Brain fog, fatigue, constant exhaustion. Sound familiar?  Yeah, you, me and apparently the entire modern world. What gives? Dr. Casey Means suggests it’s a problem with power: the cellular machinery that is set up to fuel our function isn’t working correctly, and frankly, it’s our fault (not our mitochondria’s). We asked Dr. Means why metabolic dysfuntion has become so rampant and the shifts she recommends taking to get our cells firing properly once again.

Wanderlust:  Metabolic health is a relatively new concept in the wellness world. What would you tell someone who’s never heard of metabolic health about why it matters and why this became your primary focus?

Dr. Casey Means:  Metabolic health is the foundation of all health. This is because every one of our 40+ trillion cells require energy to do their work, and that energy comes from metabolic processes.  It comes from how we convert food energy to cellular energy—this is metabolism. In 93.2% of American bodies today, metabolic dysfunction is present. That percentage should be close to 0%!

This means that in the vast majority of American adults, there is a problem with how our bodies fundamentally power themselves.

This is the direct result of the modern industrial diet and lifestyle, which are synergistically hurting the metabolic machinery of our cells. Most significantly affected are mitochondria, which you might remember from high school biology are the “powerhouses of the cell.” Many synthetic environmental toxins hurt our mitochondria. Lack of sleep hurts our mitochondria. Refined sugars and grains hurt our mitochondria. Sitting too much hurts our mitochondria. Even chronic fear stunts our ability for mitochondria to do their best work.

When our metabolic machinery does not work properly, we are like underpowered machines, sputtering along to do the daily work of our lives. When our cells are sputtering to do the trillions of chemical reactions they need to do every day, this creates a struggling body… which emerges as symptoms and disease. So, it’s not surprising that 9 of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States right now are fundamentally rooted in metabolic dysfunction. Our diet and lifestyles are killing us, and they’re killing us because they’re hurting our metabolism.

This is my mission in life to evangelize. And I believe that until the healthcare system orients around metabolic optimization, we will keep getting sicker, and no amount of meds, surgeries, or increasing healthcare dollars are going to fix it—unless we shift to focusing on the right problem.

As individuals, to revolutionize our energy, minimize our symptoms, have sharp bodies and brains, and live long healthy lives, a focus on metabolic and mitochondrial health is foundational. We have to power ourselves properly before we can do anything else.

WL: Who or what has been the biggest influence on guiding your studies in health and medicine toward cellular health?

CM: The biggest influences for me have been the forward-thinking, fearless medical leaders who have put the pieces together of functional medicine, the concept of “food as medicine,” and metabolic health. I am indebted to the friendship and collaboration with Drs. Mark Hyman, Robert Lustig, David Perlmutter, Sara Gottfried, Dom D’Agostino, Terry Wahls, Ben Bikman, Molly Maloof—their writing and content has changed my life.  Follow all of them and read their books and watch your life get better!

There are many others as well, like Drs. Jeffrey Bland, William Li, Howard Luks, Chris Palmer, Steve Gundry, and many others… 

I also admire so many of the content creators and thinkers who have pushed the ball forward in health, like Jeff Krasno, Shawn Stevenson, Kayla Barnes, Mona Sharma, Ben Greenfield, Dave Asprey, Louisa Nicola, and more. 

I am also deeply inspired by the regenerative farming community and leaders, like Molly Chester at Apricot Lane Farms, Will Harris at White Oak Pastures, and Jesse and Ana Smith at White Buffalo Land Trust.

WL: People don’t often turn to their doctors for recipes. Have you always had a wont toward cuisine/a talent in the kitchen? Do your explorations in the kitchen act as a counterpoint to your medical pursuits, or do you find the two elements to be complementary?

CM: I have been inspired by the power of food since an early age. As an undergraduate at Stanford, I studied nutrigenomics, which planted the seed for helping me understand how food compounds can actually change our gene expression, and that our genes along are not our destiny. In fact, it is the interaction between the environment, what we put in our bodies, how we live, in conversation with our genetic code that determines our fate. 

When I was a young child, I was very overweight, and at 14 I went down a path of learning all about nutrition, reading tons books from the library, studying science, and starting to cook my own food and eliminate processed food. The weight came off fairly effortlessly, and this deeply entrenched in me the power of real rood. 

Something we don’t think about often is that the body is 100% entirely made of food. Every atom in our body is made from food. Essentially, pregnancy is the process of 3D printing a human from food in the mother’s body! It’s incredible! And it’s not only the building blocks for the body, it’s also the instructions and serves as information that goes into the body to tell the body what to do.

As such, I’ve always had a sense of deep awe at the fact that eating, and cooking, is basically the transmutation and transformation of environmental energy into human energy… environmental matter into human matter… Environmental potential into human potential…  It’s all one, it’s all connected, and the quality of the food becomes the quality of our lives. 

Food, eating, cooking, gardening…  it’s inextricably linked to the human body and to human health, and I think our healthcare system would be a lot more functional if doctors saw things this way.

There’s no getting around the fact that we are what we eat,  and what we’re eating in the country in the United States these days is ultra processed, industrially manufactured, lifeless, nutrient depleted, and covered and filled with toxins. It’s so obvious why we’re sick, and what we need to do to fix it. It starts with food.

WL: What’s the one thing that a person can do today to level up their metabolic health?

CM: Buy food from a farmer’s market! Eating unprocessed food that’s been grown in healthy thriving soil is the best possible thing you can do for your health.

WL:  What is your favorite wellness modality: from yoga to cold plunges, red light therapy to acupuncture… is there one that you’d never want to leave behind in your journey?

CM: Too many to count! One of my favorite things to do in any cold environment is to find a body of frigid water and jump in it to get my free cold therapy. This might be an Alpine Lake in Wyoming during a hiking trip, a glacier Lake in Montana during a company off-site, an icy river in the middle of winter when visiting friends in Bend Oregon…  I can’t help but jump into cold bodies of water! I also don’t go anywhere without ear plugs, an eye mask, turmeric, magnesium, l-theanine, lavender essential oil, and valerian root. You never know what the sleeping conditions are going to be when you’re traveling, and having my little sleep set is incredible! 

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Casey Means, MD is a physician, Chief Medical Officer and Co-founder of metabolic health company Levels, Lecturer at Stanford in Food, Design, and Technology, and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention.

Her mission is to maximize human potential and reverse the epidemic of preventable chronic disease by empowering individuals with tech-enabled tools that can inform smart, personalized, and sustainable dietary and lifestyle choices. Dr. Means’s perspective has been recently featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Men’s Health, Forbes, Business Insider, Techcrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Hill, Metabolism, Endocrine Today, and more.

Website | Instagram

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We’re guessing that your Instagram feed is as replete with wellness leaders and influencers as ours is. And that you’ve probably noticed an uptick in references to a seemingly new wellness trend called IFS, though this methodology or theory has been around for decades. What, exactly, does IFS mean in a healing context, and where should one begin to peel back the layers on learning more? We turned to Krista Williams, an IFS-informed teacher and speaker, who will be leading a workshop on Internal Family Systems at our next festival.

Wanderlust: If you had a 60-second elevator pitch for IFS, what would it be? Talk to us like we’re your great aunt and don’t understand millennials or instatherapy speak.

Krista Williams: A lot of us know about the ‘inner critic’… the voice inside of us that doesn’t always feel so warm and fuzzy. It’s that part of us that keeps us in line, always has something negative to say and often is the voice that focuses on how we look, how we’re perceived, how successful we are…This idea of the inner critic, how it impacts us and most importantly how it’s NOT who we are, is a great example of Internal Family Systems. IFS is where we can have multiple experiences, multiple truths, and various ‘parts’ of us that can be activated at various points in our life. We can be both happy and sad when our first born child is graduating high school and going off to college, we can be scared and excited if we are going for that promotion at work. From a high level perspective, we know that our brain is a parallel processor and the mind can think in multiples.

Internal Family Systems is a life changing ​​psychotherapy tool that conceives every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts (these various feelings and truths we can hold are seen as ‘parts’) and that we all also have a core Self. The core self is that undeniable aspect of who we are, the Self is felt when we feel things like compassion, curiosity, clarity, creativity, calm, confidence, courage, and connectedness. There will probably never be scientific proof that Self exists because of its elusive nature. It cannot be recorded externally and, therefore, it cannot be measured. All we know is that everybody seems to have the potential to be in that state and, when Self leads, changes and healing that were not possible before become available. 

Within Internal Family Systems, the goal is to get to know all the aspects of who we are, by inviting them in, loving them, and embracing each feeling that we have.

The goal of Internal Family Systems is to become your own healer and to love yourself in any state, any emotion, any feeling, just as you are. Through the work you work with each ‘part’ to see what information you can glean for greater self acceptance. As an example: if you are someone who binges food, there is an aspect of you that finds binging for comfort, and then another part that no longer wants to binge. In IFS we would get to know (through curiosity, questioning, meditation and kindness) both parts in that scenario in order to understand, love and eventually create a new experience. 

WL: Who or what was your first introduction to IFS?

KW: My first introduction to IFS was through my own experience in therapy. I have been working with a therapist I love for around 3 years and in our work my life has changed through this technique by applying it to my own life for my body struggles, relationship woes and general lack of worthiness and self love. From there, I’ve spoken to the Founder of IFS, Dick Schwartz, on my podcast, Almost 30 where I even did a live IFS meditation on our show. It was something that clicked for me in a way that has been profound. 

WL: In what ways have you seen IFS support healing in a way that feels more authentic or practical than other methods?

KW: There are a lot of different tools, resources, books, healers, gurus and ways to support our journey in life, but what I love about IFS is that once you understand it, it becomes intuitive and you’re able to use it without anything else or anyone else, everyday.

The belief that we are our own best healers, and that we have all the tools we need to become whole, is one of my favorite aspects of IFS.

Understanding the simple principles of what it means to hold multiple truths, to love even the parts we deem unloveable, and to use mindfulness to un-blend ourselves from other parts in order to reconnect with our true essence. There’s nothing for you to buy, nowhere for you to go, and nothing more for you to do than to apply more compassionate awareness to yourself on a daily basis through the IFS method.

WL: How do you know if IFS is for you? Are there personality traits or particular issues/times of life where this particular method is especially effective?

KW: For anyone that wants to be their own healer, or find a way where in the moment they can find greater compassion for themselves then IFS can help you. If you have done work where you have reached a point in your process where you have done the things, but now need to access a deeper level of self love, then IFS can help. As I mentioned, to start, I think one of my favorite ways to use IFS is by identifying and working with the Inner Critic, which a lot of us can relate to. When we think about that Inner Critic voice and when it’s activated, we can use IFS to get curious about, make space for, and un-blend from the rest of who we are. Once we recognize, depersonalize from that voice we can eventually get to know, learn about and see what that voice is doing for us (which in most cases it’s trying to protect us from pain/hurt/rejection/abandonment the best way it knows how).

WL:  Curious to hear your take on this: talk to us about the multidisciplinary wellness influencer. IFS is a relative newcomer on the scene. Do you think that adding more tools to your teaching toolkit is always a good thing, or do you see folks flitting from one modality to the next in search of the method that will stick? What’s your litmus test for a wellness leader that is walking the walk? 

KW: IFS is a relatively established technique used in the therapy world for a while now, but as therapy has made it’s way more mainstream (thankfully to social media and the #instatherapy world). As someone that has been in the wellness space for a while, has learned a lot of things, practiced quite a bit of modalities and been introduced to many tips and techniques, I’ve found that it’s less of a ‘tool’ and more a shift in mindset. When I think about the tools I have leveraged, it’s in order for me to get something, or to be something different. IFS is about loving what is. It’s not about changing, it’s about accepting. There is no running, or being in the mind so much as it’s being present with the feelings, the body and the truth. I have found in my work that it’s been something very integrative, seamless and most importantly… kind.

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Krista Williams is the Co-Founder of Almost 30, a global community and brand, providing online learning and resources for navigating life’s transitions. Almost 30 the Podcast is a top spirituality and wellness podcast that has amassed over 100M downloads. She is the co-creator of Morning Microdose, a daily dose of inspo ranked top new podcasts by Spotify. Krista leads global retreats, speaks all over the world, and is the visionary for Modern Tarot and The Life Edit, which provides tools for conscious, intentional living. She has deep training in various energy healing methods and is Internal Family Systems informed. She is a lifelong empath, rebel, teacher, healer and goofball.

Website | Instagram

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Her latest class is “Mercury Retrograde: Meditation to Neutralize” and we’ve added it to her popular “Merc Rx Collection” that includes asana, meditation, pranayama, and kriya.

Sample the 23-minute meditation right here:

The post New Mercury Retrograde Meditation from Melissa Genovese appeared first on Active Womens Media.

If you’ve ever taught anything, you know the joy of those moments when the line between teaching and learning is blurred.

I want to tell you about my favorite yoga student and what I learned from him.

In 2002, I taught at a private school for boys in Vancouver, British Columbia. In this class of eighth-graders, one of the students was blind. I had to put braille on his yoga mat so he could always know where he was in space.

Watching him practice filled me with delight. He wasn’t a contortionist or a bendy social media yoga superstar. He was, in fact, quite stiff.

Yet even in a tight body, he was free of what I consider to be the biggest wrong turn we all take on the road to happiness: the need for the approval of others. 

Because of his blindness, he had no idea what anyone else could or could not do, or how they looked in a particular yoga posture. Because he could not see outwardly, he had no means of comparing himself to anyone else. This gave his practice a calmness and a presence that it can take years for us to gain on the yogic path. 

His poses emerged from within himself without struggle. They were body poetry; and his face reflected the pleasure of creating shapes that released previously stuck tightness. 

In Warrior Two, he was comfortable in his skin. He taught me how yoga and our lives could look the day we stopped seeking the approval of others. He moved with a relaxed breath showing no effort to prove anything. Comparison to others was not the thief of his joy.

In all aspects of our lives, we think the validation of others will make us happy, but it constrains us in the prison of our minds. 

As I watched him settle into poses that felt good to him, I saw a living example of what life looks like when we realize that contentment is a key that unlocks the prison of comparison. (pull quote) If we learn this lesson on our mat, we allow this quiet, steady happiness to flourish in every other aspect of our lives.

Comparison is an unconscious download installed into our mental operating systems at an early age. We tend to compare everything to others and then grade ourselves accordingly. What does my car look like relative to others? How about my body? My social media likes? My hair? In an era where our social media feeds amplify the ego’s need to see where we fit in on the bell curve of achievement staying content on and off the mat is easier said than done.

Since we all tend to look around and compare ourselves to others, we need a remedy. The comparison is not just on the yoga mat.

The need to make the poses look good to get the approval of others is a cul-de-sac on the road called discontent. It leads to joyless striving for future attainment rather than the simple yet profound joy of the miracle of breath filling our being.  

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Enter: bliss balls.

They only take 15 minutes to prepare, are filled with energy-boosting ingredients and will keep you satiated until your next meal. Another bonus is that you can easily make them at the beginning of the week and keep in a sealed container in the fridge for a couple of days, or even store them in the freezer.

This strawberry and coconut bliss ball recipe ticks all the right boxes, and thanks to the addition of Wanderlust Prebiotic Gut Goodness provides a natural source of resistant starch and fibre to help keep your gut happy by maintaining bowel regularity.

Makes: approx. 16

Ingredients:

• 250g fresh strawberries, washed and hulled
• 6 tsp Wanderlust Prebiotic Gut Goodness
• 2 ½ cups desiccated coconut plus ¼ cup, for rolling
• ¼ cup maple syrup
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 2 tbsp coconut oil melted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Method:

1. Place all ingredients, except ¼ cup of desiccated coconut, into a food processor and blend until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the processor as needed to ensure an even consistency. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
2. Roll mixture into 16 even balls, then roll through extra coconut to coat. Serve immediately.

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For over 6 years, Emily has been practicing Vedic meditation and exploring how ancient Vedic wisdom can help us shape lives of meaning, fulfillment, connection and happiness.

Enjoying the benefits of a daily practice and integrating the knowledge into her own life, Emily is now a qualified teacher of Vedic meditation. She shares this simple technique with people wishing to experience their own natural state of calm, while connecting with a community of like-minded humans.

Grounded in ancient wisdom, but intended for modern lives, Emily’s courses are down to earth, relevant for busy lives and centered on helping people see how simple meditation is, yet how profoundly it helps us let go of stress so that we may re-align with our innate creativity, clarity, and fulfillment.

Website | Instagram

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A PLACE TO FIND YOUR TRUE NORTH

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The Mystic engages in soulful practices to build her steady, yet always evolving inner spirit house. Weaving ways to initiate contemplative, internal practices, and rituals through her day is her craft. To discover and listen to the current inner impulses is the loom. This becomes the Mystic’s daily superpower. The practice of discerning an authentic impulse versus a fear-based pattern is ongoing work. To understand how the narrative of the past limits, clouds, and feeds an illusioned life is essential. To be curious and non-attached to the outcome of an idea or vision is one of the greatest tools with which the Mystic builds her inner sanctuary. Through such devotion and dedication to self-inquiry, a deeper field of consciousness and high vibrational frequency grows. This magnetic energy inspires others to do the same. To show up as the best version of self is to consistently return to the Mystic’s code of presence and truth, which naturally enlivens the essence of wonder in every step on the journey. 

The Mystic Builds Her Spirit House 

To ignite the inner Mystic is to take a vow to care for your highest self. It is to live with the awareness that each day is the living ceremony that guides the essential self. It is to live in faith that the present moment is the only moment. Yes, the past informs the present, and we hold our prayers and intentions to create our future. 

Essential to the Mystic’s wholeness is to seek balance in how we listen to the inner self, and how we attune to the external ecosystems in both the mundane and sacred realms. On the one hand track your thought patterns, use of words and language both internally and externally, and how you anchor into daily life. On the other hand, pay attention to how you connect with the otherworldly energies— dreams, visions, intuitive downloads. These two worlds must not be separated in order for wholeness inside the Mystic’s vision to be received. 

Are you the same person on the yoga mat or the meditation cushion as when you need to stand in your truth and affirm personal boundaries? Can you hold the Mystic’s perspective while in a heated argument with a family member or while you are cooking dinner for your hungry children? 

This is often a challenge in the moment; we tend to turn away from the uneasy feelings. Yet the discipline is to turn towards them. Bring a beginner’s mind to the situation and be present to both your bodily sensations and to the desire to check out. This process takes patience and the willingness to let go and be vulnerable. However, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. The next breath is always waiting to bring you back home to your body. 

Staying Current with Your Evolving Self 

Slowing down, developing a daily meditation practice, bookending your day with a morning and evening ritual, basking in nature’s rhythms, and creating times of silence will support the inner Mystic’s alchemy. With a steady, rhythmic devotion to the work—and fewer media distractions—the intuitive voice will come forward. Your daily commitment is to track and trust the inner voice as it comes. 

Initiate the slower, mindful practices without aiming for individual gain or enlightenment; rather engage in them in order to experience union with self and the external ecosphere. This generates an awakening of love over disconnection, of truth over fear. 

Immersing yourself in nature builds your sixth sense and attunes your awareness to the greater powers. The rhythms and pure energy of the natural world teach you to trust your own way of perceiving, receiving, and understanding your inner Mystic. 

Ether is the most mysterious, unexplainable of elements, and yet it is the energy that holds earth, air, fire, and water together. Its tenuous and invisible quality is associated with the celestial realms and the upper world of space. When you attune your awareness to both the seen and the unseen worlds, you begin to observe energy as it moves and shifts in each moment. Refining our ability to receive and perceive what dwells in our natural environment, we naturally begin to sense the vibrational frequency known as the ethereal plane. We pick up clues through our subtle body. We expand our vision to include wonder and magic. 

Silence is a gateway to the creative impulses. The frequency of flow, grace, and conscious communication becomes a living, breathing creative process. Creativity is an inner process and journey. 

Over time, the grand “Who am I?” question emerges. In this precise moment, your inner Mystic has arrived to ignite a deeper inquiry into your personal and collective life experience. Be curious about how you can show up daily to work with life’s obstacles and remove the stressors as they arise; this is where the magic lives.

Sage, Huntress, Lover, Queen: Access Your Power and Creativity through Sacred Female Archetypes by Mara Branscombe © 2023 Findhorn Press. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International.

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Boundaries for Breakfast

I start setting boundaries from the second my alarm goes off in the morning. Boundaries come in all shapes and forms. I think many of us assume that boundaries are just something we set with another person or how much of our personal lives we share with the world (think of the saying “That person has no boundaries”), but most days, before the sun even begins to rise, I have already set boundaries with myself, my husband, my children, my work, my family, my friends, and even our dog.

Setting boundaries is a way to protect my most precious resource: my energy—both how and where it is being spent. They are a way for me to mitigate how much of myself I am giving to something or someone since my impulse is to give everyone and everything my all. And they are constantly shifting. Just because I feel one way today or need to focus my attention in one area does not mean that I will feel the same tomorrow. Just because I feel the need to draw a hard line this month or, conversely, be totally loose about something, does not mean I will do it that way again next month.

The very first boundary I set most days of the week is making the choice to wake up well before the rest of the world so I can meditate and write. It is a boundary I set with myself but also with others, in that it means I go to bed much earlier than most and am not generally available for any outside responsibilities early in the mornings, including emails or work meetings. Getting up early gives me time to fill my cup, both literally, as in getting to enjoy my tea hot (which is impossible once my kids are awake), and metaphorically, in that I spend those wee hours of the morning doing whatever I want to do. I write. I sit quietly. I cuddle with my dog (though as mentioned, there are many mornings I even have say to him, “Not now, dude. I need a little space.”).

Being able to focus entirely on each of these things without distraction or other people needing me transforms each task into a ritual. I would even dare to say that they become my yoga practice, my sadhana. Notice that no mat is needed. But just because my morning time is special does not mean that I am beholden to it. In fact, I am much more forgiving with myself than I was years prior.

For many years in early adulthood, my boundaries with myself were incredibly rigid. It began in early college around my studies and eating and quickly bled into every other area of my life. Even when I started to get “healthier,” as in practicing yoga, my self-discipline bordered on masochism. I would force myself through hard-core asana practices, regardless of if I had the energy. I would withhold any pleasure from myself in the form of food or even relationships. In prioritizing my body’s size, asana practice, and career, I ended up denying myself the joy of living.

Ironically, during that same time, the boundaries I held with other people seemed almost nonexistent. I would absorb my family members’ pain and struggles and insert myself into everyone’s problems. There was a reason I pursued psychology for as long as I did, including beginning to get my Masters Degree in marriage family therapy: I thought it was my job to “fix” everyone. I would also say yes to commitments that I knew in my heart I didn’t want to fulfill, prioritizing others’ disappointment over my own mental health. Between my extraordinarily strong personal boundaries and incredibly porous social boundaries, there was little to no balance.

Since starting a family, I have tried to swing myself in the exact opposite direction. Nowadays, I try to be softer with the boundaries I hold around myself but tighter with the boundaries I have around others. I find this balance to be more sustainable when I have people relying on me 24/7. For example, I will allow myself to sleep past my alarm if I need to and skip my asana practice if I am exhausted (something I would not have dared to do a decade ago!). I am much more willing to draw a hard line and say no when asked to do something for someone that doesn’t feel authentic. My two new favorite words are “Google it.”

Healthy boundaries are living, breathing things. They exist along a spectrum because we always need to adjust one way or the other to find new ways to balance. There are some periods in our lives when our boundaries need to be firm, others where they need to be more malleable.

Can we be present and aware enough of what we need right now in this moment to know when to make those adjustments?

When an Overachiever Becomes a Parent

As I implied earlier, my yeses and nos have always been a bit backward when it comes to differentiating my personal life from my work life. Just before I met my husband, I was so burned out and overworked that my health was affected. I would binge and purge every weekend and then restrict and overexercise all week (and this is when I was “healthy”). I would go months without a day off, unable to say no. Sometimes I would teach a class just minutes after major life events, like deaths in the family or breakups, barreling through the intense emotions with work instead of taking the time to process.

When an injury prevented me from not only teaching asana but also practicing it (the two things I had rigidly come to define my entire life by), things began to soften for me. First, my injury was so bad that I had to pull out of some work commitments, something I had never done in my entire teaching career at that point. For a people-pleaser, my work commitments are like blood oaths. Surely my saying no would ruin my career and I would lose any new opportunities and never travel for teaching again.

Spoiler alert: none of that came true.

Instead, fast-forward to seven years later: I am happily married with two beautiful boys, and I can honestly say that in learning how to balance what I say yes to and no to, my career has been able to thrive right alongside my family.

Would I be deeper into my leg-behind-the-head poses had I kept prioritizing my asana over my relationships and developing a family? Possibly, but I would not trade newborn and toddler cuddles for shoving my leg behind my head for anything.

No is not a Bad Word

It’s not easy, learning how to say no to those you love the most. Some brain researchers say that we are hardwired to associate the word with negativity and that opposite parts of the brain fire when hearing no versus yes. I know many parents who try to never say the word to their children. I try to set positive limits in other ways, for example, by acknowledging what my kids can do or explaining why something may not work right now, versus just saying no outright. They say a toddler hears no four hundred times a day, so I get the hesitation, but may I suggest something perhaps a bit controversial?

What if saying no is not necessarily a bad thing? What if saying no is a necessity? What if we could retrain our brain to understand that saying no is really saying yes to something else? Most often yourself? As Anne Lamott sums up in her hilarious and raw book Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, “‘No’ is a complete sentence.” The author and activist Glennon Doyle also explained this well in a recent episode of her We Can Do Hard Things podcast, saying that a big part of mitigating one’s tendency to people-please is “having the intellectual honesty to know that every ‘yes’ is a ‘no’ and every ‘no’ in a ‘yes.’”

This is absolutely true for me. When I’m saying yes to please everyone else, I am ultimately saying no to my own needs. This then leads me to feel overwhelmed and overcommitted. My work suffers and my relationships suffer when my self-care suffers.

Our children also learn boundaries through our modeling—both how to set them and how to disrespect them. I am already seeing clear evidence that my eldest, Jonah, even as a toddler, is requesting to set his own boundaries, and I work hard to respect those. For example, when we have people visit or we go stay with family, he (much like me) loses steam after a few days in and needs a break from all the social engagements. When he couldn’t speak yet, he would tell me by needing constant contact with me, acting much more relaxed when lying together quietly in a dark room versus when he was the center of attention (that part of him is not like me). Now that his verbal skills are better developed, he literally asks to stay in bed some days or to stay home versus going out somewhere or being around other people.

Can we respect our children’s boundaries when they request them? Can we take no as a complete answer when they don’t want to do something we have asked them to do? Like physical affection toward a family member, eating certain foods, or not wanting to go somewhere we had planned for them? Where is the line between setting your own limits and listening to your child’s needs?

This is where the connection piece of empathic parenting comes in. If we are in tune with our child’s needs, then we can gauge on that particular day and in that particular moment if we are able to acquiesce; or if it happens to be a day when our child is just being unnecessarily difficult to assess, what/if any limit needs to be set and enforced. Remember to return to all of the skills we honed in part one of the book, such as becoming sensitive to life-force energy (both yours and your child’s). Practice grounding in your body and/or breath. Observe the fluctuations of your nervous system. Remember that any one of these simple actions (if not all) can help us become more connected with our children and therefore be clearer on what our children truly need, so we can say yes to their no.

From The Yoga of Parenting by Sarah Ezrin © 2023. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.

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Sarah Ezrin is an author, world-renowned yoga educator, and content creator based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her husband, two sons, and their dog. Her willingness to be unabashedly honest and vulnerable along with her innate wisdom make her writing, classes, and social media great sources of healing and inner peace for many people. Sarah is a frequent contributor to Yoga Journal and LA Yoga Magazine as well as for the award-winning media organization, Yoga International. She also writes for parenting sites Healthline-Parenthood, Scary Mommy, and Motherly. She has been interviewed for her expertise by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, and Bustle.com and has appeared on television on NBC News. Sarah is a highly accredited yoga teacher. A world traveler since birth, she leads teacher trainings, workshops, and retreats locally in her home state of California and across the globe.

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“I 100 percent credit my yoga practice for staying (mostly) calm when my toddler stuck a coat hanger through his eyelid (!),” Sarah Ezrin writes in her new book, The Yoga of Parenting: 10 Yoga-Based Practices to Help You Stay Grounded, Connect with Your Kids, and Be Kind to Yourself.

And although her yoga practice looked very different before she was a mother of two—what was once a two-hour vinyasa practice maybe now looks more like a few minutes on a bolster—Sarah, a world-renowned yoga teacher, assures us, it’s ok.  

“If we can remind ourselves that yoga is not about the poses but how we work with our mind, then perhaps we can be a lot kinder and more realistic about what our practice looks like these days,” she writes. 

To Sarah, parenting is yoga. 

“The root of yoga is really about connection (the root word, yuj, means ‘to connect’),” Sarah explains. “That means that anything we do with a focused mind and whole heart is yoga.”

The Yoga of Parenting is not a handbook on parenting, but rather an abundant well of resources. It’s a deeply personal reflection of Sarah’s experience as a parent and longtime yoga teacher, and a must-read for parents and future parents alike. 

Each chapter examines a yoga-based concept and includes a pose, showing how both the yogic principles and postures apply to parenting. Sarah weaves in breathwork, meditations, and exercises, and forms a full Yoga of Parenting sequence from Tadasana to Savasana. 

Sarah asks her readers: How can we fill our children’s cups if we cannot fill our own?

Self-care is self-preservation, and as a parent, you must create the space to take care of yourself if you want to show up whole heartedly for your kids. Sarah emphasizes the importance of creating healthy boundaries, because sometimes saying no to something means saying yes to yourself. 

For Sarah, it’s all about her early morning routine. She chooses to wake up before the rest of her family so she can meditate, write, enjoy her tea hot, and maybe even cuddle her dog. 

“Getting up early gives me time to fill my cup,” she said.

Sarah writes with honesty, compassion, and a keen awareness of yogic philosophy, helping parents slow down before reacting to their children. As she says, “presence = awareness.” 

She grounds the book in personal reflections and experiences from other parents, reminding us to take a deep breath, that we are not alone, and that we are perfectly imperfect. 

Parenthood is a yoga practice and maybe even a spiritual experience. Because just like an inhale and an exhale, we learn to hold space for our children while simultaneously learning to let go. Yoga reminds us as parents that everything is temporary. 

“As our children change, we are asked to change, too,” Sarah said. “Watching our children grow up asks us to embrace the cycle of life and death over and over again while also letting go of resistance around those changes.” 

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Cameron Joy Machell is a writer and journalist covering yoga, travel, and wellness. Always planning her next adventure, she has chased the Northern Lights across Iceland, camped under the stars in the Sahara Desert, and sipped kava with chiefs in Fiji. When she’s not traveling, you can find her at home in New England, in the garden or on her mat.

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Wanderlust: You begin the book with a concept of people having a first and second nature, where who we are at our core can be at odds with how society informs that identity. In the chapter on pride, you discuss the “true self” versus the “illusion self.” You write, “We need to surrender to who we are and not who we think we should be.” How have you surrendered to who you are in your own life? How do you let your true self shine?

Elise Loehnen: Through a lot of introspection and intervention—I’ve found that I’ve had to interrupt my own thinking, again and again, about who I am and how I’m supposed to behave. These voices in our head are insistent and loud. The great thing that I’ve observed as more and more people have read advanced copies of the book pre-pub is that once women start talking to each other about these concepts, it becomes much easier to identify them. This is deeply personal work, but it’s also work we need to do in community. The more I speak to other women about their anger, their envy, their gluttony, the more conscious and aware we all seem to become.

WL: In the chapter where you address sloth, you show how imperative it is for both our bodies and minds to have rest, pointing out that the conscious brain can process sixty bits per second, while the unconscious brain can process 11 million bits per second! What kinds of changes did you make when it comes to embracing rest? Where did you see the most improvements?

EL: It’s honestly been scary to embrace rest. I have allowed myself to watch more TV and take more naps in the last six months than I have in my whole life. I need rest. I am deeply, profoundly tired. But here’s the thing: the constant grind and busyness was killing me, literally bringing me to my knees. I couldn’t keep pushing in that same way. In this period of rest—deep rest—I’ve had to wrestle with all the fear it stokes about whether I’ll ever be able to “produce” at the same rate as before. I worry I’ve lost my drive. But in that process, I recognize that what I’ve called “drive” has really been a cattle prod of fear. And so, resisting this feels like an essential gate for me to walk through—to not say yes to every paying offer, to not rush to fill my days with things to-do. I feel close to being refreshed, close to being able to re-engage. But hopefully not at the same pace.

WL: You give the reader a very complete picture—historical and religious context, scientific research, personal accounts, and current data—to show how deeply these codes of conduct permeate our lives. What findings surprised you most in your research for this book?

EL: Honestly, that the Seven Deadly Sins weren’t even in the Bible. That floored me, as I think most of us assume they are religious law, or that Jesus must have said them at some point. Nope! They’re the perfect example of how religion has become culture, how these things are passed down from generation to generation.

WL: What does being on your best behavior mean to you now? Of the Seven Deadly Sins, which were easy to strip away, and which were hardest to let go? 

EL: On my best behavior now means being myself, even if that’s uncomfortable for other people or requires some shape-shifting within my family. I think Sloth is still the most insistent for me—this urge to be a “good mother” is intense. What I’ve found though, is that as I’ve moved past my instinct to do all the things for all the people, as I’ve put stuff down, my husband Rob has moved in to take over some of these duties. It’s interesting to see how our energy changes as roles and rules start to shift even without actually saying anything at all. If I don’t return the fieldtrip permission slip in the first ten minutes, and allow, gasp, HOURS, or even a day to pass, ROB DOES IT.

Honestly, they’ve all required a lot of work. I think Envy was the easiest for me to integrate—probably followed by Gluttony, because I’m just awfully tired of policing myself about food.

WL: Each chapter is a radical act of reclaiming one’s space as an act of self-love. When talking about envy, you address the scarcity mentality that blocks us from actualizing our dreams. Instead of thinking “it’s her or me”, you shift it to “she has it, so I can have it too.” How important is it for us to make this shift? 

EL: I think if there’s ONE THING that women get from this book, it’s this: Identify, diagnose, and own our wanting. We must then move past the fear of scarcity, the idea that only one of us, maybe two of us, can do the thing. Right now, we’re programmed to believe that if someone is doing what we want to be doing, we must dethrone her, that there’s not room for all of us. It is consistent and insidious and is the basis of our instinct to bat each other down or dismiss each other with statements like: “I just don’t like her,” “Who does she think she is?” and “She’s gotten too big for her britches.”

If we can stop policing each other’s self-expression and “bigness,” I think we can lean into our own. We’re at a point in time where it is essential that we all bring our gifts to bear.

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Cameron Joy Machell is a writer and journalist covering yoga, travel, and wellness. Always planning her next adventure, she has chased the Northern Lights across Iceland, camped under the stars in the Sahara Desert, and sipped kava with chiefs in Fiji. When she’s not traveling, you can find her at home in New England, in the garden or on her mat.

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