In anticipation of my upcoming book The Whole Mother: Developing Awareness in Service of Postpartum Healing, I’ve started a substack site where I write about parenting while walking a spiritual path, the lessons and challenges of motherhood, and the postpartum period through the yoga therapy lens. Join me for the conversation: juliaromano.substack.com.
The Work of the Light: You Have Choice; Cultivating Positive Self Awareness Through Therapeutic Yoga
The Work of the Light: You Have Choice. Cultivating Positive Self Awareness Through Therapeutic Yoga
Mind and body aren’t simply connected; mind and body are made, fundamentally, of the same stuff. And so, the space of one can be used to help find healing in the other. The following pages explore a new construct — using the ancient technology of therapeutic yoga — through which to challenge negative core beliefs in the interest of creating a more positive, even joy-full, sense of self, being and body. The awesome truth: you don’t have to feel bad about yourself any longer.
Read moreThe Work of the Light - The Earthworm's Sacrifice: Motherhood, Mistakes, and Learning
In this next posting of The Work of the Light, my writings on this great practice of yoga called Life, I share the learning both mother and son are sharing as we dig in the dirt.
Read moreThe Work of the Light - The Winds of Change: Vayus through the Yoga Therapy Lens
In this posting of The Work of the Light, my occasional writings on the great practice of yoga called Life, we explore the concept of the Vayus. Take a moment and notice the feeling of this thought: Just as we breathe prana, we are being breathed by the universe itself.
Read moreMeditation: Just Do it Dammit
Meditation is so, so simple...but it certainly ain't easy. Here's my guide to developing your practice.
Read moreThe Work of the Light - The Mark of the Infinite: Motherhood, Vulnerability, and Identity
During these last two years of becoming mother, questions of identity have swirled. This posting of The Work of the Light (my writings on this great yoga practice called life) is an exploration of self, Self, fear, and love.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: Less Noise, More Listening — Making the Moments of Motherhood Your Meditation
In this posting of the Work of the Light, my occasional writings on this great yoga practice called life, I explore some of motherhood's first lessons. It's hard to know where to fit a contemplative practice in the early months of motherhood. The answer, experience teaches, is everywhere.
Read moreThe Yoga Therapy Lens: Seeing Health Through the Pancamayakosha Model
The following pages are a response to the question I'm often asked: "What makes yoga therapy different from other kinds of therapy?" Yoga Therapy views the individual as far more than a physical body, or that fuzzy thing called "the mind." Seeing the individual as the composite of several interrelated parts offers additional entry points for healing, and the complimentary multi-faceted tools of therapeutic yoga offer means for seeking healing where unilateral treatments may fall short.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: Meditation, Compassion, and a Tall Spine
Though many things call themselves meditation, only one act is truly meditation: anchoring the mind’s full attention, no matter its complaints, to the this present moment. Single pointed focus.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: All Roads Lead — Where Buddhism, and the Yogic Path Intersect
A yogic practice can be informed classical yogic texts, such as Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, as well as other philosophies that also address the construction of the mind, such as Buddhism. Ultimately, both Buddhism and Yoga are both technology more than philosophy. Just as pencil and pastel may sketch the same landscape, though with different tone and shape, so too do these two mediums offer complementary ways of viewing the same path. Each road leads to the liberation of the self from suffering.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: How to Do Yoga in Six (Not So Easy) Steps
Real learning - that intangible period when an idea takes shape within - can only take place through direct application and experience of the thing. In this next posting of "The Work of the Light," I share the lessons I've come to embody through a decade of practical experience, in hopes that you, too, shall practice.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: On Gratitude, and the Nature of Mud, and Lotus
A practice of gratitude changes everything - particularly when we choose to perceive life's most painful moments as sources of illumination. In this posting of The Work of The Light, I offer an addendum to the more traditional gratitude practice: alongside the lotus, be grateful for the mud that made it.
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Between Strength, and Softness: The Power of Exploring the Space in Between
Enjoy this example of a kind of sequence that could be employed in order to help a practitioner experience strength, and ease, and his or her own capacity to move between these two, seemingly disperate states. The experience that we can be simultaneously receptive and strong is one of the most empowering experiences one can have. In strength, there is ease. In ease, there is strength,
Read moreThe Work of the Light: Making Intention Actionable
The Work of the Light: Making Intention Actionable
In this next posting of "The Work of the Light," I explore the concept of sankalpa, or "intention," and investigate ways by which the paths of action and intention are partners in the process of seeking change through yoga.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: Explaining the Benefits of Yoga as Therapy
The Work of the Light: Explaining the Benefits of Yoga as Therapy
Yoga as therapy has tremendous benefits for mind, body and Spirit. From injury of the body, to a wounded mind, yoga heals. The following post is an explination of the benefits of this great practice geared toward a potential yoga therapy client. If you're seeking healing and increased well-being, and wondering about how yoga as therapy might support that process, you'll enjoy this read.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: Meditation, and the Science Behind Why it Works
The Work of the Light: Meditation, and the Science Behind Why it Works
That yoga and meditation “work” to help free us from the suffering-inducing habit patterns of the mind is supported by millennia of qualitative data. Awesomely, modern science is increasingly able to illuminate the physiological mechanisms behind why yoga works. The following paragraphs look at current research through the lens of my own experience of the power of practicing the Practice.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: Why I Went to India to Not Do Yoga
The Work of the Light: Why I Went to India to Not Do Yoga
In that wonderful fashion in which life often operates – giving you just what you need despite you feverishly desiring the opposite – it was, ultimately, my attachment to the pose that was to burn...
Read moreFlowers of Odanadi
Flowers of Odanadi
The following is a re-publication of a piece originally published in the 2010 publication Intercept: Johns Hopkins University SAIS Visual Journal of International Relations. It tells the story of my time volunteering as an art teacher at an anti-trafficking organization, Odanadi Seva Trust in Mysore, India. Funny thing about teaching: you often learn far more than you could ever impart.
Read moreThe Work of the Light: Making Yoga Your Business
The Work of the Light: Making Yoga Your Business
The "on the mat" practice of yoga asana is only a conduit for what is ultimately a practice of learning to live a more joyful life. This first posting of "The Work of the Light," my writings around this blessed practice, examines what it means – as students and teachers – to truly take yoga "off the mat," and make it the business of your daily life.
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