I’m on vacation this week, enjoying some wonderful lakeside R&R in Maine.  A beautiful spot not only for its physical beauty but its annual reminder to live more simply and in tune with nature.

I said good-bye to the folks in my yoga classes last week as I will not be teaching again until September.  It’s bittersweet, as it is my passion to share the mind/body/spiritual elements of the practice.  But this is my annual dive inward–practicing on a dock or a deck each day–just being, not doing a whole lot.  However, I will especially miss teaching during eclipse week in late August–which is kind of a big deal–likely the last full eclipse of the sun in my lifetime.  And I just cannot get Carly Simon’s lyrics from “You’re So Vain” out of my head when I write that (…then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun…).

I asked my classes last week in a “moon themed” class to imagine themselves, their shining gifts, their offering to this world, their pure radiance, as the light of the sun.  So beautiful, bright and stunning.  Now imagine the moon fully darkening that light as it would in an eclipse.  Doesn’t feel that good, does it?  And yet, this is our lives….we let so much get in the way of shining our brightest.

Maybe it is a lens–the lens of your life–that needs cleaning.  Seeing things a bit differently may be what is necessary.  Maybe it is a story that you’ve been holding onto, or something–anything–that isn’t serving you any longer.  Time to let it go and shift perspective.  Celebrate the eclipse by giving yourself permission to radiate to your fullest potential.

Remember, the actual eclipse is fleeting and the sun comes out the other side.

I was out running this past weekend.  Okay, it was really part walk/part run.  But I was running when I tripped on a lip at an intersection and went flying forward, landing pretty hard.  I took me a minute to assess what was what.  I seemed to be bleeding a lot from one of my knees and one hand, but was able to get to the side of the road and determine nothing was broken.  I was mostly stunned and feeling sorry for myself.  So I began walking home, when I bumped into a friend.

This friend was very sympathetic and said that she, too, had fallen while walking about a year ago.  At the time she said to herself, “If I were doing yoga I wouldn’t have fallen, I would have had better balance,” adding, “but here you are, doing all this yoga, and you fell!” (was she justifying not doing yoga? unclear!)  The encounter was brief and as I was in need of fresh water to clean up, I carried on toward home.

Throughout the day I reflected on the fall: pretty symmetrical, even distribution of weight, didn’t break anything; it could have been so much worse.  But thinking about the comment from my friend just made me realize how important yoga is on every level.  Maybe the practice has given me the strength and balance so that I didn’t fall worse than I did!  I am sure that is true.  But on a deeper level, maybe all the lessons from the practice will help me recover more quickly–because that is what the practice does–it allows you to right the ship and navigate to calmer waters more easily.

Is it the resilience that is required in balances? The strength built in warriors? The humor we employ when we fall out of a pose? The compassion we cultivate for ourselves and others? Or the lessons from the poses themselves: twists allowing us to be experiences opposites not unlike the joy and sorrow of life? backbends allowing us to become open-hearted yet with strong backbones, reminding us we can feel vulnerable yet be strong.  I could go on and on.

The point is….we all tumble and fall sometimes.  You might have an actual fall (which I sincerely hope that you do not!).  Or the tumbling might be more subtle, falling on an emotional or spiritual level.  We all have fallen this way.  Just remember a yoga practice will help you recover and get back on course, no matter the bumps and bruises you take along the way.

My husband has a shirt we purchased at a brewery in Freeport, Maine.  On the front it says “Maine Beer Company” and on the back it says “Do the right thing.”  It’s so appealing to do the right thing, but what is right?  For each of us the answer is different.  What is right for you aligns with your spirit, feels good to your bones.

Last week I spent some time, energy and resources to help a friend in need.  That felt SO GOOD.  Giving and sharing are always in alignment for me (as they are for most of us), which is probably one of the many reasons I teach.  Before I knew it I had spent a couple of hours trying to help my friend.  Everyone has a place where time evaporates and you’ve gotten lost in something.  It’s there where you’ve found something that is completely in the flow or alignment for yourself.  Stay aware of those moments, they are like a guiding North star.

I was at a yogathon on Sunday, with 1,000 people practicing yoga all day at Gillette stadium, raising money for Boston Children’s Hospital and Seane Corn’s Off The Mat program.  Seane Corn was there, and summed up what I am trying to say here so perfectly, “Beauty is living in harmony with your truth.”

Diving a bit deeper I would add that every choice we make adds up, until you reflect and you see that you are a compilation of the choices you’ve made.  Some we take very seriously, others we may make over a beer, but there remains a powerful opportunity to shape the course of your life and to keep it in alignment with your own truth, your own spirit, with every choice you make.

Deepak Chopra says, “To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul.  To do this you need to experience solitude, which people are afraid of, because in silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.”  I believe this is why a regular yoga practice is so powerful.  It gives you the opportunity to quiet the chatter of the brain, to slow down and quiet down.  Yoga is a meditation in motion and as such gives you the time to do the inner work–to listen in the silence.

This week we worked on our alignment physically, but as always, the practice is a mind, body, spirit practice.  So, yes, while we focused on finding the mountain pose in every pose, we also looked at aligning with our values and our true self.

Peace.

It’s all about seva, or service.  Our yoga practice stirs in us the need to help others through the full body prayer that is our practice.  I have had so much fun doing benefit classes to help the Milton Residents Fund and Saint Rock Haiti Foundation in the past few months.  April provides another great opportunity.

This coming Good Friday, April 14th,  I didn’t have any classes scheduled (I figured some people might be away and others might be managing life at home with the kids out of school that day).  I’ve decided to hold a benefit class that day–I am dubbing “Do Good Friday”–we’ll practice and raise money for Boston Children’s Hospital as part of the Yoga Reaches Out effort underway in April.  The class will be from 8 -9:15 a.m. I can’t wait!

If you are interested in donating to the cause, here is the link to my fundraising page:
http://yogathon.yogareachesout.org/goto/FranKaroff

Thank you for considering a donation to amp up the funds raised on “Do Good Friday!!”

Last week my family and I traveled to Utah to ski.  It was my first time ever skiing out west and it was quite spectacular to be in the mountains, the vistas were magical.  I’ve gotten very disenchanted with skiing over the years with what I was sure was my declining ability.  This trip for me was really more about being together as a family, as one of our boys was home from college on spring break.

Day 1:  We made it to the mountain, and not surprisingly for me the first couple of runs were bad, with less control and more fear and tension than I could bear.  So when lunchtime finally came I called it quits.  While everyone went back out to ski, I brought my 15-year old rusty skis to be sharpened and waxed (I got yelled out by the technician!), and learned that my trusty old ski boots were a full size too big (!).   No wonder skiing felt like I was trying to grab molasses.  You must know what happened next:  I bought a new pair of boots to go with my sharpened skis.  I needed to know if the trouble was me or my equipment and it seemed right to figure it out on the first day of the mini ski vacation.

Day 2: Opposite day.  It was a dream.  After over a decade of being the slowest most cautious person (and scared!) on the trail, I found myself moving with confidence and at a good clip.  It was like all the mental lessons that I had been holding onto finally clicked.  The kids and my husband were shocked, tossing me nicknames like “ski queen” and “ski mamma.”   Mid way down on the first run one of them even said, “Wow.  You can really ski!”

For years and years and years I had been in the ski game purely to be with my family, not because I loved the sport.  And as the kids grew, it was a prime opportunity to be with them in an unplugged way and connect doing something in the great outdoors.  But now things had changed.  It wasn’t a terrifying adventure each time I got off the chairlift.  It was actually fun.  I was at ease, finally enjoying skiing.

At one point along the way, I spotted a sign, “Go With The Flow.”  Oh, indeed.

And this image below is not me, just a skier in dancer pose for your enjoyment 😉

Last week three separate people approached me to talk about the struggles they are having as they are dealing with parents that are ageing, some focused on end of life issues.  And those are only the ones who spoke up.  My classes seem to attract my own demographic: women between the ages of 45 and 55 who are in what is called “the sandwich generation.”  They are tending to their people (blood related or otherwise) as they age and pass into the next life, and to their children, uncomfortably sandwiched in between.  Not to mention if they work–not like tending to those we love is not work, it certainly is real and meaningful work–but providing income and stability for a family is no small thing.  Regardless of your situation, there is a LOT to hold up and show up for, and we do.  That’s just what we do, no matter the circumstance.

When you sit back and look at all that responsibility it is stunning.  I want to put a crown on everyone in my classes, this whole generation, really.  So it’s no small surprise that people show up to yoga for rejuvenation and nourishment.  They need it like they need a daily vitamin: to hit pause, regroup, and reconnect with themselves.

My classes this week are focusing on tuning into the breath as a tool for navigating not just our yoga practice on the mat, but also the challenges in our lives. When the mind is distracted whether it be from the myriad of devices, challenges, stresses, you name it in our lives, there is just a storm–like a snow globe.  The mind is compromised, distracted.  And a distracted mind is not a powerful one.  So we tune into the breath to bring clarity, presence and peace.  So you can keep showing up and soldiering on in your life.

I offer a deep bow to you for all that you do.  Namaste.

I confess I’m late to the knitting the pussy hat game.  I had commitments that prohibited me from marching so I didn’t knit myself a hat for the march.  Distressed that I couldn’t go, I spent far too much time viewing the amazing and inspiring photos of my many friends and family members at various marches throughout the country on Facebook.  It was an obsession to try to experience the march through their images.  And then I saw a photo that took my breath away, my “Aunt” Molly at the New York march.  Molly, in her 70s now, is my best friend from childhood’s mother.  I think I spent more time at their house than mine growing up and she was never “Mrs” to me, always “Aunt.”  Anyway, after I razzed my friend about her lack of a hat I learned that she would really love one.  So I’m knitting again after about a six or seven year hiatus.

I used to say that I stopped knitting because the slice of time in my pie that was reserved for knitting migrated to yoga.  But getting something back on my needles has been so amazing, so grounding, allowing me to “just be” in a way that I haven’t indulged in for far too long.

This December I lost my dear sweet father.  And during the couple of months before he passed I was glued to my phone as a method of getting updates on his condition from family, listening to it back and forth on my drives home, reading the news and email in the waiting room in the hospital, making yoga playlists, the list just goes on and on.  Let’s just say it hasn’t been healthy and balanced.

Knitting is like opposite day.  Simply feeling the texture of the yarn, the needles gliding back and forth, focusing on whatever my own thoughts decide I should dwell on or problem solve, or being completely present with the people around me in a way that I was unable to when it was just me and my phone.

I feel like this hat has directed me back to solid ground.  From the distraction and disruption of checking/reading/calling, to sitting and knitting for someone I love.  I feel so connected to Aunt Molly and the movement that I am a part of (even if I couldn’t march!) and equally, I am finally here, not somewhere my phone wants to take me.  Happily grounded.

I’ve been traveling a lot lately to a bucolic area where I grew up to be with family.  I’ve been making regular trips to visit my father who has been hospitalized since mid-November, and to be with my mother.  At first I thought I’d really enjoy the car rides and tried listening to audio books but my mind seems to wander away from the narrator and music doesn’t offer a better distraction.  In a vulnerable state last weekend, I found myself tuned into NPR’s The Moth radio show.  I listened to podcast after podcast finding a weird kinship in the suffering shared by these everyday people telling their personal, often heart wrenching, stories.  It was riveting.  I was reminded that we all have something that we are dealing with, big or small, and that the holiday season can actually make it a little harder to cope.

I shared these thoughts with my classes last week.  And in digging around to find something more to offer, I found this great excerpt from Carolyn Myss.  Her book “Anatomy of the Spirit” creates an understanding of why we need to work through our issues (so essentially they can keep them from finding a home in our tissues).  A lot of people asked me for this excerpt, so here it is:

“We are not meant to stay wounded.  We are supposed to move through our tragedies and challenges and to help each other move through the many painful episodes of our lives.  By remaining stuck in the power of our wounds, we block our own transformation.  We overlook the greater gifts inherent in our wounds–the strength to overcome them and the lessons that we are meant to receive through them.  Wounds are the means by which we enter the hearts of other people.  They are meant to teach us to become compassionate and wise.”

Opening our hearts and sharing–a la The Moth–or in any other way, is vital to making powerful and life-changing connections with others.  I’m sure you’ve guessed by now last week’s class featured a lot of back bending, and opening that realm of connection at the heart.  When we open the heart we are better able to honor the divine in others.

Wishing you peace and connection to those around you this holiday season!

This past Saturday evening my husband and I were driving to dinner when we spotted the moon.  It was not an ordinary moon, but an enormous moon, hovering at the horizon, brightly lit with all kinds of oranges and some clouds.  It was a spectacular sight and it stopped us in our tracks.  We pulled over and I tried to take a photo that would capture it, to no avail.  The beauty and mystery of that moon was greater than any we’d ever seen.  I read later it was a super moon, called the Hunter’s moon.  This photo was on the National Geographic website.

When we stumble upon something in nature like that, something so breath-taking and amazing, it can wake up a part of us and make us remember that we are but a child of the universe.  We are all just children of the universe, here together,to quote Ram Dass, “just walking each other home.”  So the moon and other natural wonders reminds us of how connected we all are.  In this election season where there is so much division, it’s vital that we take a moment to reflect on this unifying thought.  It’s vital and healing for humanity to feel bound together.

I’m a big believer that there is no such thing as a coincidence.  Perhaps the timing of that magnificent moon was there as a reminder that we are ALL just children of the universe.

This week I am focusing my summer classes on “wind.”  We’ve all gotten to the beach: slugged our chair and bag to the perfect spot, lathered up with sunblock and settled into the comfort of our beach chair or blanket.  Then surprise! a good wind kicks up and the sand is stuck all over you.  You know you are nodding your head, you’ve been there!

The mind is much like the wind: mysterious, unpredictable, and it can get us in trouble.  We think so many thoughts every day but only remember a fraction of them.  In yoga we call this ever-moving mind the “chitta vritti” and our practice endeavors to quiet the winds of the mind by marrying our movement with our breath.

I was teaching at Milton Academy one evening this week and I had just gone through this description when suddenly there were fire engines blaring–and not just for a few seconds, it went on for a while.  I couldn’t have asked for a better entree!  The mind is like those fire engines, always looking for the emergency.  It’s not our fault, we evolved that way.   As cave men we were always looking for what could take us out, life was so fragile, and our brains haven’t evolved all that much.  So it’s a natural thing to see the negative in life and to allow events to feel like they are all emergencies.  It makes it that much more important to make some space through our practice to react gracefully or not at all.  It’s an act of self awareness to be able to acknowledge this; it’s an ongoing practice.