COURTNEY ROHAN YOGA

Recently I have been teaching my students about the space in between. In the middle of your arm: an elbow. In the middle of your leg: a knee. We’ve been focusing on the upper body to divide and conquer this vast idea. To take a look at the space in between, we’ve focused our attention on how we are moved by that which can not be seen. How like marionette dolls, we are the master’s puppet. This is a good thing, to be driven by the One. The best of who we are and have to offer is with That. One way to acknowledge this is by looking at one muscle often overlooked, but that has great effect. Like the serratus anterior muscle, the finger-like muscle that lays atop the ribs, Source helps us lengthen the spine, the breath, and our arms above our head. The serratus anterior originates on the surface of the 1st to the 8th rib and inserts into the medial border of the scapula. If your serratus anterior is weak, an indication of this is when your scapula wing off your back, such as when you l

Growing up, there was an awesome girl group called TLC. They sung about the climate of our culture, things that might have been in the minds of young adults during the 90’s, like using condoms, cheating, and the value of good friends. “What About Your Friends” was one of my favorite songs. The chorus running: “What about your friends, will they stand their ground, will they let you down again? What about your friends, are they going to be low down, will they ever be around, or will they turn their backs on you?” At the time, I was just singing a song, but as an adult, I realize how important having answers to these questions about your friends really is. Are your friends going to be consistent and stand their ground for themselves and for you? Are your friends going to let you down or intentionally try to hurt you? Do your friends talk behind your back or do mean things to you, covertly? Will they be around through your tough times or will they leave you when your feelings become

We all have desires. We have cravings too, those excessive feelings of need that make you run for a fix, or maybe not so hastily, quickly walk, toward a filler. Everyone at one time or another desires something. Over time if we feed this need, we create, in our minds, the want for more. It is not wrong to want things. If wanting to do something positive, that places you in the center of yourself, overcomes you, and makes you run to it, do it! Do it often! It is those things that move us away from our center, that I’d like to take my scope to here. In an awesome TEDx, Emotional Mastery: The Gifted Wisdom of Unpleasant Feelings , Dr. Joan Rosenberg encourages the audience to feel their cravings (unpleasant feelings) for the huge length of 60-90 seconds, which is how long feelings typically remain before passing on. I am exaggerating here with the word “huge”. As she mentions, you can withstand 60-90 seconds of most things, even the big monster feelings. So, why do we continue to do the

It is so nice to look forward to things. A plan to do something that comes to fruition is encouraging. Depending on what you’ve accomplished, the residual feeling can encourage further blessings, further ideas, and any assortment of high-vibe feelings. When I don’t feel this feeling of accomplishment, whether big or small, which happens from time to time, I think about what I have to look forward to. If I haven’t planned a trip in a while or cleaned my closet, for instance, than I do so. The accomplishment does not have to be big to remind you that you can have a big experience. You can enjoy your life, clean and clear. The price, as I believe, has been paid. Creating a space for more to happen, for blessings to abound and flow through, means letting go. Getting caught up in the day to day mundanity or overwhelm is enough to make one go screaming for the hills. Letting go is the way to see, open to, and feel the fun of life. You can do this by setting simple things into motion wi

We have many layers to our lives in the body. We have skin, facia, tissue, muscles, bones, organs, networks, systems, channels, physical and subtle levels too. We have sides, front and back, left and right. We are round and dense in places and yet light. Always pulsing and changing, dropping and picking up. Becoming. We are energy, possess energy and live due to the amount of energy we can kindle. How can we be doing all of this at once? For most of this occurs without our thought. When it does become a thought of what we should do next, what is it that has transpired? So much happens without our direct attention or control, until it doesn't. We can do something when our layers “break down.”  There is hope in every situation. But I know, that thought is not always easy to find, and often when we think it, it can be maddening, if we are not in the right heart/head space. If we can bring the right and the left together for clarity, we can follow the intuitive bread crumbs to th

Before you read anymore, I have a couple questions to ask you.  1. Do you feel like you are always moving and doing and never fully resting and relaxing? 2. Do you feel like you don't have enough time? Are you more often than not running late or running out of time? The culture that we are within is one of many go getters. We live in a nonstop culture, which tells us: "go get" or "have not." It's no wonder, for centuries masculine energy of fast and furious has been the guide to "success." The people who appear successful are the ones who go after the cookie and get the job done, right? However, many of these same people get the cookie and before they can enjoy it, crash and burn, fast and furiously. Having worked so hard to get what they've fought for, they've train themselves to keep going even when the cookie is in their possession. This is the rat race. "After THIS, then I'll eat the cookie," they say. They could sit down

This past week I have been talking to my students about the importance of opening your heart before you give unto others. If we give from a stagnant or restrained heart, we offer from a place of expectation and obligationWe give things we do not really intend to give. From there, we expect things back, give because we feel that we should, and breed resentment. I've been teaching, on the other hand, that when the heart is open and receptive, we receive abundantly and can give from that abundance. On the mat this can translate to the placement of our arms, and thus our hands, in relation to our hearts. If you reach into places where the heart is not ready to go, this can cause pain or discomfort. We lose the connection with our breath and our awareness. Tikonasan (variation) More specifically in a heart opening posture, like Trikonasan (triangle pose), we can reach forward as we hinge at the hips and reach down for the shin, block or floor. We can extend the top arm, and at t