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I have found that changing my attitude affects my emotions, and my body changes accordingly. Sometimes I am motivated by nurture, sometimes by intensity. My motivational hybrid technique revolves around cycles of change. Yogalosophy can help you use the natural flow to recreate your body through intentions, emotions, and other motivational triggers.

JUNE/JULY 2009

EMOTION IS ENERGY IN MOTION

“Energy flows where the mind goes”

Important things to know about this month (click below)

• Emotional Roots
• Exercise: The Father of the Body
• Diet: The Mother of the Body
• Music as a Motivator
• Our Birth Stories
• Family Slideshow

Emotional Roots

This month we look to our foundation: our emotional roots as a way to motivate. Often times I hear people talking about the mind-body connection. For me, my emotions rule my body. Many times, when I was having an emotional breakdown, my body broke down as well. For example, when I was having conflict at my workplace, my back gave out. Or when I was having trouble moving on from a relationship, I developed a knee injury. Time and time again, my emotions have expressed themselves through my physical being. We hear that not expressing ourselves can create disease, yet it is not always appropriate to lash out at our oppressive boss, or lay our sadness on a sick relative. So, where can we channel this energy?.. Exercise. Yoga and other exercises have given me an outlet for this emotional energy. Many times I have taken my anger and used it to transform my body on a spinning bike. And, when I was in a very sensitive state, I learned to breathe patiently in a downward facing dog as I grieved my father's passing. All emotion is simply energy in motion. I use my emotion as fuel. I am a highly emotional person, and therefore, a highly motivated individual, so it’s especially important to have an expressive outlet for that kind of energy. For me, exercise is that outlet.

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Exercise: The Father of the Body

As a child, I had a tumultuous relationship with my father, he was very young when he had me, and he was exploring and getting to know himself. We used to joke that we grew up together. When I was about age 6 or 7, my father began to practice yoga. He was an Iyengar master. I remember our first family yoga book was Richard Hittleman. Our family would even go to a group class together, and my parents planned to start a company called PEP: Productivity Enhancement Program, which would bring yoga to offices, so instead of a coffee break, there would be a yoga break. My parents were about 30 years ahead of their time. That never happened, but my father continued his practice in the entry hall of our Bel Air home. Happy Days would blare in the background, and it would not be unusual to walk down stairs and find dad doing his Darth Vader breathing in some contortionist pose with his leg behind his head. As effortless as his yogic poise seemed, he could just as easily unravel himself and lash out with his temper. So I have no illusions about yoga eliminating all negativity, though without yoga, I am sure it could have been worse.

I learned to emulate my dad. To assume the position. My father was a business man, but a yogi at home. In an effort to get close to my father, I would contort myself for his praise, but moreover to experience what he was experiencing. If I could be in a pose like the one he was in, if I could read the books he read, then maybe I could understand him better. I studied from the Iyengar books as he did, and would awaken and copy the book - just like my dad. After my father passed away, I was in my first downward dog, and realized that he had passed something on to me that connected me to an entire lineage. It took me until he passed away to really understand what he gave me. And now I get to take the best of what he gave me, and pass that along to others.

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Diet: The Mother of the Body

My mother was born in a displaced person's camp in Germany. She came over on a boat after the war when she was three. She raised myself and my brother with loving patience and humor... and she always kept us entertained with Rolling Stones impressions. As she would cook the macrobiotic meals for our family, she would imitate Mick Jagger, singing into a wooden spoon. She would have us entertained for hours. We would watch Steve Martin on Saturday Night Live, and that irreverence and humor colored my entire childhood. Mom was a natural nurturer and teacher. This month we want to find comfort and nurture ourselves. The diet is the mother of the body and exercise the father.

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Music as a Motivator

I have always been moved by music. Throughout my life, I have connected music to what was going on for me at the time. Music has always motivated me because it gives expression to my emotions. That emotional motivation has often been a driving force in my exercise.

Music is the universal language of emotion. When I look around and see an entire class filled with people who are literally moved by a song, I realize we are drawn together by common emotions and rhythms. When I returned from New York post witnessing 9-11, all I could play was U2 and Peter Gabriel. When I was grieving my father’s death, the song “Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own” by Bono helped me to understand that I wasn’t the only one reckoning with the loss of a complicated paternal relationship. I remember the first time I made out with somebody, Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain” was playing in the background.

Please enjoy some of my motivational playlists I have created, which have bonded my students to one another. Think about songs that you associate with certain emotions and share your story with us on Facebook!

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Our Birth Stories

I was asked, when I was in a circle of women, to go find out about my birth story. The way we begin anything has a great affect on the outcome. Part of understanding ourselves can come from hearing and sharing our own story. Find out your birth story and share it on Facebook.

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