One of the fundamental teachings of Kundalini yoga is the principle of polarity.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the fitness world, I see these energies play out in several ways. The most prevalent is the idea of strength vs flexibility. Too much strength leads to stiffness of movement and a sort of ‘stuckness’ of energy. When this ‘stuckness’ of energy builds up, the inevitable force of movement in the opposite direction leads to a strain or break. This happens in order to let the opposite energy flow. A pulled muscle is weak and limp. Too much strength in one muscle may lead to a stress fracture in the opposing bone. In both of these cases, the best thing you can do to fix it is rest.

The alternative is too much flexibility, the body becomes limp and passive. Easily manipulated and unable to hold its structure. Too much weakness in any given muscle will cause opposing forces to ‘compensate’, often disproportionately strengthening another muscle or muscle group to pick up the slack, often resulting in pain or injury.

Another way to explain this is structure vs flow. While we can see this principle plainly in the landscape of fitness, this plays out in every aspect of life.

Doing any one type of workout for an extended period of time will begin to change your body. The question is, how do we change our body into something that is simultaneously aesthetically pleasing (to us) and functional for our lives. How can we promote musculoskeletal and neural connectivity that enhances and furthers our real-world efforts? My answer, the proper balance of strength vs flexibility.

Within the tissues of our muscles and bones lives the seat of our emotional capacity to feel safe and supported. If our bodies fall out of balance in one or both of the above ways, we are fighting an uphill battle for our right to have and keep the things that we want. Swinging from polarity to polarity leaves little time for the consciousness of our physical body to find the neutral space through which our ability to co-create is optimized.

What polarity does your current workout routine activate, and how can you seek a balance?

I’m just going to admit it. I never placed a strong emphasis on community.

Maybe it was my sun in Capricorn, maybe it is the fact I was teased as a kid, maybe it is my other childhood trauma. For whatever reason, I decided very early in life that it was much more enjoyable to do things on my own. Apart from my very small group of core friends (I have three people in my phone “favorites” list, and two of them are family members), I don’t seek many social interactions. For the most part, this serves my personality type, because I am often energized by solitude, but 2020 made everyone look at solitude a little differently.

Finding a group of people who had the same goals and values that I did, a desire to live in accordance with our highest destiny, was a nourishing experience I didn’t know I needed. Even though I never saw most of these people, we interacted in zoom rooms and chat rooms over virtual broadcasts, I knew they were out there somewhere, doing the same thing I was doing, and projecting their own hopes and dreams into a positive vision of the future. Their commitment to themselves allowed me to deepen mine. I knew that I wasn’t crazy, that I could have a life I was proud of while maintaining my personal sovereignty. I had people I could ask for help, or to just laugh and enjoy the hilarity of humanity with.

This is partially why I am a huge advocate for telling people your dreams and goals. I think the old childhood adage of keeping your wishes a secret is actually a huge conspiracy theory. The more people of like-mind, with your highest good at heart, who know what you are working towards, the more people out there who can help you find it. It goes both ways of course, but just think about how good you feel when you can help someone. When you offer the exact thing they need to put something together in a new way. That’s why we are always giving advice. We want to be the ones to make a difference for someone. It feels good.

When you feel good, you are more likely to make your own dreams manifest. The feeling of connectivity through community is an advantage in the manifestation game. The more people you help to get their goals, the more likely you are to manifest your own. This potential would not be possible without community.

If you are like me and tend to muscle it on your own, ask yourself these questions:

1. How does keeping to myself keep me safe?

2. How does keeping to myself keep me small?

3. What do I dislike most about others, and how does that quality show up in me?

4. Who is someone I can help today?

5. Who is someone I am grateful for, and why?

How strong is your faith muscle?

Because just like the muscles of the body, faith can be strengthened. Sustained faith and gratitude are necessary to your becoming the highest version of yourself, and co-creating with the universe. The formula of successful manifestation is very simple. The tricky part is that simple is not synonymous with easy. What’s more, is that something not being easy doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be hard.

The verbiage to describe the manifestation process will vary depending on who you ask, but the basic principles remain at their core, the same. Ask for what you want, and get a clear mental picture of the desired outcome. Act, in faith, towards the direction of the goal with zero attachment to how it will manifest. Know that it, or something better, is on the way, and feel gratitude for already having it. This is very simple, but in practice, some of the hardest work you can do.

The difficulty comes in sustained thought. Just like telling your mind not to think about an elephant, and you will immediately think of an elephant. Successful manifestation depends on your ability to think what you want to think; that the desired end result is already on its way, regardless of what present circumstances might suggest. For example, if you desire more money, but are constantly thinking about how little there is in your bank account, it will be very difficult to manifest the desired change.

Being able to see, and feel, and know that you already have the thing you want, for an extended period of time (often long past the point you think you should have seen it already) takes a type of mental training and fortitude that most people don’t bother to cultivate. Why is it so torturous to sit in peaceful meditation for only a few minutes? The mind does not want to be trained. It wants to wander from thing to thing, like a monkey in the trees. Training to stay focused on something that, at least physically, is not perceivable from your current vantage point, is laborious.

But it is the ability to maintain sustained and unshakable faith at all times, that separates the men from the boys. But this unshakable faith must flow from a deep sense of joy and gratitude. You cant muscle your way to faith. You have to be unattached to the process with a lighthearted spirit of trust in it. In this way, it becomes the simplest task in the world. When you project your thought into universal intelligence, everything begins to move in accordance with delivering to you that vision, end of the story. What could be more simple?

How do we train the mind? There are an infinite number of ways. Affirmations, mantras, meditation, yoga, etc. Here’s a practical tool I use often. Find a trigger, something you know you’ll do or see often throughout your day, like: “every time I unlock my phone”. and apply the discipline: “I will say my faith-based affirmation 7 times”

Try this practice for 40 days and see what happens. Here are some faith building affirmations to try:

“I am the kind of person that trusts in the universe”

“I am excited for today because it is perfect”

“Everything around me is conspiring for my highest good”

“I enjoy not knowing how my dream will unfold”

“I am excited to see how my goal finds me”

“I am in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to see my desire manifest”

One of the most crucial pieces to the manifestation puzzle is knowing what you want.

I’ve heard it put this way before: If you want to get to a specific burger joint, you have to have the exact address. Putting the name of the city in the GPS will get you close, but it won’t get you a burger. Being able to clearly communicate your desire for universal intelligence depends on knowing the specifics. Seems simple, but a lot of people struggle with this.

Here’s the thing, most people are spending way more energy focusing on avoiding the things they don’t want, rather on feeling into what they do want. I have found, very often, what people truly want is deeply hidden, even from them.

This failure to recognize what we want manifests in a myriad of ways. For me, I had a subconscious belief that what I really wanted was totally unattainable, and frankly, laughable, so I built around me a persona of confusion. I walked around saying to myself that I “didn’t know” what I wanted because the truth was too painful to face.

My best friend recently shared with me her experience with this. She has spent the better part of 13 years laser-focused on her career goals. And while she has truly built an impressive career, once she is rightfully proud of, she realized that this hyper-focus on one area of her life has served to distract her from a deep desire she never let herself admit.

If you are working with identifying what you want, ask yourself these questions:

1. When in my life was I most happy?

2. When in my life did I feel most safe?

3. When in my life did I feel most proud?

4. When do I feel most like myself?

5. What do I value most?

6. If money/time/fear/guilt/shame was not a consideration, what would I spend my time doing?

7. What activities/people/places make me feel energized?

8. Who do I want to spend more time with?

   Look at your answers and search for commonalities; words, phrases, feelings that come up more than once. Then ask yourself why. At the heart of that answer will be something you most cherish. Try to project into the future what having a bigger experience of that would mean. For instance, if one of the things you most value is time spent with family, try to imagine what having a bigger experience of that would look like. A family vacation? A date night every week?

Allow yourself to feel into that vision, and admit to yourself you want it with zero doubt that it’s already yours.

I had one of those beautiful epiphanies during a meditation session that changed my life. I was just sitting there minding my own business when it hit me clear across the head. I think I audibly gasped, I was so taken aback. The realization was so simple, so profound, and the solution so unavoidable, I couldn’t believe I had been walking around without consciously observing it for so long.

I heard a voice, that was equal parts my voice and not my voice, say very clearly, “the fear is just a mask”. Then all at once, I caught a glimpse of myself, hunched over, avoiding eye contact, quickly moving through the world so as to not be seen. I saw this behavior so clearly for what it was, a mask. In other words, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t real, I was identifying with a personality trait that wasn’t true. The simplicity of the solution brought tears to my eyes. I could just take off the mask.

How often do we cling to pieces of ourselves that are outdated, or downright false? What do we need to do to take off these costumes? Whatever the answer is for you, whether yoga, dance, meditation, or walking in nature, you must make it a priority to do that thing every day. The whispers of true wisdom are not bestowed, we cultivate them in our devotion to something bigger than ourselves. In our commitment to practice that duty every day. It is like a relationship, we have to show up and do the work in order to know the person sitting across from us. In this case, that person is our truest self.

The short answer is, it depends…

I advise looking at other criteria than just whether or not a virtual workout will be energetic and motivating. It is my belief that a virtual workout can be just as or more inspiring than its IRL counterpart.

At the start of 2020, when everything shut down and went virtual, a lot of people found new motivation in their fitness routine. All of a sudden, here we were, working out like Brady Bunch squares, Zoom bombs, and tech issues galore. But something funny happened. We got to see the humanity of the fitness industry. We got to see how easy it could be to get in a workout. We got to connect, despite feeling physically isolated. And we got to experience the boundlessness of subtle energy.

My yoga community already had a thriving virtual community. And I was pleasantly surprised how much of that potent group energy could be tangible, and palpable in our new virtual reality. When people gather in groups, move in synchrony, and breathe in synchrony, there is a change in the collective consciousness, regardless of physical distance.

Think of the so-called, butterfly effect. A lay example of this concept is this; a butterfly beats its wings in Calcutta, and that affects weather patterns in Kansas. Or more generally, a “broad term for any situation where a small change is supposed to be the cause of larger consequences.” (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect). By this logic, could one person’s commitment to their health be a contributing factor to another person’s motivation on the other side of the world? Could one deep breath mean more inspiration for another in the virtual setting? My experience says: “absolutely, yes”.

The best workout for you is the one that you will actually do. Period. If things like traffic, parking, and safety protocols have any possibility of standing in your way of getting to an in-studio workout, then get yourself a virtual class pass with your favorite trainers and eliminate as many excuses as possible. The secret to bomb-ass workout experience lays with the talent, not the physical location.

I personally believe the future of fitness is trending towards a hybrid model, with virtual and IRL being used interchangeably. Saving the uniqueness of a class experience for special occasions to inspire and further ignite the daily work we do virtually at home.

What do you think?

Or more aptly, how I manifest, because manifestation can be a very personal thing.

The movie The Secret came out when I was in high school. Immediately, I was hooked. I intuitively knew that what I was learning was correct. The movie explained phenomena I had experienced since as early as I could remember that I just didn’t have an explanation for. I decided to write an essay on it and immediately came up against resistance. My English teacher couldn’t see how “positive thinking” could possibly influence the future. I objected on the basis that he didn’t really understand how it worked.

It is not just about positive thinking, it is about positive feelings. Forgive my very basic and general analysis, but when you dig deeper into the yogic science around the so-called “law of attraction” the logic is perfectly sound. Each of us has our own unique electromagnetic signature. All magnets attract and/or repel depending on their orientation to other magnetic bodies. When we can change our electromagnetic signature, we can repel and attract different things. In yogic science, that’s called your aura. It acts as a protective shield or a homing beacon depending on the quality of the person’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions. All of which have a symbiotic relationship with the physical systems of respiration, glandular secretions, and neural pathways.

So what I mean to say is, your body is a big part of how well you manifest the things you want. Being able to create at will the physiological response of gratitude and joy is more effective than just “thinking” positively.

When I manifest, I have to be able to create a physical experience, and I do that through exercise. I do this in three steps. First, I need to get clear on what I want. I find it easiest to get clarity with a meditative approach. Taking out the garbage that is obscuring the answer I need. I do this through, repetitive, and meditative movements. Walking in nature is a great example of this type of movement. Focus on the feeling you want to experience, and consciously put those feelings into the musculature.

Once I have some idea what the positive end result is, it’s time to get to work. Applying myself day in and day out, in faith. As I get tired, I must continue to act with precision and strength. Sculpt or barre workouts are perfect for this. I visualize the end result with each movement. Bonus points if you have an affirmation or mantra to connect to.

The last step is knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, that the experience you want, already exists for you. What’s more, feeling gratitude for already having it. The best way I know to do this is through dance cardio. Turn on your favorite heart-pumping song, throw your hands in the air, and dance. Lose yourself in the visualization of having attained the goal. The increased heart rate helps mimic the physiological response of JOY and excitement, changing your electromagnetic signature for the better.

If you want to experience this process in a full-body workout, check out The Manifestation Workout HERE

The short answer is energy.

From the traditional western philosophy, weight loss and weight management is a story about calories, deficits, fat-burning heart rates, and nutrition. And while those techniques are often an important part of a healthy weight and lifestyle, I have found more often than not, there is a deeper and more subtle component to weight loss.

I have a friend, she is a beauty in all the ways a person can be beautiful. She is kind, intelligent, fair, and grounded. She is wise beyond her years and physically very attractive. She also happens to be quite thin. She studied long and hard to be able to become a specialist in nutrition and natural wellness, and so people often ask her what the best way to attain and maintain a svelte figure is.

She gingerly replies “just think thin!”. At first glance, this response may elicit an eye roll. “That’s it?” you might gasp. “If all I had to do was think thin, I wouldn’t be so frustrated! I’d sit on my butt all day eating bon-bons!” But if you look a little deeper, the wisdom in her advice is pure, and deeply rooted in yogic and Ayurvedic technology.

From the Ayurvedic perspective, the weight on our bodies is defined by a delicate balance of the 5 gross elements. Our bodily tissues are made up of earth, air, fire, water, and ether. Each person has a unique combination of these 5 elements. An imbalance in one or more of these elements can have a wide variety of symptoms, weight gain being only one possibility. The elements responsible for making up the majority of our fat and muscle tissue are primarily made up of earth and water. What we ingest and digest not only physically, but mentally and emotionally is responsible for contributing to the quantity and quality of these tissue layers.

In other words, what we digest energetically is just as important to our overall health as what we eat. For instance, our ability to give and accept love is partially responsible for the quality of the fat tissues of our body. If someone lacked self-confidence and self-love, it would be more likely for that individual to have an imbalance in their fat tissues.

My friend’s advice to “think thin” hones in on this idea that what you are feeling and thinking might be just as important to your weight-loss journey as what you are eating and doing. When we can cultivate the energy of self-love, it has a tangible impact on the tissues of our body, energetically making a healthy weight more favorable.

The short answer is yes

Kundalini yoga is the yoga of awareness. Using the access points of the body like breath, mental focus, body posture (asana), eye-focus, and mantra, Kundalini yoga allows you to become more aware of subtle energy. I liken this to being a radio. Imagine you are a radio with a small antenna. You will pick up a limited number of channels. Then imagine you install a much bigger antenna, suddenly you will be able to pick up a larger number of channels. When you had the smaller antenna, you couldn’t tune in to those new channels, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t broadcasting. They were very real and always there, you just didn’t have the right equipment to hear them.

Kundalini yoga uses the energy of the body to be able to turn on our ability to perceive subtle energy more clearly. Lots of different modalities of meditation and breathwork can do this, but Kundalini yoga is the fastest and most efficient method I have discovered to date.

Now let me be clear, Kundalini yoga is totally weird. I mean that in the most respectful and endearing sense of the word. I love weird things. If you ask me, ordinary is boring. So, if you’re stuck in a rut and you’re looking for a change, then the most logical thing to do is something out of the ordinary. Waving your arms around and chanting and breathing heavily can be very strange to the first-timer who knows nothing about Kundalini yoga, but the very fact that it is weird and different means it is going to change you.

Let me explain. We are all running mental and emotional patterns that manifest as a result of our subconscious thought-forms. These patterns may or may not be beneficial in helping us accomplish the things we want to accomplish. The minute you do something out of the ordinary, like chant for 31 minutes while holding your hands in a specific position, or mudra, you start to carve out new neural pathways. With consistent practice, you can override those subconscious habits and patterns with new ones that are more favorable to your mission.

To change your life, you have to change the way you think, the way you problem-solve, the way you approach adversity, pain, and difficulty. This is what Kundalini yoga has done for me. It gave me opportunity after opportunity to witness myself, to become aware of myself so that I might make choices other than the ones my habits would have me repeat. But as with most things, you need to have an experience of this for yourself in order for this question to be fully understood and answered.

If you’re interested in trying a free Kundalini yoga class click here

I grew up in Hawaii…

I use this as the reasoning to explain why when asked the question; would you rather be too hot or too cold, the answer is always a resounding “too hot!”. Let me rephrase: I HATE being cold. I imagine freezing being an accurate representation of what it feels like to die a slow and painful death. So when my yoga teacher described the innumerable benefits of Ishnaan or cold hydrotherapy, I quickly put it in the category of “not for me”.

One of the most basic yogic technologies, ishnaan boasts a laundry list of health benefits including, glowing skin, reduced body fat, strengthening of the nervous system, better stress adaptability, toxin elimination, etc. As an athlete for most of my life, I’ve become acutely aware of the inflammation-reducing effects of ice baths, cold plunges, and other cold-water techniques. What I love about ishnaan, is that it is a powerful tool for manifesting our goals.

It only took me one $60 session in a cryo chamber to feel like I was being ripped off, before realizing I could have an even more effective experience in my own shower. It took some significant mind training on my part, but once you start using this technology consistently, you never want to stop. Imagine stepping out of your shower and feeling every cell in your body buzzing with energy. This heightened state, or “peak state” as some call it, is a powerful tool for manifesting and grounding your dreams into reality. In order for you to call in what you want, you have to live in the state where it exists. Ishnaan accelerates that process. The rush of blood flushing your organs and then back out to the extremities gives you a sense of energized calm and focus, giving you the feeling that you are about to perform in a way that makes people turn and take notice.

This is the key to manifesting positive results in your life.

One common misconception of the Law of Attraction is the idea that you need only think good thoughts. While positive thoughts are a crucial component, the magic dust lies in your emotions and feelings. In order for your powers of manifestation to move up to the level of Jedi Master, you must become very good at embodying the thing you want to do/be/have. This takes some practice. In the same way, a very talented actor can convince those around her that she is a different person, you must become skilled in the art of make-believe. Ishnaan makes this process of “walking the walk” much more efficient. If you’ve ever jumped into an ice-cold lake or taken a cold plunge, you know that is impossible not to feel fully invigorated afterward. This invigoration is the secret sauce to your goals because it sends the signals to the universe that whatever you are thinking about is happening now. The universe likes balance, so if you are feeling that heightened state on a consistent basis (i.e. every day) it will make manifest in your life.

Tips for ishnaan

• Oil and dry brush your entire body before stepping into the shower. This stimulates the lymph system to come online and protected the skin

• Start with a warm shower to do all your washing, and then turn the shower cold

• Be sure to hit the front of your neck, back of the neck, ears, underarms, forearms, and tops of the feet with the cold water. Just hitting the tops of your feet alone is very effective if you’re not ready for the full body

• Vigorously towel your whole body and experience the magic!

To learn more about the benefits of ishnaan click here

The 5000-year-old science of Ayurveda is more nuanced and artistic than it is exact. It is strange to me that more people don’t know the basics of this elemental modality of health and spiritual progress. The traditional model of nutrition in western culture never really hooked me, because I always knew everybody was different. How could one set of rules be right for everyone? With our endless fad diets and miracle cure food crazes, we have bought into the idea that foods can be inherently good or bad. Could it be possible that something as healthy and celebrated as the avocado is both nutritious and poisonous depending on the person, the season, and even the time of day? In Ayurveda, there are no good foods or bad foods. Every food has a positive and a negative aspect. The central tenet of Ayurveda is bringing the body and mind into balance, through nutrition, lifestyle, and spiritual development.

Most everyone who knows a little about Ayurveda knows about the doshas. Your doshic makeup or Prakriti is your individualized roadmap to what foods, exercises, times of day, people, places, thoughts, etc, will influence you most, and in what ways. The idea is that everything in nature is made up of the same 5 elements, but with proportions as unique as a fingerprint. Vata types are made up of air and ether. The characteristics of these elements are light, dry, fast, and cold. Vata-type people are typically thinner, always on the go, and more likely to notice symptoms like constipation or bloating. Pitta people are made up of fire and water, light, hot, oily, and movable. They have a medium build with good muscle tone, are discerning, motivated, and ambitious, and can have a hot temper when out of balance. Kapha dosha is the dosha of earth and water, slow, cold, heavy, and moist. Kapha people tend to be a little heavier, with soft skin and hair, big eyes, and melodious voices. They can be easily subject to feelings of depression, and lack of motivation when out of balance.

What I love most about Ayurveda is the idea that the different tissues of our bodies affect our psychological well-being. Each tissue type or “dhatu” is made of its own composition of the five elements, fueled by the power of our digestion. When our digestive fire or “Agni” is working properly, the by-product of that process directly builds the corresponding tissue type. For instance, fat tissue is made up of primary water and earth elements, these elements have a nourishing and stabilizing effect on the organism, directly affecting our ability to feel and send love. If the digestive fire is not working properly, it is either delivering too much or too little of the building blocks needed to maintain a healthy balance of fat tissue, and a healthy feeling of self-love and love for others.

If you are interested in how Ayurveda might help you in your life, I recommend taking a dosha quiz. Once you know your dosha, you’ll be able to find the right foods, herbs, and practices best suited for your personal composition. Keep in mind, that the doshas affect more than just your physical body. They also play into the world around us. The spring equinox brings the start of Kapha season. So Kapha-type people may feel it is easier to fall out of balance with all the Kapha influence so prevalent. Whatever your interest level, Ayurveda is both simple and complex, so you can tailor whatever tips and tricks you’ve learned to fit your lifestyle.