Any given morning, I can be found loading the dishwasher, folding the towels, shining up the stainless steel refrigerator doors (I did that one this morning).

The efficiency experts tell me I am wasting time.

I need a To Do List. I am putting the small things before the big important ones. I am losing ground, losing the race to success, getting sidetracked and being unfocused.

Something inside me knows differently.

These time wasting moments are what grounds me.

I sometimes fall into the abyss of berating myself for “frittering away” my time doing these seemingly trivial tasks. Then I get it:  feeling good is not trivial.

Doing what feels good is my way of taking care of a need within myself: to put these little symbolic things in order harkens to a deeper trust I have of myself, knowing that folding the laundry now, because it feels good, will unfold into all that I really want  in my life.

Think about this the next time you want to talk yourself out of doing what feels good to you (like hot yoga, for instance); that’s your heart calling out to you that you are ignoring.

Are there any message more important?Are you there to pick up the call and if not, whose life are you living today?

What did you do that felt good today? COMMENT HERE..and congratulations on heeding the call.

Check out this Ad on Craigslist: used hot yoga mat, just $1. The bonus: a hilarious timeline detailing the seller’s experience in his first – and, he says, his last hot yoga class.

I don’t doubt his hot yoga experience…but somehow I do doubt that it was his last hot yoga class.

And here’s why:

I can’t tell you how many first time hot yoga students scowl at me or gave me the serious stink-eye or accused me of trying to kill them after their first hot yoga class…and then woke up the next day feeling something amazing: their toes. So they came back to try hot yoga one more time (second class is free at Riverflow Yoga)…and back…and back…and brought a friend….and brought a partner….and then bought a Annual Unlimited Hot Yoga Class package.

Hot yoga, anyone?

CRAIGSLIST AD/Seattle, WA: Yoga mat for sale. Used once. – $1 (Bellevue)

Yoga mat for sale. Used once at lunch hour class in December 2009. Usage timeline as follows:

11:45a
Register for hot yoga class. Infinite wisdom tells me to commit to 5 class package and purchase a yoga mat. I pay $89.74. Money well spent, I smugly confirm to myself.

11:55a
Open door to yoga room. A gush of hot dry air rushes through and past me. It smells of breath, sweat and hot. Take spot on floor in back of room next to cute blonde. We will date.

11:57a
I feel the need to be as near to naked as possible. This is a problem because of the hot blonde to my left and our pending courtship. She will not be pleased to learn that I need to lose 30 pounds before I propose to her.

11:58a
The shirt and sweats have to come off. I throw caution to the wind and decide to rely on my wit and conditioning to overcome any weight issues my fiancée may take issue with. This will take a lot of wit and conditioning.

11:59a
Begin small talk with my bride to be. She pretends to ignore me but I know how she can be. I allow her to concentrate and stare straight ahead and continue to pretend that I don’t exist. As we finish sharing our special moment, I am suddenly aware of a sweat moustache that has formed below my nose. This must be from the all the whispering between us.

12:00p
Instructor enters the room and ascends her special podium at the front of the room. She is a slight, agitated Chinese woman. She introduces me to the class and everyone turns around to greet me just as I decide to aggressively adjust my penis and testes packed in my Under Armor. My bride is notably unfazed.

12:02p
Since I do have experience with Hot Yoga (4 sessions just 5 short years ago) I fully consider that I may be so outstanding and skilled that my instructor may call me out and ask me to guide the class. My wife will look on with a sparkle in her eye. We will make love after class.

12:10p
It is now up to 95 degrees in the room. We have been practicing deep breathing exercises for the last 8 minutes. This would not be a problem if we were all breathing actual, you know, oxygen. Instead, we are breathing each other’s body odor, expelled carbon dioxide and other unmentionables. (Don’t worry, I’ll mention them later.)

12:26p
It is now 100 degrees and I take notice of the humidity, which is hovering at about 90%. I feel the familiar adorning stare of my bride and decide to look back at her. She appears to be nauseated. I then realize that I forgot to brush my teeth prior to attending this class. We bond.

12:33p
It is now 110 degrees and 95% humidity. I am now balancing on one leg with the other leg crossed over the other. My arms are intertwined and I am squatting. The last time I was in this position was 44 years ago in the womb, but I’m in this for the long haul. My wife looks slightly weathered dripping sweat and her eyeliner is streaming down her face. Well, “for better or worse” is what we committed to so we press on.

12:40p
The overweight Hispanic man two spots over has sweat running down his legs. At least I think its sweat. He is holding every position and has not had a sip of water since we walked in. He is making me look bad and I hate him.

12:44p
I consider that if anyone in this room farted that we would all certainly perish.

12:52p
It is now 140 degrees and 100% humidity. I am covered from head to toe in sweat. There is not a square millimeter on my body that is not slippery and sweaty. I am so slimy that I feel like a sea lion or a maybe sea eel. Not even a bear trap could hold me. The sweat is stinging my eyeballs and I can no longer see.

12:55p
This room stinks of asparagus, cloves, tuna and tacos. There is no food in the room. I realize that this is an amalgamation of the body odors of 30 people in a 140 degree room for the last 55 minutes. Seriously, enough with the asparagus, ok?

1:01p
140 degrees and 130% humidity. Look, bitch, I need my space here so don’t get all pissy with me if I accidentally sprayed you with sweat as I flipped over. Seriously, is that where this relationship is going? Get over yourself. We need counseling and she needs to be medicated. Stat!

1:09p
150 degrees and cloudy. And hot. I can no longer move my limbs on my own. I have given up on attempting any of the commands this Chinese chick is yelling out at us. I will lay sedentary until the aid unit arrives. I will buy this building and then have it destroyed.
I lose consciousness.

1:15p
I have a headache and my wife is being a selfish bitch. I can’t really breathe. All I can think about is holding a cup worth of hot sand in my mouth. I cannot remember what an ice cube is and cannot remember what snow looks like. I consider that my only escape might be a crab walk across 15 bodies and then out of the room. I am paralyzed, and may never walk again so the whole crab walk thing is pretty much out.

1:17p
I cannot move at all and cannot reach my water. Is breathing voluntary or involuntary? If it’s voluntary, I am screwed. I stopped participating in the class 20 minutes ago. Hey, lady! I paid for this frickin class, ok?! You work for me! Stop yelling at everyone and just tell us a story or something. It’s like juice and cracker time, ok?

1:20p
It is now 165 degrees and moisture is dripping from the ceiling. The towel that I am laying on is no longer providing any wicking or drying properties. It is actually placing additional sweat on me as I touch it. My towel reeks. I cannot identify the smell but no way can it be from me. Did someone spray some stank on my towel or something?

1:30p
Torture session is over. I wish hateful things upon the instructor. She graciously allows us to stay and ‘cool down’ in the room. It is 175 degrees. Who cools down in 175 degrees? A Komodo Dragon? My wife has left the room. Probably to throw up.

1:34p
My opportunity to escape has arrived. I roll over to my stomach and press up to my knees. It is warmer as I rise up from ground level – probably by 15 degrees. So let’s conservatively say it’s 190. I muster my final energy and slowly rise. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. Towards the door. Towards the door.

1:37p
The temperature in the lobby is 72 degrees. Both nipples stiffen to diamond strength and my penis begins to retract into my abdomen from the 100 degree temp swing. I can once again breathe though so I am pleased. I spot my future ex wife in the lobby. We had such a good thing going but I know that no measure of counseling will be able to unravel the day’s turmoil and mental scaring.

1:47p
Arrive at Emerald City Smoothie and proceed to order a 32 oz beverage. 402 calories, 0 fat and 14 grams of protein — effectively negating any caloric burn or benefit from the last 90 minutes. I finish it in 3 minutes and spend the next 2 hours writing this memoir.

3:47p
Create Craigslist ad while burning final 2 grams of protein from Smoothie and before the “shakes” consume my body.

4:29p
Note to self – check car for missing wet yoga towel in am.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXOmxTPJyGs

COMMENT HERE - What one thing could you do today to share what you’re really feeling?

“What’s up?” I asked.

“My To Do List looks like a seizure on paper,” she said.

I can relate: too much to do, too little time, too dizzy to stand up.

What makes you lose your balance?

Your three kids need to be at soccer, piano lessons and remedial kindergarten class at 3PM sharp and you’re the only Mom they have to get them all there on time?  Your boss wants that overdue report yesterday which means you’ll be putting in overtime today and tomorrow…and forever? You’re backed into that tight corner of stress, anger and guilt again, this time because you  missed your hot yoga class? (last time it was because you took the time to do your hot yoga class).

Is your To Do List doing you in?

It’s so easy to lose your balance.  Even the idea of balance is, well, somewhat off.

Balance is not about spreading your time evenly among many tasks, giving yourself equally to everything, and coming out even. Balance is about getting the life you want. Enjoyment. Fulfillment. Abundance. Remember those?

But how will you get all everything done? You’re ready for a DO NOT List.

6 Easy Steps to Get Your Life Back

1. Get a piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle.

2. Write “Universe” (or God, Invisible Friend, Purple Cow…whatever you believe can support you) at the heading of the right column.

3. Write EVERYTHING you need to do on that side of the page. Blurt it all out – walk the dog, finish the marketing report, answer 422 emails. Pay the bills with not enough money. Make Thanksgiving dinner for 12. Don’t stop til you’ve got it all on paper.

4. Take a deep breath…INHALE….EXHALE…

5. Write “Me” on the left side.

6. Now move TWO things from the right side to the left side. Just 2. TWO. Make it two things you WANT to do (is hot yoga in there?)

You’re already screaming: BUT HOW WILL THE REST GET DONE?

Here’s how: I don’t know. But it will.  And here’s why.

On your right shoulder is your very competent Virtual Manager, that invisible entity or energy in your life who always makes things work out.  Did you ever look back and say, “Thank goodness I didn’t get that job I wanted so badly -  this one is so much better!” or “I’m so glad I didn’t get accepted at the Ivy Leagne college – I would never have met my soulmate, and that “second-rate: college turned out to be an excellent education at about a third the cost.”

Invisible Purple Universe, at your service.

Do not do your “Do Not List” and how it all gets done.

You’ve been meaning to call your mother and then…she calls you. Your boss changes the focus of that report you’ve been procrastinating about to a topic you wrote about last year, so it’s already in your files. The car you’ve been putting off buying suddenly goes on sale.

It works out better than you could have planned.

I have to remind myself about all this now and again (ok, again and  again.) I don’t like not knowing how it will all work out without my planning, controlling, fretting endlessly.

I forget that holding on does not give me more control. Letting go is the only way to maintain my balance.

That, and hot yoga.

I’m like that guy from The Hair Club: I’m not just the owner of Riverflow Yoga, I’m also a customer.

Hot yoga has helped me go with the flow for the past 15 years. And when I feel I am drowning, hot yoga still swoops in and rescues me.

So, grab the nearest napkin and get going on your DO NOT List.

Just make sure hot yoga is on your side.

I am a hot yoga teacher.

(No, not a “hot” yoga teacher…a Hot 26 Yoga teacher.)

Our western culture tends to frown upon public nakedness (although I have had several requests to add “nude hot yoga” at my hot yoga NJ studio. Not gonna happen) but somehow, hot yoga is the exception.

Shedding your clothing, along with your inhibitions, is highly encouraged in hot yoga.

In my hot yoga NJ studio and thousands of others across the country, people of all sizes, shapes and smells stand mat to mat testing the limits of our skimpiest clothing, nonchalantly sweating like racehorses while we focus intently in the mirrors in front of us, shutting out all distractions including the hot yogis around us (translate “hot” any way you want).

This is not easy…especially in forward bends.

After teaching hot yoga for almost 15 years, I have become comfortable enough to touch my sweat-drenched students, with the intention to bring them deeper into a pose. And as I hold them, they have taught me about letting go.

As I hot yoga teacher, I hear what my students say  (“I have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome that won’t get better,” “Weak shoulders run in my family,” “My years as a dancer have crippled my hips,”)  but their words don’t tell me the whole story. Not by a long shot.

The body, on the other hand, tells all. No holds barred. No censors invited.

Here is what I can tell you: everything you have ever felt or experienced is etched into your body. You hide your pain in the furrow between your eyebrows.  You carry the weight of your sadness on your shoulders. We all store our fears in our gut, and literally wear our hearts on our sleeves.

I learn all this and more by placing a hand on a student’s lower back, lifting under your ribcage on an inhale breath, gently pushing down on a twisted hip.  Tuning in to the shallowness or depth of a breath, I can hear the sound of struggle or surrender.

Here are my 3 Top Things I Learned By Touching Sweaty Naked People:

1. Mind your body: You are more powerful, capable, heal-able than you think. The body stores your dis-ease, but it also has the ability to heal it. Whatever you think you are, healed or hurt, you actually become.Which is more powerful, mind or body? Who cares? It’s always a contest of winners. The winning combination is to use mind and body together; then you are unstoppable.

2. Dis-ease is disappear-able: In the moments when you focus on feeling good, such as in the beautiful expression of a hot yoga pose like Camel,  dis-ease disappears. Not figuratively or symbolically, but actually. The body cannot hold two complete opposites at once, so you cannot be in dis-ease when you are in total relaxation or focused energy.  If you feel good, you are good. Period. The more feel-good practices you do, the better your body will reflect that goodness. Return to hot yoga often and watch your reflection in the mirror transform.

3. You have a SmartBody. Intelligence is not just a mind-thing. Every part of your body has its own intellect. What goes on in your muscles, your breathing,  your pulse is actually highly intelligent, and your body always moves towards health.  The body is a good thing to get in touch with. You can trust your body – it will never lie to you.  Learn more about yourself from what you feel and use that knowledge to go beyond your perceived limitations.

What have you learned about yourself from your body? COMMENT HERE

We’re tweeting our Tweeps, fanning our Facebooks, blah-blah-blogging…. are we losing our ability to look each other in the eye without a device between us?

Is being fully present a thing of the past?

Left to our own devices, we might never come out from behind our teeny, tiny screen-centered universes. How do you keep from losing your connection to yourself?

In this world of type and click, nothing clicks you into place better than hot yoga. It is the one place where you have no choice but to you open up and close down those multiple-urls hovering above your head.

Hot 26 yoga in 105 degrees with a teacher talking instructions as you look into your own eyes in the mirror, not at the Gumby body next to you.  You are fully focused on just one thing: surviving!

Watch how fast your paltry worries and your overloaded To Do List become unimportant by comparison.

Just 90 minutes of hot yoga and you’re back in the present, without being tense.   From there, you can connect with everyone else, including yourself.

A device itself can be an obstacle to getting close, or it can be a boon.  When it comes to touchy-feely closeness, the only device that brings people closer is birth control. But the device of social media can actually create worldwide closeness.

But please, let us see the whites of your eyes every now and then.

Stay conscious; stay present; stay with it. And every now and then, let go.

What’s your favorite way to connect in person or online? COMMENT HERE

I am my own best hot yoga client.

But what about the other 1200+ daily minutes of real life outside of hot yoga?

How can you carry that stresslessness from the hot yoga room out into your real life?

Hot yoga nj

How can you maintain your steady balance, your feelings self worth, and your calm self acceptance when you’re NOT in hot yoga – but instead, you’re in the midst of yet another argument with your husband about the toilet seat, or your kids just won’t take no for an answer, or your boss decides to move the department meeting to the week you’re on vacation?

My friend Suzanne Jones has a wonderfully simple way to carry the emotional calm of hot yoga, out into your real life where it will do you some real good; she calls it Anchoring.

Suzanne explains how to create “anchors” during your next hot yoga class, to keep you feeling wonderful throughout the many challenges you’re about to face in your real life.

Using Anchors to Enhance Your Hot Yoga

By Suzanne Jones
Hypnotherapist/Mind Interrupted Hypnotherapy

What do we mean by “anchoring your emotions?” What purpose does emotional anchoring serve?

How can you “anchor” your hot yoga practice so it stays with you beyond the 90 minutes in the hot yoga room?

Anchoring is a technique whereby a personal state of mind becomes associated with a unique stimulus. These emotional anchors come in many forms such as sights, sounds, power words, memories, verbal phrases and more.

We all have anchors whether we intended them or not. Some anchors we have consciously created, but most have been created for us.

Anchors that you intentionally create can be as simple as gestures you make repeatedly during a strong emotional or mental state. These gestures actually anchor the emotion in your subconscious mind, where you can call on them again and again.

Anchors that have been created “for us” happen this way: during a peak emotional state, something else is happening consistently and simultaneously and thus, the emotion and the event become linked.

Say, for example, your mother or father yelled a lot when you were a child. The tone of their voices stuck with you. Now as an adult, anytime you hear that same tone, from anyone, your mind links back to being scolded as a child and you will immediately return to those old, negative emotions.

Perhaps you failed a very important exam. You felt horrible about it. You went to your family and friends for support and each one of them patted your hand as you told of your failure. Your mind and body have now made a permanent connection between that gesture and the emotion of failure. Now, anytime someone pats your hand you experience that negative, disappointed feeling.

If an anchor is done so easily wouldn’t it make perfect sense to consciously incorporate anchors into our everyday life? For the positive?

Hot Yoga works best with Anchors

Hot Yoga can be challenging.

If you struggle with a hot yoga pose and then ‘get’ it, the feeling that goes along with this has been described as ‘joyful achievement’.

Now you can have this same feeling anytime you want through anchoring.
Perhaps you want to carry with you the relaxed and comforted feeling you have during Savasana. By anchoring your feeling during your hot yoga moments of total rest, you are allowing yourself a way to return to that calm at times when your life seems out of control.

How do you anchor your hot yoga? Here’s are simple ways to start right away:

During a ‘peak state’, like, the complete letting go you experience in hot yoga Savasana, try tapping your first two fingers together. Be in the moment , completely relaxed Savasana, while tapping your fingers. This is how you anchor your feeling of calm. Try repeating this anchor in your Savasana for each hot yoga class.  The more often you anchor the stronger it becomes.

Now, each time you want to experience total relaxation and can’t get to hot yoga, tap your fingers together. It’s a little like Dorothy tapping her ruby-slippers together: the action alone instantly transports you to the feeling-place you want to experience.
You can create an anchor any way you choose,  but simple and accessible gestures are best. Depending on your lifestyle, it is ideal to create an anchor that remains somewhat hidden from view.  I don’t know if you want to be pulling on your earlobe in the middle of an intense board meeting!

Make an anchor for each significant feeling you experience in hot yoga. The feeling of Savasana is much different than ‘joyful achievement’  in your full extension of Standing Bow Pulling.  They are two such different states, that you need two completely different anchors.

So perhaps you can rub your fingers together for “joyful achievement,” on your left hand this time. Remember to repeat that anchor in each hot yoga class where you achieve the pose you wanted.

Once you create your anchors, use them at anytime, to get back into the chosen state. If you are having a stressful day, the anchor used for Savasana would be a lifesaver. If you are experiencing feelings of inadequacy, your anchor for ‘joyful achievement’ is the  perfect pick-me-up.

Get to hot yoga often so you can get those wonderful feelings of a hot yoga practice. In each hot yoga class, create and repeat anchors to reinforce those feeling within yourself.  Your anchors encapsulate those feelings so you can recall them easily  outside your hot yoga practice, allowing you to instantly transform any situation, anytime, anywhere.

Hot yoga and cool anchors: another way to get the life you really want, at your fingertips.

Have you created anchors that work? COMMENT HERE!

But I was unprepared to be blinded by the light.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFo8te6tb4g

I was standing center stage on the floor at the New Jersey opening concert of 2012 Bruce Springsteen tour.

A Bruce concert may be the only place where standing for hours is coveted, where the median age is 50 and where the kids are the designated drivers.

My 18 year old son and my husband bought floor tickets, but then we won the B-List Lottery: our wristband numbers got called and suddenly, we - along with our instant 400 friends/fellow fans -were transported to the front of the barricade, closest to the stage, no holds barred.

This was the first sign to show a little faith; there’s magic in the night.

Bruce without borders was about to become another kind of hot yoga experience.

Just a warning: after 40 years practicing yoga and 15 years in hot yoga, it’s my habit to see everything through yoga-colored lenses. Yoga is my way to parse the world, a way of living and being, within yourself, with others, living in the world but slightly apart to remain unaffected by its affectations.

So there I saw it,  Bruce and his E Street Band, doing hot yoga on the stage. Sweating and panting  and bending every bit as much as I have in the 105-degree hot yoga room. Totally present, but slightly above it. I was close enough to notice that hey, maybe they’re not so young anymore. And neither was I - that night I turned 55.

And that was alright with me.

Bruce was a Freehold, NJ kid, which just happens to be the town where I spent the last 20 years. He still lives in the vicinity of his Hometown. There were always Bruce sightings, and near misses because Bruce is a regular guy. Except for one thing.

Bruce had the juice. He never gave up. He never doubted his talent and his success. He rushed headlong into his own life and just kept going.

When his father told him to give up music, he turned a deaf ear. When his high school teacher lamented that he couldn’t put together two coherent sentences, he went on and wrote decades of musical poetry. When Bruce made the cover of Time Magazine some 30 years or so ago, one Freehold High School teacher slammed the issue down the desk, looked up and said to his students, “What the heck do I know?”

What the heck do we know? We know we were born to run. We feel it in our engines, before we allow others to brake us down.

But not tonight.

Tonight, I’m in love with a Jersey girl….me.

Bruce opens his American guy heart and screams at us to escape on Highway 9, begging us to strap our hands ‘cross his engines, ride the Glory Days.  He is speaking at us, for us, but mostly he speaks up for himself. Bruce never got a day job. He never cared about making the grade in school. He went headlong into the night with 100% commitment. He only looked back once: to invite us along.

So now, 63 years old, he still makes our engines vibrate. King of the Badlands. Rocking headlong into the life he always knew he would live.

In between my dancing, singing, fist pumping and screaming, I stood quietly and looked up at Bruce, larger than life and yet so much like the guy you walk past on the street any given day. I thought about all my own disappeared dreams, all the disappointments I let under my skin. I heard all the warnings that never warmed me, and, in the end, never protected me from anything except the life I was born to live. Bruce croons at to me to remember that it’s not too late.

I ain’t a beauty, but, yeah, I’m alright.

Bruce sang right to me on April 3. He picked me out and pointed to me in the crowd, and asked me to take that last chance power drive. When I wasn’t sure it really was me he was choosing, he shook his head YES and smiled.

YES.

All my dreams and visions come rushing back into focus. Bruce broke into Jungle Land, and he woman next to me turned and said, “Happy Birthday.”

April 3, 2012: Chapter Two, All My Dreams and Visions, Rhonda Uretzky. Today’s my Bruceday.



www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMC1_RH_b3k

I started doing yoga when I was 15, back in the early 70s.  No one knew what the heck I was talking about. Was I in a cult, or just off the wall? (I was, when I was doing handstand.)

It really amuses me how yoga has become so mainstream. Now you’re kind of weird if you’re NOT doing yoga.  There’s even an inside yoga language; can the secret yoga handshake be far behind?

But is yoga just for insiders? If so,  yoga will soon be on the way out.  But you know, yoga doesn’t care. It’s 5000 years old. And it’s going to just keep doing it’s thing - healing - everyone who will just do it. No special dialect required.

Yoga class goes along better with a little laughter. Especially hot yoga.

Yes, it IS hot in here; it’s 105 degrees in the hot yoga room. Your clothes are sticking to you - why oh WHY didn’t you wear that sports bra, muffin top be damned? Your makeup is melting down your face - so much for yoga chic - but the yoga teacher says, “Don’t wipe that sweat!”  You’re not sure what’s hanging out when when you bend over in Separate Leg  Stretch and furthermore, you don’t care.

And, oh, you’re beginning to understand why they call it Wind Removing Pose.

When we say let go in hot yoga, we mean it. Crack a smile. It’s a lot better than showing any other kind of crack in yoga class. If you can learn to smile when you break a sweat, yoga is teaching you the language of stress relief.

What’s so funny about yoga? Have you ever laughed about something in yoga class? COMMENT HERE.