Holidays

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The holidays are upon us full force. While we’re eating turkey, being thankful and celebrating with family remember these can also be stressful times of the year. Bodywork and yoga are your friends, use them.

People sometimes tell me when they find out I’m a massage therapist or yoga instructor, “Oh! Of course, you’re so calm and relaxed, no wonder you went into that for a job.” I often giggle and respond, “Relaxed? It’s taken years of hard work and breathing with focus to Learn to be this calm.” I didn’t just arrive at decent health and more calm, I worked for it.

Riding in a car with a friend I realized I got extremely anxious. I was worried they weren’t watching the road and it dawned on me that all these years later, I’m still more nervous when other people drive. In the car accident I was in, someone else was driving so there’s this fear, this anxiety about loss of control. Even I get stressed and have bad days. Yoga and bodywork is how I deal with it.

These traditions have been maintained and passed down because they work. Don’t forget them over the holidays.

Barefoot Running

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Is barefoot running better for you? Over the years I’ve come to realize that the body is so complex I’ll never figure it all out. One of the things that confound me is feet.

Feet are extremely complex structures and as the base of the entire body, help set the posture for the rest of your frame. Flat feet, fallen arches, bone spurs and other issues can be horrible for people and as a massage therapist I can work muscle tissue but fix flat feet? I still don’t know what’s possible.

I started hearing from clients about barefoot running and upon doing research found it hysterical to see that people are debating whether you should run on the balls of your feet or hit with the heel first. It’s the 21st century and we’re having debates about the most rudimentary of physical activities.

As someone without major foot issues I still find the barefoot running arguments interesting. I decided it was time to find out for myself. I ordered a pair of Vibrams, or Vibram five fingers and am very happy with what I see so far. As a yoga teacher I spend time barefoot often but these allow me to do daily activities with that same feel, the same sense of what’s going on beneath me.

I’m already aware of my feet but these take it to a new level. All day? Yep, they fit like a glove and even walking in a supermarket I can feel the temperature underneath my feet change when I walk into the frozen food section. Small distinctions from arch to arch can be felt and my bias towards my left foot is obvious. Do they fix flat feet? I’ve no clue.

Do your research on barefoot running. Read articles and keep shoes handy but I’m sold. I’ve done no other exercise for years and these make me want to go out and run. I’ll be challenging myself soon to start a basic jogging regimen and I’m excited to see what it will be like using these minimalist shoes.

Integrity

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The word integrity comes from the Latin, integer, meaning whole. If you lack integrity, I feel you’ve lost the most important thing not only in business but in life. I’ve worked hard over the years to maintain the highest integrity and the few times it’s been questioned I’ve lamented even the notion of its being lost.

Integrity in business is particularly important to me as my business grows. Until recently it’s felt like I was putting compost and water on the plants to get them to grow and was just excited they weren’t dying. Now, I’m looking at a growing tree and thinking, it may be time to prune. Different phases, different focus but a continued focus on healing and healing work.

Revolving door does not work for me. Revolving door clients with the same issues who do not wish to improve don’t interest me. Clients that work on themselves, want to get better and aspire for humanities greatest good, are. Sometimes this confuses people who see me. They expect that immediately after our session I’ll pull out a book and ask when we can schedule them again. I never do that. I may mention that we can schedule again if you wish but this isn’t sales, not in the used car way. There is no pressure and I refuse, due to my integrity, to sell you something I don’t feel you need.

Most can use a once a week session. Sounds great doesn’t it? I’ll never push for that though. Finances are what they are. Most can’t afford work that often. The good news is that if you team up with me I show you how to do lots of it on your own. That way you can get a solid session once every two weeks or once a month and live a primo life. No back pain. Read that again. Can you imagine walking around feeling unencumbered? If I have my way we’ll walk around like we did as children, good posture, hearts full of love and curious minds exploring. That can be yours. I’m working on mine, it’s a process but I’ve had glimpses and it’s worth all the work to get there.

Integrity in a bodywork business means I’m not going to wait until you’re relaxed and try to sell you things while you’re in a stupor. I’m not opposed to retail but the product must be something I use and it must be something I deem necessary, not something sold just because I’d get a percentage. This business is about relationships, not dollar signs. The minute I treat you like a commodity to be bought and sold I’ve lost my humanity. There are enough businesses running on a starvation mentality treating you like a cog in a machine, I refuse to be another.

The integrity I aspire to means that my teacher can come in and get a session and feel that it’s worth every penny. It’s worth what I charge because it’s about healing, helping and assisting. It’s an extension of my life not a lucrative late night scheme with an infomercial. That same integrity is what I would hope would be felt by clients (we can dream can’t we?) like BKS Iyengar, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama. I want a business that they would look at and say, “I’m glad I helped inspire what you do. Thank you for helping others.”

If I could dig up Bill Hicks I’d hope he’d realize that I understood his messages about marketing and putting dollar signs on everything. Then as he lit up a cigarette post session I could ask him if he’d ever explored pranayama and what it could do for his oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.

If my business seems odd, then I’ve done well. It’s Never going to look like other businesses and that’s fine. The American dream is what you make it. My American dream is showing people they can live free, unencumbered lives in one of the most blessed countries on earth. Real health! Real integrity. No limitations.

Hope

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Having a conversation with a client he announced, “you give people hope.” When clients pay small verbal affirmations of my work I’ve made it a point to sit in them, honor them and let them sink in. All too often I finish a session thinking if I could have been more in tune, if I could have used more pressure etc. Being a perfectionist has its downfalls. I’m happy to give people hope, I’ve had it myself for quite some time.

Clients come to me with a list of complaints, aches, pains and usually in 2 hours they leave feeling much better. Their conditions don’t just go away, we’ve just lessened the issue. Their medical complaints are so vast I can’t expect to cure anything, that’s not really what I do. The only cure comes from inside them. Beyond genetics, they control the nurture. You can nurture all sorts of conditions and see improvement. It reminds me of veterans who’ve lost limbs. They seem to have the strongest bodies because the rest of them is compensating for not having the extra limb. They seem stronger than everyone else. I told myself many years ago that my pain may never fully go away but if it cannot the rest of my body will be so strong and so healthy my issue is just an annoyance that doesn’t rob me of my life.

You have arthritis? Carpal tunnel syndrome? Thoracic outlet syndrome? Pain and tingling in your hands and arms? Pain in your feet or lower legs? Pain that runs down your leg from your buttocks? Low back pain? Upper back and neck pain? All of those are the most common conditions I see and I can almost guarantee that within a few sessions I can show you great relief. Beyond that I can help describe what may be happening, how you can work on it at home and how we can prevent it in the future. That’s where hope comes in. I don’t work with you to keep you coming back. I work with you so you get better. I’m happy to work on you but it does my life no great joy to create a revolving door of clients.

Let’s look at something as insidious as arthritis. This one is personal to me since this seems to run in my family. There is I don’t doubt some genetic component but nature/nurture is the battle I see looming large. Until the science steps up and gives us more details I believe most conditions can be made tolerable if not healed. Any kind of -itis is usually inflammation at some point. Inflammation seems to be a normal healing response that goes haywire.

In my case I’ve apparently come from a line of people who are prone to arthritis and I’ve had trauma to my neck and upper back from a car accident. Double whammy. Do I have arthritis? I don’t believe so. Will I have it? A doctor has told me that I will probably get it particularly in areas that were damaged in the accident. That sets up my life and my challenge. I want to be healthy and whole.

Yoga in particular holds great potential. Thai massage and other bodywork is good as well but yoga in particular appeals because it’s inexpensive, noninvasive but goes to the core of your being and you take it with you. You don’t have to keep coming back to me, you know how to care for things yourself, with practice. Along with deterioration of a joint that goes with arthritis I believe there are muscular and structural issues at play. You must keep the joint mobile within reason and help your cardiovascular system flush the area with fresh, clean blood as much as possible.

It’s been my experience that warming the area, flushing it with blood will help with symptoms and long term I believe it may in some instances heal arthritis. Mine, if I have it isn’t bad. Certainly not to the point of taking medications. Currently I take…nothing. Not even an aleve from time to time. So, heat the body up, keep it pliable, strengthen muscles and continue using your body. Very simple health advice overall. This does however go deeper.

The poses in yoga help clean you out from the inside out. Your Whole body. This is the definition of holistic. Part of that work is breathing, the pranayama exercises in yoga. This work regulates the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in your bloodstream and also helps balance the different parts of your nervous system. People’s sympathetic nervous system is often keyed up, fight or flight wins. Problem is in fight or flight your body doesn’t care if you digest food, doesn’t care about cleansing and repair. You Must stimulate your relaxation response. This part of your nervous system that takes over is the parasympathetic. This part cleans, repairs, and nourishes the relaxation response. Your body and your nervous system must be balanced.

Krishnamacharya held that the breath was critical to controlling the inner functions of the body. He would say, in English, “Lungs are pump. Control breathing. Control heartbeat.” ~ A. G. Mohan, “Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings”

Now we get to where it’s really interesting. This is the edge, the area that’s hardly been studied scientifically. Yoga gives you control over your body. With practice you can control things that most doctors will tell you you cannot control. We talked about vascularity and blood flow and how important it is in inflammatory conditions like arthritis. What about the center of the cardiovascular system, the heart? Here’s cutting to the chase. Not only do I think you can make areas more vascular and cleanse them I think that you can fundamentally gain control of your heart and heart beat itself. With practice you can stop your heart. Most will tell you this is impossible and that’s fine.

I don’t necessarily wish to have this control, this is deep, far reaching work that may take a lifetime but if you can control your heart enough to make it stop do you think you could help a case of arthritis? My point exactly. You have Far more control over your health and conditions than most would have you believe.

If you have arthritis I recommend Bikram yoga. The practice works your heart, warms your body and speeds cleansing and repair. The internal tourniquets you form flush the problem areas with blood. This may never heal your condition fully but if the symptoms go away, do you still have arthritis? Let’s explore and see. I’ve been doing so for the past 7 years.

Expert

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I almost loathe the word expert. It’s tossed around so willy nilly that people talk to me and consider me an expert on gardening or worm composting but if you looked at our garden, well, you might think twice about listening to my advice. I’m still trying to figure it out.

Occasionally someone will call me a yoga master and as I appreciate the compliment I remind myself that I know what seems like nothing. I may know a little more than you but that just means I’m a step ahead. If you want to be where I’m at just take some time and practice after reading a few books. The words expert and master exist in some relative space. It only means something in context. Next to the average guy in the supermarket, sure I’m a yoga expert. Stand me next to BKS Iyengar and I know nothing. I can’t even stand on my feet correctly.

What I know comes from books, asking questions, google, reading and study but the heart comes from my own experience. There may be better ways but I’m not aware of them. If I did, that’s what I’d be teaching. When I lead student through a yoga pose I’m leading them through what I do. Over time the yoga of teaching gets stronger and with feedback I’m more aware of the nuances in their practice but what I know, in my heart, is my practice.

How does someone become an expert? I think you continue to grow, push and explore. Being an individual means you take your own path, not someone else’s. My students are told time and again that it’s their yoga, not mine. I will lead you through to the best of my ability through what I’ve done but you must make the practice your own. Yoga is about feel. I can’t teach you to sense every nerve, cell and nuance while breathing into it. That’s you. Your job. I point the way, you walk.

Knowing the boundaries and parameters of bodywork means well, honestly folks I’m a snob. I hate using that word but it’s as if I’ve been working and cooking in 4 star plus restaurants and someone wants me to pretend fast food is high cuisine. I’m picky about bodywork and with a public who may not have explored the work of massage warehouse surplus may be fine. That may work well and be what those people need. I offer more. There are days I wish I could receive my own bodywork.

Mastery is the word I prefer. I’ve achieved a level of mastery. Granted I’m not even sure what that level is. I’ve never completed Bikram’s yoga in totality through a sequence. For six years I’ve worked and I still cannot hold all the balance poses, go deeper into some etc. It’s fine though, having heart and perseverance will beat out any in born skill over time. Tortoise and the hare.

Currently my level of mastery means I want an audience. I want people to listen. I wish for students to sit and ask questions, let me talk and converse with them on the state of our health care system. Yoga and bodywork are a solid foundation along with local food to base your health upon. There will always be more. Being an expert and developing mastery mean this, you’re painfully aware of the limitations of your knowledge. That is where I am. Painfully aware.

Hydration

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I was asked to write a specific post about water and how much of it one should drink. In thinking about the topic I decided to do a quick google search and discovered that as presumed there are widely variant numbers and ideas on what should be the amount someone drinks in a day. Of those variables, here are a few: Are you male or female, exercise regularly, pregnant, high or low altitude, dry climate.

All of those surely factor but in thinking about how much water someone should drink I went back again and again to it’s your body. I can’t give you a definitive amount. Much like exercise or how deeply you should go into a yoga pose you have to feel that out for yourself. I will give you my personal experience.

I’ve practiced Bikram yoga for 6 years. In those years I’ve learned to drink more water consistently but recently noticed I was getting headaches after class. I was dehydrated. We use no central a/c in our home, the temperatures are going up and I wasn’t compensating for the amount I was sweating during the day. When I pass through the kitchen I drink another large glass of water, probably 8 to 12oz. or so. I keep doing this most of the day and urinate frequently. I’d prefer to drink a little more water than I need knowing that my body will eliminate the rest. When I urinate I expect to see the color as light yellow or clear. That’s all you really need to know in my honest opinion.

Urine color can be affected by B vitamins which I get in the form of nutritional yeast so keep that in mind. Also after a night of drinking I notice a darker yellow stream. Long term I think urine color is the surest way to keep track of whether you’re drinking enough water or not.

Your body needs water to do most everything it seems and you hear these numbers tossed about that you’re 60% water and so on. What I do know is that I find everything else works better when I’m well hydrated. I eat less, feel more flexible, have easier and more frequent bowel movements and if I do decide to drink I don’t feel as hung over the next day. Bottom line, drink more water, what’s the downside?

Alcohol in particular can take it out of me and over time I drink less. A solid single beer is usually enough for an evening, sometimes even at a party. I have a large glass of water before the beer and another after. I have to drink more water due to the dehydrating effects alcohol has on me personally. Austin is a dry climate and as a party town I think it more important for people to have extra water here.

Bikram yoga tricks me into drinking more water. You simply have to hydrate more due to the water loss from sweating that occurs during class. You’re twisted and squeezed out like a sopping rag again and again in class. You learn, as I still am, to hydrate during the days before class and it builds into your habits.

Long term how much water you need is up to you and your lifestyle. I say drink until your urine is clear or light yellow. What’s the harm? I feel better when I’m getting enough water and of all the things related to health that are complicated water is the one that seems fairly simple. Tea? Coffee? Soda? I say just drink more water. If you have any of those regularly they add to the amount of overall fluid you drink but in the end your urine color should be the judge.

This post is much simpler than talking about what one should eat. Hand to forehead. 😛

Shock and awe

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I don’t usually feel like a rock star but ten years into my practice I sit back and realize my skill set has made me one of the best of my profession. My clients are those who wish to get better and will work to get there. If they’ve come in just to relax we won’t get very far long term. It’s not just providing bodywork it’s providing education and therapeutic exercise to get a client where they want to be.

At a party recently a young man was asking me about yoga, Bikram yoga specifically. He started by asking how I’d gotten so ripped. I laughed and realized he was talking about this photo:

I found it funny because in western culture abs are something of a symbol. Male health and virility are all in the abs I think, least the cast of 300 will tell you so.

He asked what I do and I told him I do Bikram once a week on average for the past 6 years. I also do other yoga, work on clients, eat well and stay active. Nothing crazy is done, just a simple and good life. In discussions about work and clients he asked if I wanted clients to come back again and again because it’s good for business. Emphatically I replied no, that’s just the opposite of what I want.

Over a short conversation I explained to him that if he came to see me, my goal is to help make him better, to give him the tools to make himself better so that I’m no longer needed. Then, he’ll tell all of his friends. That’s where my clients come from. This is no revolving door practice. If you want a therapist who’ll try to schedule your next session immediately with some pressure, sorry, you’re not going to get it from me.

A client came in recently with the usual upper back and neck pain. In the course of our intake he mentioned many herniated discs, ongoing pain for years and I began for me what is my usual work. I began the massage and told him, “you need to begin taking yoga classes.” After a brief back and forth he explained that the doctors told him, “no yoga.” I politely told him that his doctors didn’t know what they were talking about.

How can I say this? I’m only a massage therapist and yoga instructor and certainly not a doctor. Quite frankly, most doctors don’t seem to know what they’re doing to their patients long term if what I see every day is any indication. Nerve blocks, pain medication, unneeded surgeries and thousands of dollars worth of tests to try to diagnose what? Most of these clients simply suffer from chronically poor alignment and myofascial pain. The simple form is their posture sucks and they hurt. How do I know?

Laughs out loud. Lol Because I used to as well. Then I thought for myself and grew up. I was man enough to challenge every notion thrown at me.

Yoga is not what most people think it is. The practice is broad. I can teach it to an athlete. I can teach a 90 year old lady and I can teach someone who’s doctor has told them yoga is bad. Yoga isn’t what you think it is. If you hurt, my suggestion is you need to find a good teacher and learn.

Working on the client, observing his posture and back curvature I asked if he had any numbness or tingling in his hands. There was no reason for me to ask, nothing on the intake indicated this. I can see! I’ve done this ten years. Yes, he told me, his right hand goes numb. I reached over to my old friend the rotator cuff and began my usual work. 5 seconds later I hear groaning and ask, do you feel that in your hand? Guess what the reply is?

You do not have to have a medical degree to heal yourself. I’ve worked too long and too hard to butt up against medical professionals who won’t grow up and give their clients real information and a populace that’s too lazy to get better. I cannot do it for you. I will help, I can lead you to water, but you must drink.

Massage therapists, if you’re reading this you’re missing out by not sitting in my studio and begging for me to teach you. Nothing I do is a secret but no one is doing it. Don’t believe me? I’ve been in Austin, Texas for 6 years and I don’t have a regular massage therapist. Know why? I haven’t found one good enough to give me the work I desire. This isn’t being uppity, it’s being honest. I’m teaching Thai massage to students to get them to work on me.

You want to get better? Forget what you’ve been told by overweight doctors who smoke and have bad relationships. You want to heal, go to someone who’s healing themselves. Do what you’ve always done and you get what you’ve always got. I’m sick of seeing clients lumber into my office with horrible posture and a list of medications a mile long wondering why they’re sick while doctors and pharmaceuticals companies shake hands and smile at each other.

My health, I’ve earned it. Plain, simple and you can to. I don’t just give you advice, I follow my own.

Can you hear it? Off in the distance. I hear shock and awe. How can he say such things?

I can say it with all the righteous indignation I can muster at 35 years of age. It’s your life! This is not a game. Harness your body and grow well. I’ll see you soon for Thai massage and a yoga class.

Sluggish

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Well it’s bound to happen sooner or later. I caught a cold or virus that threw me for a loop this past week. My wife Andrea went to a fiber festival and picked up a bug that was like the 12 monkeys, ebola pox, andromeda strain. She does great fiber work and both of us were stuck around the house and unable to even enjoy each others company. Nothing like smooching on someone who’s all congested.

Wife’s fiber site

In the midst of my sickness I sat on the couch, watched lots of horrible tv and played poker till I became a statistical analysis machine. I made huge leaps in my poker theory and practice but my body is very sluggish at the moment. I believe my lymph is used to being moved around due to activity and in a week, I don’t think I did a headstand. That’s a big change for someone who does them multiple times a day. I even cancelled a few clients, something that nearly never happens.

I remind myself regularly that it’s ok to blunder, ok to get sick and even more ok to communicate I’m not at my best and I’ll see you later for your yoga class or Thai massage session. I work hard, very hard. This includes some manual labor. All that wonderful pressure you enjoy, my joints supply that. My muscles do the work, it’s not digging a ditch but it is manual labor. Those great alignment tips I give, that takes mental focus and close attention to detail. My work is good, I love what I do but when sick, take a break.

I’ll rest when I need and I suggest you do the same. We’ll leave sluggish to the slugs.

Optimism

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Mental states have much to do with our success not only in life overall but dealing with our health. For many years I’ve been a pessimist. My feelings about humanity, our species involvement with the planet and our direction have left me feeling lacking many times. Pessimism is taking in life and presuming that the worst will come. I admit I’m not as pessimistic about individuals but about society as a whole.

Over the years I’ve noticed my perspective change. For the first time I’ve become an optimist. I’ve had thoughts that surprised me, thoughts where I looked down the road to something seemingly bad and said, “oh, that’ll turn into something good somehow.” More than anything I consider myself a realist. I don’t wish for rose colored glasses but illusion does no one any good. Ridding myself of notions has been a matter of repeatedly changing perspective and then realizing that I don’t know everything. Variables prevent the scientific method and they prevent our selves from forming strong conclusions due to lack of information.

As my health improves, as I age and learn what I do not know I’m able to settle into a far happier place. This place can often be where paradox lives. Optimism and pessimism all live in perspective, my suggestion is to continue to change it.

A client with some health issues was asking me for assistance. I told her that I’m happy to give her bodywork, happy to teach her yoga but in her particular state Bikram yoga would be a huge asset. She was told calmly that I’ve no wish to keep her as a client, that I prefer she get better, move on and tell her friends I assisted her healing process. I do not operate a revolving door.

This frankness, this direct expression of a client not being another paycheck to me is necessary. When you work with me, you work with me. All of my flaws, foibles and errors of judgement are included in that. I continue to shift my mental states along with my health. Healers must be honest with themselves and honest with clients.

I smiled as I pulled into Yogagroove for my regular Bikram yoga class only to see my client leaving the studio after practice. She’ll not need me for very long if she keeps going. This is good and life helps me become an optimist.

Is suffering genetic?

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In looking at what I do for work and how I approach healing I find myself at odds with the status quo. Over time I just step aside, I certainly hold less resentment and anger but my compassion grows by leaps and bounds. As a friend and I had a discussion about our mutual love for healing work we admitted to each other that we’re good at what we do because we’ve been broken. A healer is good at working on something they themselves have overcome. In blues terms, “you gotta pay your dues to play the blues.”

My strong empathic sense of people, their emotions and mental states leaves me in places where I remind myself that client’s stuff is theirs. I need not take on their emotions, feelings and mental states to aid their healing process. The more I heal the more empathy and compassion I have for those who suffer. Some suffering is what life places on the doorstep but most comes from ignorance. Ignorance causes more suffering than anything else. It’s not what others do to us, it’s what we do to ourselves.

It’s one thing if someone tells us we’re fat as a kid, teases us. It’s another when you somehow take that on as a part of your sense of self, “I’m fat” you tell yourself. That person may have teased you once but you carry that burden with you, inflicting it on yourself 100’s of times beyond what that one person said. If you remove your part in the game, it’s just someone who made a mean comment. All that pain, all that suffering, vanquished. The veil of ignorance is removed.

Things happen. I’m not immune to suffering on the mental, psychological or physical plane. I no longer wish to believe that this is simply the best I deserve. What if instead of believing I’m a dumb, incompetent, worthless, fat, lowly massage therapist I begin the process of changing those beliefs? What if I slowly work on myself until I decide on a heart level that I’m a worthwhile, strong, inquisitive, upright man who’s capable of anything he sets his mind to? I’m taking the latter road. If I seem confusing this may be why. My path is other that what the predominant culture provides.

A long term friend passed recently and while looking at her glowing beautiful daughter I told my friend, “that baby is the winner of 6 billion years of evolution.” This young girl is the biological product of intelligence refining the same stuff that stars are made of to produce life, human beings and a central nervous system. This child can look up at the stars and one day ponder that the universe is hers from her vantage point in the milky way galaxy.

Once the Dalai Lama had to stop a talk and discussion because he didn’t know an English word that was used. He said, “Self esteem? What is this self esteem you mention?” After someone explained to him what it meant, he grasped the chasm between his culture and our own. In what I believe was a compassionate moment he said, “We do not have this word in our language. We believe everyone has Buddha nature. We’ve no need to convince people that they have worth because we teach them that the highest potential is already within them, the potential for enlightenment.”

You think your pain, your suffering is fate, is genetic? You think you are encased in genetic code, dna? To a point this is true, you do hold a physical form. I also listen to teachers, tricksters and holy men who tell me you are not your thoughts. You are not your body. You are not what you think you are. Meditate and ask “who am I?” Who am I without my skin? Without my bones? Without a body? Without a mind? If you continue to peel away the layers what is left?

This process of awakening is something I’ve only scratched the surface of. My compassion turns toward myself, my own pain, my own suffering and forgiving myself for my shortcomings. I implore you to quit finding yourself to be garbage underfoot and realize that you are the sunshine that dispels the darkness. You are the crack that can let all of the light in. God can be seen through you, through your actions and through loving your neighbor as yourself.

Suffering is no more encoded in genetics than enlightenment is. The choice is yours.

“All this pain is an illusion.”~Parabol by Tool

Business

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I’ve worked for years to increase my practice, build what I’m doing and in the past two years really decided it was time people listened. At 25 most people assumed my health was a gift of genetics but ten years later people look at me and start to wonder what it is I’m doing that seems to be working. I ache, I hurt and regularly I might add but, I can control it. Bodywork and yoga have provided a solid platform along with dietary changes that allow me to heal myself to my ability. That control leads to less depression, less frustration and lots of hope.

This week I had to turn away three clients, three of my regulars I see once a week. I, Robert Gardner turned away work and money. I reached my limit. My work has grown to the point that scheduling is needed in more detail, regular time off must be scheduled and my prices/rates need to rise more. I love what I do and it shows. To turn away work is something I’ve dreamed of and it only took ten years, two states and innumerable breaths to reach.

You want a session of Thai massage? It’s $100.00 per session and you’ll need to schedule two weeks in advance. I’ll see you soon. Thai massage class starts at 830am tomorrow.

Namaste’…bitches.

Are you a victim?

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I gave a talk recently at a local HEB. I was asked to speak about yoga and always relish the opportunity to discuss what I do and why. In yoga classes and bodywork sessions I can only talk so much so it’s an outlet of sorts to just verbally address what we’re working with.

A participant listened to me talk about my car accident, heard me talk about BKS Iyengar and at one point he said, “it sounds like you’re encouraging people to not be victims.” In maintaining a sense of supple softness to situations I found his words sank in. That’s exactly it. He hit the nail on the head.

Repeatedly I hear people saying, “I’m old. I was injured. I have this disease or physical malady. I grew up in an emotionally abusive home. I smoke. I’m not flexible or strong.” My response is always the same. “And?” Where you are has no impact on your ability to get better. If you think you’re too sick to do yoga you simply don’t know what yoga is. You are not trapped by your genetics to grow old and wither. You will age but that’s a natural process. Decay to the degree I see in people is unnecessary. You can age and live well. Do you want to be youthful, vibrant and full of vigor? Do you want to eat what you wish within reason? Do you want to avoid medications and surgery as much as possible? Yoga can help you do those.

I cannot promise you will never get sick. I can promise that with regular practice that sickness will not last as long and will not be as intense. That is a goal worth working towards. Yoga is active and empowering. It allows you to harness yourself with every fiber of your being to make a better life. Thai massage is the passive form, it allows you to have someone like me help you along the way. Both are wonderful and should be used to their potential.

Why am I adamant? Why do I increasingly become stern with a boisterous attitude? Unlike when I began I’ve ten years experience and vision. Your life can be better. It can be better than I can envision. If I sound like a broken record or preacher it’s because all around me I see and hear suffering, complaints and pain. People give various reasons for this. Wherever you are, it can get better. I know. I’ve done it and it continues to grow at a pace I find staggering.

Your pain is a form of ignorance, let’s remove it together. Bliss is waiting.