative my younger brother posted on social media and which was put out into the world by https://www.actionforhappiness.org/. I am making it my daily Mindfulness practice for the month, and I invite everyone to do the same. For more information, visit the latest episode of The Examined Life with Bram […]
True Warriorship
Over the past few weeks I have acted on, with intention, my disdain for the outgoing so-called president (my autocorrect tried to capitalize the P in president when I intentionally made it lower case for a reason) through the posting of memes and some thoughts written out to share. In doing so, I knew that […]
Yoga, Spirituality & Gender: Interview with Lina Bradford
“I will speak only positive words of faith and victory over myself, my family, and my future. I will not use my words to describe my situation. I will use my words to change my situation. I will call in favor, good breaks, healing, and restoration. I will not talk to God about how big my problems are. I will talk to my problems about how big my God is. This is my declaration.” – Lina Bradford
Joan
Today is one of those days when this blog becomes so much more than some words written for the benefit of others. Today I am using this medium to pay hommage to a woman who changed my life. If my post from last year about my teacher, Joan Ruvinsky, went unnoticed, check it out here.
We’re Still Here
When I was twenty-six years old I lived on a street right next to Parc Lafontaine in Montreal. I was nearing the end of a nine-year relationship that I had held onto desperately because I knew that when it ended, I was going to be faced with me, myself and I, and I was a bundle of insecurity and uncertainty at that stage in my life.
For The Love of Baltimore
Events over the last couple of weeks in Baltimore have gotten extremely volatile with the suspicious circumstances surrounding Freddie Gray. What we know is that there is a massive race issue begging to be looked at in the USA, especially when it comes to the approach the police have towards the African-American community. The protests that have ended in rioting and a state of emergency officially being declared are slowly dwindling as calm is being restored in the city, and I’d like to take a moment to speak to the community I was welcomed into at M·Power Yoga exactly one month ago.
Yoga & Activism
A few years ago I had to miss a workshop being given by local Yoga teacher Allison Ulan that focused on Yoga and activism, and I was gutted to miss it. From my point of view, there seems to be a growing divergence between the physical-only focus of the practice, emphasizing solely how the body is being placed in any given pose from the non-physical byproducts of asana. While I absolutely do not want to minimize the importance of proper alignment and body awareness in the practice to avoid injury and to promote longevity in the practice, I also take issue with yoga being taught with little or no illumination of where the physical practice brings us emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.
Where The Heart Is
The longer I live, the more I recognize history repeating itself. I have observed myself date the same kind of person over and over until I understood what I was doing and why I was doing it. I have recognized patterns in my behaviour related to eating, exercising and spending money. I have seen others close to me repeat patterns and behaviours as well, as we are creatures of habit which feed off of familiarity. And, as infuriating as it has been at times, I have also had front-row seats to the Québec language issues and the “will-they-or-won’t-they” issue of Québec separating from Canada.
Yoga Votes Saturday – April 5, 2014
We are in the weeks leading up to a very important provincial election here in Quebec. I’m not going to start preaching or sharing my own political beliefs, because I believe that we are all entitled to our own opinions and don’t want to be that person that polarizes others. I want to bring people together. I don’t care who Quebecers and Montrealers vote for, but I do care that a huge percentage of the population here does not take the time to go vote and exercise a right that others around the world are fighting to the death to have.
The Forest for the Trees
The majority of the conflicts I’ve experienced with others throughout my life have been based in my not being able to understand how or why someone else involved behaved in ways that I couldn’t make sense of. I’ve had moments with the people who were the closest to me at different times act in ways that […]