We live in a world that worships movement. Hustle culture, productivity hacks, “no days off” mentality—it’s all rooted in the belief that pushing harder, doing more, and trying relentlessly will get us where we want to go. And yet, so many of us find ourselves exhausted, stuck, or even breaking down despite (or because of) our best efforts.

The truth is, your body doesn’t heal when it’s in overdrive. Your mind doesn’t integrate when it’s constantly processing. Transformation doesn’t happen by force.

It happens in stillness.

I know this because I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it in my students, in my coaching clients, in the people who come to my retreats looking for answers and leave with something even deeper—an embodied sense of rest, clarity, and renewal that no amount of doing could have given them.

And I also know this truth is hard to swallow.

Why We Resist Rest

The nervous system is built for survival, not self-care. It’s wired to keep you moving, responding, staying alert. Rest, especially deep rest, can feel unnatural—like losing control, like something is slipping away.

That’s because most of us are operating in sympathetic dominance—our fight-or-flight system is running the show, even when we don’t realize it. If you’ve ever felt restless during meditation, guilty for taking a break, or anxious when things slow down, that’s your nervous system gripping onto its familiar patterns.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that stillness is laziness, that slowing down means falling behind. But the body tells a different story.

Take Lisa, for example. This fictitious person is an amalgamation of many people I have seen in my practice. She’s a corporate lawyer who came to me feeling completely drained. Her solution? More yoga classes, longer meditations, a stricter self-care routine. She was trying to heal the way she had always tried to succeed—through effort, through pushing.

But the harder she tried, the worse she felt.

It wasn’t until she stopped trying—until she let herself sink into true stillness—that the shift happened. A restorative yoga practice that at first felt too slow. A breathwork session where she finally exhaled. A deep surrender that allowed her nervous system to reset.

In less than a week, her body felt lighter, her mind clearer, and her spirit more at ease.

Healing isn’t something you force. It’s something you allow.

The Science and Spirit of Deep Rest

Your body knows how to heal—if you let it.

When you enter deep rest, your parasympathetic nervous system (the “rest and digest” state) takes over. This is when:

• The brain shifts into theta and delta waves, the states of deep meditation and integration.

• Your body releases repair hormones that rebuild tissue, regulate inflammation, and restore balance.

• The mind processes and organizes experiences at a subconscious level, making space for true transformation.

This is why ancient traditions—yoga, Buddhism, Taoism—have long emphasized stillness as a path to wisdom. The ocean metaphor fits perfectly: when the water is turbulent, you can’t see what’s below. But when it settles? Clarity. Depth. Insight.

Stillness doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means creating the conditions for deep transformation.

The Art of Stillness in Real Life

Right now, in your own life—where are you still trying to force something that actually needs rest?

Where have you been gripping, pushing, striving… when what’s really needed is surrender?

At The Art of Stillness retreat, we create the space for this shift. Through restorative yoga, transformational breathwork, and guided meditations, we teach the body how to rest at a cellular level, bringing the nervous system out of survival mode and into deep healing.

This isn’t about escaping life. It’s about recalibrating—so that when you return, you bring a different presence, a different energy, a nervous system that finally knows what safety and restoration feel like.

Join Us—And Receive a Special Gift

The first 3 people who enroll in The Art of Stillness retreat will receive a complimentary 1:1 coaching session with me before the retreat—so that you can identify and release whatever is holding you back from fully embracing this experience.

Ready to experience the power of stillness?

Click here to reserve your spot

This isn’t just a retreat. It’s an unlearning. A remembering. A return.

Come sit in stillness with us. The transformation is already happening.

If the first time you ever heard the phrase “Forrest Yoga” you pictured people doing yoga in trees, you are definitely not alone. If you’ve never heard the phrase “Forrest Yoga,” that’s great! You don’t have any pre-conceived notions about it, unless the previous sentence now has you picturing yourself doing yoga in a forest. Anyway, in this blog post I can help you learn about what Forrest Yoga is, why it’s so awesome, and why you should try it.

1. Forrest Yoga is a healing system of yoga.

You may be thinking, but aren’t all systems of yoga healing? Yes, but not explicitly stated as such. All yoga brings healing and balance to the body, but Forrest Yoga surfaces this intent in each and every class. Forrest Yoga is designed to address modern-day ailments such as lower back pain, tension in the neck and core, anxiety, over-stimulation, and a sense of disconnection.  Our teacher, Ana Forrest (see it’s not about trees: Forrest Yoga is named after her, the woman who synthesized the knowledge body that now carries her name) says Forrest Yoga is the best of yoga modernized for 21st Century humans. Ana Forrest is a Native American Medicine Woman who took a spirit pledge “to mend the rainbow hoop of the people.” Healing at all levels (emotional, physical, spiritual) is at the core of Forrest Yoga.

2. Forrest Yoga teaches you how to breathe.

You may be thinking “but I breathe all day every day just fine, thanks.” But that is unconscious breathing. Breathing is the one physiological function we can consciously control. Luckily, most of the time we don’t need to, but when we do, magic happens. Conscious control of breath allows us to shift our nervous system state on demand and downshift when we are high strung or uplevel when we feel dull or apathetic. Conscious connection to breath also develops a sense many people don’t know they have: interoception. Interoception is the ability to receive and react to stimuli coming from within. Breathing consciously helps build this link to feeling on the inside, into the parts of us that are unseen, but felt.

When asked to focus on your breath the way you’re asked to in a Forrest Yoga class, you may find that it feels awkward, stressful, or strange to pay such close attention to the breath. This is the doorway through which all Forrest Yogis pass to build an intimate connection to breathing, an act that keeps us alive and which, to a great degree, influences our level of vitality.

Manipulating breathing patterns to create different body-mind states is pranayama. Most Forrest Yoga classes begin with pranayama practice, and all Forrest Yoga classes focus on building a strong Ujjayi breath as the fundamental breath of the entire practice. This focus on breath has lasting and deep changes to our physiology and psychology.

3. Forrest Yoga teaches you how to feel.

Forrest Yoga roots out and targets our habits of disconnection and avoidance. By slowing the asana practice down and holding poses for longer periods of time than in other styles of yoga, feelings and sensations arise. As we slow down and realize our physical, mental and emotional patterns, we come to know ourselves as a constellation of feelings and sensations. We can be both open and tight; free and restrained. Within one body is a plethora of stories, sensations, and life experiences.

Sensation is not a verbal language, even though we may be able to apply some descriptive terminology to it. Sensation is an experience, and Forrest Yoga awakens sensation through the method of practice. This approach teaches us about ourselves in a way that is not the typical cerebral language-based or Western approach to self-awareness; Forrest Yoga’s approach is more shamanic and symbolic. Forrest Yoga teaches us how to experience ourselves holistically as a human mandala, not as a disembodied bunch of parts. By learning how to feel, we learn to see ourselves more completely, more compassionately, as we develop the skill of empathy for ourselves. We build a bridge through the practice by connecting feeling or sensing to inner guidance.

4. CORE WORK.

Core work is one of the defining elements of Forrest Yoga, one that is included in every single class and forms the foundation for getting into more complex or challenging inversions, arm balances, or back bending poses. Core work in Forrest Yoga obviously strengthens and tones the abs, but it is about this at only at the most superficial level. In Forrest Yoga, core work is about connection and getting out of your head and into your body. In our Western culture, weak or disconnected core is almost a given. We sit a lot as a people, and have cultural baggage around our bellies. If it’s not flat and fat-free, it’s yucky, to be avoided or smushed into clothes and forgotten about. By paying so much attention to the core, and to how integral it is in our yoga practice (Forrest Yoga cues the core in nearly every pose), Forrest Yoga helps the owner of said core reclaim this forgotten and disowned area and get reconnected.

Feeling strong and connected to the core is an exhilarating feeling which has positive implications for everything from standing to sex. Postural remediation happens at the core. Improved digestion happens at the core. A restoration of positive body identity happens at the core. I can’t say enough about how important core work is to the Forrest Yoga system, and how much people who practice Forrest Yoga come to love, respect, and appreciate this part of the practice.

5. Forrest Yoga is a living, growing system of yoga that changes as the needs of the people change.

One thing I’ve learned about Forrest Yoga, first as a practitioner and then as a teacher, is that the system is always changing. This can trigger people who like a set way of doing things. But Forrest Yoga is really good at triggering folks. We have a saying in Forrest Yoga, “never waste a good trigger.” Use these moments to investigate your thinking and emotional patterns, root out reactivity, and look for ways you have grown comfortable and habit-driven.

Aversion to habitual ways of doing things is built into our system. Cues change as new information on how and why to move the body certain ways becomes available. New poses are developed as either Ana Forrest or the teachers within the system create them to address needs. Even our ceremonial practices are changing as our founder’s personal interests, skills, and fascinations morph.

Forrest Yoga is not static. This can be unnerving to people who have learned how to do something a certain way, then are asked to try it another way. It can even create questioning within the teachers. Forrest Yoga is strong enough to take on this inquiry even from the people trained to carry on this system. By changing things up from time to time, the system stays fresh, adaptive, and relevant.

Forrest Yoga is a slow-paced vinyasa practice featuring pranayama, core work, and long pose holds (and can be practiced in a heated room). If you’re looking to increase your strength and stamina, release tension and stress, improve your breathing, reconnect to your body, and build a personal healing practice, Forrest Yoga is a great choice. It is unlike other styles of yoga you have done, but you will recognize elements of other yoga styles within the system. Just be open to doing things a new way. You will come to understand and know news ways of doing things.

I am offering a one-week Forrest Yoga retreat at Anamaya Retreats in Montezuma, Costa Rica. This beautiful resort is #1 on TripAdvisor for the region. Intimate, yet private, Anamaya overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Two yoga decks and an infinity pool offer panoramic views of the open Pacific Ocean, while the property itself is nestled into lush jungle. 

Daily morning Forrest Yoga practices (90 minutes long) and evening Yin & Yoga Nidra practices (60 minutes long). Daily meditation (20 minutes). Two Forrest Yoga workshops. World class spa. Excursions to natural and cultural offerings in the region. 

Sept. 2-9, 2023. More info: https://anamaya.com/guest_yoga_teacher/yoga-retreats-at-anamaya-with-lola-rephann/ 

Keywords: Lola Rephann, Forrest Yoga, Costa Rica yoga retreat, healing yoga, yoga retreat

They prepare you to become a professional yoga teacher, but they do so much more than that. 

You will learn practical yoga skills like alignment, body awareness, anatomy and class sequencing, but the most profound parts of a yoga teacher training go beyond the physical. 

Here are 10 ways to know you’re ready to take a yoga teacher training.

1. You’re ready for a change in your life.

Once you’ve taken a yoga teacher training (YTT), you will view your life as “before YTT” and “after YTT.” Who you are will change. You cannot anticipate, control, or project what the change will look like, how long it will take, or who you will be after. If you’re ready for a change, a yoga teacher training will be the spark that ignites the fire of transformation in your life. 

2. You want to deepen your yoga and spiritual practice.

It goes without saying that your yoga practice will change. Extended and more frequent training sessions, increased awareness, and the dissection of poses anatomically and sequentially will refine your existing practice. You will become stronger as you practice consistently over time. Your body becomes more limber and your movements more fluid as you refine the linking of breath, body, and mind. 

Spiritually, you will dive deep. For perhaps the first time in your life, you will be meditating daily and asked to observe your mind and your actions. The ethical principles, the yamas and niyamas of yoga, are one-quarter of the practice of yoga. You will see your actions from an entirely new perspective. This may be the beginning of growth you’ve been longing for, growth based on spiritual or ethical principles that before teacher training, seemed out of reach or you had no idea how to access. 

3. You seek a more empowered connection with yourself.

Modern society is built on a disconnect between the human spirit and the human body. 

We work at jobs we have moral ambiguity about. We keep ourselves awake with coffee and sugary foods. We tolerate relationships that don’t feel good. 

The split between the body and the mind is so typical, most of us don’t know how to identify it or realize it’s happening to us. We may feel we don’t really know who we are. When asked “how do you feel?” we may have a hard time answering, or we don’t really want to confront the answer. 

Over the course of a yoga teacher training, you will develop an empowered connection to yourself as you observe your relationship to yourself through a new lens. 

4. You want to understand how the mind works.

If you have ever suffered from anxiety, depression, confusion, or boredom, you have experienced what yoga would call “the whirling of the mental machinations.” 

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali barely covers the physical postures of yoga, but it goes deep into the study of mind. 

If you’re curious about your moods, and the connection between your thoughts and feelings, a yoga teacher training will give you ample opportunity to observe your mind and learn how the mind works. 

Modern yoga is built on the ancient texts of yoga supplemented with current neurobiological and neurophysiological research. 

You will come to understand the workings of the human mind in an entirely new way.

5. You want to share yoga with others.

When people experience the fantastic results of yoga, they want to tell everyone about it. 

They want to share how they are less stressed, happier, more optimistic, less reactive, stronger and more flexible. They may like to show off with a pose or two. And most of all, when they encounter a friend or family member that they know could benefit from yoga, they can’t help but blurt out “you should try yoga!” 

If this has ever happened to you, you’re definitely ready for a yoga teacher training. 

When you take a yoga teacher training, you’re equipped to contribute to your family, your community, and your social circle in increasingly positive and nurturing ways.

6. You long to express yourself in new and refined ways.

As a yoga teacher, you use your body, your voice, your breath, your energy, and your mind in a coordinated way to lead a group of people. Practicing this has a radical effect on how you express yourself. You’ve probably noticed that yoga teachers are different. They talk and move differently than most. They weren’t born that way. They became that way. The same thing will happen to you.

7. You want to be part of a community.

You will become part of a community united in the shared goals and values of self-realization, integrity, growth, and service. You will speak a new language and be part of a culture shared by other yoga teachers. You will be part of a community that supports you, understands you, and inspires you. You will be part of a community that is continuously learning, evolving, and growing. You will never lack inspiration as long as you remain open to those around you.

8. You’re ready to make an investment in your future.

Completing a yoga teacher training is an investment in your future. 

Perhaps you have invested in yourself in the way of formal education, job training, resume re-writing services, make-overs, personal training, or a new wardrobe. 

All of those were probably done with a goal in mind. If I do X, I should get Y. 

Yoga teacher training is a non-quantifiable investment. What each person gets out of it will be what they need. 

You will become a better communicator. You will express yourself more clearly. You will clarify your values and ethics. You will have a better understanding of your body and mind, and by extension, the bodies and minds of others. You will know how to teach, not just yoga, but anything, as pedagogy (the art and craft of teaching) is a transferable skill. You will enter into a community and culture that encourages and supports growth and evolution. You will see yourself as valuable.

9. You’d like to be more equipped to handle work, dating, marriage, parenthood, aging, the apocalypse, or just tomorrow.

So much of teaching yoga is holding space. As a teacher, you hold space for the student to have any number of rich inner experiences. Imagine holding space at work, in your relationship, for your family, or during a crisis. 

A yoga teacher training brings out the leader in you. You will learn to observe and listen with greater presence and respond authentically. The world needs more of this.

10. You want to find out what you really have to offer the world.

If you apply yourself and listen carefully, you will discover your gifts and start to understand how they can be utilized in the world. 

This is something that usually takes a lifetime to figure out. 

A teacher training gives you a considerable advantage by sorting this out in a relatively short period of time. 

Letting go of worrying and fretting over what it is you’re meant to be doing recovers vast amounts of energy.

If you find yourself reflected in these statements or are interested in what else a yoga teacher training could do for you, contact me. I offer yoga teacher training programs in Costa Rica and Tampa, FL. 

For so long I have wanted to transition to teaching online and teaching from all the tools I have amassed over the years. This includes things like archetype work, shamanic journeying, visualization, nutrition, journaling, and more.

But I had no idea how to fit all these influences into one cohesive program.

Until I undertook an incredibly transformative process of working with a life coach.

This process helped me crystallize my vision and re-create myself in a very short period of time. I have been used to a slower, more organic process of change.

My organic rate of change, I thought, was slow. In all honesty, I felt like not much had changed for me internally in years. Although I had been doing so much work, from yoga teacher training to bodywork training to reiki to becoming self-employed in the ultra-competitive environment of New York City, I still yearned for the spark of inspiration to hit me.

Once it did, it was like I had been given license to weave all my knowledge and experience into a beautiful tapestry of tools and processes for human development!

I am thrilled to introduce Phoenix Rise, my 10-week personal growth and accountability program. I am accepting applications now. The program begins 9/9/18. To apply, please click here.

1. Inhale
2. Speak on exhale
3. If you run out of breath in the middle of a sentence, pause, take another deep breath in, and continue

I recorded a video demonstrating Breath Formula in action. You can watch it below:

If you would like coaching on Breath Formula, Forrest Yoga, or general life coaching on a topic of your choice, please contact me. Please leave a comment on the video if you enjoyed it.

1. Breath
2. Strength
3. Integrity
4. Spirit
5. Go Deeper

The first of the five classes, "Pillar 1: Breathe and Feel" is now live on YogaInternational.com.

My intent with this new series of classes is to teach how each pillar supports and guides us through the practice. Please join me and take my class!

Ujjayi (pronounced "oo-jai") is called "the victorious breath" because the dedicated practice of this pranayama will create victory over disturbances in the breath, which will lead to victory over disturbances of the mind.

The practice of Ujjayi will clearly highlight tensions in the breath, in the muscles of respiration, in the area of throat and chest, and in the mental anxieties that arise upon watching the breath and finding these disturbances. By steadily bringing your attention to these disturbances and working on lengthening and smoothing out the breath, the mind relaxes.

Once a practitioner is more versed in the practice of Ujjayi and the physical disturbances are not as pronounced, the practice becomes a touchstone that helps you sense where in the body-mind you are holding tension or not fully present. 

Ujjayi is an anchor for the attention. By anchoring the attention to the breath, the mind becomes softer and more relaxed. As the breath becomes smoother and freer, so does the mind. And this is why Ujjayi breath is called "the victorious breath."

You can learn Ujjayi breath from my Forrest Yoga video tutorial for Yoga International or via my free Soundcloud audio tutorial embedded below. Happy breathing!

P.S. Luke Ketterhagen also offers a great learning video on Ujjayi. However, I disagree with him a bit on the topic of when not to use Ujjayi. In Forrest Yoga, we do practice Ujjayi through the majority of each practice. The breath is woven throughout to help each practitioner stay focused and in a feeling state.

P.P.S Check out my "Experience Forrest Yoga" video series at Yoga International. Four classes that starts with introduction to the basic moves of Forrest Yoga, including Ujjayi pranayama.

The retreat is entitled "Energy and Intention" and will focus on Forrest Yoga classes during the day and Yin Yoga classes at night. We'll also do two workshops to deepen our practice, "Pranayama and Chakra Process" and "How to Meditate."

Check out my video below to learn more about my retreat and make sure to check out the incredible photos on the Anamaya website!

Join me for a four-class Intro to Forrest Yoga series on Yoga International. I'm so proud of these classes. I recorded these classes in August 2016 and they finally went live in March 2017. I wasn't sure if they would ever see the light of day, but now that they have, I am so happy with the results.

There are four classes that build in intensity and complexity.

Class 1: Learn the 8 Basic Moves of Forrest Yoga. This is a 15-minute tutorial introducing the 8 basic moves of Forrest Yoga and the cues that will be repeated in the classes going forward.

Class 2: Intro to Forrest Yoga: Applying the 8 Basic Moves. This 47-minute class reviews the 8 Basic Moves from the previous class then puts them into practice into a basic sequence.

Class 3: Forrest Yoga: Core Basics. This 29-minute class dives deeper into Forrest Yoga core work, why we do it, what it does for us, and why it's important. This class is a great stand-alone class or can be used as a warm up to any other class.

Class 4: Forrest Yoga for Upper Back, Neck and Shoulders. This 69-minute class puts together everything you've learned in the previous classes and takes it to the next level. This is a challenging class that will focus on releasing tension from these trouble spots.

Sign up for the challenge for free at Yoga International.

I created this video after a student asked me what yoga poses could help with gas and bloating. These are the same poses I use when I'm feeling gassy!

Please leave a comment if the practice helped you!

Here are 5 common excuses I hear all the time.

1. It's too expensive.

There is a saying "pay now, or pay later." For the small increase you may pay now for healthy, fresh food, you will save on discomfort, pain, medication and all the other expensive aspects of being sick from a lifestyle and preventable disease like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, hypertension, or cancer. In 2015, Consumer Reports did a study and found that organic food is on average 47% more expensive than conventional but that the range of prices in huge. In some cases, organic actually costs less than conventional. And as more and more consumers demand organic food, you can expect prices to continue to drop.

Same goes for your gym membership or yoga studio fees. In 2016, the NYTimes published an article showing that one year of exercise is worth $2,500 in saved medical fees. Only 30 minutes of walking a day is needed to accrue this incredible cost savings. What would you do with an extra $2,500 a year?

If you prepare food at home, you'll save time, gas, money and calories. Giving up your take-out habit is one of the most financially sound things you can do. Time is money, so instead of driving and waiting in line for the so-called convenience of eating mediocre processed food while you browse the net on your smartphone, invest your time in learning a skill that makes you that much more well-rounded (and sexy): being a good cook.

Don't have money for expensive gym memberships that cost hundreds of dollars a year? You don't need it. You can walk or run. You can hike. You can download YouTube videos. Or join a yoga website that offers unlimited content for less than the cost of one class in a studio. Or find a teacher that offers videos online with coaching for a reasonable fee (I'll be doing this soon!).

2. I don't have time.

Try HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). Not only can you find a plethora of videos on YouTube (some of my favorites are HASfit and Fitness Blender) for FREE (see #1), you can do these workouts in 30 minutes, torching upwards of 350 calories, but you don't need ANYTHING except some space and some sneakers to do them. If you have hand weights, you can add those or get creative and use a 16-ounce can or some heavy books or even rocks.

If you say you don't have time to drive to the organic market to get things, you can have those things shipped to you from companies like VitaCost (mostly organic and non-GMO products, including health and beauty products) or Amazon.

You will gain time in the way of increased lifespan and increased energy to do more of the things you want to do. 

3. I don't know how to.

You weren't born knowing how to drive a car, or speak a foreign language, or do whatever it is that you do at your job now. You had to learn. Same thing goes for living a healthy lifestyle.

There are TONS of resources online for living healthy. Pick a topic and dive in. Want to go vegetarian or vegan? Search Google and start reading. Want to lose weight only working out 30 minutes a few times a week? Do HIIT workouts (see #2). Search the web and YouTube for free resources. Want to learn how to meditate? Download Insight Timer for free and use the free guided meditations to learn how.

Not knowing how is a common excuse with no merit. Putting yourself through your own education has the added merit of making you feel more in control of your life, boosting your confidence as you improve and change your life, and makes you a resource for others! So get cracking!

4. My family/friends don't care about living healthy.

Too bad for them. Maybe you should share points #1 and #2 with them. The reality is, people rarely change. A lazy person rarely becomes curious and self-motivated unless something happens. Usually the "something happens" is of the life-threatening variety, or so painful that change is the only option.

Most people who seek to improve their lives either were born with that drive to grow, learn, and break through limitations or the realities of life showed them that change was the only way forward. Either way, these are the kinds of people you need to be around.

Stop wasting energy trying to convert those who don't want or don't know how to support your efforts.

You must decide what you want. When you do good things for yourself, people who are stuck in life and haven't found the motivation for more will offer resistance. They may make fun of you, doubt that your efforts will lead anywhere, criticize your "weird" food choices, or just invite you to the usual Sunday football and beer party when you'd rather be hiking or running. Politely decline and run in the opposite direction.

Find new people to associate with.

Love your friends and family but know that when you take charge of your life, a LOT of people will not like it and will try to keep you down. Learn to create boundaries with these people and let your radiance, vitality and happiness speak for itself.

5. It won't make a difference.

This seems like a valid excuse until you actually try and experience what life can be like when you feel better, sleep better, have more energy, more confidence, lose weight, have more stamina, stop feeling depressed or anxious, stop drinking/drugging, etc. How can you know what the difference will be unless you've tried?

The latest research shows it takes about 66 days for something to become a habit. And it takes about 3 days for your body to stop craving something you don't want anymore (alcohol, pot, sugar, fast food, etc.). The things you want to stop doing, give yourself three days, JUST THREE DAYS!, to give your body a chance to feel what it is like without that thing. Then give yourself about two months, JUST TWO MONTHS, to experience what life is like WITH something: with 3x weekly workouts, with meditating 15 minutes a day a few times a week, with fresh and healthy food).

All change takes time and progresses in stages. To experience change you must begin somewhere.

The psoas is a muscle you must absolutely know about. It's not an obvious muscle like your bicep or your hamstring. You might not even really know what it feels like when it's tight, overworked, or just unhappy because it is a muscle that lies very deep inside the body.

Some key facts about the psoas:

1. It connects your legs to your trunk by attaching from your lumbar spine to your femur bone. It's about the size of your forearm!

2. It is a hip flexor, which means it is used every time you walk, run, go up stairs, climb a hill, lift your leg, sit, or in any other way flex (or bend) at the hip.

3. Ida Rolf, famous founder of Rolfing, called the psoas "The Muscle" because it is involved in so involved in so many movements, postures, and processes of the body.

4. Psoas is your "fight, flight, or freeze" muscle. It is intimately connected to your nervous system. A lot of its contractile activity is not under your conscious control. It is the "startle" muscle that pulls you into a little ball when you are afraid or shocked. It is the muscle you'd use to run away from a threat, or kick if you had to fight an attacker.

5. Psoas is the "trust" muscle. It is incredibly sensitive to emotional states. Not only does this muscle have a mind of its own with its sensitive connection to our sympathetic nervous system, it is near two very important areas of the body that have to do with sexuality: the lumbar plexus (nerves involves in digestion, elimination, and sexuality) and the genito-femoral nerve, which if compressed by a tight psoas, may cause problems with sexual function.

Now that I have had a few run-ins with this very sensitive and communicative muscle, I'm starting to understand it better. I will definitely continue to write on this fascinating muscle.

What follows is what I wrote on it 6 years ago.

The Sensitive Psoas

Just over a week ago, a random sequence of events arrived at me confronting an injury that I did not fully understand. I went from having some slight pain and stiffness in the outside of my hip to not being able to sit up, bend down, or walk. I was limping and unbalanced. My gait was completely altered. I was fortunate enough to be seen by the amazing Hellerwork practitioner Anne-Marie Duschene the next day. She works at Art of Alignment doing bodywork for dancers, athletes, people recovering from injury, and anyone else who is up for a deeply intuitive and healing bodywork experience. I know Anne-Marie from the studio but doing bodywork is a very different way of knowing someone. Especially in the attuned, intuitive presence of a master, this work can allow you to feel the state of your being physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It can be very intense, but in the safety Anne-Marie provides, it's all good.

At this time, I thought something was wrong with my psoas, a long, deep postural core muscle that can be thought of as the top of the leg (for a far more in-depth look at this concept, this series entitled The Opinionated Psoas is fantastic).  I came to find out it was inflammation in the area around my greater trochanter (more anatomy geekery: the outside knob on the femur/thigh bone where leg muscles attach). Turns out there is a whole diagnosis of this condition: greater trochanteric pain syndrome. Since my psoas was not injured, but was responding to the things around it, I came to find out something about an entirely new part of my body that I would have never known was so complex. I also came to have even more respect for the sensitive psoas.

The psoas is something of a witness: never itself being directly involved, but transmitting information about the body with the expressive range of a violin. This amazing article sees the psoas as an organ of perception, more like a tongue than an anatomical muscle. It calls the psoas "the filet mignon of the human body: juicy, delicate, tender, and very responsive." There is even a book dedicated to the psoas, outlining the various roles of the muscle, including its connection to childhood conditioning and growth, the fear reflex, and labor and childbirth.

This is not the first time the psoas has literally called out to me by indicating pain or discomfort or an altered gait or something just off in that area. I have a feeling the psoas has some things to teach me. I will let you know what I discover!

This wonderful piece by yoga teacher Duncan Parviainen totally caught me by surprise. I'd never really considered my introversion thru the lens of being a yoga teacher.

Perhaps that's because, despite being an introvert, when I'm teaching I feel so energized by the work of teaching yoga that I forget my generally quiet tendencies and seem to have a good amount to say. And also, despite being an introvert, I really love and am fascinated by people.

Introverts are oriented inwardly. One of the definitions of introversion is "the act of directing one's interest inward or to things within the self." This doesn't mean selfish. It may be more accurate to call this skill "interoception," or the ability to receive stimuli and information from within.

I am going to posit here that introverts feel the subtle changes and messages of body and mind more strongly than extroverts. It's just our natural inclination to look within and examine. I'm also going to posit here that introverts may be slightly more prone to depression, anxiety, and other psychological maladies, or perhaps we are affected differently by these psychological trials than extroverts. Following these hypotheses, then introverts have much to offer in teaching how to flow with fluctuations of the mind-stuff and how subtle signals from the body can be refined into high states of awareness.

Some skills introverts have that may emerge in their teaching:

• poetic, descriptive language for states of being, feelings, and experiences
• familiarity with the phasic nature of mood, energy, and affect
• compassion and sensitivity towards modern-day conditions of overwhelm, burn out, over-stimulation, and stress

Sometimes it's tough being an introvert, especially in a competitive city like NYC. Things that I don't do so well as an introvert:

• answer the phone
• do coffee, lunch, dinner dates with people I want to get to know (or even long-standing friends)
• network
• make small talk

Needs I have as an introvert that are also useful skills to teach people suffering from stress and overwhelm:

• rest
• quiet
• freedom from stimulation (noise, light, crowds)
• clearly defined boundaries and/or regular breaks from being in social or group situations

It was refreshing to read Duncan's article on the power of the introvert yoga teacher, to take a different lens on some of the benefits introversion gives us. As yoga teachers, we are dealing with the inner landscape. This familiarity with the inner world and our ability to observe ourselves helps when it comes to teaching things like meditation or witness consciousness. So thanks, Duncan, for an added perspective on life as an introvert (and yoga teacher)!

1. Yin yoga is an excellent counterpart to more active "yang" vinyasa or other physical practices.

Yin yoga should not be practiced as your only form of yoga or exercise. It excels at balancing our typical 21st-Century Type A lifestyles that are fast-paced, competitive, and where our exercise or even yoga practice is extremely physical to the point of adding to our stress burden. Yin is the antidote to that. It is calming where most yoga is stimulating. It helps balance tissues that are in a perpetual state of contraction. It is balancing to the nervous system and for the vital organs.

2. Yin yoga is perfect for when you're stressed out, over-heated, or for women in their moon cycle.

Whenever you have been too yang, Yin yoga will help re-balance your energy levels and serve as a tonic to an over-stimulated, over-booked life. Yin yoga operates on the same concept as Traditional Chinese Medicine regarding the meridians, or energy channels in the body. When we are in a constant state of overwhelm or busyness, our Kindey and Liver Chi may be blocked, stagnant, weak, or aggravated. Yin poses which address these very important meridians help keep us in balance, especially when we feel stressed, tired, or worn down.

3. Yin yoga is an amazing precursor to meditation and can help you build a meditation practice, or deepen your existing one.

Yin yoga quiets the mind. Like all forms of yoga, Yin yoga helps settle the mind by bringing awareness to the subtle realms of breath and energy, but Yin in particular is well suited as a preliminary practice to sitting meditation. Why is this so? The quality of breath that develops from a Yin practice sets you up for a deep seated meditation practice. The spine & hips will be open and lubricated and the breath and mind will be steady. A sitting practice after Yin practice can go very deep. Concentration is stronger after Yin practice.

4. Yin yoga helps lengthen connective tissue (ligaments, fascia, possibly even bone) and produces Hyaluronic Acid (HA).

HA is the main component of synovial fluid, the fluid in your joints that reduces friction. Yin yoga can be very therapeutic for those with arthritis, chronic pain, auto-immune disorders and for healing from surgery or injury. Yin yoga can help dissolve scar tissue by stretching the fascia, providing the conditions for stiffness, tightness, or certain movement patterns in the body to resolve themselves over time.

5. Yin yoga develops attention to detail.

The attention to detail that develops thru the three-step path of yin yoga (find your edge, become still, hold for time) naturally settles the mind. As there is little movement in Yin, and poses are held for long periods of time (3-5 minutes or even longer), the practice invites deep introspection and listening to the body. Feeling and sensing the minute changes moment to moment builds somatic awareness and an appreciation for subtlety. It is a highly experiential practice, where you become much more intimate with the textures and contours of your inner body.

6. Yin yoga cultivates a Yin perspective.

Our minds and nervous systems are conditioned by a culture that is Yang. Competition, control, effort, hard work, determination, force, power, and even manipulation are common tactics to get ahead and maintain a competitive advantage in our current times. Yang energy is known as being strong, forceful, edgy, sharp, fast, and dominating. It is associated with the masculine polarity. We all know the effects of living life this way. There is another way, which is the Yin way. Yin energy is patient, observant, slow to move, steady, grounded, goes with the flow, and waits and observes for the right time to take action. It is associated with the feminine polarity. Learning to yin when the rest of the world yangs can have revelatory effects on how you live and express yourself on Planet Earth.

I teach Yin Yoga Sundays from 3-4:30pm at Reflections Yoga, 227 E. 24th St. in New York City. I also utilize Yin Yoga in my private yoga teaching. If you are seeking in increase in flexibility or if you feel stressed and your mind is constantly racing, Yin Yoga may be just what you need.

Uddiyana translates from Sanskrit to mean "belly flies up." It's what your belly does when you create uddiyana bandha. So how can you learn how to use this to cure hiccups? Follow this video from one of my teachers Erica Mather, where she instructs uddiyana bandha. Practice this a few times when you don't have hiccups, so you can be prepared to take action when you do.

One day I realized that since hiccups are due to a spasm in the diaphragm, something that tones and relaxes the diaphragm might help. I tried uddiyana and behold!, hiccups gone. The more refined the practice of uddiyana becomes, the more you can "feel around" using your diaphragm to find the area that is under spasm and gently pull up on that area. Use uddiyana, and the empty breath retention (known as rechaka kumbhaka), to soothe the spasmodic musculature. Now I use this technique every time I get an attack of the hiccups, and have been able to cure any hiccup attack with just one or two repetitions (and long kumbhakas) of uddiyana.

Uddiyana and the bandhas are primarily energetic locks, so having the assistance of a teacher to help you understand what you should be doing/feeling and why is helpful. If you proceed without a teacher, move with caution, never rushing thru the practice and always honoring your feelings - if it doesn't feel right, stop.

And here's something fascinating: hiccups can be traced back, genetically, to fish.

(This post is about 3 years old; I recycled it from my old blog.)

Check out my YouTube channel for more ways yoga can improve your life! Like getting rid of gas…☺️

1. Waterfall Lagunas

A "laguna" is a pool. A waterfall laguna is formed when high tide comes in and sea water meets fresh water coming down from the mountain. There are several waterfalls in Montezuma where you can lounge in your own natural pool. The temperature of these pools is at least 10 degrees cooler than the ocean. Refreshing when the ocean temps are 80 degrees or above! Fresh cool water, a soft sand bottom and rock formations around the border of these pools make them sunbather's delight. If you've been out hiking the hills of Montezuma and need to cool off, just take off your shoes and jump in!

Go at high tide for the deepest, most beautiful lagunas.

2. Infrared Sauna

I have a ritualistic relationship with the infrared sauna at Anamaya Resort. I go in there daily, often 2-3 times a day.

Benefits of infrared sauna therapy include:

• Detoxification: By heating the objects in the sauna rather than the air, infrared sauna therapy elevates core body temperature, resulting in a 7x greater detox level than traditional saunas that heat the air, causing the body to sweat. This is why infrared saunas are so effective for heavy metal detoxification, dissolving fat-soluble chemicals from cigarettes, drugs or alcohol, and environmental toxins such as personal care products, air and water contaminants, plastic contaminants, etc.
• Anti-aging and skin purification: Near infrared stimulates the production of collagen and heals both the dermis and epidermis.
• Wound healing: Near infrared therapy helps prevent infection and by stimulating circulation and micro-circulation, speeds healing of both superficial wounds and deeper soft tissue injuries. Last time I went to Anamaya, I felt as if I had torn some tissue in my hamstrings and tweaked some sacral ligaments. After a week of daily infrared therapy, my pains were gone. Cuts, scrapes, and bruises I get from hiking the waterfall trails heal much faster too.
• Pain relief: Near infrared waves penetrate muscles and joints and reduce inflammation. Pain management professionals use infrared sauna therapy to reduce pain, reduce muscle spasms, and speed recovery.
• Weight loss: An hour sitting in a near infrared sauna burns approximately 600 calories. Heart rate increases while relaxing! I can attest to this benefit as I always come back from Anamaya a little slimmer.

3. True Farm to Table Eating

Anamaya Resort has its own farm: Rancho Delicioso. The farm provides fresh, organic food to Anamaya's kitchen, and is also a retreat location of its own where you can go learn perma-culture, which they call "yoga for the Earth." I love this idea of "yoga for the Earth" and hope to one day learn perma-culture at Rancho Delicioso.

This is true farm to table eating, where you will meet the people who grew and harvested your food, and learn all about the production and resources that go into the food you eat while on retreat at Anamaya.

During each retreat, there is a short trip to Rancho Delicioso where you can see the farm, the farm's tilapia pools, which are used to create an organic fertilizer source, and Joseph's magical treehouse, which was recently featured in a Victoria's Secret catalog photo shoot. You can also rent the tree house on Airbnb.

4. Fire Dancers, Aerial Silks, and Hoopers

During each retreat there is an "Anamaya Circus" where the staff shows off their talents. One of the best parts of this performance is the fire dance and aerial silks demonstrations. The performance is beautiful, sensual and exciting! Montezuma and the entire Nicoya Peninsula has a reputation for these types of performance and movement arts. There are so many talented fire dancers in the area and if you go hang out downtown during the day, you will see them practicing at the end of the main street in Montezuma. You can even study fire, or poi, at various locations around Montezuma. My friend Caroline Palmer is a great fire hoop performer in Santa Theresa. If you're in town, look her up. Or find out more about the hooping scene in Santa Theresa here.

5. Anamaya Resort

The fifth most amazing thing you can experience at my retreat is the retreat center itself, Anamaya Resort. Situated on the cliff side, just above the canopy line, you can look across the Pacific Ocean with unimpeded views from the infinity pool. The setting, the accommodations, the staff, the amazingly clean healthy food, twice-daily yoga classes, flora and fauna and expansive views are unforgettable. A ley line, what are sometimes called the acupuncture meridians of planet Earth, runs through Costa Rica. There's also a 7 chakras overlay to the area, starting with the 1st chakra at the base of the cliff, 2nd with the beautiful ocean down below, the 4th chakra must be the incredible green rainforest that you are basically living above during the time you're at Anamaya, and the open sky above suggests the 7th and even 8th trans-personal chakra. One thing I know for sure is that Anamaya is very healing energetically. This is an experience you will never forget and will want to repeat.

Discover these five amazing experiences for yourself on my retreat "Strength & Surrender" Dec. 10-17, 2016. If you'd like more information about my retreat, feel free to contact me directly.

Before my last yoga retreat in Costa Rica, I wanted to be sure students were at least familiar with Ujjayi Breath, so I created this tutorial and emailed it to them one week before we arrived in Costa Rica.

Ujjayi pranayama is key in the practice of Forrest Yoga. Ujjayi pranayama down-regulates the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) into the para-sympathetic state, or the rest-digest-repair branch, so it's a great tool for self-soothing when anxiety flares. It also helps you shift into a feeling state and use the breath to perceive internal states. This practice is interoception, or sensitivity to stimuli arising within the body, including hunger, heartbeat, and muscular tension, just to name a few.

If you'd like to learn more about how to use Ujjayi pranayama as part of a therapeutic, interoceptive yoga practice, please contact me.

During winter and spring, I use my neti pot daily (or just about daily) and with each passing season, have fewer and fewer allergies and colds. In fact, since the end of my Forrest Yoga Foundations Teacher Training (June 2014), where I got in the habit of doing neti daily, I have been sick with a cold only a few times, have had little to no seasonal allergy problems, and althought I did not take the vax, I got COVID twice and had minimal symptoms and got over it quickly.

I thank my good immune system to daily meditation, regular yoga, awareness of breath, good diet, and the neti pot.

Winter is a great time to get into a neti habit because indoor air is very dry and dry nasal passages make us more vulnerable to air-borne infections and irritants. Mucus is a protective layer that traps allergens and microscopic particles (including dust, mold, bacteria, etc) that can lead to respiratory issues. Running a humidifier at home is a great idea, and in addition to neti for cleansing, you can keep your nasal passages moist and protected by using nasya, or Ayurvedic nasal oil.

I used to see nasya oils sold near the neti pots in nature food stores, but there seems to be a dearth of this product lately. In any case, I knew I had all the ingredients I needed at home, so I decided to make my own.

Using a base of sesame oil, I re-used a small bottle that previous contained essential oils (a Living Libations Poetic Pits bottle) and added, to this 5 mL bottle, about 2 drops of eucalyptus oil, 1 drop of peppermint oil, and 1 drop niaouli (you can also use tea tree; niaouli is similar to tea tree and is a strong anti-viral/anti-bacterial but is gentler to skin). In this most recent batch, I also put a drop of the famed Thieves blend, a medieval recipe used during the time of the Black Plague. Shake well to mix the oils. NOTE: Depending on your sensitivity to essential oils, you may want to put half the amount of essential oil. Or use a larger 10 mL bottle to make a less concentrated solution. See comments below.

Sesame oil is prized in Ayurveda for its warming qualities and is especially good for calming vata, the air dosha which tends to be out of balance in winter. After doing my neti pot in the morning before meditation, I use a q-tip to gently rub nasya inside each nasal cavity. Many Ayurvedic sites say you can use the tip of the pinky finger. The respiratory oils in the blend help clear and deepen my breathing for meditation, the sesame oil lubricates and heals any dryness in the nasal passages, and the essential oils have the added benefit of being anti-vital, anti-bacterial, etc.

Traditionally, nasya is done by laying down and dripping customized nasya preparations into the nose, of which there are as many recipes as there are issues pertaining to nose and throat. Some nasya recipes call for herbs boiled in milk and added to various oils, etc. While my nasya recipe or means of administration is not traditional Ayurveda, I think it is in keeping with the idea of calming vata, protecting and supporting the delicate mucus membranes of the nose, and adding another layer of defense by using essential oils with anti-microbial properties.

There's lots of resources to learn about the benefits of nasya. Some include relief from hoarseness, stiff neck and jaw, headaches, earaches, stress, anxiety, and a positive impact on the sense organs.

When I am doing neti and nasya daily, I find my sense of smell becomes enhanced (it's not one of my strongest senses so I'm always happily intrigued when it starts working thanks to my neti regime!).

My simple recipe for nasya is as follows:

• Use a small glass bottle or jar, about 5-10 mL

• Fill bottle about 2/3 full of unroasted sesame oil (don't use a cooking oil, get one sold for body)

• 2 drops eucalyptus oil

• 1 drop peppermint oil

• 1 drop niaouli oil (can substitute with tea tree oil)

• Top up bottle with sesame oil, close, and shake to combine oils.

• Use organic oils whenever possible

• NOTE: depending on your sensitivity to essential oils, you may want to put half the amount of essential oils. The nasya will still provide excellent benefits. I like my nasya oil a bit on the stronger side.

Even if you use organic oils, this recipe should only cost you about $.50 or less to make. If you purchase a 4 oz. bottle of sesame oil and the essential oils you like for the recipe, you probably won't spend more than $30 and the ingredients should last you the entire year or longer if you use nasya daily. You can also substitute or add other oils to your recipe but make sure they are in concentrations safe for applying to skin. I made a blend with clove oil, which is strongly anti-bacterial and anti-viral. Do some research on essential oils to find which ones could make your recipe perfect for you, but start with the basic one I outlined above. It kept me free of cold all winter.