Isha

02/21/2026

I'm not sure who needs to hear this.

Maybe you already know this for yourself.

Reverence.
A word and an attitude that feel like the medicine I need these days.

Its what works for my heart, and keeps my focus above the choppy waters of the mind.

What about for yours?

🕉 🕉 🕉

02/03/2026

I've had my nose stuck in books studying for exams recently and was reminded of this study from 1957 by Stanley Milgram.

Go ahead and look it up. Its not perfect by any means and is no longer replicable for ethical reasons (imagine the distress of the participants, even after being debriefed!). In the aftermath of WWII social psychologists and others wanted to better understand how the atrocities of the Third Reich actually could have happened.

The results are humbling and sobering.

Its easy to say "I would/could never ".
Theory is often easier and more clear than actual practice.

Yogic practice asks us to look at ourselves more closely...as we are, and not as we wish to perceive ourselves. And to look without guilt or shame. And then to strengthen the positive qualities that we have and EXPRESS and SHARE those with the world at large.

At least this is what I have understood from my teacher's teachings....

May we all have the faith, strength of character and community to walk the dharmic path.

scienceandspirit

11/05/2025

Maintaining a yogic practice, or any discipline, is perhaps the hardest part of it all.
Its the one issue that almost everyone faces at some point or another.

If you've lost your practice, start again...and start small.
Keep it simple.

Noticing the breath is one of the more accessible practices to do.

When you wake up, or before you go to bed, check in with your breath. Notice it. Watch it. Be with it for a few rounds.

And then go back to whatever you were doing.

The point is to break the pattern of automatic functioning. Of non-awareness.

Its the little pockets of pause that open the space for more.

So...start small.
Keep it simple.

For those of you who have a short simple practice you like to do, comment below.
It may be just the inspiration someone else needs today.

05/04/2025

May is all about Boundaries & Balance!

Boundaries are not static but rather dynamic and moving forces that change with us as we grow and evolve through life experiences.

In both of these workshops, we draw upon Integral Yoga , Somatic Experiencing, Eastern wisdom traditions as well as Western psychological frameworks to explore ways to identify our boundaries and embody them with integrity and clarity.

In 20 years of therapeutic work, I can say that boundaries are an issue that arise 99% of the time...

Imbalanced boundaries show up as
✨️ suppressed anger (and physical imbalances related to this)
✨️ difficulty in saying "no"
✨️Overextending, over giving, exhaustion
✨️Feeling resentful
✨️Passive aggressive behavior
✨️Isolation
✨️ confusion

🪷 Saturday, May 17
A Boundaries & Balance Workshop for Women
1pm-4pm
@ Belfast Dance Studio, Belfast, Maine
Live, in person

🌺 Sunday, May 18
Online, live (Zoom)
10am-12pm US ET

For more info & to register, go to the link in the bio!

My dear friend and colleague Lisa LaDue and I will co-facilitate these 2 workshops. Lisa is a wise elder, a fellow SEP and a clinical social worker specializing in mass fatality and disasters. She is a powerhouse of a woman with decades of experience and a wonderful sense of humor.

Save the date, sign up, and share with others.

We look forward to seeing you there.

03/24/2025

We started class this weekend.

Finding The Steadiness Within 🪷

A beautiful group of people from different corners of the US and Europe. Agyananda, my co-facilitator 🐕, helpful as ever. 😉

We started at the beginning....slowly exploring steadiness and how to work with the wobbles within us and around us.

We talked about how the body can be an anchor for mooring us in times of emotional and mental choppy waters. We spoke of emotions, connections and of our safe places where we go to restore and find support...

Together, in right connection, in joy and celebration of life, we heal.

03/14/2025

Practical
Interactive
Fun
Empowering

Finding or reintroducing yourself to steadiness is a multi-layered process.

Join in to learn how your body, breath and awareness can be your greatest allies. Use simple creative expression tools to move beyond the busy chattering mind to access the knowing within.

I'm excited about this series and can't wait to meet you in the classroom online.

Click on the link in the bio or DM me for details.

See you in class!

03/11/2025

An inspiring teacher and topic.

It's often thought that Yoga is something that is simply done on a mat--moving the body and/shifting the breath.

But yoga, as a body of wisdom and science of living, is much much more. Its practices and insights do indeed help us evolve on an individual level; they also help us understand and find our place in the larger whole, including the living-breathing-pulsating planet that hosts us.

Free, inspiring, uplifting. Share freely and click to join.

🙏 Have you registered? We are delighted that Swami Prembhava Saraswati will be the guest for March’s Community Satsang.

In Yoga Ecology we explore yogic lifestyle and routines, yogic attitudes, as well as practices and rituals that help us to reconnect to all aspects and elements of Mother Nature. Through this renewed connection, we live with awareness and the understanding that we are not separate from nature; we are nature.

During her 75 minute satsang Swami Prembhava will discuss the concept that the world around us is a reflection of our internal world and how every small positive action and connection we make influences both our internal and external world.

Along with a presentation, this satsang includes mantra, a short meditation and time for participants to ask questions and constructively share their own strengths/weaknesses as they pertain to living yoga .

Walk away from this satsang with the inspiration and insight to sustain a more positive expression in the world around you.

We look forward to gathering with you, to register for March’s Satsang with Swami Prembhava Saraswati please use the link below. 👇

https://www.yogaacademyna.org/upcoming/monthly-satsang-4sjx6-35fpe-jf2p6

📩 Have a discussion topic or something you'd like to share? Email us at info@yogaacademyna.org.

📅 Sunday, March 16, 2025
🕕 6:00–7:15 PM EST
📍 Online, donations welcome.

02/26/2025

Today marks Maha Shivaratri, or the great night of Shiva. In yogic culture, this is recognized as a time when the higher Consciousness descends to a leve at which we can experience it more easily.

It is a time to be still, to let go of what has been and open ourselves to what is on the horizon.

As I joined my sangha in chanting mantra today, I was reminded that the qualities of Shiva we invoke are all within us: wisdom, stillness, clear sight, and right understanding. Shiva lies in and through us. Our task is to make ourselves a vessel that expresses that energy.

If ever we wondered what we can do in the midst of chaos and confusion, it is perhaps to "do the work" and clear enough of our inner dust away to be expressions of decency, non judgement and goodness.

Jai Mahadev.

02/21/2025

Body Wisdom & Free Event - https://mailchi.mp/isha-institute/feb_2025

01/01/2025

Wishing you all a beautiful and blessed 2025🌺

The last few months of 2024 were "quiet" for me; spent in my homes of India and Nepal, mostly offline, while I reconnected to my sources of inspiration and support.

It was a much needed break after the first 2/3s of 2024, which felt like a 400m hurdle race I hadn't been told I had signed up for (and hadn't exactly trained for!).

But with that 400m race came important realizations, redirection, growth, clarity, and new connections.

Some highlights of 2024 were:

- assisting with the first Somatic Experiencing training in Nepal 🇳🇵 and witnessing (again and again) the power of SE to transform lives ( 1 year down, 2 more to go!)

- co-teaching a Yoga & Trauma workshop in the UK with a truly inspiring group of participants , thanks to the small but mighty grassroots organisation, Tools for Inner Peace. I'm forever in awe of the power of yoga to transform and of our resilience as human beings.

- time spent near the ocean and the forest on the coast of Maine

- travel....travel....travel 😇

- walks & cuddles with my 12 yo dog Agya

- time and meaningful connection with family and friends 🧡

- turning 50 🥰.... and recognizing that I now am, and am ever becoming, the woman I had always dreamed of being when I was younger 💛

Thank you all for being here and for connecting in the spirit of support, positivity, and kindness on this platform.

May the year ahead bring you good health and abiding joy.



#2025

10/04/2024

Today is the first day of Navaratri--the 9 nights dedicated to the Divine Feminine in yogic culture.

This period is a time of retreat, re-evaluation, cleansing and spiritual practice. It happens twice a year near the equinoxes.

Why turn to the Divine Feminine?

Simply put, because She is Maa, our Mother. She is the Source of Life & Wisdom. She has birthed us and all of creation.

Our spiritual teachers remind us to turn to Her with humility, honesty & reverence, for She is the breath we breathe, the food we eat and the Love we give and receive. She is our safe harbour. We can turn to Her in any state--beautifully put together or in tatters. She will never turn us away.

There is nothing She has not seen, nothing She does not understand and nothing She cannot forgive.

Call out Her name as you know Her. Durga, Kali, Maa, Mary, Shekinah...She's bound to come:)

Jai Maa!
Happy Navaratri.

09/27/2024

I was posting about how to relax the mind....and before I could post anything else, I was here, in India, on my way to the place that has been my piritual home for the past 22 years.

These pilgrimages "home" are the times when my mind (heart and body) does relax. Deeply. No phone, no computer, no internet. A digital and sensory detox.

This sensory retreat is one way yoga advises to relax the mind: to stop feeding it 24/7 with stimuli and have it be constantly externalized.

Withdraw within, it advises. Rest in the stillness of your be-ing.✨️

I'll be honest. Going on retreat is not always a walk in the park. The process opens doors we might not otherwise access; doors behind which old mental gunk is stored. We get to see the gunk, acknowledge it, and clear it out. But along with that, always come blessings and true joy, just waiting to be received.

So here is to all of us, as each of us, in our own way, is trying to figure out what it is to be human. Here's is to our collective efforts to heal, grow and uplift one another. From my heart to yours, 🙏 namaste.

Wishing you all a beautiful and blessed Navaratri, Diwali and Tihar.

Hari om
Namo narayan
Jai ho
🙏🙏🙏