Yoga on High
I am often asked about how one can get adolescent boys to buy into yoga. Good question. First, regardless if it’s yoga or if it’s adolescent boys specifically, the answer is the same: Meet them where they are.
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Viewing entries tagged with 'meditation'
Free Energy
One of the greatest privileges to working in the wilderness is to be free from all the distractions that bombard our sensory input systems in the “front-country”. The front- country’s distractions are full of cars, signs, ads, songs, people, stores, food, houses, buildings, technology, entertainment, appointments, roads…you get the idea. While on the other hand, the back-country (wilderness, the field) is full of…sky, weather, trees, plants, animals, bugs, live earth, and other things that we haven’t put the human-manufactured stamp on. The front-country is ripe with all the stimulation that implies human constructs, control, and expectations. While the back-country provides liberation from these constructs and allows you to just be, inviting you to get closer to who you truly are.
Tonglen - A Practice In Compassion
It seems like more now than ever before in my work as a health coach or Health and Wellness Coordinator for Evoke do I find the need to teach more compassion practices. Our world can, at times, feel like it's fraught with so much division, stress, lack consciousness, greed, misunderstanding, and fear. All of these feelings wreak havoc on our psyches, our hearts, and even our bodies. Today, over 40 million people in the US alone suffer from an anxiety disorder.
Nature Spirit: Exploring Spirituality In The Wilderness
I’ve been asked… repeatedly… to write more specifically about spirituality. It’s been a daunting request for me because spirituality is a nebulous and highly personal subject. It’s both transcendent and human, sublime and mundane. In the scientific literature regarding spirituality’s role (often muddled with religion) in mental health, a consensus on its help or hindrance is yet to be found. While religious guilt seems to have an adverse effect on mental health, feeling connected to something greater than ourselves seems to help mitigate stress and depression.1
Doing Your Own Work At An Evoke Intensive
It was just over five years ago when I attended the personal growth workshop that would change and shape my life going forward. For me, it was a crossroads in an inescapable torrent of anxiety and confusion. For others in attendance, it was time to refuel and reassess the direction in their lives. We all came together with the belief that we had work to do. I came to it after many years of outpatient work with a gifted therapist, while others came as an initial foray into their own personal work. In either case, what was promised was, “You will get out of it exactly what you need.”
The Gift of Loving Kindness Meditation
When I’m in the field working in a group and I look at a face of apathy, I’m looking at the 17 year old Elise. I remember feeling so done with the world around me. Yup, my depression in a nutshell.
Mantra: Quelling the Fire
If the word mantra draws up an image of bald Hare Krishna chanting men in orange robes asking for money in airports… you’re not alone. That said, we’ve come a long way, baby!