World's Youngest Yoga Teacher Schools Om Gal

I began practicing yoga at the age of 16, which, by most standards, is young, particularly when you consider that yoga was not widely available at the time. At 20, I started teaching small groups of my peers, fellow college students on a study abroad program without access to a gym or other forms of exercise. This peer group soon attracted teachers and faculty and swelled in size to more than 100 people on some days. In my early 20s, I was the youngest “senior” teacher at one of the most popular yoga studios in the country.

Well, la-di-da, you say, and I tend to agree. This doesn’t make me special. It just means that I got an early start in terms of age and experience in the field of yoga. Unless you compare me to Shruti Pandey.

Letting Nature Work: Silent Change

Often, when we are not looking, in the silence of nature's embrace, the miracle of change happens.

We all see things about ourselves, our relationships, and our world that we want to change. Often, this desire leads us to take action toward inner work that we need to do or toward some external goal. Sometimes, without any big announcement or momentous shift, we wake up to find that change has happened, seemingly without us. This can feel like a miracle as we suddenly see that our self-esteem really does seem to be intact, or our partner actually is helping out around the house more. We may even wonder whether all of our hard work had anything to do with it, or if it just happened by way of grace.

Don't Be A Gym Jerk: 11 Health Club Pet Peeves

Recently, I found myself racing around a posh health club—typically a peaceful place for me—annoyed. Really miffed. Possibly on the verge of going bat shit crazy… Over a jump rope. I couldn’t find one, and this was irksome. After all my holiday indulging, I was hoping my high intensity interval jump rope routine would be just the workout to incinerate a surplus of gingerbread cookies.

Jump ropes are pretty standard pieces of equipment for a gym—maybe the single, most standard; yet, they were nowhere to be found. It was the health club equivalent of standing in line at Dunkin’ Donuts to be told they weren’t serving coffee that day. I don’t even drink coffee, but I imagine this would make me peeved if I did. I imagine it would make me want to climb over the counter and throw Munchkins at someone.

Ten Ideas to Make Your Home Help in Your Weight Loss Goals

Home: a time to relax, to be with your family, and, unfortunately, a trigger for straying from your weight-loss goals. It’s all too easy to grab a “convenience” snack or sit on the couch for hours on end, watching television or surfing the ‘net. Here are ten ways for you to make your home help, not hurt, your progress:

A Remote Remote. If you tend to watch television to relax, move the remote so that you must physically get up to retrieve it to change the channel.

Clean Sweep. Get rid of all non-nutritious snacks: sodium and calorie-laden chips, candy bars, or whatever your vice may be. If it’s not present, and you would have to actually leave your home to go get it, chances are you will elect to do without.

Eight Simple Ways to Improve the Quality of Your Life!

As a new year begins, most people decide to change something about their lifestyles to improve the quality of their health, relationships, and/or working life. Some of those desired changes can be daunting, however. Fortunately, there are many small steps all of us can take to help us live a better and more fulfilling life. Here are eight ways to get started:

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables. It’s advice we have all heard but instead of just acknowledging the benefits (among them, reducing your risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and eye problems, as well as keeping your blood sugar steady, thus reducing your appetite), actually do it. For both fruits and vegetables, the most nutritious are the colorful ones: orange, yellow, red, and dark green. Add fruit to your cereal; take a piece or two with you to work. Make sure both lunch and dinner include fresh vegetables.

Oh The Email Games We Play!

So the first work week of 2011 is here and so commences the great email games.

1) Monday email: Reserved for very few. You're all pumped up about your resolutions, have new projects you want to get off the ground, or inject life into old ones and need to start reaching out to folks to get things moving. But....what may be a priority to you ain't always priority to someone else. In fact, by sending the Monday email you could just sabotaging yourself because if it's going to get ignored by the recipient, inevitably it's gonna lose energy and momentum as more prioritized emails and projects pile on top of it. In short: be wary of the Monday email.

Do What You Really Want To

I have a lot of thins I can do. There are many things available to do. You have many things you can do. We have choices... lots of choices.

This morning I have some of my favorite distractions calling me. I have my music calling me. I have my meditation practice calling me. Reading, learning, blogging, etc. Honestly, no matter my choice, nobody dies. Do you recognize all the choices you have every minute? I look at all the expectations I put on my life yesterday and yesterdays before that. Those expectations I laid for myself really don't matter as much as I thought when I created them. I'm a different person now.

Confessions from a Shopaholic

I saw a commercial today with Brooke Shields, advertising a new medical wonder solution that makes your eyelashes grow in thicker. Following the list of potential side effects, a friendly voice chimed, “Consult your doctor to see if FluffyEyes (or whatever it was called) is right for you!”

Considering Brooke’s most recent claim to fame is her book, Down Came the Rain, about her struggle with postpartum depression, I’d say she should probably consult not just her doctor, but her psychiatrist. Because, honey, if you’re trying to fix things by pharmaceutically plumping your eyelashes, you need to get back in that chair and have a long talk.

5 Ways to Wipe Out Your Credit Card Balances

Now, you really want to pay off your balances once and for all, don't you? Here's all you need to know about that. In truth, paying off your balances is simple; there's nothing complicated about it. But it's not easy, because it does require sacrifice and scraping together the cash that will get it done. Here are five techniques you can easily put into practice to pay off your credit card debt.

1. Set your goal. Make paying off your credit cards your top financial priority. Use the Federal Trade Commission's calculator (www.ftc.gov/creditcardcalculator) to see just how credit card interest drains your household budget. The average balance-carrying customer now owes $5,729 on his or her cards, according to the findings of a TransUnion survey. Even at the comparatively low (for credit cards) interest rate of 14 percent, that's taking $67 a month in interest payments alone out of your budget.