Right before my recent travels I felt a conflict arise with someone I held very dearly. It pained me greatly to feel dissonance rather than love. No matter what I tried I could not figure out how to resolve the conflict nor alleviate the pain. Then I remembered two things: the words from the spiritual teacher Matt Kahn, “Destroy Me,” and a visualization I was guided into where I allowed someone to “destroy me” and felt a great relief in response.

I believe Matt’s intention was to encourage us to have the courage to face our challenges head on and trust that will lead us to a greater victory. Trust builds with experience. I was lucky to have had a visualization where I experienced the benefits of surrender when feeling disharmony.

 
Almost two years ago in the fall of 2014 I was taking the level 2 Meditation Teacher Training at The Expanding Light Retreat Center in Northern California, where I was living at the time. Our instructor asked us to...

I just had a numerology astrology tarot reading which happened to be on the death day in the death year of my chart. Two of the theme cards are the Judgement card and Death card. The Judgement card shows up when we reawaken what lays dormant and no longer serves us in order to release it. The Death card represents that which dies away and that which gets reborn.

Just as the cards say, I did lose a couple things in the past week that I really love. As I have been going through the experience of that loss, I have been dancing in the question, “What do I get to learn and what new things will come in?”

In the middle of dance on Monday, I became aware of something I was gripping onto like cat’s claws. After having a few experiences of giving something up only to get something better, I have developed more trust in the Divine's way. Immediately once I noticed that grip, I exclaimed inside my head, “I surrender God. I surrender! Take what no longer...

I think most people can agree love is one of the most potent and desired experiences. I believe it is something that always exists and we can either tap into it or not regardless of the conditions of our life. Yet how well are we able to do so all the time? I want to share with you an experience I had of feeling another dimension of love from going through foot surgery a month ago.

Despite all of my experiences with natural healing, something intuitively in me felt to move forward with surgery to remove two ganglion cysts from my right foot. It is hard to know exactly why they develop. If I had to blame something, dancing in salsa shoes and pointe shoes would probably be the culprit. Although the painful bumps on my foot were teaching me a lot, when given the opportunity to get surgery for free, it felt like the right thing to do.

 It turned out to be a very blossoming experience in many ways. What had the biggest impact on me was the way I felt right after...

With eclipses, blood moons, and mercury retrograde, many people are feeling a lot of shifts right now. My hope is that we all can enjoy the process and send love to the unpleasant moments. I have been playing with how to reduce the feeling of pain and learning to be okay with pain.

 
I just read an article explaining how when we experience pain, the neurons in our body send a message through the central nervous system that something wrong has been perceived. Therefore one could draw the conclusion pain generates from an ingrained belief that something bad is happening to ourselves. What if we could shift that belief and then decrease the sensation we call pain? 

If we look back through history the moral standards of society continually change. We just made gay marriages legal in U.S. We now have equal rights for men and women and people of all skin colors in America when once we thought they should be treated differently. How commonplace is...

As I face the challenges coming up lately, it is very easy to go directly into a negative reaction. Yet around the corner keeps coming a greater desire to love. As I let it in, I feel soothed and calmed. It helps me understand where others are coming from without getting emotionally involved. I can choose my stance in the situation with greater strength and even-mindedness.  And it reminds me of when I first discovered how helpful it is for me to love and feel my love received.

I had just spent over two months in an isolated and tense situation where I felt very disconnected, even from those right around me. I was sitting in the living room in a foreign country of a family my friend worked with. The conversation revolved around complaints about politics I knew nothing about. I had no interest in engaging. I also had a growing headache.

I did not have a headache for a long time but used to get them frequently. Headaches were always a sign something was really off in myself. When...

A couple recent conversations within LoveWorks, a relationship training program, helped me get clear on my relationship with the term “commitment” and its connection with “freedom.” This exploration revealed some enriching ways to view commitment and freedom that I thought would be fun to share.

 
On a phone call we were discussing the idea of surrender. I asked for someone to explain to me what it is like to continue to surrender over a long period of time. I added I have only been in commitments for shorter periods of time. In response to my question, Sonika, one of the leaders of LoveWorks, suggested I reframe the question to something more uplifting like “What have I been committed to over a long period of time? What have I continually surrendered to?”

 
Right away I knew I had an answer to that question, God; seeking truth and tuning into God’s will. Many times I have gone into something feeling calm and right about it. Then...

This past weekend’s Energy Dance with Sonika Tinker and Christian Pedersen started with the video above. Right away it reminded me of the days I used to dance with a partner. I was never that trained, nor that courageous, nor quite that risque, but I am sure some of our experiences are the same.

 
You may ask, how can they do that? Well, you can’t think about it. Of course you have to focus on what you are doing but there is no space to question trust and if it is possible.

I remember I used to run and jump on my partner while we were creating pieces without either of us knowing what would happen. I never used to think about it. I would just do it and let happen what happens. In reality, I knew he was not 100% trustworthy because he was still human and had injuries. Yet I trusted the divine that somehow it would all work out. We only ever fell once and did not get injured.

 
In that process of trust and openness, I was always amazed at what physical feats I would...

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the book Eat, Pray, Love, did not have to leave Italy to find “eat,”” pray,” and “love.” As we all know, Italy is known for its spectacular sumptuous food. I especially love the variety of healthy food at the Ananda Assisi retreat center. Living at a spiritual retreat center makes it very easy to fulfill the “pray.” Being in a new relationship, I can more easily feel my heart filled with love. Italy is probably one of the most romanticized countries to dream of visiting. However, I did not write this blog to talk about Italy. Instead, I would like to share a couple more profound realizations related to “eat, pray, love.”

“Eat, pray, love” does not need to be mutually exclusive. When Ananda Assisi opened, they were trying to figure out how to create a diet that suited the Italian appetite and followed Paramhansa Yogananda’s dietary suggestions. Upon asking Swami...