Workshop Today

Today's the day! Please come to the Rockcliffe Park Community Centre at 3:00 for a talk on How Yoga Works and Why it Might Make You Healthier and Happier. I am the privileged guest of the India Canada Friendship Circle this afternoon. I'll be sharing my experience about yoga and how it works.

Many people think yoga is just a bunch of physical movements, and unfortunately for a lot of people, that's all it turns out to be. Without integrating some of yoga's foundational principles and practices, the keys to yoga's power to transform your life and create greater awareness will remain unused.

Today we'll talk about how to use those keys. No physical effort is required!

Yoga in Safe Schools

Last year I had the privilege of being invited to teach yoga as an experiment at a "safe school," a school where kids go if they've been expelled or suspended from their home school. We tried it as a test to see if it would help the kids relax and manage their stress. We weren't sure if we should call it yoga even, as the principal thought the kids wouldn't be into it, especially the boys.

I guess it went well because this year we've upped it to two classes a week. Today was the end of the second week and I have to say, I think it's going pretty well. We are going to organize it so what we're doing will count towards a gym credit for those who qualify for that, and it's optional so nobody has to go if they don't want to.

I'm compiling the work I'm doing now and making packets for the students, sort of like in the yoga teacher training program, but not quite. Perhaps this is something I'll be able to offer to other schools in the future. For now, I'm quite happy to celebrate with the guys when they see how this week they are a little more flexible than last week and appreciate seeing them soak up a quiet savasana, before heading back to the challenges they face in their busy lives.

How Yoga Works - India Canada Friendship Circle Talk

Next Sunday I will be giving a talk on How Yoga Works and why it might make you healthier and happier at the India Canada Friendship Circle at the Rockcliffe Park Community Centre at 3 pm. Please come! There will be a question and answer section after the lecture part, which will be around 45 minutes.

To register for the session, please visit the India Canada Friendship Circle's website.

Am I Grateful Yet?

I said that if I end up having surgery for my situation (read past posts) I'd want to be grateful when I did it. After months of herbs and prayers and things, I may be entering the Grateful Zone.

I got a call today from a clinic that said they'd try and get me in for a second opinion. Word is a doctor read my chart and said she wouldn't do anything different and doesn't have time to see me in the next six months. The person who left the message was really helpful and said she'd help me find someone in the community who could do a second opinion. I'll call her back.

Practising yoga all these years has luckily for me, made living in my body relatively comfortable most of the time. I haven't had big things to deal with up until the call from my doctor's office last year that freaked me out. Why would they call me for just me having low iron? I'm starting to get it.

It's not that my body is turning on me, it's that it's maturing, and with that, there are changes happening to it that I haven't had to experience fully until now.

I don't like the idea of a general anesthetic. I don't the idea of losing my womb. But really, this could be so much worse (and it will get that way if I don't treat it), and I'm lucky that I live in this age when both the energetic as well as the physical options are available. Colour me grateful.