Revitalize Your Relationship Coaching

Happy Spring Equinox!

The first day of Spring is a huge relief from winter's chill. Today we can start to look forward to new growth and possibility for the season ahead.

As an Elemental Yin Yang yogi this is also the time to welcome Wood energy into your life for the next few months.

(If you aren't familiar with Wood energy you can learn about the basics here.)

In preparation for all the creative output and work we are planning for here at Aquin Yoga HQ, I spent some time this weekend decluttering my office. (That's a picture of my badass library in fact.)

But decluttering physical space is just a part of my Spring cleaning routine.

The most important way I prepare to get productive for these next few months is by cleaning up my thinking and getting clear on my goals.

To do that I use an array of tools and techniques and my hope is that by sharing them with you, you will find a few more ways to make your Spring amazingly productive.

You might think the title of this blog is strange since I write so much about big dreams and re-thinking the idea of success, but while planning my upcoming meditation series at De La Sol Yoga and the Spring Revitalization Retreat on April 30, I have been talking to students about why they started their yoga or meditation practice and why they continue.

Reducing stress, improving well-being and attitude are the most common reasons.

While it is true that practice can help with these things, I am interested to know why so many of us feel stressed out, sick and negative in the first place.

Most of my students have really good lives. They have careers, homes, families, love and safety. Having all of those things in a world where so many have so little should be a recipe for lasting ease, health and happiness. 

Sadly, countless studies show that our culture as a whole struggles to find meaning and contentment. Even though you probably have wealth and security in many domains of life, you might also be struggling with an unspoken stress that is silently damaging your health and well-being.

Spring is finally here! It is a huge relief to see specks of green popping up everywhere and to know that warmer days are around the corner. 

If you are like me, this transition has you feeling the urge to embrace this change with a clean slate. For some people a deep clean of your living space or office is enough to give you that fresh springtime feeling. For others this is a perfect time to do a major overhaul in all areas of life.

As a yoga practitioner you already know that the external and internal tend to reflect one another. Have you noticed it is easier to be productive if you work in a clean and tidy office? On the other hand, do you feel stressed out after spending time with negative or unsupportive people?

While you can't orchestrate the perfect circumstances to be happy and thriving at all times, you certainly can give yourself a head start. Spring brings a beautiful energy of growth, possibility and new perspectives. That makes it a perfect time to clear out any residual mental, physical or emotional clutter and make space for the good things ahead.

This week, I am going to share some of the major areas you might consider refreshing in order to start the season off right. Let's dive in!

I have a confession. I used to be one of those people who started and stopped projects all the time. My problem, like many people I know is that I would get very excited about something, make a certain amount of progress only to get a new idea that took me in another direction. 

Maybe you can relate. Even if you don't fancy yourself a creative type, you may notice that you get easily distracted or feel pulled in ten directions and forget what you intended to being doing in the first place.

Raise your hand if you made a resolution this year and have already dumped it.

Earlier this week, I did something I never thought I would do. I published my first book (If you are a yoga teacher, this book is for you). This huge project took at least a month longer than I had hoped and now that it is out, I have never had more work to do in my life. Between writing guest blogs for like minded websites, working with my amazing team to get the word out to studios and teacher training programs who might want to offer the book to their teachers and making little and often frustrating tweeks to the format (seriously, I know why designers charge the fee they do). 

What's the point?

A few weeks ago I introduced the first of five important things one can do to transform. For me the first was a big change of my surroundings and the decision to move to Boston. Obviously, it wouldn't make sense for most of us to pick up and move every time we needed to shake some stagnation or debris from our lives, but it doesn't mean we can't have regular pattern breaks.

Today I have an announcement. I have some reservations about posting it here because, while it is a professional announcement, it is also a personal one, and I wasn't sure at first if this had anything to do with what we normally post on the Aquin Yoga blog. After some reflection I've determined that it is an example of what we share here, so here goes.

As of June 1st I am officially giving up my license to practice Acupuncture. I have clocked well over 2000 client visits since I began in 2009 and am very proud of the work I have been able to do with the people who took themselves and their health seriously. Chinese Medicine is a beautiful, holistic medicine with a rich and extensive history. Personally, it has seen me through a number of my own health issues including debiliating migraines that had previously landed me in the emergency room. Studying Chinese Medicine was an enormous shift that took me out of life in the music industry and placed me into the classroom. I can't imagine what my life would look like now if I hadn't taken what felt like a crazy leap into the unknown. Almost everyone around me braced for impact as they watched me throw away a hard won career path. Some of those same people will no doubt brace once again at this news.

I have been thinking about the elusive muse that is inspiration a whole lot lately. Last week on the blog I wrote about four common ways to find inspiration. It can strike any time, day or night and one never knows how long they will be touched once it arrives.

Once you have it, how do you keep it?

Today I want to explore different ways to continually grow this beautiful and motivating force called inspiration, so we waste no time or energy constantly trying to locate it.

How would your life change if you had more confidence? Would you be more relaxed, more effective, happier? What does it even mean to have confidence; and once you have it, how can you increase it?

We've been discussing this topic in the Project One community and it's stirred up some important points I want to share. While there are many perspectives on the topic, this post focuses on four different sources of confidence, and the accompanying experiences of what confidence feels like.

Confidence in Your Abilities

At the most basic level, one must be confident with what one can do. As a musician, it took me over ten years of consistent practice and effort before I felt truly confident when performing. And even then, higher-profile situations or more challenging pieces of music would put my confidence to the test. I didn't always win, but at a certain point I stopped doubting whether I was "good enough" and just enjoyed the process of making music.

Confidence in your abilities is largely a process of time spent honing your craft, combined with feedback from the world around you. If enough people, especially people you don't know, comment on how much they appreciate your ability to (fill in the blank), chances are you're actually good at that thing. It's funny just how often we are our own harshest critic, and how building confidence is simply a matter of putting more trust into those around you than into the negative voice within.

Erin and I sipped our lattes after a tour through Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. The exhibits, in all their bright colors, strange yet compelling images, and wry insight and humor, had had the always-thrilling effect of shifting our perspectives on culture and reality.

As we sat in the ground-level cafe at the ICA, looking out over the frigid Boston Harbor, talking about art, life, and creativity, the ideas started to flow. The paths and purposes of yoga, spirituality, and self-development started to emerge and morph as we spoke, like colors in a kaleidescope.

Here's what became clear above all else: you and I, we practitioners of yoga or other spiritual disciplines, are on the path because we're excited by what lies beyond the status quo. 

We're moved by the experience of transcendence and greater meaning. We want to live in and create a world that expresses more consciousness and care. 

This has very interesting implications.

Happy New Year! Almost.

I honestly couldn't tell you what my last New Year's resolution was, which means it probably didn't get very far. Still, this is the prefect time of year to reflect on how many incredible changes can happen in just one year.

In my own life, my core relationships have shifted dramatically and surprisingly. My career goals have taken a sharp turn away from the track I thought I wanted to be on. The spiritual path I followed looks completely different and for the first time in years I find myself holding the reins of my own development, causing me to think about life and the world in new and unexpected ways.

What's most interesting about all these changes is that there was no big decision-making moment for most of them.