How do we mobilize community support for Yoga/stress management facilitators?

1) We write and fund grants

2) We facilitate alliances, coalitions and partnerships within their community and outside their community

3) We offer friendship

4) We offer materials

5) We help with fundraising

6) We donate materials

7) We donate spaces

8) We donate our time

9) We participate in their events and offerings

10) We educate the community about the services they are offering

11) We show the wellness benefits of yoga

12) We use all our networks to support their offerings (word of mouth, social media, etc..,)

How do we mobilize community support for Yoga and Yoga Projects

1) We educate people about the benefits of yoga in there own communities by going into schools, community centers, nursing homes, parks, recreation centers, and other non-traditional Western places for yoga. In this places we educate on health benefits of yoga for the targeted group we are interacting with

2) We write about yoga in newspapers, magazines, blogs. We tweet about yoga and facebook about yoga.

3) We offer donation classes, pay what you can classes, sliding scale classes, time banking and work trades.

4) We offer wellness classes across, social, cultural. and religious boundaries

5) If  necessary, we make the language of yoga more accessible

6) We allow people to discovery the true mystery of yoga for themselves and not tell people how to feel

7) We emphasize in our marketing and materials that yoga is for people of all shapes and sizes and colors, nationalities, religions and ethnic groups

8) How demonstrate how yoga is a cost effective alternative for wellness

9) We have fun doing yoga and show how fun yoga is

10) We show people how they are already practicing yoga without even knowing it (prayer, movement, stretching, concentrating, etc.. )

Creating a cultural context for Yoga and Yoga Based Wellness Programs

In order to create a cultural context for Yoga and Yoga Based Wellness programs that students understand I believe we have to make a safe space for the Yoga practice. Here are some techniques I use in creating this sacred container:

1) I never force any one to chant Aum or any other mantra. I tell them it is perfectly acceptable not to participate.  In some environments I don't present any Sanskrit even the mantra Aum. When using Sanskrit I explain why we yogis consider it to be beneficial to use Sanskrit.

2) I never force anyone to use a mudra. I explain how we use mudras everyday and show (in a playful way) some of the everyday mudras we are already using.  But if mudras don't feel comfortable I offer permission to opt out without any ostracism.

3) I explain that yoga as a philosophical system and explain the system.

4) I present medical research about the benefits of Yoga and Meditation

5) I offer my own testimony about the benefits of Yoga and Meditation in my life if it seems appropriate

6) I let people know that the can chose to opt out of anything the feel uncomfortable with

7) I present the ancient history of yoga and show how it has been a healing modality for centuires

8) I talk about the concept of Ishwara Pranidhana in yoga - to follow your own God, deity, guru, belief system . . .

It is equally important to decolonize Yoga.  Yoga in the West is a strange and beautiful practice that at times in racist and classicist.

I really appreciate these points from Susanna Barkataki article "How to Decolonize Your Yoga Practice."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susanna-barkataki/how-to-decolonize-your-yo_b_6776896.html

"1. Inquire within.

One powerful way we can decolonize yoga and reunite it with its true aim and purpose is to practice Gandhian svadhyaya, or self-rule and inquiry, and to truly learn the full honest, integrity of an authentic yoga practice.

2. Explore, learn and cite correct cultural references.

As practitioners of yoga I would love to see more of us citing cultural references as we attempt to understand and connect with the complexity, culture and history from which this tradition comes. I’m not suggesting people put on a watered down, context-removed faux Hinduism. To me that is not the answer. Commitment to deep practice, questioning and learning is, perhaps, part of the answer.

3. Ask ourselves, and other yoga teachers, the hard questions.

These tensions ask us to bring all of ourselves to the table. So what I am suggesting is for us to decolonize yoga we need to inquire deeply. We each have our unique story and gifts to share as do all the practitioners we teach or learn from. Let’s ask ourselves, “For whom is yoga accessible today and how might that be a legacy of past injustices that we have the opportunity to address through our teaching practice and our lives?”

4. Live, know, share and practice all eight limbs of yoga, not just asana.

We can also decolonize yoga by studying the depth of practice beyond the postures. In addition to asana we need to understand, practice and teach all eight limbs of yoga: yama or ethical conduct, niyama or personal practice, pranayama or working with the breath, pratyahara awareness of the senses, dharana, meditation, concentration and insight, dhyana or being present with whatever arises and samadhi, or interconnection with all that is.

5. Be humble and honor your own and other people’s journey.

When we humbly and respectfully consider yoga’s history, context, many branches and practices we give ourselves a fighting chance achieving yoga’s aim of enlightenment of mind, body and spirit.

By really engaging the full, whole and multifaceted face of yoga we not only liberate ourselves but we may just overthrow this 2nd colonization of yoga, freeing ourselves as well as the yoga practitioners of the future to experience the full, liberatory, authentic and true practice of yoga. We allow our own practice to grow and our gifts to really shine.

With mutual understanding, respect, and a deep reverence and caring for the history, we can decolonize ourselves, the yoga-industrial complex, and stage our own ahimsa, or nonviolent revolution of the mind, body and spirit."

Yoga Based Wellness Programs

"Go out and serve the suffering. Learn to place others in front of yourself." - Amma

Here are some of my thoughts about how do we create Yoga-based wellness programs that meet the needs of those who need them most?

1) We follow our hearts and do what we think needs to be done and go to where we are called
2)  We make coalitions, partnerships and alliances we other people and organizations within the community
3) We listen to people and see what they want and need and make them a part of the program
4) We get educated so we actually have something to offer
5) We don't forget that we are doing yoga

1) We follow our hearts and do what we think needs to be done and go to where we are called.

“Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world.” 

― Marianne Williamson

A friend of mine Freidel Kushman has started a program on Skid Row called I AM WELLBEING
She was called to Skid Row. I am not sure why, but, she is there doing amazing things.

This is her newsletter
http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=6a36199af46ee852b9d0a328b&id=3df6e86fb3

I started People of Color Yoga for All Bodies because I believed yoga has priced minorities out of the classes and people who are not white and super thin feel uncomfortable in traditional yoga classes.

I started other programs at the Yogi Tree like: 30 days to Self Discovery, 40 days to Optimal Health, 40 Days to Transformation, and Life Purpose Bootcamp because I saw suffering and I wanted to help.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. 

We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. 

- Mother Teresa

2)  We make coalitions, partnerships and alliance with organizations/groups within the community

They came down on us because we had a grass-roots, real people's revolution, complete with the programs, complete with the unity, complete with the working coalitions, 

where we crossed racial lines. 

-  Bobby Seale

There is a difference between being paternalistic and being of service. When we go into a community as an outsider (or even an insider) we need to be wanted and in partnership.  Since we aren't there to heal anyone (yoga therapists don't heal) we need to be respectful of  people and not think we have all the answers and know what is best for them. We can offer to share techniques, strategies, insights but there should be on forcing, no healing, no I know what is best for you.

3) We listen to people and see what they want and need and make them a part of the program

“Extensive research has shown that no matter how knowledgeable a clinician might be, if he or she is not able to open good communication with the patient, he or she may be of no help.”

I think it's really important to get a feel of what people are looking for. We need to talk to people one on one and seeing what their health concerns are.

4) We need to get educated so we actually have something to offer

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.” 

― Brian Tracy

In order to have an effective yoga based wellness program we need to have something to offer.  I have been working on this by getting trained in Yoga Therapy at IYT and also taking other courses to fill holes in my knowledge.  Being a 200 hour Yoga Teacher wasn't enough training for me to feel comfortable that I could be of service.  That's why I am doing more.

5) We don't forget we are doing yoga

Yoga is not the same as allopathic medicine. We don't give a yoga pose like doctors give out pills. We are concerned with the whole person (body, energy, psycho-emotional self, awareness and joy). A yoga therapist is not a glorified PT or a psychologist we are something different altogether that doesn't fit neatly into the scope of Western Medicine.

Yoga Sutra 1.4: The Mind's Heavy Price Tag

Yoga Sutra 1.4 - Vritti sarupyam itaratra

Here are some translations/interpretations I have found inspiring for Yoga Sutra 1.4.

Joseph Le Page: When not resting in our own true nature, we identify with our thoughts and emotions as if they were our real self.

Nischala Devi: At other times, we identify with the rays of consciousness, which fluctuate and encourage are perceived suffering.

Melissa Townsend: At other times, we identify with the movements of the mind.

Arya: At other times (when the is seer is not his own true nature because the mental waves have not ceased), the seer (falsely experiences himself) as having assimilated and identified with the mental acitvity (or with the objects of the mental activity).

Shearer: Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind.

Jnaneshvara: At other times, hen one is not Self-realization, the Seer appears to take on the form of the modifications of the mind field, taking on the identity of those thought patterns.

Today I am off from work. I meditated. I did some yoga. I went to LACMA museum with my husband and saw the Rivera/Picasso show with my husband and then we had a beautiful India dinner. The day was good. The day was perfect. It is December 24th, Christmas Eve and all is well.  I am so relaxed.  I am at peace.

Last week the same Rivera/Picasso exhibit was at LACMA, the Indian restaurant was there too, my yoga and meditation practice was there, everything was there just like today.  Last week, I was busy, so busy, preoccupied doing things . . . making sets for TV shows, teaching yoga, driving all over the place.  Many times when I am working, perhaps even last week, I get so caught up in getting to work on time, decorating the sets to please the actors/producers/directors/production designer that I lose myself. I have so many things to do it's like I am trying to run for a train that I never can catch.  I have so many things to juggle like yoga teaching, running the studio, and working in TV I feel like a vaudeville performer. I lose myself.  I am just trying to get through the day. I am exhausted most of the time.  My eating is out of control.  I often am dehydrated. Sometimes I want to scream. Sometimes I want to cry.  Sometimes I feel like I need to tell everyone I am a person not a mule.  It's too much this job.  It's so overwhelming.

I identify with this chaos with the movements of the mind.  I don't know my true nature, I know I need to be at work at 5am. I know I need to comb the script to I understand all the nuances and details to get the set right. I know I need to go to this meeting, or that tech scout, I know, in addition, I need to be a supportive yoga teacher, do my yoga therapy homework, and a be loving and interested wife.  I also need to figure out how to get more people in the yoga classes at the studio. How to make the studio a success. So post of facebook. Post on meetup. Be courteous. Teach a good class. Come up with workshops and teacher trainings. Check check check off the to do list right before the list is written again. And the cycle repeats and continues. I cram more things into the day, as much as I can, then on Saturday afternoon I fall out from complete exhaustion.  Then I get up, teach my 5pm Saturday class and the cycle begins again.

So who is the real self, what is my real nature, is it the one that feels content today, a day with no real responsibilities - the Nya on vacation from work, or the one that is running for the illusory train, performing in vaudeville show. Or is my true nature someone who I have not quite met yet, or I have we met but I haven't spent enough time with her.  Maybe my true essential nature is not a persona but a moment, the moment when I am drawing or holding a yoga pose. Maybe that is my real self.

Am I afraid of my true nature. Is that why I keep myself so busy?  Is there some kind of child conditioning that keeps me on the move. Joseph le Page writes:

Today the dunes are white, and sprays of

sand blow off their tops like breaking waves.

The sea is a vast deep blue showing subtle

shades of its personality all the way to the horizon.

The trail along the dunes is sprinkled with tiny

violet and yellow wild flowers that I hadn’t

noticed before, but now they are calling my name.

Because I have walked this same trail before,

but the dunes were filled with my own

thoughts and desires, projections, fantasies,

past remorse and hopes for the future.

Sometimes, I still find myself identifying with

my thoughts and emotions as “me” and “mine,”

But then I come back to the present moment

and the white dunes, and realize that the

price tag for living in the mind is just too high!

I feel a high price tag for my life over the last two decades.  This fast fast life.  I have chosen to make a career change to yoga therapy because I want something different for myself.  I started working in entertainment at 21 years old and now I am approaching 47.  26 years of being a circus person seems like enough.  I want to slow down. I want to notice the trail along the dunes sprinkled with tiny violet and yellow wild flowers. I hear my name being called. I hear a voice telling me it's time to make a change.  That voice, I believe, is my true nature asking to take control of the wheel of life.  I feel the price tag for living this crazy life is just too high!

A Definition of Separateness

"We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

I always felt separate growing up often strange.  My mother was black and Christian and my father was white and a non-practicing Jew.  I was supposedly a mixture of both of them and but felt like a was part of none of them.  When I was growing up I felt like there was no one like me around.  I know there were, but, even people I should have bonded with like my brother I never felt a connection to.

We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Albert Einstein

I was a competitive swimmer for most of my childhood.  The point of swimming was to win. To stand out. To medal to place.  I was on a team but all of our goals were individual goals.  We were constantly in competition with each other.  I felt no unity or peace with the other members of the team. I often felt like I didn't measure up, I wasn't fast enough.  I didn't have the killer instinct to be a championship swimmer. I was good but never great.  I spent much of my childhood in the water practicing. I see myself swimming mile after mile in the public pool at Pickett Middle School year after year feeling completely isolated. I think I may of missed out on being a child.  I don't really know how not to be scheduled even today. I trace that back to my regimented swim routine.

This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.

- Gautama Buddha

When I am struggling with depression I feel very a lone, separate, like no one can understand me, as if there is no place for me, I don't matter.  When I am depressed colors feel dull, foods feel tasteless, my body is very heavy.  I have been depressed on and off for most of my life.  I have never been medicated and I am not judging people who are, I am just telling my own story.

I have been dissatisfied with my job for many years.  I am very resentful of how many hours a week I spend working. The film and television industry is so demanding with the average day starting at 12 hours,  I have been working in entertainment since I was 21 years old and like with my childhood spend swimming I also feel like in my adulthood I have missed out on many things. I don't even remember by 30s.  I am trying to be more present in my 40s.  I am trying to be mindful and really pay attention.

I had a really hard time this year between May and October working on an exceptionally hard TV show. When my foot and knee started to hurt again a couple months ago I thought: "why me", "this again", my own suffering felt crushing to me.  When  my knee starts to hurt it is if it is separate from the whole body, screaming for attention "look at me" or "pay attention to me."

Sometimes I believe my body is falling apart because it is rebelling.  It is telling me that I need to move forward and leave the film industry. I have been unhappy in my job as a Set Decorator for many years. If my calling is yoga therapy and I don't follow my calling will my body continue to separate and rebel until I unify myself.

Although meditation is basically personal practice a feel more connected to everything when I meditate.  Yoga changed my life but when I am practicing yoga and meditation together everything changes for the better. Despite this knowledge of the benefits of meditation, I haven't consistently meditated in a long time. When I was in Yoga Nidra teacher training (a few years back) and was practicing Yoga Nidra at least four times I week my mood elevated greatly.  It was interesting because Yoga Nidra I was practicing was alone in my house and I was journaling about my experience but I felt a great universal connection.

The main activities that have brought me joy lately are my Yoga Teaching and my connection to the studio. When I teach I feel like I am of use to the world, of service.   I feel as if I have something to offer. 

"Our highest, most important duty in this world is to help our fellow beings." - Amma

When I teach sometimes I don't even feel like it's me teaching it's like a greater, smarter, more knowledgeable voice is moving through me.  Teaching yoga has truly changed my life.

The aim of my teaching is enlightenment, awakening from the dream state of separateness into the reality of the One. In short, my teaching is focused on realizing what you are. 

- Adyashanti

When people come to me with problems at the Yoga studio - and they often do.  I encourage them to do their practice, meditate, journal.. etc.  Just doing the yoga practice shift things.  I encourage the students to come to the studio and be in a supportive like minded environment.  I offer to work with them one on one Yoga Therapy Sessions in conjunction with coming to the studio group class.  I truly believe in the healing power of the group class.  I know that group classes are new in the history of yoga.  But I believe they are very important in helping us move from separateness to wholeness.  It's important to have a spiritual home and I think the yoga studio can be that place.

When I teach group classes I encourage people to say their name and introduce themselves to their neighbor.  I always mention we are a small studio so the advantage is that you can meet people.  I have especially felt the power of a bonding group in the yoga teacher trainings, artist way, life purpose boot camp and 40 day challenges.  I believe in these groups that have a common goal and meet on a consistent basis people feel supported and united.

Conversely, sometimes in the group classes I have felt like I have lost control of the session or the group with one person taking all the focus.  I especially felt lost with one student who always came late to group and then no matter what we were working on the day shifted the focus to her love life and her hurtful interactions with men. When she came in late to a session, the group lost its focus and unity.

I took spiritual counseling training this fall at Expanding Light to help me understand how to work with people in a spiritual way and manage groups better.  The training really helped me to understand the individual session but I still feel a little lost with the group.  I hope to facilitate groups that work in a positive way on whatever the topic is of the program or workshop.  It's difficult when people, for whatever reason, want to separate themselves and need all the group attention.  I haven't figured all that out yet.  But I believe if I keep practicing and studying I will get better at this.

My dream for my life is one where I am ". . . helping people to see and feel and believe in their wholeness, helping them to tend, befriend, and mend the wounds of disconnectedness and the pain of feeling, isolated, fragmented, and separate, and helping them to discover an underlying fabric of wholeness and connectedness with themselves." (Jon Kabat-Zinn, p. 186, The Full Catastrophe Living)

When I studied with Nischala Devi this spring she explained to us some things about the Dean Ornish program that has made it so successful.  The program was four parts 1) Diet 2) Exercise 3) Yoga and 4) Group Support.  The group support was really important, just as important as every other component.  It's wonderful when like minded people or people with similar goals can lean on each other as much or more than they depend on the teacher.  When one can facilitate building communities that support themselves and you can step away as the teacher I think that is the ultimate accomplishment.  Because it is in community the separateness falls away to wholeness.

I believe feeling so strange as a bi-racial child, swimming year after year and never "making it', battling depression, and having a career that has been so demanding that I don't much care about anymore has made me compassionate.  

“There is perhaps nothing worse than reaching the top of the ladder

and discovering that you’re on the wrong wall.” ― Joseph Campbell

I understand what it means to work very hard and not get what you want.  I understand how it feels to be isolated and alone.  Having a testimony, I believe has been really important to me as a teacher.  I feel like I understand separation.  I have been there.  I don't know all the answers but I understand the questions. I am there for whoever needs me.  I will serve in anyway I can.

"Most people are concerned only with what they can get from the world, but it is what we are able to give to others that determines the quality of our life." - Amma

A Definition of Wholeness - "I am whole and healed"

"I believe many people . . . take so quickly to the meditation practice and find it healing is that the cultivation of mindfulness reminds them of what they already knew but somehow didn't know they knew or weren't able to make use of, namely that they are already whole... We remember wholeness so readily because we don't have far to look for it.  It is always within us, usually as a vague feeling or memory left over from when we were children.  But it is a deeply familiar memory, one you recognize immediately as soon as you feel it again, like coming home after being away a long time. When you are immersed in doing without being centered, it feels like being away from home.  And when you reconnect with being, even for a few moments, you know it immediately. You feel like you are at home no matter where you are and what problems you face." - John Kabat-Zinn


I am presently working with a mantra "I am whole and healed."  I woke up one morning a few months ago saying it.  It was on my lips as I took my first conscious breath. The resolve most have come from a dream.  I didn't remember the dream but I remembered the affirmation.   The fact that I woke up saying it made it more powerful for me because it felt like it came from a very deep place.

I have been struggling many years with shoulder pain, knee pain, foot pain, job dissatisfaction, childhood trauma and general dissatisfaction with myself.  I struggle greatly with not feeling good enough.

When I say to myself now  "I am whole"  I mean that I complete, good enough, satisfied, unified, one and connected. This is a move towards the positive and optimistic. A realm that I avoid a lot. I usually feel more comfortable in sarcasm and negativity.

These aches, pains, surgeries, traumas, depressions I have and still experience are my "scars."  Zinn eloquently talks about these scars

"No matter how many scars we carry from what we have gone through and suffered in the past, our intrinsic wholeness is still here . . . we are also what was present before the scarring-our original wholeness, what was born whole."

When I say to myself "I am healed" I mean that I am healthy, content, at peace and at ease in mind and body.  I have achieved the "citta vritti nirodah" is described in Sutra 1.2.  Although I have struggled with injury and depression I do share Jon Kabat-Zinn's optimistic world view when he says ". . . our bodies are undeniably self-organizing and self healing at every level you care to look at." Because I know when I practice yoga, meditate and feed my body healthy things I feel wonderful.  I have used yoga and meditation to alleviate my knee pain and when I separate from consistent practice the pain comes back.

Jon Kabat-Zinn says the meaning of wholeness is found in the words holy, healthy and healing. He describes health as a dynamic process and not a fixed state.  When the pain comes back in my knees, feet, shoulders or heart I am reminded that I haven't been taking care of myself.  The pain is an alarm that I have gotten off balance.

I love the statement by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

"All life is fascinating and beautiful when the veil of our routinized thinking lifts, even for a moment."  I see this fascinating life when I am painting or drawing.  I observe very closely and I am profoundly touched by the beauty of a human body or a landscape.  I feel wholeness when I am making art. As I work in making my yoga studio a successful and vibrant place and do all the assignments for the internship I have not had time to make art.  I know that art making is fundamental to my wholeness and when the internship is over I will find time for my art again.

I am trusting in Paul Coelho's statement “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” The Alchemist. I want to use Art and Yoga together for healing myself and share these modalities with others to guide them to their own healing.

I also work with the mantra So Hum a lot.  I was taught that it meant - "I am all that is" or "I am that."  For me this is the definition of wholeness to understand that we are all connected and we are all part of the same cosmic consciousness.  I have been practicing this meditation for years but I like what Dr. Vasant Lad says about it in the book Ayurveda: The Science of Self Healing, "In so hum meditation there is a union of individual consciousness with Cosmic Consciousness...Your breathing will become quiet and spontaneous and you will go beyond thought, beyond time and space, beyond cause and effect. Limitations will vanish; your consciousness will empty itself and in that emptying consciousness will expand."


I believe strongly that the universe inside of me is the same as the universe outside of me.  I am reminded again of the Rumi quote, "You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop."

This belief that I firmly hold that the microcosm is the same as the microcosm is shown in a beautiful visual manner in the movie the Powers of Ten by Eames.

"At each level of our being there is a wholeness that itself embedded in a larger wholeness. And that wholeness is always embodied. It cannot be separated from the body and from an exquisite and intimate belonging to the larger expression of life unfolding." - p.179-180 Jon Kabat-Zinn "Full Catastrophe Living"

In sum, the mantra "I am whole and healed" has been transformative for me.  It marks the beginning of my own experience of wholeness and unity.  My subconscious mind has reminded the conscious mind that I am all that is . . . I am that."