Journal
Here you'll find writing on mindfulness, neuroscience, mental health, physical wellbeing, and yoga.
These topics often overlap: attention, behaviour and embodiment are all part of the same ecosystem of experience, and the aim here is to explore those connections in a thoughtful and practical way. Some posts draw from research, others from lived experience and teaching. The intention is to share ideas that are useful, considered, and occasionally a bit different from what is typically said.
April 22, 2020
This sequence of postures, known as a variation of Moon Salutations, mobilizes side bodies, hips and hamstrings.
Following the cycles of life, the New Moon is perfect for a fresh start.
April 22, 2020
Whether from previous injury or wear-and-tear, our knees can get uncomfortable in a typical yoga class. This whole-body gentle yoga practice takes place without putting stress on your knees. You will be guided into mindful, mobilizing yoga exercises to open your joints, pressure-free for the knees.
April 22, 2020
In this meditation, we move through a body scan at our own pace, with a recommended map to follow. Karen gives guidances on how to meet sensation, feelings, and thoughts as they arise from the body, and how to return our attention to the practice when our attention gets diffuse.
April 21, 2020
This quick flow practice builds awareness of a stable foundation to ignite your core, open to deep breathing, and get your energy flowing. We stay close to the ground and work in resistance to gravity, with plank variations, lunges, and backbends.
April 21, 2020
In practicing body awareness, we hone our ability to pay attention to the finer details of experience, and to clear away the imposition of our ideas of what something should be, and let it just be. In this guided practice, we delve deeper into the First Foundation of Mindfulness of the Satipatthana Sutta: Mindfulness of the Body. Karen guides you through a body awareness technique, moving your attention from specific parts of your body from your head downwards.
April 19, 2020
Your spine provides a flexible structure for creative movement when breathing, stretching, leaning, turning, bending. It is the main channel of energetic flow and sensitivity. In this practice, explore the many ways your spine can move. Loosen up tightness, and bring fluidity to your central axis.
April 19, 2020
This practice will focus on mobilizing the feet and rest of the lower body. Your feet are your foundation. Make sure they (and their 33 joints, each) get the attention they deserve.
April 18, 2020
Hungry for a short, simple and sweet yoga snack to balance your energy and awaken your body, so you can meet the day with vigour and calm?
April 18, 2020
Experience your whole body in this steady and strong flow practice, gradually building heat and endurance. By holding postures for several breaths, you will have time to align yourself precisely and focus your attention on the vital forces of your body.
April 17, 2020
When we pay attention to the body, we welcome back what has been forgotten; the most grounded and palpable qualities of existence. In seeing beyond our thinking minds, we naturalize the pulse of our nervous system, and reconnect with our senses in a non-reactive way. In this meditation, we begin to work with body scanning to steady our mental energy, and expand our sense of being.
April 17, 2020
Buddhist teachings tell of a mental maneuvering called dukkha dukkha, which means suffering caused by suffering. It is when we identify personally with a difficult or unpleasant inner experience, and strain to manipulate it through our thoughts, making it last longer and occupy more head/heart/body-space than need be. In this meditation, we will practice dissociating from the added layer of personal identification, and see our inner world to be what it is, an ever-changing space of instances.
April 15, 2020
Settle into gently guided meditation to explore our relationship with contents of consciousness. First we relax our body to the pulse of the breath. Then when our impulses begin to settle, we investigate our perspective on what arises in the thinking mind and feeling body. Does it feel like yours? Or are you simply aware that it is?
April 15, 2020
Refine the alignment of foundational postures to stabilize, strengthen and stretch your body. In this class we focus on poses for the glutes and thighs, like Warrior 1 and Warrior 3. When your body is warm, you will then be guided into a deep hip release.
April 15, 2020
Learn the alignment principles of Warrior 1 pose, a powerful posture to strengthen our legs, back muscles, hips and shoulders.
April 15, 2020
Chris guides you through standing movement exercises to free up our joints, then into a rhythmic flow of stretching and strengthening postures for the hips and back. The last part of the class is reclined, working with the pull of gravity to open our bodies while calming our nervous systems.
April 14, 2020
This all levels practice focuses on opening the chest and shoulders, plus creating length throughout the body with movement and longer-held poses.
April 14, 2020
In this fire flow practice, we will stoke the power of our core through strong breathing and warming movement, then expand our limits as we approach arm balances. The fire element, agni, catalyzes transformation, purging what is no longer needed, and creating fertile ground for emerging life. It provides heat to melt away stagnancy in the body and mind. When we get stuck in our habits, it daringly offers a new approach.
April 13, 2020
Settle into gently guided meditation to explore our relationship with contents of consciousness. First we relax our body to the pulse of the breath. Then when our impulses begin to settle, we investigate our perspective on what arises in the thinking mind and feeling body. Does it feel like yours? Or are you simply aware that it is?
April 13, 2020
Preparing for forearm balance cultivates precise focus, a stable foundation, trust in yourself, courage to experience the upside of down, and a willingness to explore the unknown. In this vinyasa class, you will wake up your body to the possibility of standing on your forearms.
April 13, 2020
Are you trying to catch up with your life; responsibilities, creative projects, relationships? It's hard to exist in the present moment when we feel out of step with it. But in meditation, we create space and time to zoom into our life as it is right now, to catch up with what is really going on, effortlessly. When our energy is not bound to task-oriented efforts, we can see with a wider perspective, and re-engage with our lives mindfully.