I had the wonderful fortune of being able to juggle my children around from their sleep over birthday parties and piano recital and attend senior Anusara Yoga Teacher Anthony Bogart’s yoga therapy workshop last weekend. 

It was amazing to realize how out of alignment my body is! And that if you just get in alignment and find your CORE, watch out! The world is at your fingertips! My rolfing sessions have also added to this realization. You really need to rearrange your body and get into alignment!

I realize, aghast, that I have not moved from my core all these years!

 

I went to a beginning Tango lesson and that is the way to learn about your core! (plus it is so darn fun to dance. Kids love to dance too, as they love music.) Tango is about moving from the core and having the leader speak to you from that core! Also ice skating is a wonderful way to get in touch with your core! My mind settles down into the sacral area when I move from the core. There is a healing silence, and a wisdom from the body. It really changes your entire life!

 

We need to be teaching this core alignment to children NOW! So they don’t have to wait until they are older to break apart all these old habits. Truly our body is a machine. We are ghosts in the machine! And like a car or any machine it has to be maintained and aligned for proper functioning. And how it can function! It’s an amazing container!

Teaching children to really be in their bodies with the awareness of self care and self regulation in the body with breath and movement and imagination is KEY! I think it’s a major reason for ADHD. Embody kids and pay attention to them and educate them they will get well. And I speak to you from experience as your ADD, use yoga and storytelling for mental health poster child.  Kids can really learn alignment when they are about 10, when their consciousness is really opening up. They need lots of encouragement and attention. And the youngest kids just need to be moving their body, being in their body and breathing in their body and developing that relationship with their inner and outer worlds.

 

I think with the Obama administration we will have a return to intellectualism. I swear the world changed the day Obama won. I was in Dallas presenting Storytime Yoga at the National Association for the Education of Young children on election night and everything changed the next day! People were equal! The old regime and the old epoch of hatred, racism and greed had taken its last gasp. We are entering a new era and my mission is to make sure that children are heard and seen and respected and cared for and educated! With yoga and stories to boot!

 

I’m thrilled that I am working on the Spanish language version of Storytime yoga. It will be published in the fall, and I am starting a world tour, my Peace for the World’s Children tour through Latin America. Starting in Denver, then going to Mexico City, Colombia and maybe even Panama and the Philippines. There is world-wide interest in this work for children, which is really a form of play therapy for kids! I will be producing children’s books at the same time with artist Valerie Amons. I hope to get donations so that I can give away the books free to poor children in these countries and the US schools I visit. When I lived in Mexico City working for a newspaper there, I was horrified to know that children live in the sewers.

 

The e-courses are amazing places to learn about your personal story and the power of story and yoga in your life. We have an amazing group of people from all over the world interested in teaching children’s yoga and using story. The courses move you from linear time to cyclical time. Then your transformation is passed on to the children you teach.

 

So all of this I have realized as I found my core. When you really draw into your core, you find clarity. It’s within, truly. And all healing comes to returning to the core. To the place before the sickness began, back to that prima materia, or paradise before the fall and before the story took hold.

 

I feel the energy of the winter solstice, the darkness drawing me back into the core too. It’s a peaceful feeling. Last year I didn’t participate in any of the frenzy. I surrendered to the darkness and went within. The more you get into your body and get aligned with nature, the more the magic happens. SURRENDER!