COURTNEY ROHAN YOGA

When Boston and I rang the cancer-free bell, 2010  Do you ever notice that as soon as we think we know something, it changes, or we realize we don’t really know it? Lately, I have noticed this in my life. Working through disease, this tends to happen quicker,  be more noticeable. And the train keeps on, the vat of information, wisdom, love, going deeper; there appears to always be one more door. The Universe is amazing that way. Colors are vast in tone. What God creates is beyond human capacity, in my opinion. We dream an idea that we can see only so deeply, and then Source takes over. The fact that we think we will know what will happen next is incredulous. But we keep trying, trying to do it our way, don't we? As I heal, open to a cure for a disease that I was diagnosed with nine years ago, this chronic form of leukemia has afforded me a front row to see spaces. The space between the last cycle of chemotherapy, the last blood transfusion, the last hospital, or doctor seen.

America is under stress. The world is. Its inhabitants are. But everytime I look around, I see the good rising up out of the mud, the lotus clean and vibrant, rising at its proper time. Good stress is hard to imagine, but we experience it all the time. If you have ever felt in control while doing something that challenged you, pushing yourself, working your edge and living your best experience of it, you felt good stress. Stress when purposefully used is one of the beautifully challenging things about living. It encourages you. It motivates you to do more, to rise up, or reach out, and be apart of your life. And, after the stress: the class, the conversation, the friction, the dis-ease, you reap more.  Good stress when met and embraced brings a good dose of good feeling hormones, happiness, and relaxation. You are more than your stress, and undoubtedly, knowing how to relieve unwanted stress is necessary. Still, can we observe that which feels unwanted, create a practice of stres

How interesting to know that what will help us is the very thing that we resist. We’ve all felt that, right? The food that we should eat sits waiting. The walk that would help us feel lighter after a long day abated by thoughts of all the other things we think we should do first. For me these days, the stillness I know I need has been pressed upon me. I can not say no. That is what healing will do. Or pain, they have the ability to bring you to a halt. But maybe we could repurpose surrender so that we do not have to be forced to stillness? It is a daily challenge for us, I believe, to surrender. We feel bombarded by all the problems, conversations, situations... all the work stuff and home life and forget what it looks like to let things go when they are over. It’s time we repurpose surrender. It is time to let go of the past and be in the present. Surrender again and reconnect with how good it feels to let things go. Repurpose surrender. Make it easy. Do so in small ways e

Yes, it will take some time. But so does sitting in the drive through or waiting for that product to be shipped. We are so accustomed to assuming that because someone or company has already made it, we can not. This is faulty thinking. There is so much that we can make for ourselves. I have been buying kraut for the last couple months. I enjoy this company's awesome products. But the truth is with the right ingredients (and there are not that many for kraut) I can make my own. What things are you buying that if you just took a little time to prepare, you would be able to assemble in your kitchen or in your backyard or porch? Think for a second about all the things you have: products that you'd like to find use for. Create a list. For example, old clothes are a great one. We immediately think that we should donate our clothing, right? I do. But what if you could cut the arms off a sweater and make leg warmers? What about taking that old wholey pajama shirt that you don'

Hildegard von Bingen, says “The Pine tree is more warm than cold and contains many energies and powers. The tree is the symbol of strength.” Over the last couple years, I have struggled to buy a real tree. I kept thinking, why am I doing this? What does this symbolize? What I'd come up with that made this OK for me was: its for the kids, well, in my case, the kid.  Last year, our son was gone for the holiday, so the choice was easy: No kid, no tree. I bought a cute glittery turquoise tree at Target and called it a Christmas day. But the year before that and this year, we decided to get a real tree.  This year, it was a last minute decision. I thought we'd go to Home Depot and find an artificial tree, but when we got there, the ones we wanted were either too expensive or sold out. We settled on a Douglas Fir. It was 39 dollars and 6 ft. tall, which was more than I was going to get in a artificial tree. Perfect. And the one thing that I really wanted that I was going to

“How do you keep going when you want to stop?” I asked my high school yoga students. We just started a Kundalini unit and though Kundalini can be relaxing, mostly one pushes through the knots or the thresholds to reach it. A timed practice, where movement and breath are repeated, leave the doer a lot of time to become defeated if they do not have a proper focus. So my question, how do you keep going… was an opportunity for them to think about what they were going to do when they hit that wall. We all hit it. You may not see this so avidly in your yoga practice, depending on the yoga you practice, but walls are definitely a part of living life. We all hit them, and what we say to ourselves when we do, makes all the difference. What we do in those moments of struggle can make or break us. Think for a moment back to one of those time when you were challenged to keep going but wanted to stop. What did you say, think, or do? Now, don’t tell yourself what you want to believe you

Working on a cure for CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia) has kept me busy the last couple months. If you did not know that I have leukemia, now you do. I want to get that out of the way. There is not time for tears here, not now. (Prayers, I like those.) You can read more about my journey here in this blog Cancer Free and Yoga from 2012. This does not mean I am dying. Well, not in the traditional sense of one gets an aggressive form of cancer that spreads quickly and possibly gives them a short time to live. No, I was diagnosed with leukemia 7 years ago. I went through chemotherapy for six months and came out the otherside. My dad would say that is why I should just do chemo again. It worked. It shrunk my lymph nodes, and I was able to resume my “normal” lifestyle, until now. The disease is chronic. So that means, it comes back. When my lymph nodes grow big enough, unmoving in certain regions of the body, pushing into things and causing ruckus, I become again a candidat