pc: Michelle Rodriguez
Lately I have been asking myself, what does it mean to be an agent of change? How can I be in service of awakening without imposing my will on others? How can I facilitate growth on an individual, community and even planetary level without being forceful or aggressive in any way? I don't think the answer will surprise you. I can only provide effective and meaningful service to others if I am meeting them from a place of being deeply rooted in my own sense of love and worth.
Being an agent of change is a natural outgrowth of a self-love practice. I practice to not only feel love for myself, but to be available to others in a sincere and unadulterated way. It's a different way of saying, "Be the change you want to see in the world." -Gandhi. If I want to see and spread compassion, I must meet myself with compassion first. If I want to see and spread awakening, I must first be awake. I must recognize and transform my limitations and life-damaging patterns. I must do the work to heal myself. And I must also recognize that not everyone is interested in or ready for the kind of change that I am interested in or ready for. Radical transformation is not an easy breezy thing. It is a great deal of work and can be extremely challenging, but the rewards are profound. So I rededicate myself to my own self-love practice so that I can offer meaningful service to others, so that I can be an agent of change, so that I can see a world that is full of compassion and love. I invite you to step into your own practice at whatever level you are ready to step in. Maybe just dipping your toe. Maybe just a simple grounding and breathing practice for a few minutes each day. Maybe something more. You decide. We'll be here to support you. You'll find our most current offerings below to serve you in your process. Weekly yoga classes with Erin: in person or virtual More Love: A virtual self-love retreat Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below.
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pc: Jude Beck, Unsplash
This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to have a very honest conversation with a woman in class. We were discussing our emotional and spiritual well-being during this crazy time. Inspired by her willingness to be vulnerable, I found myself freely sharing with this woman that I have been experiencing a deep sense of loneliness lately. What suprised me most was not that I had shared something that I normally keep to myself out of shame, it was that I wasn't really bothered by the loneliness.
Later that day, as I was thinking about what I had shared, I realized that I was experiencing an unexpected side effect of a self-love practice. It's not that all the difficult emotions and sensations have disappeared, it's that they don't feel as all-encompassing anymore. They're not as scary. They don't take over. I can relate to them with more grace and ease. And I don't have to try to make them go away or pretend like they're not there. I don't have to be ashamed of feeling less than ok sometimes. Loving myself allows me to have a full human experience without shame, without hiding, without embarassment. This felt like such a huge breakthrough to me. And such a relief. I can feel deeply lonely and still be ok. I hope you find that, more and more, as you engage with the Love Body Method of practicing self-love, that you are able to be with the not okayness and still feel ok. We're here to support you in that and we're here to offer practical tools to move you in that direction. Not sure where to start? Try a yoga class (click for schedule). Or check out some of our other blog posts, many of which contain simple practices that you can do today. Start small. Stay engaged. Stay with yourself. Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below. 
pc: Molly Belle, Unsplash
Do you ever feel shrouded in the darkness of self-criticism and unworthiness? You are not alone. Most of the women we speak with, feel that in one way or another, they don't measure up, they're not good enough, they're not doing enough, they're somehow missing something fundamental. And they're really really hard on themselves.
How do you tackle such a huge, root-level issue? How can you even begin to feel a sense of "enoughness"? Tara recently brought this new study to my attention. It's research on the benefits of yoga. The researchers were looking at yoga as a possible treatment for eating disorders, and they not only discovered that participants in an 8-week yoga program, compared to a control group, experienced a decrease in frequency of binge eating, they also experienced a decrease in emotion regulation difficulties and self-criticism and an increase in self-compassion and mindfulness (1). As one of my teachers used to say, "This yoga shit works." It's true. And it's readily available, both in person and online. You are of course always welcome to join me for class, but I encourage you to explore all of the options available to you. Yoga International has a free 30-day trial for online classes. And there's so much more. It doesn't have to be a super intense, sweaty practice, but it can be. It doesn't have to be every, single day, but it can be. Start somewhere and watch yourself change. Here's a free 20-minute floor practice. Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below. 1) Margaret A. Brennan, William J. Whelton & Donald Sharpe (2020) Benefits of yoga in the treatment of eating disorders: Results of a randomized controlled trial, Eating Disorders, DOI: 10.1080/10640266.2020.1731921 
pc: Chelsea Shapouri, Unsplash
Looking for a way to show yourself some love? Try this beautiful self-care ritual that can be done in as little as 5 or 10 minutes. Abhyanga is a practice of self oil massage that comes from the Ayurveda tradition. It is one of my favorite ways to decompress in the evening. Grab some oil. Sesame is what is traditionally used, but olive, coconut or jojoba will also work. Heat the oil by placing the container in a hot water bath. I usually squeeze a few tablespoons of sesame oil into a small glass bottle and then place the bottle in a mug of hot water for a few minutes.
Pour some oil in your hand or use a dropper to squeeze some oil into your hand. Start by lovingly rubbing some oil on your lower back, then move out to the hips. Continue with legs and feet. Move on to the belly, back, chest and arms. And finally the neck and scalp. Take your time. It's not something to just get done, but something to enjoy and relish in. Move your hands in long, smooth sweeping motions towards the heart on arms and legs or gentle circles on hips, back, belly and chest. Breathe. Luxuriate in the gentle touch of your own hands as you nourish yourself on a variety of levels. Engage in this ritual of self-love daily or even once per week as a special treat. Benefits of Abhyanga:
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What do you really want? For what does your soul cry out? What is the big, gaping hole in your life, that, if filled, will bring more light and love to everything you do? I can't answer this for you, but I can help guide you to your root desire.
Last week, I took every single yoga mat availble to me and laid them out on the studio floor to see how many folks we could comfortablly fit in the space for a yoga practice. The answer: 18*. In Hebrew, the word for 18 (chai) is the same as the word for "life". It's a lucky number. Having or giving 18 of something, is having or giving the gift of life. I stood alone amongst the 18 mats in tree pose and envisioned the room full of folks engaged in a beautiful, safe, fun, awakening practice. Why did I perform this mat experiment? What was I looking for? What was I desiring? At the surface, you might say I just wanted my classes to be more full so that I could grow my business, the studio's business, make more money, serve more people, have more fun. The real answer: connection. Deep down, there is an urgent desire to form meaningful connections with groups of people who are interested in being awake. Groups, circles, gatherings, community, closeness. Not surprisingly, this is the exact opposite of quarantine circumstances. And it's what I want more than anything. Real connection with other humans. When I think about all the things I imagine that I want throughout the day, the underlying desire is always connection. When I dive below the surface wants, the surface struggles and anxiety, the answer is always connection. And so this is where I am placing my attention, intention and energy. Connection. Love Body is about creating safe and meaningful connections amongst groups of women as we work together to cultivate more self-love, and, ultimately, more love and respect for everyone around us. Together. So now it's your turn? What is the undercurrent driving all of your surface desires? What do you really want? Freedom, love, support, joy, connection, peace, relief, stability? Freedom from negative self-talk? Love for yourself and others? Support in your day-to-day work, challenges and emotional ups and downs, joyful embodiment, meaningful connection to others, peace and acceptance in who and how you are, relief in knowing that you're normal, that you're not alone? Whatever it is, what you want is ok. And we are here to support you in moving towards that, step-by-step, every, single day. We are all about the big, root desires, the real needs, the stuff your entire being is yearning, craving, pining, aching for. Our entire method is in support of that. And our entire method starts with a simple breath. That breath brings you back to yourself, to your body, to your heart's desire, to the throb of life, the most basic and fundamental motivation for living. Pause. Take a breath. Feel your body. Be with yourself. And there is so much more. Perhaps take a moment today to explore your root desire. Write it down. Share it with someone. Share it with us if you'd like. We're here for you. *during social distancing, the capacity is 6 in the studio Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below. 
Everything Ends
All things follow a cycle: creation, maintenance and dissolution. Nothing is exempt from ending. Everything ends. When we allow ourselves to honor this phase of the cycle, we free ourselves from the burden and impossibility of attempting to control everything, and we open the doorway to newness. We allow our lives to evolve, improve, refine and expand. When we deny destruction as a necessary phase of life, we are saying no to change and growth and possibility. But letting go isn't easy. We hold fast to the things that we imagine to be essential, that we cling to for comfort, that we think will make us happy.
So many women that we talk to say things like, "I want to go back to how I looked 5 (or 10 or 20) years ago. I want my body and my life to be how it was before." But we can never go back. And thank goodness. If we are constantly trying to go back, we can never really appreciate or enjoy our current circumstances, and we can never welcome improved or simply different versions of ourselves. We can never fully love ourselves. When we cling to an image of our past selves, thinking a return to that way of being/looking will make us happy, we immediately limit our capacity for happiness, not to mention our capacity for presence and our openness to new possibilities. We are saying no to the natural cycle of all things. We are resisting life. I created the art piece pictured above prior to joining on with Tara for Love Body. It was something I envisioned as a symbol for my business. I jokingly called it "The Center for Circular Living and Comfort with Uncertainty" or CCCU for short. I intended to help women embrace and navigate the natural cyclical nature of life and all of the uncertainty that arises within that. And in a way, that's what we're doing. No one knows what the future holds; but, we do know what is holding us back. And we can courageously release those things and allow the dissolution phase of life to do its natural work. We're here to help you with that process. Whether or not you can join us for More Love: The Yoga of Letting Go, we are here to support you in your beautiful and ongoing circle of creation, maintenance and dissolution. Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below. 
Hidden amongst the pages of a mediocre murder mystery that I downloaded onto my kindle for free was this gem of a phrase: "You have to make yourself whole. No one else can." This is Love Body. We don't need anyone else to tell us that we're ok. We don't need anyone else to tell us that we're enough. No one else can give us the experience of loving ourselves; we must return to it on our own. Even if our loved ones tell us over and over that we are good/beautiful/loved, it's not the same as actually feeling it. Even knowing it is not the same as feeling it. We can know it intellectually, but if it hasn't become integrated into our being, it's as if it's not true.
How do we go about returning to wholeness? It's not as if we were ever un-whole, we just got pulled out of the experience of wholeness. We carry so many false beliefs about ourselves and our bodies around with us every day. We have so many narratives about our worth and our capabilities and our lives and our identities that run through our minds over and over. How do we start to unwrite, unravel, unbelieve? Try this simple exercise: Throughout the day, notice all of the negative things that you say about yourself and actually write them down. It might be a bit shocking and sad, but write them all down. At the end of the day, go through each one and ask yourself, "Do I actually believe this about myself? Is this true?" You can erase and cross out things that are simply untrue, a first step in letting go. Then, next to or under each one, write down a compassionate statement, a little bit of kindness and understanding and acceptance of yourself. Real example from my life: "I'm a shitty person because I didn't get enough done today. I'm wasting my whole life." Do I believe this? No. Next to it, I write. I'm struggling with being super productive for a variety of reasons, including global pandemic and what I did today is enough. And the amount I produce has nothing to do with my worth as a human. Everyone struggles. Everyone's worth is inherent. This is just a start. To fully release the beliefs that leave us feeling less than whole and to restore our sense of fullness and enoughness, we have to take it into the body. We must embody the release, acceptance, intergration and wholeness. That's what we'll be doing next week. I hope you can join us for More Love: The Yoga of Letting Go. We'll keep sending little bits like this to support your journey of restoring wholeness. Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below. 
Looking ahead also means letting go...
For the last several days, I've been having visions about the future of Love Body, imagining new ways that we can effectively and authentically support you in finding more love for yourself, your body, and the people and world around you, and to enjoy all of those things to their full capacity. As always, transformation, change and moving forward also means letting go. And it's time to do just that.
Each one of us has our own blockages, barriers and binds. Each one of us is "addicted" to a certain way of being. Each one of us has things that we do that once served or comforted us in some way, but now those things are either completely unnecessary or they are straight up holding us back. It took me years to realize that I was actually addicted to suffering, that it was comfortable and familiar to me, and that happiness and success was the thing that was actually frightening me. When I allowed myself to release suffering as a way of being, I could embrace my fear of success and move forward. I bet at least one or two things came to mind when you read the subject line, "what is holding you back?". And I'm willing to bet, with some honest investigation and self-reflection, you may discover one or two more. But what do you do with all of that? That's where we come in. Letting go is a process. Moving forward with more love is a process. And we developed a beautiful practice for assisting you with those processes. Please consider joining us for More Love: The Yoga of Letting Go. And if you can't join us this time, no worries. We will continue to be here for you each week, and we will definitely invite you to join us for our newly visioned offerings as they coalesce. Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below. 
Set yourself free. This is the tagline for Love Body. What are you freeing yourself from? Anything that is blocking you from experiencing your deep and endless capacity for love, love for yourself and love for others. Blocks and barriers come in a variety of forms: negative self-talk, negative body-image, perfectionism, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of not being enough. Sometimes it's a single experience or interaction with someone else that we can't seem to let go of, something that we've allowed to define us, our value, our worth.
The truth is, we are always free, no matter what our external circumstances may be. But that doesn't mean we can feel it, live it, experience it. We have to do the work to clear the blockages and barriers. We have to allow the process of letting go to happen. But it is work and it is a process. It's not just something you say and poof, it magically happens. We're here to support you in the process of letting go, which inevitably involves acceptance and integration. We are offering a beautiful, physical practice to help facilitate these processes and it's happening in just a few weeks. Please consider joining us for More Love: The Yoga of Letting Go. Here's a sneak peek at one of the practices: 
This is granthi mudra. The Sanskrit word granthi means knot or doubt or an especially difficult knot to untie. Place your hands in this mudra and set them on an area of your body that feels like it has a blockage, maybe your throat if you feel a barrier in speaking your truth, maybe your heart if you feel there is a wall around it. Place your hands there, take a few breaths and imagine the internal stuckness, the internal knot starting to slowly unravel, allowing more light to flow through you.
We're here to guide you on your journey of love, in meeting each day with freshness and allowing life to carry you to a new and beautiful place. Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below. 
Today was the first day back to teaching in person. Sun was streaming in through the studio's huge windows and Katie, my student pictured above, was literally glowing. It was a beautiful class, and so wonderful to see real humans practicing together, on mats six feet apart of course.
This morning was a good morning, but the past few days have been rough. When I find myself in a rough spot, I check in with the three things that make up my personal manifesto: 1) Eat Real Food 2) Move Your Body 3) Connect with Source When I'm feeling off, one of these three things is invariably missing. I pick it back up and things start to get better. These are three simple ways to show yourself love every, single day. Tara posts a "Try it Tuesday" on facebook every week with fun, real foods to explore and experiment with. You can move your body in a million different ways, and you're always welcome to move with me in a yoga class at Table Health (or virtually if you're still wary about in-person stuff; we're offering both options for each class). And you can connect with source in any way that touches your soul: a walk in nature, praying, free meditation with me on Wednesdays at 10am. Show yourself love every day, especially when things feel off, especially when there is so much non-love happening in the world. Love is always available. We just have to choose to open to it. Like what you see? Subscribe to free Weekly Wisdom Updates below. |
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