COURTNEY ROHAN YOGA

I have not wanted to blog recently. My thoughts wavering, rocking, overflowing into new things that I don’t always understand. It wouldn’t make much sense. Maybe I’m not making sense now. I am awakening to a new way of being. Compassion, I give to myself, as we all should. Empathy, I give to you. I speak for myself as well as those who I know experiencing the same. It is awkward. A play between poles to try to find balance, to find truth and make sense to others when you don’t make sense to yourself is definitely awkward. Over the last couple months, I have been able to muster a tweet or two. Maybe three tweets and a post on some other form of social media. These brief online interactions remind me that I have something to say that we (me, first) need to hear. This process of awakening and then awakening again is yoga and not for anyone to resist. The river current can not be shut off. So, we owe it to ourselves to show up.  I’ve decided to write again, to spend my time

Yesterday, after returning from a two week vacation to South Carolina, I taught my first ever class inspired by the loss of my luggage. When the airline (Frontier) makes you pay for all your luggage, checked and carry on, one expects that it will not be lost. Three days later, my bag was still not in my hands. I kept remembering all the things that I was missing. I kept milling all the new and old items that I might not see again. It sucked! In the light of the most recent shootings, losing these things is small. But from the outer banks of loss, I was still able to learn something about the reason and process of its being. We can not control everything. We cannot make anyone think, work, or be on our behalf. That is our internal work and how we show up for ourselves. It does however get tricky when we rely on people to provide a service. When the service does not work for you, it is maddening, frustrating, and definitely in the case of the shootings, it is life altering. Pract

I did not know what I would do here in California a year ago. I thought, maybe I’ll teach 7th grade again after I get my certification. Or, maybe I’ll teach yoga. I’ll write. Those were my prospects. I did not really have a plan. Though being able to connect with people on my mat in yoga classes immediately opened doors: my mind, community, friendships, and work. So for the last year, I have been writing, coaching small yoga business owners, and teaching yoga. I have met a lot of people and seen a lot of things that I’ve never seen before. Having never lived on the West Coast, I imagined all of California to be just like Oakland, where my sister lives and where I had visited, or like LA from all the pictures and movies that I’d seen. Not really. This year, I have seen that California is more like three states. Sunshine here in the northern part of the bay is nothing like the sun in LA, or further south in San Diego. Each part of California is different, but each person

Stand to your feet. Find Tadasana, Mountain Pose . Turn your head slowly to the right and to the left. Look up at the ceiling or sky. Look down at the floor or ground. What do you see? Use at least three full breaths to fully experience each perspective and your physical responses to it. There are many things to see wherever we are, many perspectives. There are so many that we can not see them all. And, hopefully we enjoy your perspective we see, but maybe we don’t.  Take a deep breath.   There is a solution!   There’s lots of stuff to see.  You have a choice about that which you give your attention to. (I’m not talking about denial here.) See more of the good! Twisting the body allows us to move around the anchor and see what we want to see. This can be the physical anchor of the feet and thighs. Or, this can be the anchor of the truth. Anchoring into the truth of who you are, your brilliance, allows you to see the brilliance that is around you. This is no

I used to be so concerned with what people thought. “Was I doing this or that right.” Sometimes I still am when I consider someone more than me, and that happens. However, I am no longer ashamed of this when I remember, we are one, and I am not twelve anymore. More important than age, I’ve got a pretty decent tool belt now. We are all one, yet we are unique. And, the tools that work for one, do not work for everyone, at least not in the same ways or at the same times. That's for sure. Testing someone else’s tool at the wrong time for us, we quickly learn. Throwing a hula hoop around in the park is just not meditative for us in the way that it is for them. I personally have to work way too hard for the hula hoop and can accept that with a smile. Until one day when the sun shines in just the right way and the breeze flows with our hips and the hula hoop in just the right way and our hoop alights. But on those days when this orchestra does not take place, I enjoy doing

Some people have fetishes, but the foot one was never something I could understand. I am not trying to judge you, if that’s your thing. I have my own issues here: feet stink most of the time. Cooped up in socks and shoes or barefooting it, they stay pretty dirty. The problem with my realism here is that they (feet) are an awesome reflection of the whole. The way we stand on them affects our posture. The points on the bottom of the feet function in relationship to our organs and overall well being. At the beginning of a yoga class, when experienced yogis are moving around on their mats with prowess, what do you? Most beginners sit and wait for class to start. Can I suggest a foot rub? No, not for me or anyone else in the room, unless… well, no, let’s focus. If you have nothing else to do, rub your own feet while you wait for class to start. And this is not just a beginner's advertisement, this is for all. Whenever you can, rub your feet. Just like rolling a tennis ball on th

Apps are so much fun. They help us discover things we did not know existed, and they put us in touch with other people’s ideas. I can listen to music, meditate, pay my bills, order a car or anything else that my heart desires just by having access to a couple of apps. Go to any app store and search anything, and I bet you will find something close to, if not exactly, what you are looking for. In the morning, one of the first things I do is reach for my phone. I do not reach for news or Facebook; I reach for my Bible app. The daily verses, the plans on specific topics and the scriptured pictures and notes that I can create make this app perfect for me. It was on this app during a plan that I discovered the Abide app, an app built on scripturally based prayers. For months I used the Abide app, talked about it with friends, and always enjoyed the prayers, especially ones by Joanna Quintrell. Her voice and ideas were so soothing and inspiring. As an intuit, I never know what I