Recently while doing a little research on interoception, I looked up the fantastic interview Norm Farb did with Brooke Thomas on the Liberated Body Podcast some years ago. Remembering how much I appreciate Norm's unique combination of serious researcher + playful teacher, I looked around a bit to see what he's been up to lately. Here's an uplifting and timely talk about the importance of choosing our stories, and continuing to do so as life changes (and changes us). Hope you enjoy.

Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

1) Focus your attention in the area of the heart. Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your
heart or chest area, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual.
Breathe in for a count of 5, breath out for a count of 5.

2) Make a sincere attempt to experience a regenerative feeling such as appreciation or care
for something or someone in your life as you continue to breath in and out of the heart area.
You might try to re-experience the feeling you have for a pet, a special place, someone you love,
or focus on the feeling of calm or ease. Continue this for the length of the song, or restart
the song for a longer session.


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / mirabavutti


The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world.
There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor.
But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents.
Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give.
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around.
It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt.

- Leo Buscaglia (Born for Love: Reflections on Loving, 1992)



Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / hermione13


“A yogi is one who leaves a place just a little nicer than when they arrived!”

"I like this statement for its simplicity and down-to-earth recognition of yoga being something that benefits not only the one practicing it but also the world around them. We may hear someone refer to another person or themselves as a yogi. But what is this statement based upon? One may practice asanas beautifully or know many Sanskrit texts or do much chanting, but those things in and of themselves do not equate to being a yogi. 
The act of practicing or following a path of regulation requires discipline, but that is only part of the formula. The preferred practice system or method that we perform, is really nothing more than a gardener tilling the soil to create a fertile plot of earth. The more we practice the more fertile we become, but it does not mean that we are spiritual or a yogi. It just means we are fertile. The choices we make next are the seeds that we plant in this fertile ground. If we choose to plant an ego there, it will grow even larger than the average person’s due to our fertility. Practice itself does not determine whether one is a yogi or not. It is what that person does with the positive energy they gained from their dedication that will determine their maturity of understanding. When one applies the benefits they have gained in a positive manner, then the aforementioned definition comes to fruition and the world around them is benefitted.

If we wish to ask ourselves if we are a yogi, I think the question could be this one:
“Is the world a better place by our presence in it?” "

- David Swenson


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / Michal Bednarek


"Members of some Jaina sects in India wear a mask to filter the air, lest they should unwittingly inhale and take the life of small creatures. This is a religious custom that few of us would find practical to follow. Nevertheless, upon closer inspection this extreme discipline suggests a useful lesson: Our life is built on the sacrificial death of others. With every breath, we are involuntarily murdering creatures - a massacre that not even a mask can prevent. For, we constantly annihilate billions of invisible microbes, so that we may live. We ourselves are a link in the great food chain of life, destined to die and be food for microbic creatures.

We need not stop breathing or feeding ourselves, or constantly "turn the other cheek," but we must appreciate how we owe our life to other beings and how they owe their lives to us. When we truly see this vast interconnectedness, it becomes very easy for us to cultivate an attitude of reverence for life, which is essentially an attitude of nonharming and of ego transcending love. Yoga means to sensitize us to the fact that we are not alone in the universe but are interdependent cells of a vast cosmic body. Spiritual life is largely a matter of taking responsibility for our destructive aggression, as it reveals itself to us in ever subtler forms. As Patanjali states, nonharming must be practiced under all conditions, which means in thought, word, and deed. Our self inspection can begin with our active life."

- Georg Feuerstein, from Yoga Morality


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/