Today, I’m inviting you to take an extra moment to give yourself something you need.
Perhaps that’s a little extra movement or a few more minutes rest.
Maybe you need some time away from your email or a little time to chat with a friend.
You may need a warm cup of tea, a blanket, or some paper to make a list.
I’m sure we all have a lot of needs that are much bigger than any of those things (and I hope you can meet those needs, too!) but we definitely all have relatively small needs like this that we tend to delay meeting because they aren’t part of the big plan or because they feel a little inconvenient.
But imagine how much better the rest of your day would feel if you made space to meet one of those needs?
Personally, I am going to meet two of my current needs – putting slippers on my chilly feet and making a cup of tea – as soon as I finish typing this.
Whether you are meeting one of those small needs, following this yoga practice, giving progressive muscle relaxation a try, or doing something else entirely, I hope you can make a little extra space for yourself today.
And, as always, I wish you ease and kindness.
Here’s our movement practice for today:
In the still image for this 10 Min Neck & Shoulders Stretch from Yoga with Kassandra, the instructor is pictured on the right hand side. They are wearing a white tank top and blue leggings and sitting crossed legged with their left arm behind their back while stretching the left side of their neck by tilting their head to the right. Their eyes are closed and they look peaceful. There are a lot of windows in the background and snow on the ground outside.
And here’s our mindfulness practice for today:
In the still image for this 6 Minute Progressive Muscle Relaxation Guided Meditation from Beam Therapy & Training there is a circle on the left side that encloses a photo of a person with long hair, wearing a green sweater and blue jeans sitting crossed-legged with their eyes closed and their face turned upwards. Text listing the name of the video and the url http://www.beamtraining.co.uk is on the right side. The background is dark green and there are polka dots and other green shapes along the bottom edge.
Since the last full moon of 2025 will rise this evening (some people call it the Cold Moon which I find delightful), I thought it would be fun to have some moon-themed videos and links in today’s post.
According to some, this full moon is a sign to do a little introspection and to release things that no longer serve us. (see the Instagram link below for more on this)
Whether or not you follow or participate in any sort of woo or any sort of alternative spiritual practices, I’m sure you can see the benefit in taking time to reflect and to release things (even though it is easier said than done!) whether that happens now or next week.
Anyway, here are our practices to make some space for ourselves today and I’ve thrown in an IG post and a relaxing ambience video just for fun.
Whether you do these practices or something entirely different, I wish you ease and space today and always.
Here’s today’s movement practice:
A 15 minute Moon Practice from Yoga with Adriene. In the still image she is standing on her grey yoga mat in front of a window. There are plants and Benji (her sleeping dog) on the left side of the screen and an end table with more plants on it on the right. She is wearing burgundy leggings and a purple sleeveless tshirt. Her feet are wide apart and her legs are bent at the knee, her upper arms are raised to shoulder height and her forearms are extended upwards.
And here’s our meditation practice for today:
This video from A Big Breath In is called Full Moon Feels 5 Minute Guided Meditation and the still image shows the title against a light pinkish yellow background. There is a mandala drawn in the centre of the screen with part of the title above it and part below.
I chose this post from Arlyn Flower Farm on IG because it had a good combination of information and reflective questions. The still image shows a very close-up depiction of the moon.
And, finally, here’s an ‘ambience’ video that I like to have on my screen when I am doing paperwork or reading my book. I thought that some of you might like it, too.
This video from Dead of Night is called Vintage Christmas Window Ambience and the still image shows a desk and a view out of the window. Outside you can see a Victorian street lamp, the moon, some houses, and some snow falling. Inside you can see books, a lamp, a tree made of book pages, several candles, a warm chocolate drink, and just a small piece of a Christmas tree in the left corner.
Last week, when I wrote my list of ‘10 activities for the 10th Month‘ I made sure to create a mix of ‘easy’ activities and slightly more challenging ones.
And my definition of easy and challenging is not just limited to the physical effort involved.
Physical effort is one factor, of course, but on any given day my ADHD brain might toss up some extreme resistance to anything that requires turning on the computer or changing clothes or asking someone to shift a plan.
And the really annoying thing is that I might not be consciously aware of the details of my resistance. My brain will just kind of slide over the idea because it is ‘too hard’ and unless I make a point of focusing on why I can’t seem to do that specific task, I’ll just kind of have the impression that there’s a logical reason why I’m not doing it.
Yes, in case you were wondering, that is all just as fun as it sounds.
So, I was prepared to face some resistance to starting my tasks, no matter how easy I had initially thought they would be but I hadn’t prepare to face continued resistance once I got going.
After an unexpectedly busy week last week I finally got around to choosing something from my list on Sunday.
Because I had plenty of time, I decided to do two things – journaling while sitting on the floor and a yoga video that was at least 30 minutes long.
The journaling was pretty easy and I enjoyed sitting on the floor to write for a change.
I had already rolled out my yoga mat to sit on and I had already picked out a video to do so I thought I had removed any obstacles to my practice.
By the way, this is the video I chose:
A YouTube video from the channel ‘Yoga with Bird’ called 30 Minute Restorative Yoga for Stress and Relaxation.
I was totally wrong about the obstacles.
It turns out that my brain did NOT want to do a 30 minute yoga practice that day.
In fact, it didn’t want to do any kind of yoga practice at all and it threw every thought it had at me.
‘You have other things you should be doing.’ – I did not. This was the time I had picked for this specific task.
‘You aren’t really up for a long practice today. You can stop here and do a long practice tomorrow.’ – There was no physical reason why I couldn’t do my chosen practice on Sunday. And there was no reason to believe that I would be suddenly more able to do it on Monday instead.
‘This is too hard for you right now. Maybe just do some alternate poses.’ – Sure, some of it was a little out of my range right now but there wasn’t anything especially difficult for me in the practice.
‘Maybe you should stop this and do some drawing or reading instead. It’s way harder to find time to do that stuff – you can do yoga any day.’ – This is a straight-up lie. It’s harder to find a time when my brain will let me do 30 minutes of yoga than to find a time when I can read or draw.
I think I know what was going on there.
My brain knows that my capacity has varied WILDLY over the past few years and it wanted to protect me in case I actually couldn’t – mentally or physically – do the practice.
If I CHOSE to do something else, to switch or shorten my practice, to be creative, then it would feel like self-care.
If I COULDN’T do the practice then it might end up feeling like a harsh reminder of the challenges I have been facing. It might even feel like failure.
No wonder my brain was trying everything to get me to change course.
But I chose to keep going.
I didn’t do it by white-knuckling it and forcing a sort of gritty, ‘no-excuses!’ style of self-discipline.
Instead, I just gently kept going – giving myself permission to stop if it felt like too much.
One of my drawings for ‘March of Robots’ back in 2019 – it seemed to match the vibe of this post. Image description: a drawing of a small grey and purple robot sitting on a metal box with its legs folded and its hands together as if in meditation. Some text at the top is supposed to be a from an instructor and it reads ‘relax your circuits, return to the bolts’ and text at the bottom reads, ‘Robot meditation…it’s hard to let go of your programming, even for a few minutes!’
I didn’t force anything – I tried to do that yoga thing of ‘meeting yourself where you are’ – and to just find some ease in one movement and then in the next.
I don’t think I found a lot of flow and I definitely didn’t get into any zone.
I had to choose to keep going over and over again and that kept me in a self-conscious, hyper-aware kind of space that was really not ideal.
But I knew that even if I wasn’t having a ‘perfect’ yoga experience, I was having an honest one, and my body was going to benefit from it all the same.
I was right – my body felt much better when I was done than it had felt when I started.
October is an extra-busy travel and research month for me. I’m giving four talks and flying to two conferences, one in Hamilton ON and one in Portland OR. I also have to decide what to pack for Portland, as the peaceful and creative citizens of that lovely city have broken out the Halloween costumes early in response to incursions by masked ICE teams and National Guard troops. The main choices seem to be frog or chicken suit:
A guy in a chicken suit looking up at Kristi Noem, who is surrounded by National Guard troops with nothing to do.Civilians in work casual and froggy attire gather peacefully outside a Portland, OR ICE facility.
As you can see, there’s a lot on my plate this month. However, in the brief lull beforehand, I found myself last Friday with room for some self-care. Herewith, my trifecta of attention to reducing stress and increasing yummy feelings of well-being.
Stop one: physical therapy.
I’ve been in PT since August for sciatica, and am recovering, albeit slowly. The last thing to get better is my ability to climb stairs without pain or weakness in my right hip. It’s improving, but not there yet. So, the PT bros at my great physical therapy practice have me working with weights, from farmer’s carry to asymmetrical weights for stepping up and down stairs and such like. Also, I’m doing one-legged leg presses (which are harder than I expected, but good for me) in addition to regular leg presses. And of course core and stability stuff. All good and good for me. I felt thoroughly worked out by the end of the 60-minute session.
Stop two: acupuncture.
I have been getting acupuncture for musculo-skeletal pain for many years now, and I really like it. There’s ample evidence for its effectiveness– look here, for example, for a review of studies. I also find that I’m super-duper relaxed after a session, due to addition of ear points (see here for an interesting case report), dreamy music and a heat lamp on my knees. My only wish is that someone would show up at the end of a session to escort me to the back of their station wagon and drive me home… However, I did manage to get in my car and get back to my place with no problems. Once home, I did some reading and then fell asleep for a 30-minute luscious nap.
Stop three: restorative yin yoga.
After waking up refreshed from movement and chill stillness, I did some light housework (dishes, laundry, and a little cooking) before heading out to my local yoga studio, Artemis in Watertown, MA, for evening restorative yin yoga. Norah had saved a spot for me up front, and I gathered up an armload of blankets, a long round navy-blue bolster, and blocks, depositing them in my little space. There was slow, chill music playing, and I settled in for 75 minutes of stretching and relaxing. Here are some yin poses, including several we did Friday night:
Our yin teacher, Liz G (there are multiple Lizzes teaching at Artemis) apologized for not having a yin bus parked outside to take us all home afterwards. We agreed that this would be a welcome addition, but we happily toddled off to our respective homes after class.
Optional stop four: the Great British Bake-Off
Once I got home, I remembered that there was a new episode of Bake-Off, so I woozily watched the contestants labor over pastries. However, I felt no stress at all, either on their behalf or mine. Not too long after, I shuffled to bed, sleeping like a log, perhaps dreaming of elaborate confections.
Unsplash calls this pastry, although it’s possibly a hybrid? It’s exquisite, in any case. Thanks VF for the photo.
So readers, what are your favorite chill modalities when you have some time to shift into the slow lane? I’d love to hear any suggestions.
When I was a kid, I sometimes watched and followed along with Kareen’s Yoga. This long-running 1970s show, out of British Colombia, was hosted by German-Canadian yogi Karen Zebroff. I think I even owned a copy of one of her books.
Kareen Zebroff as I remember her, from her website.
Occasionally I think of those early experiments with yoga and give it another whirl. I have tried Yoga with Adrienne but it never stuck as a habit.
I experimented with chair yoga during the depths of the pandemic work-from-home period. I checked out Yoga with Kassandra on Youtube with hometown Ottawa yogi Kassandra Reinhardt. I connected most with Paula Lay (yoginimelbourne) and did many of her short videos focusing on spots that hurt or to help me sleep.
I’m currently on a break from ballet, swimming more frequently, and I have been working hard to change how I engage certain muscles thanks to my awesome physiotherapist. The downside is that I am feeling more tight than usual. So, once again, I am poking into doing yoga.
It’s all a bit random, to be honest. I’ll do nothing for days, then suddenly get the urge to do an hour’s worth of videos focused on hip mobility. Or do a couple of shoulder/neck stretches while standing in my kitchen waiting for something to heat up.
I would love to figure out a way to become more consistent (that doesn’t involve changing into yoga gear first thing in the morning, or going to a studio). Maybe I just need to acknowledge that my yoga practice will always be random, but I will keep coming back, just as I have always done.
Happy Baby, possibly my favourite yoga pose. Photo found at Mamduka.com.
A couple of months ago I moved back to Toronto after 33 years in London, Ontario. I last lived in Toronto when I was a Master’s student at U of T from 1987-88. Both I and the city have changed a lot since then. So I had nothing familiar as far as working goes to tap into when I got here in May. Not only that, but my routines had fallen to the side completely over the winter as I prepped for my move. And finally, it’s been a stinking hot summer, not a great time to get back into running.
So when a friend suggested that we try out the Y, which turns out to be just a 12-minute walk from where I live, it sounded like the perfect solution for so many reasons. Most notably, if we were going to join a gym, we wanted it to be a relaxed place with a truly inclusive vibe. The Y definitely ticks that box. It’s also convenient, has great equipment, lots of programming, and a 25m pool. We joined, and here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Aquafit — you can do this 45-minute class in shallow or deep water. So far, I’ve only signed up for shallow. I had a bit of a misconception about aquafit, I have to admit. I thought it would be easy and not feel like much of a workout. It turns out to be a good workout, very much more exerting than I anticipated, especially the part where you use the water dumbbells to create resistance. I’ve been using the blue ones, which are apparently easier than the yellow. I can’t imagine feeling ready for the yellow. But then that is the wonderful thing about resistance training — it makes you stronger.
MuscleFit — another 45-minute class, this time in the gym. Each participant gathers a mixture of light-medium and medium-heavy barbells and dumbbells for a guided full body workout. Again it’s a tough one, where the muscle fatigue is from high reps rather than heavy weights (even the “heavy” weights aren’t especially heavy). The first time I did it I overdid the barbell weights and had to lighten my load. I did better the second time, and have also learned over time that it’s okay to set the weights down and do body weight or take a break if needed. Will I keep doing that? Maybe on occasion but I also want to reintroduce resistance training on my own. The Y has lots of equipment in multiple different rooms and studios. So even when it’s busy it looks as if no one has to fight too hard to get the weights they need, and I remember enjoying the community atmosphere in the weight room.
Yoga — I haven’t found a hot yoga studio yet and will likely wait until the fall to do that, given the heat this summer. But I wanted to get back into a yoga class and it turns out that the Y has those too. I’ve gone a couple of times and had a good experience. Not the most challenging yoga or the most careful instruction, but it’s in a pleasant studio with loads of space, and as with anything, if you know what you’re doing you can make yoga as challenging or as unchallenging as you wish.
Lane swimming — I couldn’t be around a 25m pool for too many days without feeling tempted to get back to lane swimming. I did that this week for the first time, gathering up my gear from back in the day with the intention of doing 40 x 25m in 30 minutes. That would be a pretty slow pace and I didn’t quite make it. I started off with 10 x 25m of breast stroke, which took me to 10 minutes, then cut back from 20 to 15 x 25m freestyle, following by another 10 of breast stroke. It was a lot tougher than I expected it to be but now I have a benchmark and a goal. The goal is to get back to 40 x 25m by the end of the summer. I have no idea if that is realistic. I want to add drills and workouts to my lane swimming at some point. I remember enjoying that kind of training. Being in the pool again feels incredibly good.
As far as running goes, I’ve been out a few times and have reconnected with the “getting started” series of the Nike Run Club again. It’s been a sticky hot summer and I miss my running crew and my familiar routes. But if I can get back to 3x a week, I’ll be pleased with that.
Living in a large urban centre again means a lot more walking in my day to day than before. The traffic here is horrendous at unpredictable times, and if at all possible you want to avoid paying for parking. So much is easily accessible to me on foot, and though people complain about the transit, I adore the subway and live conveniently close to a few stations.
So that’s my report on establishing some fitness routines in a new city. As with anything, it can feel daunting at first. And the loss of community (in my case my running group and the hot yoga studio I frequented) is no small thing. But now that I’ve reconnected with the Y, it’s been an enjoyable experience that’s put me in touch with new and familiar activities in a relaxed atmosphere that offers a sense of community and belonging that I really like.
Image description: Overhead shot of gym stuff lined up on a towel: shower shoes, swim cap, goggles, swim suit, and running shoes. Photo by Tracy I
💙 Every class the teacher reminds us, because there might be new people in the class, that the silk hammocks can hold up to 1000 lbs. As a person with a larger body, I find that very reassuring. 😊
💚 The class is very easy on your knees and other joints because the hammock bears your body weight. “While it may seem gimmicky to some, AntiGravity Yoga provides a therapeutic and effective way for the hips and spine to stretch that isn’t achievable in a regular yoga practice. The premise of the AntiGravity technique is that the spine is “compressed” when doing everyday activities, and the hammocks cause zero compression in the joints, allowing the spine to move freely. ” (from We tried it: AntiGravity restorative yoga, Canadian Living)
💜 It’s both serious and playful. This particular instructor takes safety seriously and stresses that everyone’s finds their own pace. “In this class we strive for progress, not perfection.” But she also shows the class how to get into the hammock belly down, push off, and breaststroke to the front of the room. Fun.
❤️The hammocks are very pretty. There’s something aesthetically pleasing when the light streams in through the studio windows and catches the parachute-like silk fabric of the hammocks.
💛 Yes, you’re floating in a hammock, suspended from the ceiling, but you are only a couple of inches off the ground. It feels both like you’re flying and that you can reach a foot down and touch the floor.
🧡 My favourite position is Cocoon pose, or cocoon savasana at the end of class. Because of course it is. Zzzzz.
Last week I outlined my plans for April and I thought I made things pretty easy for myself.
And I kind of did.
But, apparently, not quite easy enough.
It turns out that a mindful cup of tea – clear break- in the afternoon is a lovely addition to my day.
My days have felt a bit calmer.
I have gotten to have tea with friends three times, including tea with my sister Denise on her birthday.
I just feel really good about making a point to stop for tea and a rest.
And I’m sure that yoga would have a similar calming effect and would feel great for my body and my brain…
If I could remember to do it.
I mean, technically speaking, I have done yoga daily because I did a few focused stretches and a little time in Savasana (corpse pose) before heading to bed.
But that wasn’t what I had intended to do each evening.
My plan was to do a 10 minute yoga video before bed so a few stretches and some time in Savasana was not the kind of practice I was seeking.
Instead, it’s the kind of practice I end up doing when I realize moments before bed that I don’t have enough energy to do 10 minutes of movement – even gentle, restful movement.
So, since the tea practice is coming to me fairly easily, I will just let that one roll along and I will focus on figuring out how to remember to do that 10 minutes of yoga before I am too tired.
This week, I’ll experiment with setting an alarm for 9pm and see if that makes things easier.
And once I’m done my daily yoga, I’ll probably even have another cup of tea.*
Image description: A photo of the edit-alarm screen on my phone. The background is black and there are settings for the time (9:00 PM), Repeat (daily), Label (Yay for Yoga!), Sound (Constellation), Snooze (option is on),This isn’t from this week, I just like this photo. Image description: a large glass mug decorated with stars is sitting on a wooden table. The mug is partially full of tea (a tea bag is still in the mug and the white tag is hanging over the side) and next to it is a green post-it note that has the word reminder at the top and below it is a drawing of a robot pointing to a sign that reads ‘Everyone needs to recharge!’
*Don’t worry about me drinking tea at 9pm. Mostly it’s ginger-peach tea but even if I have caffeine at that hour it won’t keep me up – this may or may not be related to my ADHD.
🐑 Well, it feels like the world is falling apart. There’s a fascist coup underway in the United States, the country with which we share the world’s longest undefended border. And Trump et al are talking about taking over Canada, either by force or by crushing us economically. We’re all worried about external influence on our upcoming election. So there’s that. I’ve written a bit about the mess we’re in here and here.
🐑 I am currently on research leave from my big job. I spent the first half of the month of March in Dunedin, New Zealand where it’s autumn and still warm-ish. I was a visitor in Philosophy at the University of Otago.
🐑 The second half of March is back in Ontario where it’s spring (but not really yet). Here, I’m a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto.
Centre for EthicsCN tower as seen from Centre for EthicsSam selfie
🐑 The good news is that it’s now light for more than twelve hours a day here.
🦁 I’m at 95 workouts so far in the 2025 workout counting group, on track for 400 workouts this year.
🦁 I’m way way behind on my reading goals. I’m in the middle of about six different books and I can’t seem to finish any of them. But I am reading lots of non-fiction while on my research leave, so there’s that.
🦁 I sensibly dropped my cycling distance goal down from 5000 km a year to 3000. Here’s the plan: “A more reasonable goal for me I think is 50 km a week when I’m in Zwift mode and say 75 km a week in the summer months. Let’s say summer is 12 weeks, so that’s 900 km. The other 40 weeks, I’ll aim for 50 km, and that’s 2000 km. If I add and then round up, it’s 3000 km.”
🦁 I’m walking lots in Toronto, 10 km one day. I woke up the next day and my legs were sore but it wasn’t my knees. That was a good thing. Public transit, esp. streetcars, make me more likely to attempt big walks since I know that at any time I can change my mind and get a ride. One of those walks, the longest, involved a meet up with fellow blogger Nicole. It was so nice to see each other in person. The bloggers don’t often get to do that!
10 km of walkingScenes from Toronto walking
🦁 Swimming! I struggled to get into the pool for lane swimming/stroke improvement because I’m so not good that it’s not much of a fitness activity but this year I found an answer. I go early for aquafit so aquatfit is the workout and my lane swimming is the warm up. Mallory also had some good tips for me, since she both teaches swimming and she’s a very experienced lifeguard.
🦁 Yoga! Sarah and I have been taking hot yin yoga at the fancy gym and I’ve done some anti-gravity restorative yoga. One of the perks of my more flexible research leave schedule is being able to take group fitness classes during the day. Going back to my regular schedule might be hard but I’m also missing my job so I think it’ll balance out.
🦁 So far I’m still riding indoors since we returned to Canada (after lots and lots of outdoor NZ riding) but that will change in April. I plan to bring my Brompton to Toronto.
Today I was planning to post about health information and the changes to our access in the past 13 days (since Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States). And that post is coming– you deserve to be informed and supported by responsible folks writing for all audiences.
But it’s proving disheartening. I’m appalled and sick with worry over the fate of all of those in need of healthcare and all those working in healthcare whose jobs may be cut for no good reason. So I’m taking a breath. But know this, dear readers– we are here to witness and report and encourage and share what we know and what we’re doing. And we’re always happy to hear from you– your concerns, fears, plans, and needs.
So, while I get this post together (the first of many for the next four years), here’s a reblog of a post I wrote about feeling supported on my yoga mat. Yoga, for me, is a comfort and support, whether actively moving, opening up in a yin pose, or in rest during yoga nidra. So take a look. And if you feel like it, let me know what you’re doing today to get some support what we all really need.
