If I had to pick one word for the city that I live in, it would be uptight. Yet this isn’t my word, I met an elderly man from India (guru/wise sage?) outside of a coffee shop a few weeks ago and this was his assessment.

He had only been living in my city for a few days, and he shared that this was his instinctual reaction to the people in the area. He had transplanted from India, and he approached me because he saw me playing with my dog and not being uptight.

I got the sense that he really wanted to share his feelings with someone. I understand what he meant as I’ve had hundreds of encounters with uptight strangers. I try to remind myself that perhaps they’re not uptight, but rather distracted or confused or daydreaming.

But if you look more closely and keep looking, it’s hard not to use the word uptight.

We are all guilty of taking ourselves way too seriously, and being distracted, confused and daydreaming are all totally normal. But if uptight-ness is underlying all of it, we all need to get to a yoga studio STAT.

Life is too short to spend it tied up in knots inside. One of the saddest realities that I learned in yoga class (actually getting certified class, not typical yoga class) is that some people can’t relax or meditate. It makes them uncomfortable and stressed because they’ve spent so much time in a heightened state of emotion and repression that relaxation is next to impossible, and actually produces the opposite effect of stress.

While there could be other dynamics at play, most yoginis believe that this is great information and a great opportunity. Going deeper and moving into it and toward it can be truly transformative.

Accessible yoga has always been compelling to me. Accessible anything has always been compelling to me. People who say it’s not for them, they don’t fit in, they could never be successful at it. These are all messages that it may be exactly what they need (perhaps not always, but it is a clue that should be explored). Typically, the term “accessible” is applied to people who have a physical limitation, but from my perspective any other type of block – emotional, spiritual, psychological – can be applicable.

This is one of the many beauties of yoga. I view my studio as an oasis of peace and clarity in an otherwise chaotic and uptight city.

So if this is you, go forward and be so fruitful in your endeavors. Untie the knots and know that we all have our knots to untie. Explore the unknown and know that we all have our unknowns.

We are all terrified of what is just beyond us that is so scary yet so fascinating and offers us pure, unadulterated, liberating freedom, freedom, freedom.

Om Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.

One of my favorite movies is Until the End of the World, partially because the soundtrack is amazing but partially because of the prophetic message.

In one scene of the movie, people are given devices to sleep with that can record their dreams and they become obsessed with watching the recordings. In fact, they become so obsessed that they only can focus on sleeping and then watching their dreams.

It may sound crazy but if you have been on a city bus or subway lately and looked around you, you would have probably noticed everyone is on their devices these days.

While our phones don’t record our dreams, they do lead us on believing that all of our dreams are stored in our devices. Life is better on social media. Everyone is beautiful and happy. Ads promise bigger, better, fancier. It is all available to us all the time, we can dream all day and all night and it never has to end.

It’s amazing how often I flash back to my favorite movie of zombie characters obsessed with making all their secret fantasies come true through dreams. The line between reality and fantasy blurs and life becomes unclear, clouded, diffuse.

Yoga offers the opportunity to put down the device. We can practice anytime, anywhere. Silence, stillness, peace. Until the end of the world.

When I was going through teacher training, we often talked about yoga newbies or the uninitiated. Yoga can be intimidating, but I never fully considered how off-putting meditation and silence can be to people who are unfamiliar.

In my own experience, I’ve talked to several friends that had the wrong idea about meditation, which was based on their misunderstanding that it is about inhibiting thoughts to create a sense of silence or stillness.

As yoginis know, Meditation is the practice of non-attachment to thoughts. Throughout our lives, we attach to most everything that comes up and we become a feather in the wind being thrown about by the gesticulations of the day. Not only do our experiences throw us about, but our thoughts throw us about… until we begin to practice non-attachment through meditation.

I had never thought I was particularly good at meditation, then I realized that it didn’t matter. When you really think about, what does it mean to be good at something? Aren’t the benefits we receive the most important factor in comparison to our effort expended?

I was receiving benefits and I was going in deeper. My lucid dream showed me that it was worth my time because I was making progress. I was dreaming while awake, watching my thoughts as though they were a movie. Since the experience was unlike any I have ever had, I began to realize that meditation was much more profound then I initially considered. I decided to Go IN… or go through the door that was opened.

Whether it is a daily practice or courage to go deeper, going in the openings presented is the practice. The discipline is beyond most other activities that fill my life. It isn’t something that I have to get done in any given day (these things are so much easier to accomplish).

It is rather about stopping doing anything and going in. It gives everything and requires only the act of genuine discipline and commitment to something greater than our small minds that provide.

When in doubt, when frustrated, when confused, when overwhelmed… Go IN.