Settling Into Doga

When I bring up the idea of Doga, most dog-loving yogis express curiosity and excitement. Then, however, many quickly dive into the 101 reasons why they don't think their dog can do doga.  I hear things like:  "My dog is way too crazy." "My dog has too much energy." "My dog will be distracted the whole time."  Contrary to popular belief, these aren't reasons against bringing your dog to the mat, these are reasons for bringing your dog to the mat!

Doga is a partner practice between you and your dog. It is not about good behavior or bad behavior. It is not about struggling with your dog's wavering attention span in order to move through a seamless sequence. It is about creating a mind-body connection with each other. It is about cultivating mindfulness, letting go of expectations, accepting what is, and being present no matter what comes up. These are many of the benefits we work toward in our own yoga practice.  In doga, our pups simply help us to find them.

As the first step in your doga practice. Take some time each day this week to just be with your dog. Whether they're snuggled up on the couch, lying on the floor chewing a bone, or drinking from the toilet even after you've clearly expressed your disapproval of this action over and over again (LOLA!), just observe what comes up. Observe their experience of whatever it is they are doing. Are they wagging their tail? What is their breath like? Are they panting, licking their lips, yawning or showing other signs of agitation? Observe what their actions create in you physically and mentally. Do you tighten your belly, jaw, or fists when you observe them doing something you feel they shouldn't? What do you experience when they cuddle against you? Lick your hand, or even better, your nose? Work toward letting go of judgment and ideas of what your dog should do--both positive and negative. Just be with them in the moment.

There,  you're doing Doga! What a great team you and your pup make!

Lola happily sleeping with a secretly stolen shoe

What's Ahimsa To A Puppy?

Muse*Practice*Allay welcomes guest blogger Hannah Leatherbury! Hannah will be joining us online once a month and weekly in the studio! Welcome Hannah! Below Hannah examines how we can use the yogic principle of ahimsa to better understand and accept our furry family members.


What's Ahimsa To A Puppy?

I've known Daisy dog for all of four months and she continually amazes me. She's sweet, she's playful and she's smart. But there are two things that really unnerve me about Daisy: 1. She likes to chew on the edges of expensive rugs (sorry, slight tangent from my main point) and 2. She is EXTREMELY aggressive with her toys, especially the poor hedgehog in this video.

Reading "Inside of a Dog" right now, I am hoping to stumble upon a passage that will help me understand what the experience of destroying a feaux animal is like for Daisy so that I can reframe it as something other than pure aggression. Until I find that passage however, I am thinking of how my teacher describes ahimsa as non-judgement in addition to non-violence. It is that act of non-judgement - unconditional love - that reminds me not to expect my puppy to be a peacemaker, only to expect her to be herself.

Next on my list of things to do to better understand Daisy: doga... 

Anyone else tried it?


Hannah Leatherbury is a registered yoga teacher with the Yoga Alliance (RYT-200) and a blogger within the Yoga Journal Community. She received her training in Classical Hatha yoga in 2009 and has been teaching ever since. Her interest in movement and wellness evolved from a childhood filled with dance training in tap, jazz, ballet and modern coupled with a post-college urge to stay active and healthy. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing from Goucher College. You can contact her via her blog http://community.yogajournal.com/saturn_shows_up or at hleatherbury [at] hotmail.com

The Universal Language of Yoga

After a brief summer break, Muse*Practice*Allay is back!

I was so inspired when a friend showed me this article and video that I had to share! 

From guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 September 2010
Photograph: Meta Penca/BNP

Now that we're embarking on a new season, it is a perfect time to commit to that daily personal yoga practice you've been thinking about all summer.  Let go of preconceived notions of what the practice should look like and allow yourself to follow what feels good in your body and mind from day to day--you'll know! And, if you need a place to start, just follow Santra!

Muse*Practice*Allay Welcomes Local Yoga Teacher and Inspiring Blogger Kristin Adair!

Yoga and Mindful Eating

We yoga teachers talk a lot about taking yoga off the mat: breathing through a challenging traffic jam, practicing compassion towards an individual who is anything but compassionate towards you, engaging in selfless service. But what about eating? Even some of the most dedicated yogis may not think about practicing yoga at the dinner table. How can you begin to make your daily consumption part of your practice?

Messages about what to eat have gotten increasingly confusing in recent years, especially for those of us who are health conscious, socially conscious, or both. We should be eating locally, low carb, raw, meatless on Mondays, sustainable, organic, and more. Even the most committed among us may find it difficult to sort through all of these messages and decide what to prepare for dinner.

Yoga provides us with an array of principles to guide our daily lives, some of which can be applied to what we eat. Additionally, Ayurveda, the traditional discipline of Indian medicine and sister science to yoga, offers its own unique teachings on diet and nutrition.

Here are a few ideas to get you started in your practice of mindful eating:

Listen to your body. This should always be the first step on the path to mindful eating. Your body will tell you what it needs, and when. Bring awareness to these messages. If you don't feel energized and healthy when you eat a certain type of food, it may not be the best thing for you. For me, it was only after several years of chronic digestive problems, doctors, and prescription medications that I cut out dairy products. I quickly realized that for so long my body had been trying to tell me that these foods were not for me. I am now both happier and healthier without them.

Eat with the seasons. If you're anything like me, you don't crave hearty root vegetable soup in July or gazpacho in January. There's a good reason for this: Ayurveda tells us that energetic forces shift throughout the year.  Pitta energy, the energy of fire, is highest during the summer, and we are best suited to eat cooling, water-based foods during this time. Try cucumbers, avocado, and lightly seasoned foods. In the fall and winter, vata energy increases and we need more warming and grounding foods, like cooked vegetables and grains.

But if this doesn't make sense to you, revisit the first point: listen to what your body needs, because your unique composition may invite different eating patterns at different times of the year.

Consider your impact. As yogis, we believe that everything is interconnected. No matter what I do, my actions and intentions will impact the people around me, other beings, and the natural world. Ahimsa, one of the yamas (restraints) set forth in the Yoga Sutras, directs us to practice nonviolence and compassion, towards ourselves and others.

Listening to your body and eating more healthfully is an important way to practice compassion towards yourself. Eating food that is locally produced, seasonal, and/or organic can dramatically reduce your impact on the planet. You may also choose to remove some or all animal products from your diet to avoid contributing to the cruel and unsustainable practices of factory farming and reap significant health benefits. You should decide for yourself what ahimsa means to you and how it applies to what you eat.

Practice, not perfect. Committing to mindful eating doesn't mean that you have to give up a favorite indulgence for good. Even the most health conscious yogi may still have some french fries once in a while. You won't be able to fulfill your intention of mindful eating every meal, every day; modern life (and tempting treats) will most certainly get in the way. But that's okay. Let go and remember that yoga is a practice. Each day can teach us something about ourselves and bring us one step further on our journey.

And most importantly, when you sit down to eat, mindfully enjoy every bite.

About Kristin
By day, Kristin is an attorney with the non-profit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC, where she advocates for reform of federal nutrition policies. By night, she pursues her lifelong passion for yoga, teaching and assisting vinyasa flow classes around the DC metro area. Her classes incorporate the challenging flow sequences melded with powerful yoga philosophy that students can take off their mats and into their daily lives. In her free time, she loves to cook healthy dishes with vegetables from her organic garden.

The Many Sides of Passion

As I sat down to dinner last night, I opened Pema Chodron's Comfortable With Uncertainty. I've had the book for several weeks now and have perused through a few times, pausing to reflect quickly on various short chapters. Last night, I decided I would start from the beginning. Immediately after the title page, Chodron presents the following:

May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.


May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.


May we dwell in the great equanimity free from passion, aggression, and prejudice.

Heavy. After reading this I just sat there for a few minutes. For some reason, I found myself focusing on the idea of being free from passion. I regard myself as an intense person (and have been told more than once that this is the case). I am a firey aries afterall. Passion is a big part of who I am. In fact, it is passion that often guides my thoughts and actions.

And then something clicked. Maybe instead of leading me, my passion is actually holding me back. I've always regarded passion as essential. What do we have if we don't have passion? We are often taught to believe that a relationship should have passion. A career should have passion. Even hobbies should have passion. Without passion, we often feel that something is missing. Maybe we don't "want it" enough. Maybe our partner doesn't "want it" enough. But, maybe the real question is, what do we have if we do have passion?

We have strong attachment to the idea of something. But what do we actually have? Perhaps our passion blinds us from seeing what is "real" as we are so focused on our idealized version of what this something is or should be.

Passion is a feeling, not reality. It is not tangible. And, it is impossible to maintain over time. When it dies down, what are we left with? What happens if we acknowledge the passion we feel without letting it take us away? Sure, sometimes we will have strong feelings toward partners, work, etc. And, other times we won't. Is it possible to acknowledge both of these states as simply part of our life experience without judging or engaging them?

What are your passions? How do they impact your everyday experience?

Wasting Time Or Living Life?

I've been thinking a lot about procrastination lately. I've also been practicing a lot of procrastination lately. Mind-body connection of course.

We often think of procrastination as wasting time. This can (and often does) result in a variety of negative emotions such as guilt, impatience, anxiety, etc. What I have noticed, however, is that a lot actually happens during procrastination. For example, if I did not procrastinate on writing my dissertation, I might never have started this blog.  In fact, I might never have moved forward with my yoga practice, established Allay Yoga, or found the people that inspired me to begin writing a blog in the first place.

I will finish my dissertation. The time between writing sessions is not wasted, it is simply another part of my daily life. Well, it's actually more than that.  It's time that I spend developing another part of myself. A part that I treasure and may have never found if I did not take a little time to procrastinate.


I'll leave you with a wonderful quote from Judith Lasater's Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life:

"What is really wasted? Nothing. All gives me the opportunity to live in the present moment. When I do, I am patient. This realization supports even the most mundane events of my daily life. I can wait in lines, sit in traffic jams, and understand when someone is late for an appointment. All of these times--waiting, sitting, and understanding--are valuable. I can choose not to experience them as wasted time by choosing to be present and actually living these precious moments. After all, to reject them is to reject life itself. The challenge comes in remembering that I can choose and that this choice is the most profound of freedoms." (77)

One Year Later

Yesterday marked one year of incredible partnership with my wonderful husband. As a result, I found myself reflecting back over the events of the year. So much has happened! I finished collecting data for my dissertation, we moved to D.C. and then to Silver Spring into our first house, we got our darling pup Lola, I ran a half-marathon, I completed my yoga teacher training and embarked on a new part of my career and much much more! It's been quite busy these past 12 months! 

But, perhaps the biggest change for me has been my daily approach to life. I used to yearn to be more mindful, more disciplined, work harder, practice more yoga, the list goes on and on. Instead of noticing where I was and what I was doing in the moment, I was so focused on what I should be doing, how if I was doing something else, something better, I could avoid all of the stress and frustration of daily life. Writing it here, it sounds silly, but I have a strong suspicion I'm not alone in having these thoughts! 

This year, moving away from my life in New York, away from the security of a school/work life that I relied on to give my daily life structure and meaning, I was forced to let go, to rebuild. And, something magical happened. I became more mindful, I practice daily yoga, I don't know if I am more disciplined or work harder, but I found peace with who I am and my work/life "style." Sure, I still experience the daily stress and frustration of everyday life, but I also find myself feeling more gratitude, more happiness, and more freedom. When I let go of what I thought I should be doing and feeling, I began actually doing more and feeling more (than just anxiety). I look back at what we have accomplished over the last year, and I not only feel proud that we did them, I feel proud that I experienced them in all of their wonderful, scary, anxiety-provoking, frustrating, exciting glory.

Are there expectations, "shoulds" that weigh you down in your daily life? What happens if you let go? 

I'll leave you with a favorite passage of mine from Jon Kabat-Zinn's Wherever You Go There You Are:

 "When we let go of wanting something else to happen in this moment, we are taking a profound step toward being able to encounter what is here now. If we hope to go anywhere or develop ourselves in any way, we can only step from where we are standing. If we don't really know where we are standing--a knowing that comes directly from the cultivation of mindfulness--we may only go in circles, for all our efforts and expectations. So, in meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all." (15-16)

Have a wonderful week!

Starting a Blog!

When I've taken the time over the past few months to think about and list my goals for the future, starting a blog has always come up. I've hesitated out of fear of having nothing interesting to put out there or exposing too much about myself and my life on the internet, but I've come to realize that this is actually what it is all about. The bloggers that often inspire me (see Tranquility Du Jour, The Not So Big Life, The Recessionista Confessions ) exhibit a certain fearlessness about putting their thoughts and experiences out there and it is this openness and consequential camaraderie that creates the inspiration! Learning how others find peace, creativity, beauty, happiness, insight and much, much more in the mundane or, at times, the difficult, provides me with an invaluable set of tools to do the same in my own life. I hope the musings here help to do the same for you!