Yogis Anonymous

Hungry for the Truth

mandyhale Attachment leads to suffering. As human beings, we are going to be attached to our loved ones, and I wouldn’t recommend trying to avoid that. We’re going to be attached to wanting our families to be happy and healthy and living in a way that feels good and right to them. Connection and love and shared experiences are the best things in life. It’s just that when we allow ourselves to be attached, we also allow ourselves to be vulnerable. You can’t have one without the other, and the reality is, we are going to lose people we don’t know how to live without. Sometimes this happens because we’re in these bodies with their unknown expiration dates, and we just don’t know how much time we have with each other, and sometimes it happens because we grow apart from people with whom we were once so close, this eventuality seems impossible.

Few things cause us greater suffering than attachment to a picture we have in our heads of “how things should be”, or “how people should be”, or “how life should look.” That “should” is such a dangerous word. Sometimes we’ve attached our happiness to a particular outcome, and anything less, or anything else, just won’t do. So many people attach their happiness to externals. It’s the old, “I’ll-Be-Happy-When” formula. “I’ll be happy when I lose ten pounds, or have a different job, or a bigger house, or a faster car. I’ll be happy when I meet the ‘right’ person, or win the approval of my parents, or book that big gig…” It goes on and on, and I’ll tell you what. If that’s the formula you’re working with, happiness will always be just out of reach because it will never be enough. Anything outside of you will never equal your happiness. You plus the right person won’t do it. You plus the big house won’t do it, either. You minus the ten, fifteen, twenty pounds won’t get you there. It’s inside work.

I know this from my own personal experience. I tried the “me plus lots of external stuff” way for many years, and I exhausted myself. The funny thing is, while we’re out there in hot pursuit of that place called happy, inside it never feels right. We know, intuitively, it’s pointless, but we’re taught that this is the way, so many of us hang in there hoping, for many years. At a certain point, I stopped chasing happiness, and I got hungry for the truth. When I say “the truth”, I’m not talking about it like there’s one truth for everyone. I mean, I got hungry for my own truth, the truth of my own experience. Sometimes we think, “If only I could get this person to love me and see me and understand me and cherish me, then I’d be happy!!” And “this person” is not necessarily a romantic partner (although that’s often the case). It might be your mother or your father, or your mercurial Uncle Howard. Sometimes we start out with a parent who seems out of our reach and we repeat the pattern later in life by choosing partners who can’t or won’t commit to us. You can literally make yourself sick trying to be perfect for other people, trying to make yourself worthy, trying to dance like a monkey to earn love, trying to be something other than what you are just to get that thing you so desperately want—your happiness. But you’ll never be happy by trying to be something you are not. The alternative is to lean into the truth of whatever is real.

Maybe you have a parent who will never be able to love you in the way you long to be loved, perhaps they’re just not capable. You can receive that fact as a reflection of something lacking within you, but the much likelier reality is that it’s a deficit within them. People can only be where they are, and they can only use the tools they’ve got. If you’ve chosen a partner who can’t commit, you could interpret that data as an indication that there’s something about you that just isn’t good enough, or you could accept that perhaps this person has deep fears around intimacy, or maybe it’s just not where they’re at at this particular moment in time. Accepting reality as it is, without taking it personally, is such a huge relief. Getting hungry for the truth is a liberation. Setting yourself free of the idea that only one outcome can lead to your happiness opens you to a whole new world of possibilities. And yes, accepting that someone might not love you the way you love them, or might not want to commit to you is going to hurt, but it’s also going to allow you to breathe again, and to feel like your feet are planted solidly on the ground. It’s going to give you back your self-respect and your self-esteem, which you have to check at the bars of your prison cell when you make yourself unable to release your attachment to a happy ending that isn’t in the cards.

The other thing is, opening to reality as it is, gives you power and peace. You’re not busy telling yourself stories, or pretending things are other than what they are. You aren’t spending your time or energy pretending that you are other than what you are, and I have to say, that’s a pretty happy feeling. It puts you at ease. It allows you to release your grip, to stop your grasping and clinging. It relieves you of any notion that things are “happening to you.” It puts you back in the power seat. There’s no desire to force or manipulate or cajole. Why would you do any of that? You just allow things to flow, and trust that when they’re right, it’s clear, and if you have to force, it isn’t right. So much simpler, so much happier. I highly recommend it.

Sending you love and a hug,

Ally Hamilton

P.S. If this was helpful, you can buy Ally’s books here.

Stop the Cycle

oprah Sometimes we get into a pattern with someone that just isn’t serving our highest good, or theirs. This happens a lot with toxic relationships. Usually, something in the dynamic is harkening back to old wounds for both parties. We’re driven to heal, but we often go about it in all the wrong ways.

Unacknowledged pain swims below the surface of everything we do, and until we bring this stuff into the light, we’ll keep calling it into our lives in unconscious ways. You know when you feel very triggered by someone? There’s an excellent chance they’re hitting a painful nerve. The thing is, when we attract people into our spheres so we can play out an ancient drama, we also attract people who are going to be very unlikely to help us rewrite the script.

If your dad left when you were four and you have abandonment issues you haven’t dealt with, it’s likely you’re going to be attracted to men or women who can’t commit. That way, your fear of being left is now in play, and you can go about the business of trying to claim your prize and procure your happy ending by getting your partner to be “yours”, but a person who has trouble committing is going to run like hell from that scenario. It could be they grew up feeling smothered by one parent or the other, so they’re both attracted and repelled by your neediness. We want to overcome those feelings and situations we couldn’t master as children, and our attachment styles play a big role in how we go about trying to do that.

Anyway, the point is, you won’t heal this way, you’ll just relive that old pain, and throw salt in a wound you’ve never addressed. You’ll take your partner’s inability to commit to you (or whatever issue it is you keep replaying), as a sign that you are in fact, unlovable, or easy to leave, or invisible, or whatever it is you fear the most, when the truth is, they have their own story and their own wounds. A person with fear of commitment fears all commitment. It’s what you represent, it isn’t you they’re rejecting, but that doesn’t matter, because if your heart is broken, it’s broken.

You’ll save yourself a lot of time and heartache if you simply face your pain. If you notice you keep repeating patterns in your life with family members, friends, partners, colleagues and strangers, it’s time to get some help. Identifying your issues is half the battle; you don’t want to stop there. You want to be able to rewire the system, and put a time-stamp on those things from your past that are still haunting you today. If you had a parent who overpowered you or made love a conditional thing, you don’t have to be afraid of intimacy for the rest of your life. You can work with your fear. You can meet it head on. You can be aware of it without acting on it, but it takes work, and you’ll almost definitely need support.

I highly recommend the combination of yoga and therapy. Therapy to me is the “top-down” part. You identify your issues and get really clear about your tendencies, weak spots, and potential pitfalls. Yoga is the “bottom-up” part. You get in your body and you breathe. Whatever your tendencies are, believe me they’ll follow you onto your mat. Yoga is confrontational by nature. You’ll get to deal with your habitual responses to challenge, frustration, and intense, uncomfortable sensation. Intense emotions create intense sensations—deal with this in on your mat, and you’ll be able to deal with it in your life. Over time, when you feel triggered, you’ll be able to breathe through those feelings without acting on them—running out the door, or lashing out, or saying or doing things you’ll later regret. Now you’re not stuck in the identification phase, you’re actually taking ownership of your issues, and refusing to let your past ruin your present and future. If you have a loud inner critic, you’ll become aware of that, and in so doing, you’ll give yourself the power to starve it. You’ll get to rewire your system from the ground up. Does it take dedication and determination? Yes. Is it easy? No. But you know what’s a lot harder? Not doing it and replaying your pain like you’re in a real-life version of “Groundhog’s Day.” Great movie, but no way to move through life.

Break the cycle and create something new for yourself that feels good. I’d trade short-term pain and discomfort for a lifetime of suffering any day of the week. I’d love to meet you in your living room and see if I can help you with this.

Sending you love, and wishing you peace,

Ally Hamilton

Lean Into It

maclaren Sometimes it’s really hard to just “be where we are” because where we are is deeply uncomfortable. Maybe we’re grappling with envy, despair, rage, grief, heartbreak, rejection or feelings of being powerless. Maybe we’re frustrated because we’re making self-destructive choices, and even though we’re conscious of it, we can’t stop ourselves. Maybe we’ve screwed up and need to apologize, but instead we’re digging our heels in. This business of being human isn’t easy, and it isn’t always pretty. But when we try to skip over where we are and rush to something that feels better by running, denying, numbing, or trying to avoid, we simply prolong our pain, and miss a chance to know ourselves more deeply. We’re also less likely to be accountable for the energy we’re spreading.

Learning to witness your experience without judging it, is one of the huge gifts of a consistent yoga and/or seated meditation practice . Maybe you’re on your mat and you feel tight and tired. Maybe you’re confronted with a pose that’s challenging for you, and you decide to take a water break, instead. Maybe you go to sit, and your mind is racing and spinning, so you make a phone call or get on your computer. What we resist, persists. When we avoid, we also miss not just a chance to know ourselves, but also to know someone else. We all long to be loved for who we are and how we are, with all our beauty and all our flaws. A lot of people struggle to do that for themselves, let alone other people. Learning to lean into those uncomfortable feelings and experiences without grasping or recoiling or contracting, takes the power away from the feeling, and gives it back to us. Feelings arise and they peak and they subside. Feelings are not facts, and no feeling is forever, as the saying goes. How we feel now is not how we will always feel, and that includes the great feelings, too. That euphoria and all-consuming heat of new love would be exhausting if it never leveled out into something sustainable day-to-day. Not that you shouldn’t enjoy every second if that’s where you are, and not that you don’t want to stoke the flame every day to keep the fire burning, but that’s a choice; that’s different than being consumed.

The more we open to reality as it is, the less we suffer, and the less we create suffering. The more we accept other people as they are, and where they are, the less we create suffering for ourselves, and for them. No one wants to be a disappointment to themselves, or anyone else, but when we refuse to embrace a person as they are, we set them up to fail. I’m not saying that we don’t all have work to do, and places where we can heal more or understand more, or open more. I’m just saying when a person makes it clear to us where they are and how they feel, either through communication or through their actions, it’s not loving to try to superimpose what we want on top of that, even if we’re motivated by our feelings of love. Instead, our job in that moment is to lean into the rawness of accepting that how we feel is not how they feel. What we want is not what they want. Dancing like a monkey to try to be perfect for someone else, selling yourself, running, chasing, cajoling or manipulating, convincing yourself or them that you can settle for less than what you really want in your heart—all of these are ways we might attempt to deny or avoid the painful reality in front of us.

You will never find peace when you ignore the truth, that much I can guarantee. Of course we want what we want. Are we going to get everything we want? Is every longing going to be met? No. Is life going to unfold exactly like the picture in your head? Probably not. So how do we maintain our center, our feelings of “okayness” under these conditions? We tell ourselves this is how things are right now, for us, or for the people in our lives. We remember that everything is always in a state of flux, including ourselves, those closest to us, and perfect strangers. We remember that we never know what life has in store for us, and that perhaps it will be better than anything we could have imagined. We use our suffering to grow and open more, to become more sensitive, more empathetic, more tolerant, more patient, more forgiving, because we understand we are not alone in this experience. We all cry ourselves to sleep sometimes, or think we’ve made a total mess of everything, or have to face the fact that we haven’t been treating ourselves or others well. Shame, blame and rage will keep you stuck; they’re not a good foundation for growth. Feel your feelings so you can release the heat of them, and move onto whatever is coming next with an open heart, an open mind, and open hands.

Give yourself the gift of getting quiet, so you can hear the voice of your intuition. If it isn’t yoga or meditation for you, then find something—windsurfing, hiking, salsa dancing, something that gets you out of your head, and into your body, and into the flow and the realm of sensation and intuition. I used to long to be happy, but now I’m hungry for the truth, because somewhere along the way I realized that’s the key to peace. You won’t find it in events, milestones, or other people. You’ll find it within yourself when you get hungry for what’s true, and by that I mean, what’s true for you, and what’s true for other people. It makes life so much simpler.

Wishing that for you, and sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

The Voice Inside Your Head

negativecommittee Yesterday afternoon my son, who’s seven, was practicing the guitar. He’s been taking lessons for less than a year, but he’s doing really well. I love to listen to him play, it brings tears to my eyes. This week, his teacher told him to stop whenever he makes a mistake, and “loop back.” This is a new way of working; in the past, if he made a mistake he’d keep going. Anyway, he was having an “off day.” He couldn’t make his fingers move as quickly as he wanted to, and he couldn’t make the notes sound the way he wanted them to sound. After about twenty minutes, he came out of his room frustrated and in tears, and told me he was “never going to get it.”

So I went in and sat down with him, and asked him to breathe a little before he started again. I also talked to him about the voice inside his head. I asked him if he was aware of that voice, and he looked at me like I’d discovered some huge secret of his. He asked how I knew he had a voice inside his head, and I told him we all do. I told him about a ballet teacher I had when I was thirteen. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough. He’d berate me in front of the whole room of dancers with scathing remarks. I felt the burn of shame so many times as I spun and spun on my toes in that room with him. In the years I studied with him, he only “broke” me once. There was an afternoon when a tear slid down my cheek, and even though I wiped it as I danced, he saw. It was the only time he asked me if I was okay. Years later, after I’d quit, I ran into him on Broadway. He asked me where I was dancing, and I told him I wasn’t. He was shocked. He said he’d always been especially hard on me because I had what it took. I told him for me, personally, hearing that then would have made all the difference in the world. I didn’t need “tough love” and I didn’t need shaming. Someone who believed in me would have worked wonders.

The thing is, we often internalize those voices we hear growing up. If we’re told we’re loved and cherished, if we’re made to feel that we have an impact on the people and the world around us, we’re likely to have a pretty kind and forgiving inner voice. If our effort is acknowledged, we learn to appreciate our process, instead of getting hung up on the results, but if we’re met with constant criticism, if we get the message that we never measure up, we’re very likely to develop a loud and relentless inner critic. My son’s guitar teacher is an incredible guy. Kind, loving, patient, encouraging, and tough in all the right ways. He’s bringing out the best in my son. Anyway, I explained to my boy that an inner voice that roots you on is a huge help as you move through life. Shame is a poor teaching tool, and it’s a horrible constant companion. Telling yourself you’re having a tough moment is a lot kinder than saying you’ll never get it, and it’s a lot more accurate.

I get lots of emails from people who are in pain, and so many of them are incredibly hard on themselves. We all make mistakes. We all have pain, and we all struggle. None of us acts from our highest self in every moment, or in every situation. Sometimes we have healing to do in a certain area, and maybe we’ve been avoiding that work, and then it springs up and bites us in the ass, this raw place within us that’s crying for our kind attention. Sometimes we make a mess of things out of sheer confusion and desperation. Beating yourself up isn’t going to serve anyone, and it isn’t going to aid you in your growth process. It really isn’t. Telling yourself you’re a terrible person who screwed up and made your own bed which you now deserve to lie in isn’t going to help you get to the source of what caused you to move in the direction you did in the first place. It’s okay. You’re human. Just start where you are and examine what happened with a compassionate eye. You’re not a terrible person who deserves to suffer. You didn’t set out to hurt anyone. If you were that kind of person, you wouldn’t torture yourself about it. You see what I mean? If you feel badly, it’s because you have a kind heart. Maybe you made some really poor choices. So be it. Get to work figuring out why you weren’t respecting yourself. Or why you didn’t speak up and say that you were feeling unseen or unheard or unloved.

Life is short and amazing, or long and painful. I’m pretty sure those are the options. And I think the key difference is how you’re talking to yourself. If the world within you is loving, it makes it so much easier to move through the world around you. I can say for myself, I worked this out on my yoga mat. I took that loud, shaming voice and I starved it. I stopped believing in it. I stopped giving it power or credibility, and I fed a loving, kind, patient, compassionate voice. I still worked my ass off, but I did it with a smile on my face, because it feels good to be in a healthy conversation with yourself.

Wishing that for you so much, and sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

Breathing Through Sensation

thichclouds Emotions create sensations. When we say we’re enraged, we’re describing the feelings that are flooding through our bodies—maybe our blood pressure is rising (thus we’re “hot-headed”), or the breath is shallow, or the jaw is clenching or the shoulders are up around our ears. When we say we’re depressed, we’re describing the weight of being listless and hopeless, of having no energy to get out of bed, or take a shower or “start the day”; we’re describing that ache that’s settled into everything. When we say we’re in love, we’re talking about the endorphin rush that’s coursing through the system, making us feel giddy and excited and “drunk” on someone else. If we’re feeling jealous, we’re really talking about that burning deep in the belly, that primal instinct that tells us we’re threatened.

The next time you’re having an intense emotion, observe what’s happening in your body. Get quiet if you can, sit up tall, close your eyes, and see if you can just breathe in and breathe out, witnessing your experience. For so many people, when uncomfortable feelings arise, the tendency is to run, or numb, or deny, to “push” the feelings away, or sit on them, but no feeling is forever and when we race from how we feel, we lose an opportunity to know ourselves, to figure out where we are, what we need, and why we’re feeling what we’re feeling. Why are we enraged? Are we feeling disrespected, unseen, unheard, or invisible? Is that an old, familiar feeling, and if so, when did it first arise? When we understand what’s happening within us, it’s a gift we give to ourselves, and all the people in our lives; it’s a relief. Things that felt skewed and uncomfortable suddenly fit, even if we’re left with a feeling of grief, rawness, and deeper understanding of where we still have healing to do. Now we can be accountable for the actions we’re taking, the things we’re saying, and the energy we’re spreading.

Conversely, racing to numb a feeling robs us of all this very valuable information. This is the source of all addiction, this idea that we “can’t take it”, that we have to do something, that the feeling is going to do us in unless we act. When I say addiction, people jump to drugs and alcohol, and of course those are big ones, but plenty of people are addicted to shopping, or the internet, or exercise, to eating or not eating, to throwing themselves into relationships or turning to sex to make the painful feelings go away.

If we want to be at peace, we have to come to an understanding about who we are and what we need. Not knowing yourself is the loneliest feeling there is, and it’s also a sure way to flail around through life. Happiness will be short-lived and accidental, something you just fall into by chance. One of the biggest gifts of a consistent yoga practice is the ability to breathe through intense sensation. Sometimes the quadriceps are on fire, or there’s a “fire in the belly”, and we breathe and observe. Then in life, when painful or pleasurable sensations arise that threaten to throw us off our centers or rob us of our peace, we breathe and observe. I think when we say we want to be happy, we really mean we want to feel that inner steadiness. We want to feel we’re living in alignment with what’s true for us. We want to be able to identify what’s blocking us, or inspiring us, or terrifying us, so we can work with that stuff. When we come up against some pain, some jagged, raw place within us that still needs our kind attention, we want to be responsible with our feelings. We want to show up for ourselves and other people in a way that feels good. We want to believe in our ability to have a positive impact on the world around us. There’s no way to do any of that if we run every time a difficult feeling arises.

Sending you love, and wishing you peace,

Ally Hamilton

Take the Road Inward

dalaiactions The desire to be happy drives all of us, but sometimes it drives us in the wrong direction. Anything we do, we do because we believe it will bring us peace or contentment or feelings of joy or gratitude, even things we do for other people. I teach because I love it. I love the feeling of being in a room full of people who are breathing and sweating and focusing and looking at themselves in an honest way, in a safe space. I love the co-creation of that space, and I feel grateful that I can offer ideas that might help someone to heal, drawing from my own healing journey over the last twenty years. It feels good. Doing things for my kids makes me happy, even if I’m exhausted and have answered nine million “why” questions by the end of the day. Folding those tiny tee shirts, or pairing up those little socks makes me smile, because it’s so fleeting. Soon my son’s socks will be bigger than mine, and my daughter will be rolling her eyes as she heads out the door with some guy I’m going to vet like I work for the FBI.

Anyway, my point is, if you ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing, or why you want what you want, I can almost guarantee you’ll find it’s because you think this course of action will lead to your happiness. If you’re on a diet, maybe it’s because you haven’t been treating your body well, and are now trying to make friends with it again, eating whole foods, and drinking lots of water, and tuning in to your body’s needs and desires. Or maybe it’s because you’re buying into the insanity that you can never be skinny enough, but if only you could, you’d meet someone fabulous. See what I’m saying? Whether it’s a healthy or unhealthy motivation, you’re doing it because you believe it will lead you somewhere good.

If you’re working a ninety hour week because you think a lot of money will make you happy, and someday you’ll be able to retire and enjoy yourself, I’d say that’s not a good course of action because tomorrow isn’t promised. If you’re chasing someone who isn’t really giving you the time of day because you believe if only you could “have them”, then you’d be happy, I’d say you’re also on a thorny path, but sometimes we’re in pain, and that’s what’s motivating us. We’re coming from a place of lack, and we attach our happiness to external things, people, events or circumstances, and so here we are on this quest to be happy, but we’ve taken the road to misery. I think a lot of people are living this way.

Ask yourself why you want the things you want. It’s a good exercise, and you don’t have to share your findings with anyone (although a great therapist can be very helpful in this regard). Make a list of those things or people or brass rings you’re chasing, and hold them up to the light, because you don’t want to spend too much time racing down Misery Lane. You really might need to recalibrate your GPS, and set a new course. Happiness is inside us. You don’t have to run or race or travel to find it. You really have to get quiet, so you can hear the voice of your intuition, so you can tap into that inner knowing. It’s got a very clear voice. It will tell you “yes, this”, or “no.” It’s just that sometimes we’ve drowned it out with a lot of shoulds.

It took me a long time to be happy. I spent a lot of my young adult years convinced I’d be happy, when…and you can fill in the blanks with so much stuff. I also spent a lot of time blaming other people for my unhappiness. Those are flip sides of the same coin. If your happiness lies in something or someone outside yourself, your lack of this person or thing or event becomes responsible for your unhappiness, but the truth is, no one is responsible for your peace of mind, or lack of it, but you. We each have our own work to do to unearth our joy, our passion, our gifts, those things that light us up, or terrify us, or inspire us. We all have to look at what’s holding us back, where we might be blaming, where we might be stopping ourselves with self-limiting beliefs. You have to know yourself if you want to be happy. A huge house isn’t going to help you with that, and neither is the “right” person. You’re the right person. Knowing yourself and accepting yourself is inside work. So if you’re looking for a road to get you there, pick the road inward.

Sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

Take Care of YOU

Sometimes people tell me they really want to do yoga on a regular basis, but just don’t have the time. I understand what it’s like to wish there were more hours in the day. For example, as I write this, it’s after midnight, but my two kids are asleep, and I’ve answered all the emails and private messages for the day. Things are quiet now, and I can think. Do I wish it was 9pm, so I could get more sleep? Yep. Earlier today, I taught two classes, one in the morning and one this evening, and in between, I played “The Game of Life” with my kids, chased them around outside, took our dog for a walk, squeezed in two business calls, and threw my mat down in the middle of the living room for 30 minutes, in the midst of a mad dress-up game that involved ninjas, scientists, and a hunt for poltergeists. Sometimes that’s how it is. Of course I prefer a nice, quiet ninety minutes on my mat, and a solid thirty for seated meditation, but I’ll take thirty minutes total over nothing, even if my kids are running back and forth through the room. It’s summertime. They’ll be back in school before I know it, and I’ll have a little more time to take care of myself. It’s a different kind of yoga, but just as powerful. And there’s something sweet about it; sometimes they join me. I’ll take ten or fifteen minutes for some sun salutes and a chance to connect to my breath, align myself, and open things up, if that’s all I can work in. Maybe some pigeon pose while my kids sit on my back. When we say we’re “too busy” to take care of ourselves, something has really gone awry.

It might surprise you to know that ten minutes is better than nothing. And please don’t misunderstand me, here, I think you deserve more time than that to nurture yourself, but if you’re someone who isn’t doing anything at all because you feel overwhelmed and frustrated at the thought of trying to squeeze in two hours to drive somewhere, park, throw your mat down in a class and head home, I get it. It’s one of the many reasons we wanted to offer online options for people. I have a whole bunch of classes called “Yoga for Busy Moms.” (Dads can take it, too, and so can busy people with dogs, cats or fish). We have another section called, “Fully Cooked in 45 or Less.” A lot of studios, including ours, are offering 60-minute and 75-minute classes in addition to the traditional 90, because not everyone can carve out that kind of time in their days. Doing something to nurture and strengthen yourself is always better than doing nothing. Always. Saying you don’t have the time to commit to yourself is really really sad. Your relationship with yourself is the foundation for all the relationships in your life. If you don’t fill your tank, where do you expect to find the fuel to care for anyone else well? How can you pursue your passions if you don’t allow yourself some time, every single day, to tune in and get quiet, so you can hear the voice of your intuition, and allow yourself to be pulled by it?

Everything feels better after I’ve practiced, for any amount of time. If this is a new concept for you, just commit to 15 minutes a day for 2 weeks, and see how you feel. I guarantee you’ll find you have more energy, and you feel calmer and steadier. I mentioned I played the game of Life with my kids today. I’d never played it before, so we read the directions together before we started. If you’ve never played it, you spin a wheel and take your car a certain number of spaces, and you land on an “Action”. The action might be to start a rock band, and pay the bank 50k. Or you might land on a house and have to pay the bank 300k. Sometimes you get paid, because your cake was the tastiest, or you had the best disco moves. But right there, in the directions, before we’d even started, it said, “At the end of the game, the person with the most money wins.” And I looked up at my kids and I said, “This might be how you win this game called, ‘Life’”, but in real life, at the end, the person with the most money does not win.” They already know this, because we talk about this stuff, and you already know this, too, I realize that, but sometimes we need reminding. You can’t take it with you. Your house isn’t going with you, and neither is your car, your wardrobe, your shoes, your promotion, your corner office, or your degrees. My son was funny. Every time he had to pay the bank for something, he said, “That’s okay, because now I get to have a cool farmhouse with a sheep on top, and sheep are cool.” Or, “That’s okay, because I got to go on a trip and see the world.” The most valuable assets you can accrue are experiences. Experiences that include cultivating the relationships in your life so they grow and blossom and take your breath away. Spending time with your children because they grow so fast, and soon they’ll be taller than you, and soon you’ll be teaching them to drive, and one day they’ll drive away from you. If you nurture them and listen to them and laugh with them and talk to them, my guess is, they’ll also come back because they’ll want to be near you. Especially if they feel safe and heard and understood. And this goes for all the people in your life. Maybe you don’t have kids, but you have parents and friends and family members, and you have the relationship you’re having with yourself. You need to cultivate that, too. Please don’t say you don’t have time for that. Because that really is losing the game of Life. If you sign up for our site here, you get a free 15-day trial. Let me meet you in your living room for 2 weeks. It’s time for you to start winning this game.

Sending you love, and a giant hug,

Ally Hamilton