The other day, just before going into office again, I realised how summer becomes a flow of moments. The individual days blur together, and it’s surprisingly hard to remember one single day clearly. What stays with me instead are the colours, the atmosphere, the...
Part six. Looking back after radiation treatment and finding strength, gratitude and joy. When summer arrived, I could suddenly see the whole of spring. It had felt long while I was living it. Looking back, it felt both surprisingly short and endlessly long . A...
Sometimes people ask me what happens on a retreat. It’s surprisingly difficult to put words on it. Because what changes isn’t always visible, sometimes not noticeable. But it is there, deep inside. There is something I have witnessed over and over again....
For yoga teachers to reflect on how they can better understand and support women navigating menopause. Recently I taught a workshop called Women’s Midlife Transformation for yoga teachers. As I prepared, I kept returning to the koshas. They offered a...
Do you remember the feeling of placing your bare feet on the earth? The cool grass beneath your soles. Warm sand slippingbetween your toes. The soft forest floor, uneven and alive. The occasional sharp stone that makes you instantly aware ofwhere you are. It tickles....
Part five. Slowing down enough to truly see. The nurses at the radiation department said cheerfully, “Congratulations, your last treatment is done.” Then they added, almost casually, “Just be aware that the tiredness may come now. Headaches too. And other side...
Part four. Not doing it on my own anymore. In the midst of everything I am going through, I find myself returning to my past, to how I have lived my life. I have done things on my own.I have met hardship on my own. I have gone through it on my own. It was never really...
Yoga is out of fashion and that’s a good thing. I recently heard that yoga is out of fashion. Apparently Pilates is having a moment. A few years ago it was breathwork. Next year, something else. And I thought: Yes. Good. Yoga should be out of fashion....
We are all, in one way or another, looking for joy. So why can it sometimes feel so hard to find? In the Yoga Sutras, Patañjali describes samtosha, contentment, as something powerful. In sutra 2:42 he writes: “Through samtosha, supreme joy is gained.” Supreme...
This is part of a series on women’s stories, experiences of menopause, and our reflections on what we are going through. For me, it started with sleep. I suddenly began waking up in the middle of the night, during what we call the “wolf hour,” and couldn’t fall back...
Part three. Receiving results after a bone marrow biopsy. I felt it in my body a couple of days before. Something swirling. As we got closer to the hospital, the volume turned up a hundred times. My heartbeat boom, boom, boom, hard and fast. I heard it in my ears,...
Part two. Living with uncertainty while waiting for test results The bone marrow biopsy did hurt. Badly. Not the everyday kind of hurt, but the kind where the body screams, “You are taking a piece of me, and for that I will vomit on you, now.” For a moment I...