When we feel burned out, when we need a time-out, when we feel disconnected from ourselves, our source, our creativity, we need to choose quiet. We need to protect it fiercely, and turn into it, even if there’s resistance.

Quiet is becoming an endangered species.

Quiet is becoming a luxury that we pay big money for–a spa getaway, a yoga class, a far-away island, a meditation retreat.

It’s in deep quiet that we can know true joy.

In the video below I share 3 simple ways that I choose quiet and rest each day (even when I don’t wanna) to stay true to myself, to stay inspired, and to show up for the people in my life the way I most want to.

It’s not easy, but it’s also not an option if you want to know true joy. It’s a discipline, a devotion, a choice. It’s your choice.

I’d love to also hear your comments and ideas about this topic below. What rituals and structures do you have in place to support the quiet and rest that your inner genius need to emerge and thrive?

This is part of a larger conversation I’m starting in our community over the next month about rest, quiet, women’s cycles and what those have to do with true feminine power. More from me on this next week!

The Joy of Quiet

ABOUT a year ago, I flew to Singapore to join the writer Malcolm Gladwell, the fashion designer Marc Ecko and the graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister in addressing a group of advertising people on “Marketing to the Child of Tomorrow.” Soon after I arrived, the chief executive of the agency that had invited us took me aside. What he was most interested in, he began — I braced myself for mention of some next-generation stealth campaign — was stillness.

A few months later, I read an interview with the perennially cutting-edge designer Philippe Starck. What allowed him to remain so consistently ahead of the curve? “I never read any magazines or watch TV,” he said, perhaps a little hyperbolically. “Nor do I go to cocktail parties, dinners or anything like that.” He lived outside conventional ideas, he implied, because “I live alone mostly, in the middle of nowhere.”

Around the same time, I noticed that those who part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of nothaving a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I’m reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts,” which charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms.

Has it really come to this?

In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.

Internet rescue camps in South Korea and China try to save kids addicted to the screen.

Writer friends of mine pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago. Even Intel (of all companies) experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers. (The average office worker today, researchers have found, enjoys no more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption.) During this period the workers were not allowed to use the phone or send e-mail, but simply had the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think. A majority of Intel’s trial group recommended that the policy be extended to others.

THE average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen, Nicholas Carr notes in his eye-opening book “The Shallows,” in part because the number of hours American adults spent online doubled between 2005 and 2009 (and the number of hours spent in front of a TV screen, often simultaneously, is also steadily increasing).

The average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day, though one girl in Sacramento managed to handle an average of 10,000 every 24 hours for a month. Since luxury, as any economist will tell you, is a function of scarcity, the children of tomorrow, I heard myself tell the marketers in Singapore, will crave nothing more than freedom, if only for a short while, from all the blinking machines, streaming videos and scrolling headlines that leave them feeling empty and too full all at once.

The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

When telegraphs and trains brought in the idea that convenience was more important than content — and speedier means could make up for unimproved ends — Henry David Thoreau reminded us that “the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.” Even half a century ago, Marshall McLuhan, who came closer than most to seeing what was coming, warned, “When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.” Thomas Merton struck a chord with millions, by not just noting that “Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest,” but by also acting on it, and stepping out of the rat race and into a Cistercian cloister.

Yet few of those voices can be heard these days, precisely because “breaking news” is coming through (perpetually) on CNN and Debbie is just posting images of her summer vacation and the phone is ringing. We barely have enough time to see how little time we have (most Web pages, researchers find, are visited for 10 seconds or less). And the more that floods in on us (the Kardashians, Obamacare, “Dancing with the Stars”), the less of ourselves we have to give to every snippet. All we notice is that the distinctions that used to guide and steady us — between Sunday and Monday, public and private, here and there — are gone.

We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating. And — as he might also have said — we’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.

So what to do? The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.

MAYBE that’s why more and more people I know, even if they have no religious commitment, seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi; these aren’t New Age fads so much as ways to connect with what could be called the wisdom of old age. Two journalist friends of mine observe an “Internet sabbath” every week, turning off their online connections from Friday night to Monday morning, so as to try to revive those ancient customs known as family meals and conversation. Finding myself at breakfast with a group of lawyers in Oxford four months ago, I noticed that all their talk was of sailing — or riding or bridge: anything that would allow them to get out of radio contact for a few hours.

Other friends try to go on long walks every Sunday, or to “forget” their cellphones at home. A series of tests in recent years has shown, Mr. Carr points out, that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.” More than that, empathy, as well as deep thought, depends (as neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio have found) on neural processes that are “inherently slow.” The very ones our high-speed lives have little time for.

In my own case, I turn to eccentric and often extreme measures to try to keep my sanity and ensure that I have time to do nothing at all (which is the only time when I can see what I should be doing the rest of the time). I’ve yet to use a cellphone and I’ve never Tweeted or entered Facebook. I try not to go online till my day’s writing is finished, and I moved from Manhattan to rural Japan in part so I could more easily survive for long stretches entirely on foot, and every trip to the movies would be an event.

None of this is a matter of principle or asceticism; it’s just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better — calmer, clearer and happier — than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”

It’s vital, of course, to stay in touch with the world, and to know what’s going on; I took pains this past year to make separate trips to Jerusalem and Hyderabad and Oman and St. Petersburg, to rural Arkansas and Thailand and the stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima and Dubai. But it’s only by having some distance from the world that you can see it whole, and understand what you should be doing with it.

For more than 20 years, therefore, I’ve been going several times a year — often for no longer than three days — to a Benedictine hermitage, 40 minutes down the road, as it happens, from the Post Ranch Inn. I don’t attend services when I’m there, and I’ve never meditated, there or anywhere; I just take walks and read and lose myself in the stillness, recalling that it’s only by stepping briefly away from my wife and bosses and friends that I’ll have anything useful to bring to them. The last time I was in the hermitage, three months ago, I happened to pass, on the monastery road, a youngish-looking man with a 3-year-old around his shoulders.

“You’re Pico, aren’t you?” the man said, and introduced himself as Larry; we’d met, I gathered, 19 years before, when he’d been living in the cloister as an assistant to one of the monks.

“What are you doing now?” I asked.

“I work for MTV. Down in L.A.”

We smiled. No words were necessary.

“I try to bring my kids here as often as I can,” he went on, as he looked out at the great blue expanse of the Pacific on one side of us, the high, brown hills of the Central Coast on the other. “My oldest son” — he pointed at a 7-year-old running along the deserted, radiant mountain road in front of his mother — “this is his third time.”

The child of tomorrow, I realized, may actually be ahead of us, in terms of sensing not what’s new, but what’s essential.

Photo Credit: Steve Cozart Photography

One of the biggest challenges (ahem: growth opportunities) for me as an author, teacher, speaker, entrepreneur, and, most importantly, woman, has been to continually trust and believe in myself enough to be myself.

Sounds simple enough, yet it trips me up every single day.

How do I want to organize the chapters in my book? Speak on the stage? Lead a workshop?

Dress today? Practice yoga? Create a life that I love with my man?

Regardless of how other people do it (or think I should do it)?

What do I really want?

How can I be the goddess of my own universe?

Last month, I faced these questions in a bigger, more public way. I had the opportunity to get up on a stage in front of hundreds of peers at my business mentor, Andrea J. Lee’s, The Wealthy Thought Leader event in Vancouver.

I had 1 minute to step into the spotlight and “throw down my heart” by sharing the message that I care most about.

Those of you who have read my book know that I’m a recovering perfectionist, control freak, and all-around type-A kind of a gal.  If you’ve been here before you also know that I like to do things a little bit differently (yes, I’m an Ennegram 4 with a 3 wing). I like to be a pioneer, weed wacking on the edge of never-before-seen , full-spectrum (yes: the darker and more dismantled we get, the brighter we can shine) empowered feminine living.

Well, the Wealthy Thought Leader event mashed these two truths together perfectly. It came at the end of a loooong stretch of travel, professional output, and deep inner changes. I literally had no time, energy, or psychic space to prepare for my 1- minute talk.

So I was faced with a choice: completely stress/freak out about it, or…..NOT.  And, guess what?  I chose something radically different (the latter).

I chose to trust that I had enough public speaking training and experience to lean on (Gail Larsen, my public speaking guru, thoroughly empowered me in this department before my book tour last year–thank you Gail!).

I chose to trust that I live and breathe my message so deeply that I can exude it with spontaneous, unscripted passion—for an audience of 1 or 1,000.

I chose to trust that I would be guided to say exactly what needed to be said.

I chose to trust that my desire to shine and serve was stronger than my shadow safety habits of staying small.

I chose to trust that when I united my heart, voice, and body into unbridled, embodied, feminine expression, the magic of my message would expand and explode beyond what my mind could ever contrive.

I chose to trust that I had the guts, the divine guidance, and the savvy to throw down my heart with as much gusto as if it were my last act on this earth. 

Here’s me, throwing down my heart, for you; because, at the end of the day (and this life), there’s really nothing else I’d rather do:

If you had 1 minute to throw down your heart, what would you say and how would you say it?

What inner saboteurs and naysayers might stand in the way of you mustering up the guts to do this?

Who and what do you call on to trust and believe in yourself beyond your fear and doubt?

What do you really want?

Take a step out of yourself and your own comfort zone to declare it below!

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Confession: I’m in the middle of creating something for you right now for which I’m willing to throw down my heart in an even BIGGER way. In this creation I’m  unveiling the key source of my courage, my passion, my EVERYTHING.

I’ll share more about this, in exacting detail, with you in the coming weeks.

What I can tell you right now is that what I share will be rich with previously unspoken, indestructible feminine Truth. This Truth is the missing ingredient in true feminine power that no one is talking about.  And, if we want to have the guts to throw down our hearts, we need to finally bring this truth into the LIGHT.

If you want to get in on the conversation, enter your name and email address below and I will be in touch next week to get it started….

‘Til soon….. xo SAS

p.s. If this post or video has inspired you. Please share it with other women using the social media tabs on the left

If you’ve been hemming and hawing about whether this is a good “fit” for you (and if it’s really a good way to spend your precious time and money), I wanted to take a moment to put you more at ease so you can decide with all the information you need.

If you don’t see your question answered here, feel free to ask them in the comment section below and I will answer them by the end of the day on Monday, April 30 (Red Tent membership discounts end at midnight MT that night!). 

Here are my straight-shooting, heartfelt answers to the 10 most pressing questions I’ve heard about the Red Tent.

#1)  Q: I already do so much online! Facebook, Pinterest, Email, Teleseminars, Twitter. Do I really have the bandwidth for one more ONLINE thing??!

A: Absolutely! I get burned out and spun out from too much online activity. There’s so much info-crap here on the Internet that it’s crazy-making. The Red Tent is my response (and alternative) to that. I’m forging a new way for us to engage online. Technology isn’t going anywhere. So we might as well engage with it on our own terms. This is the path I’m offering is to redefine the online world in a way that honors feminine rhythms, cycles, and spiritual growth. In the Red Tent we say “YES” to harnessing technology to create more support, insight, community, quiet, and SPACE.

More than that, I have spent the past six months working out the “kinks” and the “bugs” in the Red Tent. I launched it in “beta” form last October. Since then I’ve been tinkering and exploring to see how we can best harness the online world to go deep and gain the insight and support we all need and want.

#2) Q: How deep can we really go on a private Facebook page? I’ve been in them before and they haven’t been that transformational or profound. And I’m already part of SO MANY Facebook groups!

A: I hear you! I’ve also been in Facebook groups that have flopped, and have been put in ones that are a terrific waste of my time. I’ve also had a private WordPress Forum that tanked. The truth is, most of us are hanging on Facebook and that is the best place to hold this.  I’m currently in a couple of Facebook private groups that are thriving. I’ve been closely studying how to create deep community in this type of forum (and working with my mentor on constantly improving how to do this) and can guarantee you that we will take an intimate dive together there. You have my word!

#3) Q: This seems like a LOT of money. Is it really worth it?

A: Yes.  My motto for this new Red Tent is “over deliver.” I want this to not only be GOOD, but to be FANTASTIC. That’s my promise. I want this to work because I believe in it with ALL of me. This is unlike anything out there, and it’s designed for real growth.  Real growth is an investment. I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years on retreats, mentoring, coaching, therapy, etc. I am currently working with both my spiritual mentor AND my business mentor. This isn’t cheap! But I wouldn’t be who I am today or be able to do the things I do without constant support and guidance. If you really want to change, you need to invest in yourself. Self-guidance only gets us so far as we all have blind spots. If the Red Tent isn’t your place for growth, then find a place that is, but get support! Plus, the Red Tent is cheaper than a single, live retreat and much cheaper than therapy or one-on-one mentoring.

#4) Q: What’s the main difference between the Year-Long and Monthly Memberships? Which one should I get?

A:  Monthly memberships are a more affordable way to go in the short-term, to dip your toes into the water. But if you’re ready to take a deep-dive and block out on your calendar a whole year of self-care (and save a lot of money), a year-long membership is the way to go. Real, lasting change takes daily practice. That’s the honest truth. It’s not a short-term, overnight quick fix (Sorry ). Plus, with that you will get my 3 home study kits at no-cost, first refusal at any events I may be leading, 20% off my 1-on-1 mentoring sessions, plus discounts on certain live events and online programs and products.

There is also a payment plan available for year-long memberships, to break it down into smaller chunks if that’s what you need for your budget right now.

#5) Q: What will happen exactly during the monthly virtual retreats?

A: Each retreat will focus on a different topic that’s super relevant for us as way-forging women. In May the topic will be on motherhood and finding balance between our self-care, our creative offerings (as biological mothers, business owners, authors, writers, teachers, community movers and shakers, etc). Sometimes I’ll invite in a special guest. Sometimes I’ll do a cooking demo. We’ll always be doing something new and interesting together. Then I’ll lead you through a women’s yin + flow + meditation practice. We’ll also have time for journaling, group sharing, and Q & A. I’ll keep it lovely and fresh, promise.

You can attend these via phone, webcast (on your computer), or Skype. You can participate through just listening or by watching me on Livestream. There will be both audio and video formats to engage you. You can “talk” to each other when I open up the phone lines for group sharing. You can also “talk” to each other via the ongoing “chat” on Livestream. If all of this sounds confusing to you, don’t worry, my team and I will walk you through it in baby steps. It’s not that complicated, I promise!

*Please note that from time to time I might be traveling in places with a slow Internet connection, in those cases the retreat will only be audio (and not video).

#6) Q: What other interesting perks are there?

A: To add extra accountability and support, each month on our retreat you’ll set an intention for the forthcoming moon cycle (around the explored theme). You will post in our virtual women’s circle how you’re doing with that. You can “raise your hand” to ask questions. We will help you to succeed and follow through. We’ll also have a seasonal recommended book to read to enhance your exploration of our theme.

#7) Q: What kinds of VIP discounts will I get as a Red Tent member?

A: You’ll always get 20% off my 1-on-1 mentoring sessions, plus discounts on certain live events (hello, annual retreat in a tropical paradise-I’m about to announce the 2013 retreat!) and online programs and products. Plus, you’ll always be the first to know about new things I’m cooking up behind the scenes. You will be part of my intimate, inner circle of women.

#8) Q: What about the refund policy?

A: You can read all about that here. Also, to set your mind at ease, I have spent the past six months working out the “kinks” and the “bugs” in the Red Tent. I launched it in “beta” form last October with an intrepid group of women. Since then I’ve been tinkering and exploring to see how we can best harness the online world to go deep and gain the insight and support we all need and want. Now I’m ready to make this bigger and better.

#9) Q: How active will you really be on the Facebook page, Sara?
A: Plenty.  I will be in there interacting many times each week. I’ll post questions and discussion topics at the start of each season/month/week and also at the end to set a context and help us go deeper. If you want/need my individual attention or have a question, all you need to do is “raise your hand” and ask, and I’ll be there.

#10) Q: How is this a women’s circle?

A: I am going to be facilitating this not as a top-down teacher to student formation, but as a circle formation. I will be actively calling upon each woman to step up and share herself in bigger and bigger ways. You will ask for, give, and receive help. I will direct the flow, but resources and riches will come from each and every one of us. I will trust and follow the collective wisdom of the circle above all else.

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What I need and want you to know more than anything is this:

I have never offered anything like this before. I know of no one else who is offering this. This is a sacred space to create more ease, flow, balance, and insight in your life (not crowd you with more noise and overwhelm).

All the details and registration are here. Doors open and the deep dive begins on May 1. Don’t miss out! After midnight MT on Monday, April 30 membership prices will go up (no late-comer exceptions .

An amazing, intimate group of women have already formed for this. I’d love for you to take your seat in this circle. It really wouldn’t be the same without you!

With my love,

Sara

P.S.  Have more questions? Still not sure? Post them below and I’ll answer them all by the end of the afternoon (MT)  on Monday, April 30!

What do you need to do to love yourself more?

We can think of lots of external things … weight, relationships, finances, connection, loving…

The deeper answer to this question is what I have repeatedly mentored hundreds of women (myself included to return to again and again over the past decade: To love yourself, you must continually reconnect with yourself.

To be at home in yourself, no matter what you’re feeling or thinking, is no small feat. To feel comfortable in your own skin, no matter your age, appearance, or whereabouts is HUGE.

To love yourself unconditionally will change your life forever. It is the very thing that then allows all those external things — relationship, family, connection, career — to really serve us fully. 

Connecting to ourselves is what we all truly long for, isn’t it? To be comfortable and loving to us?

A woman who’s comfortable in her own skin turns heads, lights up a room, and doesn’t apologize for who she is. She can face whatever curve balls life throws her with humor, candor, and dignity (even if she sheds some tears in the process). This is a woman who knows how to stay connected with herself through thick and thin.

When you reconnect with yourself regularly, your entire being becomes more sustainable, vibrant, joyful, tender, and fierce. Why? Because you know who you are at the deepest level possible and you make it a priority to reconnect with that deep part of yourself everyday.  

I really want you to experience this, so let’s explore exactly how to do this.

1. Right now, place your feet firmly on the floor, roll your pelvis forward, roll your shoulders up and back, and lengthen your spine.
2. Take a deep breath into your belly. Mmmmm…..
3. Feel your body. What’s going on in your body right now? What sensations are present? What are the messages your body is trying to communicate to you?
4. Inhale all of these and say softly to your body, “Yes, I feel you.”
5. Reflect on your mind. Is it dull and sleepy? Speedy and anxious? What are the main thoughts/stories/worries/memories/fantasies that have been passing through your mind today?
6. Inhale all of these and softly and say to your mind, “Yes, I acknowledge you.”
7. Lean into your emotions. Do you feel sad, angry, joyful, depressed, bored, worried, weepy, content? Where do you feel these living in your body? What do these feelings want you to know right now?
8. Inhale all of these and say softly to your emotions, “Yes, you can be here too. I feel you.”
9. Now wiggle your toes, sway your hips gently from side-to-side in your seated position. Feel the part of yourself that is okay with however you are right now.  Welcome everything. Say “yes” to it all.

Congratulations! In just a few moments, you have reconnected with yourself. You have touched into your inner, wise woman. She can face anything, right? She’s okay no matter how you feel, right?

Now, be sure to make a date with her again tomorrow to give her the chance to remind you that you (and everything) is okay, exactly as it is. Because, if you’re like me, you may have forgotten that by then

Let me know how it goes by leaving a comment below.

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I had hardly slept the night before, or the night before, or the night before that.  Insomnia has plagued me from time-to-time throughout my life, but never as bad as that particular stretch.

Fatigue carved blue circles under my eyes. It paled my skin. It made me nearly unrecognizable to myself when I looked in the mirror. It rubbed up against my emotional body like course sandpaper. It made me feel like a whimpering, wounded animal at the mercy of a bullying world.

I set my meditation timer for 30 minutes and closed my eyes. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Please, please,” I pleaded to Her, “show me how to be with this. Show me how to get through this. I’m open. I’m listening. I’m available. I don’t know how to do this. I need help.”

There are times in all of our lives when the stakes are really high. Maybe you’ve just had a baby or are mothering a young child, recently moved, lost your job, facing an illness in yourself or a loved one, gotten a divorce, are radically growing your business, or are going through a mammoth inner metamorphosis that feels bewildering and exhausting.

How can we be with these uncomfortable changes more skillfully and compassionately?

First, we need to recognize that there is a way out, but it first requires going in.

Yes, we can and should reach out for help from friends, therapists, and healers. But, ultimately, we’re responsible for ourselves and only we can make the deep shifts that need to happen in order to find a new place of sustainability (it will feel unknown at first and look different than how you lived before).

As my teacher reminds me, “Healing can happen in a second. But our bodies then responding to that healing can take much, much longer.”

For me, at that time of intense insomnia, deep inner changes were unfolding–on top of financial stress and the pressure of running my business.  The caterpillar was melting down into the chrysalis, in preparation for becoming the butterful.

From the “big view” change is ultimately benevolent. Yet it’s also uncomfortable. Change never feels good. Change takes a lot of energy.  Change needs our deep compassion, presence, and loving care.

So on that morning my prayers were answered with a question that rang through my mind like a crisp bell:

“What is the one thing that I can do that will shift this, and, in turn, make everything easier and eliminate my overwhelm and anxiety?”

The simplicity of the answer surprised me:

“Set my alarm for 9pm every night. Stop whatever I’m doing at that time to get ready for bed. Go to sleep between 10pm-11pm and sleep until at least 7am. If I don’t sleep well, take a nap in the afternoon. No excuses. Do this for 40 days straight.” 

My body sighed with relief.

My mind fought back: “Yeah right! We’ve done that one before but we still have insomnia now. That’s not going to work, it’s too easy! That’s stupid. You’re stupid. You should be stronger, less sensitive, and more durable.”

Ha!

I’ve learned time and time again, my mind is a great servant and a horrible master.  My body is in charge.

For the next  week I adherered to the answer I was given. Doing that was harder than you might think.

It meant wrapping up my work day earlier, getting to the gym or on my yoga mat earlier, eating dinner earlier, communicating with friends and my boyfriend my new time constraints, staying off the computer after dinner, and forcing myself to wind down even if my mind wanted to do something else.

Even after that first night of deep sleep I felt like “myself” again. I had more stamina and a thicker skin to face my challenges. I felt less anxious and overwhelmed. I felt more joy and availability to gratitude and other life-affirming emotions.

It didn’t take much to give myself the support I needed and, in turn, to feel a whole lot better.

Before it’s too late, before you go too long ignoring that precious body of yours that needs you to be on her side, ask yourself:

“What’s something I’m suffering from right now that could use more of my attention? How is it affecting my body and my life? “

Got your answer?

Good, now here’s how to follow this process for yourself:

1. Ask yourself,  ”What’s one thing I can do right now that will change everything and eliminate my overwhelm/anxiety/fatigue/burn out?”
2. Listen to the answer. Stay with it through the inner doubts and judgments. Let it be simple.
3. Ruthlessly adhere to living the answer.
4. Let your body reveal the impact.
5. Share with us in the comments below how this process is for you.

Listen to your body and serve her. She deserves it and your life will blossom as a result. Trust that this is possible, even though we have few role models who are livng it.

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Do you need or want to get more in touch with the divine tuning fork that is your body?

Do you two need to get on the same team again?

Next Tuesday, April 17, I’ll be leading a free virtual women’s yoga class to help you reunite with the temple that is your body.

During this class, I’ll be guiding you through an all-levels  women’s yoga practice that specifically addresses revving up your vitality, sensuality, and embodied feminine magic.

To learn more and RSVP a place on your mat, please come over here.

At the end of the class, I’ll be telling you more about a new, online women’s group that will start on May 1 and help us all to better listen to our bodies, take time-outs, fiercely guard deep rest and feminine rhythms, and continually strengthen our bodily wisdom through women’s yoga and meditation practices.

If you’d like to partake in the class and be in-the-know about this new offering (that I have never seen anywhere before and that I’m deeply excited about), please RSVP here.

I’d love to have you!

She originally viewed it on one of my favorite foodie blogs, Elana’s Pantry (from which I source lots of tasty gluten-free recipes like this, this, and this).

I’m amazed at how much my own diet has changed in the past 1 1/2 years–and how much I see the diets of those around me changing too. For most of my adult life I was a vegetarian. I ate lots of fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, grains, and vegetables. And for most of my life I’ve had a lot of digestive sensitivity. Any time I’m under stress it’s my digestive system that feels it first.

In an ongoing pursuit to remedy this, in the fall of 2010 I consulted with a Taoist nutritionist that one of my beloved teachers swore by. According to her recommendations, I started eating meat regularly again. This was challenging for me in many ways after having gone so many years without it. But, living in Boulder,  it’s easy for me to get grass-fed, sustainable, organic animal products. Plus, here I met more and more people (many in the yoga and spiritual circles here) who were also making the shift back to eating meat after many years of vegetarianism.

I began to eat some combination of chicken, lamb, beef, buffalo, or  fish every day. After about a month, when I started feeling (and digesting) much better than I ever had before as a vegetarian, I was convinced.

Now my diet very much reflects that shared in the video below.

This is a TEDX talk given by  Terry Wahls, MD. In 2003 Dr. Wahls, was diagnosed with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and was so sick she could not even use a regular wheelchair. After removing processed foods, grains and dairy from her diet, she experienced an amazing recovery and is now able to walk, horseback ride and do many other strenuous physical activities.

I acknowledge that what we eat is a very personal affair. I think it’s important for all of us to eat in alignment with what we value and what makes us feel our best. However, I also think it’s crucial that we  stay open to new research and understandings (like the ones in this video) about what helps us as human beings really thrive in the modern world.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings in the comments below after you watch the video….

I was 22 when I had my first yogasm. It happened at the end of an Ashtanga yoga Mysore practice. Morning sunlight poured through the windows of the yoga studio, gifting my sweat-covered body with a sheen.

Sitting on my mat, I delicately tucked each foot into “lotus pose,” pressed my palms down on the floor just outside of my hips, and lifted myself up.

I drew up the muscles of my pelvic floor, squeezed my knees in closer together and up towards my chest, and hugged my belly back to my spine. That’s when it came. Or, rather, that’s when I came. 

Like a geyser of sweet, warm honey, pleasure–innocent and sweet–started to swirl in my pelvic floor and around my sacrum. I instinctively contracted my pelvic floor muscles more.  The pleasure rose up through my womb, belly, heart, and, finally, splashed inside my head and out the crown of my head.

I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, closed my eyes, and rolled them up to point between my eyebrows. Warm vibration filled my entire body. Then, my lips curled up into an unabashed smile, and I gingerly lowered myself back down to my mat. 

“What the hell was that?” I asked myself, sitting, still with my eyes closed, for a few more moments of nearly-blinding inner ecstasy. 

Then I opened my eyes and scanned the room. The bodies around me carried on with their up dogs and down dogs. Hmmm. No one had noticed. I looked down at my lotus position, untangled my legs, resumed my yogic breathing, and carried on with the final postures of my practice.

I never told anyone  about what had happened. While I did want to ask someone about it (Is this normal? Does this happen to you?), I didn’t know who that would be. All of my yoga teachers were men. Even the thought of bringing something like that up with them embarrassed me.

I had had orgasms before, but never while practicing yoga. It wasn’t until years later that I learned that these are cheekily called “yogasms”—-or “yoga-induced orgasms.”

Since then I’ve had countless yogasms: in headstands, doing deep core strengthening (especially Ana Forrest or Kundalini Yoga style), standing up on a public bus in San Francisco after a great yoga retreat with my teacher (yes, it’s possible), and, still my favorite, lifting up in lotus pose.

Now yogasms are a welcome part of my practice because they are incredibly pleasurably and free up so much energy in my body. They flood my genitals and creative organs with buzzing vitality. They leave me feeling more open, feminine, and at home in my heart and body.

Why am I writing about this now? Because I don’t think that there needs to be anything odd, taboo, or sensational about yogasms.  I wish for us to be able to talk more openly and freely about how yoga interfaces with our sexuality. I’ve been practicing yoga for 15 years now, and one of the many gifts that having a dedicated practice has given me is increased sexual energy.

We all talk freely about how yoga helps us with digestion, sleeping, stress, aches and pains, and so much more. When we talk about yoga and sexuality together, it’s usually in a negative light, such as the recent scandals with John Friend. Keeping conversations about our sexualized spiritual selves in the dark breeds shadow behavior–infidelity, sex addictions, suppressed sexual trauma (a big one for women), and so much more.

For me, as my sexual energy increases through yoga, I am simultaneously bringing it to the light and talking about it more with others. Here in my journal, in women’s circles, with girlfriends, in my yoga classes, with my therapist, with my boyfriend, etc. I find healthy ways to express it publicly (through how I move my body, breathe, speak, dress, dance) and privately (with Orgasmic Meditation, self pleasuring, and conscious sex with my boyfriend). This way my sexuality is becoming more and more a part of “Sara”–just as much as my brown hair and brown eyes are integral parts of me.

Yogasms were the stepping stone for me to begin to learn how to use my sexual energy as a source of greater energy, power, creativity, and femininity in my life and in the world. They helped to to understand how yoga means union in every sense, even with my sexuality. I can’t be fully human, fully woman, or fully divine without it. 

Never had a yogasm? Learn how to have one here 

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If you’d like to join me to explore how yoga opens both both our hearts and our sexual energy as women–and how to source that connection to claim our true feminine power and leadership, please join me in our first ever, community-wide video class:

The Unspoken (and Orgasmic) Truth About Women, Sex, and Yoga

Everything you’ve wondered about but have been too shy to ask

(including Yogasms, and how to have them!)  

Free Virtual Women’s Yoga Class and Q & A

Tuesday, April 17

11:00 AM Pacific/ 12:00 PM Mountain / 2:00 PM Eastern / 6:00 PM London/ 1:00 AM Bangkok

Join from your computer at home or at work!

You Can Register Here

This is something I’ve ever taught before. It’s the culmination of a lot of question I’ve been living, both on my mat and in my life, about how to express our sacred sexuality in a positive, empowering, life-giving way.

In this Virtual Women’s Yoga Class you will:

• Learn the 3 key embodiment ingredients in how to have a yogasm (and to fearlessly and consciously wake up your sexual energy on your yoga mat).
• Demystify and strengthen the link between your libido and your yoga practice. Experience how, together, they can gift your body and life with surplus reserves of vitality, glow, and empowerment.
• Satiate your curiosity. Demystify your body and your sensuality. Feel safe to ask whatever you want and need to ask!
• Expedite your healing and growth in a sacred space.  Drag more skeletons about your sexuality out of the closet and feel freer and more alive in the process.
• Best of all, stand on the emerging frontier of feminine growth. Be inspired by a community of dynamic, savvy, like-minded women along the way.

I’ll also be sharing about the I’ll also be sharing about the soon-coming “Red Tent {Revamped}” monthly virtual women’s circle, community, and virtual retreats, where I will teach how to live your way as a happy women every single day of the year.  I’ve yet to teach (or see) anything like this before!

You can learn more and register here. 

Let’s see….yesterday was a good day although I started to get really, authentically hungry, and my body knew it was most likely going to be my last day of juicing. Indeed, it was, as today, day 8, as planned, I broke my fast. 

Overall, it was a really beautiful, invigorating experience. I love the energy fasting gives me. I enjoy the “fresh start” that comes with breaking a fast and seeing what foods and experiences my body craves now. I also appreciate the simplicity of fasting (no dish washing or cooking for a little while).

I’m excited now to head back out into the world of the eating after a little reprieve and to feel like I have more of a fresh slate after a challenging winter. Thanks for sharing this journey with me!

I’m celebrating myself, as doing a cleanse is certainly a lot of discipline. It’s worth it though. Discipline=devotion to what we most care about=freedom to live and be who we want to be. YES.

Food:

• Day 7: None! I’m taking my herbs (“Toxin Absorber” 5X a day and “Digestive Stimulator” before bed).
• Day 7: I had a coconut water, lots of lemon water, homemade ginger tea, and a celery/broccoli stem/romaine lettuce/granny smith apple/parsley/ginger/kale/lemon juice.
• Day 8: I’ve been sipping on all of the above beverages, took 1 “Toxin Absorber” upon waking and will take one more tonight, will take the “Digestive Stimulator” before bed as well.
• Day 8: I broke my fast with a banana. I have been craving one since I started my juice fast last Saturday! Then for lunch I had asparagus with lemon juice (have also been craving this since Saturday). I also had a chicken breast (have also been craving this), and, later an apple. I’m not sure if I’ll have dinner, we’ll see!

Movement/Contemplative Practices:

• Days 7 &8: 30 minute meditation in the morning
• Days 7 &8: 20 minutes of life visioning in the morning
• Days 7 &8: Gentle yoga classes
• Days 7 &8:Journalling before bed
• Day 8: Hike outside

Other Self Care:

• Days 7 &8: Coffee enemas in the morning.
• Days 7 &8: Epsom salt baths with lavender oil before bed.

Emotions + Sleep:

• Days 7 &8: Both nights I needed less sleep than usual. I fell asleep later and woke up earlier. I wake up feeling very rested, alert, and energized. I LOVE how everything smells like spring now! I seem to be more sensitive to the deliciousness to that smell at the end of my fast. I’ve also been so lucky that the weather here in Boulder has been int he mid-60s all week! That helps me, as I get really cold when I fast.

Thank you everyone for your support! Let me know how I can support you as you transition into spring (or into fall for some of you on the other half of the planet

I didn’t sleep that well last night–mostly because I feel so energized, alert, and clear. I didn’t feel tired at all today, though, nor do I feel tired now. It feels like there’s a high-powered beam shining out from behind my eyes. That’s the best way I can describe the tremendous radiance and vibrancy I’m feeling.

This morning I went to a yoga class with my teacher Sofia, who’s in town. Then a meeting with some colleagues, some work, and then I taught a yoga class. Now I’ve been having a quiet evening at home–meditating, catching up with my mom on the phone, listening to some inspiring talks on my computer.

So on day 6 of my detox (and day 4 of my juice fast) here’s what went down:

Food:

• None! I’m taking my herbs (“Toxin Absorber” 5X a day and “Digestive Stimulator” before bed).
• I had a coconut water, lots of lemon water, and a celery/granny smith apple/parsley/ginger/kale/lemon juice.

Movement/Contemplative Practices:

• 30 minute meditation in the evening
• 20 minutes of life visioning in the morning
• Gentle yoga class this morning
• Journalling before bed

Other Self Care:

• Coffee enema in the morning.
• Epsom salt bath with lavender oil before bed.
• I forgot to mention that every morning (cleansing or not I scrape my tongue, drink 2 glasses of water–one with lemon juice, one with apple cider vinegar, and I do a dry-skin brush before I bathe).

Emotions + Sleep:

• For sleep, already mentioned that above.
• I still get a little hungry in the evenings. Other than that I’m not hungry at all, but I miss the experience of food! I didn’t crave anything in particular today.
• I felt really open, clear, and energized today. I also have felt some vulnerability and tenderness in my heart, so it felt good to spend the evening alone being gentle with myself.

More tomorrow!

Thanks for all of your encouragement and sharings. Keep ‘em coming!

Keith came down with the flu today so I’ve been nursing him back to health while keeping up with my herbs and my Monday workload. But, overall, feeling great!

So on day 5 of my detox (and day 3 of my juice fast) here’s what went down:

Food:

• None! I’m taking my herbs (“Toxin Absorber” 5X a day and “Digestive Stimulator” before bed).
• I had a coconut water, lots of lemon water, and a cucumber/parsley/spinach/apple/ginger juice.

Movement/Contemplative Practices:

• 30 minute meditation in the morning
• 20 minutes of life visioning
• Vinyasa yoga class this morning (hot + sweaty)
• 1 1/2 hour deep tissue massage (ahhhhh)
• Journalling before bed

Other Self Care:

• Coffee enema in the morning.
• Epsom salt bath with lavender oil before bed.

Emotions + Sleep:

• Slept for 10 1/2 hours last night!
• I find I start to get a little bit hungry in the evenings and I miss the ritual and social aspect of eating dinner with Keith.
• I feel AWESOME. Joyful, energized, clear, focused, like I’m made of pure light (‘cuz I am). I’m doing all the work that I normally do and using the time that I would usually spend eating & preparing food on extra self-care. My body is really, really, really happy.

More tomorrow!

Thanks for all of your encouragement and sharings. Keep ‘em coming!