New Yoga class! Slow Flow Yoga starting 21 Apr/Abr – delicious, delightful

New yoga class in Altea.  Slow flow community yoga at Taronja Wellbeing.

New Yoga Class in Altea

Are you looking for a fun yet deep yoga practice? Would you like to practice yoga with like-minded people? Well, I think you ought to check out my new yoga class!

What is slow flow?

I teach hatha yoga in a very specific way.  Firstly, following the Viniyoga method, there is almost always a dynamic and a static phase for each posture.  This means you get both the flow of Vinyasa-style yoga and the holds of classical yoga.  

I design my classes with anatomy in mind.  There are four kinds of yoga:  Bhakti (devotion), Raja (intellect), Karma (selfless service), and Hatha (movement).  I am very clearly a hatha yoga teacher and use my deep understanding of anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology to design sequences within sequences all with a clear objective in mind. 

Loosening up the deepest layers, the bits that no one can get to, the parts that hurt but you can’t put your finger on.  Yoga, specifically Viniyoga well-taught, gets to these parts. Feel free to read up on slow-flow yoga here, at my Alteayoga blog.

In my new yoga class, I will introduce sequences that I developed over the past four years whilst working at SHA Wellness Clinic.

Where are the classes?

Yoga Taronja, Altea (Cap Negret)

Taronja Wellbeing is a dedicated yoga and wellness space. Although it is located on the busy N-332 road that goes through Altea, the room is quiet and there is ample parking.

Taronja is very easy to find: Use this Google Maps link. The Hotel Cap Negret is right next door. There is a large public parking lot right opposite the hotel. If you are coming from Altea, it’s a ten-minute walk or even shorter cycle.

When do the classes start?

Starting 21 April 2023

The Spring term will run until it gets too hot and everyone wants to lounge around on the beach or in the shade. So, count on having class at Taronja Wellbeing with me, Rachel Rose, until the end of June.

What time are the classes?

9:30-11:00

A good yoga sequence should end with pranayâma and meditation. The 1.5-hour format of my new yoga class allows time for postures, breathing, and resting.

What to bring and wear

I recommend a long-line shirt or top. It’s so distracting to have your lower back uncovered! If you have yoga socks, bring them! We have mats, blocks, and bolsters at the center, but you are always welcome to use your own. If you’re likely to get cold towards the end of the practice, bring a sweater or shawl. Water is ok for afterward, but we don’t recommend drinking water during your practice. Bring tissues if you’re having any issues with hay fever.

Is the class in English or Spanish?

I always try my best to deliver my classes in both English and Spanish and this new yoga class will be no different. It is a challenge, but it’s the only way to make the group inclusive and high-vibration! After all, we are all living here in the beautiful Costa Blanca, where polyglot multilingualism is the norm! Yoga classes are a great way to meet like-minded folk, and make friends.

How much do classes cost?

Classes are donation-based. This means that you can pay what you like. I suggest between 5-10€. But, if you are more well-off, then leave more and pay it forward! There are plenty of hard-working people around here who could do with a yoga class, but whose budget might not stretch to it. Inequality is a huge global problem. But, as they say “Think globally, act locally”. I am just a humble yoga teacher. I want my classes to be available to those who need them whilst still being able to put food on my own table. So, a long answer to a short question. Pay what you can, pay it forward.

Any more questions?

If there is anything that I have missed, give me a buzz on the phone number in the photo above 👆 . Whatsapp works too – you’ll see the green icon at the bottom right of this page.

Yoga classes in Altea – amazing! New as of 18-2-22

We are back to the mat, people! Group yoga classes are back, and I am truly thrilled to get back to teaching you the finer points of Hatha yoga.

yoga classes in Altea

A year has now passed since I last gave a group class. It has been a strange year, to say the least. The pandemic (which I know we are all bored of talking about) has exposed rifts both in our inner lives and in our societies. We just had to hunker down and do our best. I wasn’t on my best form for a few months there, so I felt like I didn’t have the energy to give as a teacher. I stuck with my massages, for sure, but yoga became about my personal practice and about teaching private yoga classes at SHA Wellness Clinic.

Luckily, I kept my skills fresh teaching yoga at this world-famous wellness hotel. There, I teach yoga, meditation, mindfulness and pranayama (breath work) and I truly love it. They are private classes, and so have a different feel than group classes. Group classes have their own special vibe, and I am so excited to get back to teaching them.

Group yoga classes are social

I once read a very interesting interview with an Indian yoga teacher from a very distinguished lineage. He was giving a seminar in Sweden and the interviewer stole (borrowed?) a few minutes of his time.

When asked about the differences between teaching yoga in India and teaching yoga in the West, he mentioned the predominance of group classes in the West. Traditional Indian teaching would have been one-to-one, guru to student. Outside of India, that tradition has been lost, or substituted. The teacher mentioned that in Western countries, loneliness is a major social and psychological problem and that group yoga classes play an important role in alleviating this loneliness.

Nice people go to yoga class

In yoga classes, we often meet like-minded people and the environment of yoga encourages a deeper kind of sharing and more intimate conversation that might feel out of place on a pub night out, for example.

Alone in company

I have personally experienced the extremely common situation of being really into personal growth whilst in a relationship with someone who is not. That provoked in me the deepest feelings of loneliness as I felt invalidated when trying to talk about issues that really mattered to me. I was lucky that I worked in the field of wellness and preventative medicine and that gave me an outlet. (Nevertheless, when you’re the teacher or therapist, you’re not expected to share so much as the role of the teacher is to hold space for others. But, that conversation is worthy of a whole other post! )

Entrainment

Have you ever seen those videos of metronomes spontaneously synchronising? There is a tendency for energy waves to fall into patterns, and this is observable in many different area. Birds flying in a swirling flock, feedback on a microphone…and humans meditating. Yep, the phenomenon is called “entrainment” and it happens.

Basically, when you do yoga or meditate, you reduce the frequency and amplitude of your brainwaves. SMB (slow-medium Beta) is the frequency associated with meditative movement modalities like yoga, tai chi or chi gong. If you are practising alone, your brainwaves will relax, but if you are with people who are doing the same practice, it seems like everyone’s brainwaves synchronise and you get to the happy place a little more easily. Also, when you are in the presence of the highly trained and experienced teacher, your brainwaves entrain to theirs. Fascinating to think about, no?

Come to class!

I will start by offering one class per week and take it from there. I am super busy, as is everyone, so I want to make this work.

Day: Fridays

Dates: 18-02-2022 until the end of June.

Time: 9.30-10.30

Studio: Qiyoga

Address: Calle la Mar 143, Altea

Price: 30€/month

Orchids, yoga, and lying fallow

About to bud

Fallow land is land that is not planted with crops. It is left to lie uncultivated for a season in order to improve the quality of the soil. In the olden days, before chemical fertilisers forced land into continual productivity, parts of a farm would be left fallow for a short time before being replanted on a rotating basis.

Humans also need to lie fallow. Everything does. Everything needs a reset, and a downtime. Just like choosing not to reply is a form of replying, doing nothing is, in fact, doing something. The symbolism of the yin-yang teaches exactly this: everything has an equal and opposite. All activity requires rest, all restfulness requires its activity. Meditation is a lovely way to fallow from the activity of daily life.

Hibernating

Montreal is known for its vibrant cultural scene and especially its summer festivals. Canadians know this is possible partly because of the government’s massive investment in arts and culture and partly because of freezing Québec winter. Montrealers hibernate so that they can bloom in the long, warm summer days.

When it’s cold, you don’t hang out on café terraces. When it gets dark by 4PM, you tend to snuggle up at home. You lie, as it were, fallow. All that downtime can make for some great art, if you’re that way inclined.

Yoga and meditation invite us to lie fallow. They invite us to stop and observe and be still. They invite us to open up a space into which may arrive…anything. All that downtime can make for some great (re)awakenings, if you’re that way inclined.

Hello, little one!

Orchids

I am a lover of orchids. I am regularly given orchids who are lying fallow. Once the bright blooms wither and die, the plant itself is nothing special. Just a few thick and waxy leaves and some rather strange, grey, worm-like aerial roots. No, like this they are not eye-catching. But, give them some sunlight, a little fertiliser and a few months’ rest and they will reward you with dozens of delicate flowers that can last up to six months.

I grow orchids in my massage room. Orchids seem to thrive in the ambience of a therapy room. The stillness, the quiet, the controlled environment suits them just fine. I have tried growing other green plants – ferns, small palms, devil’s ivy – but with little success. They seem much happier in the upbeat and variable environment of a home. But orchids, conversely, in my home don’t thrive. They survive, they bloom, but they don’t burst forth as they do in my massage room.

Hey buddy!

I like to muse that this is because the massage room is a place where their fallow time is respected. They are just allowed to be, to not be beautiful, to receive no comments, to attract no admiration. They just sit, and wait, and gather strength. Perhaps they are meditating. Perhaps they are astral flying back to the South East Asian jungles from whence their ancestors came. I don’t ask and they don’t tell. I just watch them gather speed and know that, come February, their fallow time will end with a burst of colour, life and manifestation of their innate glory.

New shoot on an old shoot

Sit, be still, breathe

Think of meditation and yoga as the stillness before the flowering. The point of postures and breathing and contemplating is not the acts themselves but what comes after. It is not about how much you bend or how long you breathe, it is about what is created by those acts. The yoga is a vehicle, what comes next it totally unique, it the manifestation of YOU, your true nature.

I often say “I don’t do yoga, yoga does me”. Yoga and meditation have allowed me to see who I truly am and to be who I truly long to be. I was a shy and sensitive child who lived through various traumas which, cumulatively, made be edgy and nervous and hyper-vigilant. I was high-functioning and was no beast, but I consistently found myself acting in ways that I would later regret, making hasty decisions that I would later regret and, most importantly, NOT DOING things that I would later regret not doing. Yoga brought me down to Earth. It grounded me and cuddled me and calmed me and gave me a purpose. Yoga and meditation are unfailingly generous, and they are the best time investment I have ever made. I lay fallow for a long time, I lie fallow on a regular basis. But what came out of all this, the life that I am living right now, is marvellous.

As winter draws in, in the Northern Hemisphere, I encourage you to lie fallow. Take time out and watch the clouds, watch your mind, watch your emotions. Be still, breathe, all is coming.

Yoga and minimalism

When I think of yoga imagery, minimalism the last thing that comes to mind. The Hindu aesthetic is quite clearly maximalist, full of colour, symbolism and detail. This spills over into Western yoga. Yoga leggings, to choose an obvious example, are often brightly coloured and patterned. Many yogis adorn their studio spaces with multi-hued batiks. This is super good, a few years ago I would have done the same. I really like colour. But, there has been an evolution in my consciousness and my yoga teaching and practice. I call it Y O G A | M I N I M A L I S M.

Am I minimalist in my home life?

Yes and no. It has been the work of my lifetime to overcome my hoarding habit. Not only am I born in the Year of the Rat (Rats are considered to be innate hoarders), but both my parents had a marked tendency to save everything for a rainy day. Add to this an exaggerated sense of responsibility for The World (I thought that if I *didn’t* recycle or dispose of ethically I would doom us all!) and some pretty tight years, economically, and you get a person who holds onto to stuff. A big part of my personal (r)evolution was learning to part with things – EVEN if I like them, EVEN if they’re useful.

It was hard at first, but I got the hang of it and now I can confidently say that my possessions do not overwhelm me and are manageable and useful. I had to do the same thing with my yoga. Beginning in 1999, I have practiced yogâsana, and was lucky to find Viniyoga in 2007. Since then, I have worked on focus and exclusivity, and it has brought such an enormous sense of peace and joy – as well as more minimalism. I just do this one thing – Viniyoga and mantra. (My thesis for my first YTT was on mantra and it is core element of my practice). Even so, I do always try to deepen certain poses (the progressive development over time is called “Vinyasa Krama”), and there are still moves that I would love to master. But, that is only desire and I can choose to act on it, or not. For now, I choose to gentle and calm postures, no straining, lots of rest. It works for me and I think that it can work for most practitioners with more than a decades’ practice on their mats.

Y O G A | C O N F U S I O N

Yoga is a bit of a hoarder. It has a lot of facets. You start with postures and suddenly find pranayama. You start with mantra and suddenly find yantra and suddenly you think “I am going to print some t-shirts”. Modern yoga is definitely NOT minimalist. Yoga is full to bursting with ideas, scriptures, imagery, history and options to personalise your practice. It is far too easy to be drawn into ever wider and more disperse circles of yoga.

For example, you begin by studying a 200-hr Sivananda YTT, and after a few months’ teaching, you understand that you need more depth. So you go on a 500-hr Yoga Therapy YTT. This helps, but by going to a different lineage, you find that the same posture is known by different names, depending on whom you study with. You start to investigate and find out that Kundalini yoga doesn’t even use Sanskrit, it uses Gurmukhi. You listen to the Kundalini bhajans and discover that you like chanting. Suddenly you have a white turban and a spiritual name. You get into White Tantra but find the scene a bit way-out. You pull away and suddenly you’re doing Beer Yoga

Sounds funny, right? But it is not that far-fetched. It is modern yoga and it can pull you in all directions, if you’re not careful. Being pulled in all directions is the OPPOSITE of yoga, which, of course, means “to unite”. Yoga is about becoming united in body and mind, united in your path and your purpose and united in your heart and spirit.

Y O G A | M I N I M A L I S M

Minimalism, as applied to yoga, means sticking to one path, and using fewer and fewer props and postures. Yoga, union, is, after all, found in meditation. Meditation does not use anything at all. I have said many a time that meditation is profoundly counter-cultural as the one who meditates consumes nothing at all, hardly even air.

The more I practice and teach, the less I do. And I mean that in the gross, outerworld way. Of course, I try to stay “in yoga” all the time, even when I am out dancing or whatever. But I don’t feel the need to make challenging yoga shapes, post every day to Instagram whilst wearing cool yoga gear or even convince people of the many incredible benefits of yoga. In fact, I have become very minimalist in my approach to yoga.

My list:

  1. If someone hears the call to do yoga, they will. If not, don’t try to convince them.
  2. If a practice accelerates the breath, it may be good and fun, but it goes against yoga. They say you’re born with a certain number of breaths and using them up faster shortens your life. Move and breathe S L O W L Y.
  3. If you can stop, do. If you can just sit and breathe, do it.
  4. Focus on the exhale, not the inhale.
  5. Remember the Yamas ahimsa and santosha. Ahimsa is “no harming”. Don’t hurt yourself. Santosha is “enjoyment”. Make your practice fun and enjoyable.
  6. Gratitude. What a gift is it to practice yoga, to live in a time and a place in which yoga has travelled across the globe and embraced us all. Thank you, Purusha.

To close and honour the ending principle

Hindu philosophy, as applied to yoga, identifies Lord Shiva as the closer of things, the one who lets things end. As I finish this post, I offer my words to this principle. Ending, emptiness, the void – these are all quite frightening to the Western Mind. We see endings as finite, but if you see Life itself as a continuum, as energy gathering, unfolding and dispersing, then endings aren’t so scary. Minimalism in yoga is allowing your âsana practice to draw inwards, to become tighter and smaller and, well, more minimal. Don’t be afraid of letting a sweaty or active practice fade as you age. It may be just what you need. After all, if we don’t open space for the new, how can anything new enter our life?

Yoga Breathing Classes 101

Yogic Breathing is Healthy Breathing

Rachel Rose meditating and practising yoga breathing
Meditation and breathing

I have spent much of the past two years teaching people to breathe. I still teach postures, but pranayama mostly fills my days, now. Sadly, I gave up teaching group yoga classes during, and then after, the pandemic. It was a super hard time. I am glad that all the videos I streamed via my Facebook Page, Alteayoga with Rachel Rose, are still online. They are a poignant reminder of the dark days of the first confinement.

The SHA keeps me super busy, as do my massages.

At time of writing, I am offering Yoga Breathing Classes here in Altea. Please contact me if you would like to know more. Breath is life!

How we Breathe

Don’t forget that I began writing about the mechanics and fine tuning of breathing here in this blog. I called it “How We Breathe“. You might find something interesting there. Go have a look!

Breathe.

Alteayoga is back!

Dear yogis and yogis-to-be – I am back! Soooo happy to report that yoga did not let me go. I had a wobble, I admit, back in June. After lockdown eased and suddenly we were out on the streets again, I didn’t quite know where to situate myself. I had grown quite used to giving class via Facebook Live, every evening at 7. (If you want to check out those classes, pop on over to my YouTube channel and select the Playlist “Yoga for Small Spaces”).

When the new reality hit – the SHA still closed, the place where I had given class a closed space with no room for even four people, the prospect of wearing a mask whilst practising – it seemed insurmountable.

So, I just did my own practice. I kept hitting the mat. I healed a hurt right shoulder (darn dogs pulled me down…again) and I kept posting little reminders (on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter) that it is going to be ok, that yoga has answers for questions that you don’t even know how to formulate, but which are there, bubbling away under the surface. I just….kept practising.

Lo and behold, people starting asking me to teach again. I am not going to pretend that I have LOADS of students. But, the students that I do have are pure love, super cool people, a real “type” of person – creative, independent, a bit wacky. Hey, I guess I resonate with those kinds of people…wonder why?

Well, long story short, I started working at QIYoga here in Altea and the rest, as they say, is history. We had a few sweet months of classes in the centre, and are now practising online. But, we are there, we are checking in, we are a group, a little team of happy yogis and I am so, so, thrilled to be able to teach.

So, yoga, and yoga and more yoga. Oh, and some laughter, good food, good friends, sunshine and all those good time things. Blessings, catch you on the mat.

-RR

Nourish & Feed – Eating 101.

Good nutrition is the basis for everything else. You can never hope to have a stable, strong, pain-free body if you don’t nourish its tissues correctly.

Nutrition is basically applied biochemistry. You have to think of processes when you choose your food. There are some tissues – like those of the central nervous system – that are given priority in the queue. There are some details like having enough Zinc for your digestive enzymes to function. There is connective tissue to consider, collagen both in and under the skin, and also in reticular membranes like those of the kidneys, the lymph nodes and the mitochondria. There is so much to know!

It is not necessary to understand all the biochem in order to make good dietary choices. I identify emotional eating, overuse of sugar, inability to withstand hunger and poor meal timing as the most important things to address, generally. So, here are some of my ideas.

Emotional Eating

Changes in diet are always emotional. Eating patterns are established in early childhood and are often a link to our past. Eating things that both nourish and satisfy us is a tricky path to tread. Sweet taste is associated with the Earth element in energy medicine. The first taste we taste after being born is sweet mothers milk. Holidays are defined often by the sweets that are eaten, so we remember times of connection and rest, and associate those feelings with the eating of sweet foods. The feeling of deprivation when you change your diet is a very tender emotion. That emptiness, hunger for something…very hard to sit through.

Tip for emotional eating: Mindful eating. If you must snack on sweets, savour them, feel whatever poignant or tender feelings you must, enjoy them, but eat little. Do yoga when hungry. Yoga should always be done on an empty stomach, anyway. If you can trigger feelings of pleasure and relaxation whilst hungry, then gradually you will stop getting those pesky negative emotional triggers. Try it and let me know, it is a failsafe tip. Even if it’s five minutes of long slow deep breathing, you will acquire and excellent self-care habit by doing this. (Try the 4-4-4-4 rhythm, counting 1-2-3-4 for each phase of the breath – inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4).

Sugar

The reason we need to reduce our dependence on sweet foods is because they rob the body of resources while giving it almost nothing. It helps, again, to think critically: Digestive enzymes, as I said before, often need the trace mineral Zinc. That means that when they do their enzyme magic (making chemical reactions occur, “catalysing”), our body uses up some of its supply of Zinc. So, if you are going to eat something – anything! – that uses a digestive enzyme, make sure that whatever you’re putting in has the nutritional punch to offset the biochemical work you’re giving it. Am I being clear? You can’t put in “empty” calories, depleted foods, and expect your body to just digest it and not care.

Tip for sugar: Substitute. Gradually wean yourself onto less sweet options. If you (gasp!) drink soda, then I don’t really have advice other than to stop it now. Sorry, I know it’s tough, but soda has no place in a healthy diet. For everything else, it’s using less sweet alternatives – honey, maple syrup, lucuma powder, coconut sugar – and reducing the amounts you use. If you eat out a lot, again, I just have to lay it on you: Unless you are going to a healthy/veg/organic restaurant, your food will be full of bad oils, salt and sugar. So, cook more, or get healthy meals delivered. But yes, sugar reduction is just being strict with yourself. Think of is as the sweetest self-love!!

Hunger

You have to learn to sit with hunger if you are going to find balance. Not only do we all need to stop being hangry, we need to be able to sit without nibbling between meals. Finally, we need to listen to our digestive systems when eating and STOP when we sense satiety. These three things together give us control over our eating because 1) we identify and control our irritability when running low and gradually accumulate personal power over our body’s insistent demands. Not for nothing does yoga advise fasting: fasting cleans the body and strengthens the will. When we stop being hangry, we are using our benevolent will to sit with our emotions. 2) When we stop nibbling between meals, we give the digestive system time to absorb the nutrients in the previous meal, give peristalsis a chance, keep our precious teeth clean, and also get used to a being a little hungry, which helps the whole hangry thing. 3) Satiety, or knowing when you’re full, is a beautiful and subtle feeling. It is wonderful to feel satisfied without being overstuffed.

Tips for hunger:

Drink yerba mate or green tea, without sugar. Both help keep hunger at bay and have interesting compounds in them. Mate seems more about fat burning while green tea is accepted to help prevent cancer. Both are bitter, a great thing for your gall bladder and small intestine.

When you eat meals, don’t put too much food on your plate. Eat mindfully, chewing properly and stop when you’re full. It is normal to want to finish your portion and wasting food is a sin, so avoid loading up then ploughing through. When you feel satiated, STOP eating! Just stop. Wait five minutes. Maybe you’ll want a little more, but usually not.

Timing

My Nutrition Professor used to say that the best general dietary advice is a “mostly vegan diet with a bit of fish“. This is great advice, memorise it. Not eliminating entire foods groups, but reducing your intake. Vegan and vegetarian junk food is available, but there is a better chance of getting your five-a-day-or-more if you choose plant based foods. Fish has some important stuff in it that our bodies seem to like. Fisheries are mostly unsustainable, so try to eat locally and low on the fish food chain, ok?

Another excellent tip is this: Protein for breakfast, a proper lunch, vegetable soup for supper. Time your feeds, get into a rhythm, it is really comforting.

Proteinacious breakfasts – I love hemp powder, peanut butter, bee pollen, eggs – get you out of the metabolic Nitrogen fast (you can recycle Nitrogen for about 8 hours, but after that, the body steals it from lean muscle by breaking down the amino acids for the Nitrogen). So, start your day with protein and sail through the morning!

A proper lunch, starting with salad and finishing with dessert if you’re so inclined, satisfies your need for yumminess, means you can eat with friends (often tricky for the healthy eater) and is the meal that you’re best equipped to digest properly. This should see you through to evening, when you can get into the habit of having a healthy vegetable soup, then see if you’re still hungry. I love vegetable barley soup with lots of ginger and tumeric. In fact, here is my here is my recipe. I will leave you with that, good health and good day.

Rachel

Vegetable Barley Soup

Ingredients: 1 small onion, 2cm-piece of ginger root, 1 stick of celery, 2 carrots, 2 tomatoes, 2 big kale leaves, 1 teacup of pearl barley, tumeric, cumin powder, paprika, bay leaves, sprig of rosemary, butter or oil, hot water, sea salt.

Method: Wash barley and set aside. Sautée finely diced onion and ginger in butter or olive oil. Splash in some white wine, if you’re so inclined. Add chopped celery, carrot, tomatoes and kale stalks. Sautée on medium heat, don’t let it get too dry. As it dries up and the temperature rises, move the veg to the edge of the pot and add dry spices to the middle. Let them get nice and hot, until they release their fragrance. Then stir the veg into the spice. Add the barley and hot water and rosemary and bay leaf. Cover and let it get back up to temperature. Stir a little, but just make sure there’s enough water so it doesn’t get dry. The barley will absorb water, but the veg will release some. Cook about 20-30 minutes, until the barley is soft and the mixture thickens. Add the salt and stir well. Add the chiffonade kale leaves. Remove from heat and let stand about twenty minutes. Delicious!

Yoadict – leg movements

In installment 2 of my Spanish-English Yoga dictionary, I am going to look at the legs. Check back to installment 1 for arm movements.

  • Feet together = piés juntos
  • Feet slightly apart = piés ligeramente separados
  • Bend your knees = doblar ó flexionar las rodillas
  • Lift your heels = levantar los talones
  • Stand on your toes = Ponte de puntillas
  • Stand on one leg = apoyate sobre una pierna
  • Lift your leg = levanta la pierna

That’s it for now. Hope that helps!

Therapists

I was musing, today, on the difference(s) between doctors and therapists. One of the most rewarding things about working at SHA Wellness is the amazing colleagues I interact with on a daily basis. Once you listen to a therapist and ask “how did you get here?”, you get the most beautiful stories of redemption.

Many patients arrive at therapy after a long trail through the halls of medical science. Many, many people finally find holistic therapy only once they have exhausted all other avenues. It is that state of knowing “something” is wrong, but no one seems able to tell them what. All tests come back ok, but the pain continues. The frustration is palpable, you see their shoulders loaded with tension, their short breath, their exhaustion. You long to tell them that it will be ok, that there is a way out. You do it, you reassure them, you hold space for them, then you listen. You listen so intently, so fixedly, that they feel like they have finally been heard, and the healing journey begins.

Why are therapists able to listen, to hold space for another person in pain? Because most of us have been there. That is the difference between therapists and doctors.

Think about the profile of each group. Doctors are usually high achievers who find their way to medical science because they are intellectually bright, or because they have a doctor in the family, or because they have money. A small percentage arrive at medical studies late, or as a second degree, or because they have hit rock bottom and climbed their way out.

Therapists, on the other hand, are usually people who have chosen their path after healing themselves. Therapists have often overcome pain, digestive problems, mental illness or spiritual angst. Therapists are often second-careerists. I know therapists who have been entrepreneurs, artists, information scientists, athletes. All share a common trait: they have overcome. They have pushed through. They have sought the light. And now, they are earning a meager living transmitting this knowledge to you.

The open secret in the yoga and therapy world is that most of us were fucked at one time or another. Most of us were fucked for a very long time. But, we pulled through, healed, and came back to help other people know that they, too, can heal.

That is the difference between a doctor and a therapist. I am not saying that doctors haven’t struggled. Not at all. But almost all therapists have struggled and almost all of us have overcome.

Sometimes, I wish I could tell you my story. But, I am too busy listening to you. I wish you well, I wish you health, I wish you healing. Got to that doctor for the tests, but trust your therapist for all that cannot be quantified, scanned or computed. There is more to all this than medical science can diagnose . The Russian word for “spiritual angst” is “Tocka”. English lacks such a word, but the concept is there.

Om, love is all around, it is an inexhaustible force and as strong as nuclear force. Om namo namaste namaha.

Yogadict: arm movements

I am inspired to help out my fellow teachers with a simple English->Spanish yoga dictionary. Here in Altea, many languages are spoken and it helps if you can communicate in more than one. So, here goes with installment 1:

  • Arms in a “T” = brazos en cruz (this is “arms in a cross”)
  • Cross your arms = cruzar los brazos
  • Raise your arms = levantar brazos
  • Arms behind your head = brazos detrás de la cabeza
  • Hands on your hips = manos en “jarra” (this is “arms like a jar”)
  • Turn your palms up = palmas arriba
  • Bend your arms = doblar los codos (bend the elbows)

There is plenty more, but that will get you started. Namaste.