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february podcast: slowing down
Kripalu Perspectives features short interviews with leading teachers, writers, and thinkers in the fields of yoga, health, and personal growth. It’s like a mini Kripalu Experience.
 Listen to February 2010 episode: Maria Sirois on slowing down—and why it’s so important. (Listen now, download an mp3, or subscribe via RSS feed or iTunes.)
special february offer
We’ve expanded our Companion Special just for the month of February 2010.
Take a look.
reignite your desire
it’s time for a revolution!
The human body is designed to move, and exercise influences everything—from how we learn to how we feel to how we age. Join medical doctor John J. Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, in a weekend program designed to get your heart and lungs pumping and supercharge your mental circuits.
Return to your evolutionary roots and unlock your full human potential in Spark: Unlocking Human Potential Through the Body-Brain Connection, February 26–28, 2010.
join kripalu’s online forum
You don’t have to be a yoga teacher to benefit from being part of an online community dedicated to all things yoga! At the Kripalu Yoga Teachers Association (KYTA) Community Forum, you’ll find support for your home practice, answers to your questions about yoga philosophy and history, recommendations for CDs and DVDs, and lots more.
Join the free KYTA Community Forum.
take a unique approach to aging
Contrary to popular belief, aging does not have to mean a slow downward spiral of aches, pains, and disease. In Kripalu’s Health and Vitality in Midlife program, you’ll spend five days with an exceptional faculty that includes nutritionists, fitness professionals, life-management coaches, and senior-level yoga teachers as you learn how to make fundamental lifestyle changes that will make all the difference in how you age—with energy, vitality, and a sense of joy and fulfillment.
Discover Health and Vitality in Midlife.
advanced yoga teacher training
The Kripalu School of Yoga’s 500-Hour Certification training offers yoga teachers from all traditions immersion experiences to advance their practice, skills, knowledge, and repertoire. Each of the four 9-day modules, taught by expert faculty, will take you deeper into all aspects of teaching, from advanced asanas and experiential anatomy to class design and working with special populations. Join us for all four modules or take just one.
Find out more about the Kripalu School of Yoga’s 500-hour certification.
balancing with breath
Nadi shodhana is a simple, powerful practice of alternate-nostril breathing that balances the feminine cooling nadi, Ida, and the masculine heating nadi, Pingala. Experience pranayama with Janna Delgado to calm the mind, soothe anxiety and stress, and promote clear thinking.
Try “Power of the Breath,” Kripalu’s newest yoga break.
healthy living recipes
Warm up the cold days of February with some Ayurveda-inspired dishes from our expanded Basics Bar (formerly the Buddha Bar). This month, Executive Chef Deb Howard presents a red lentil dahl, with two chutney choices to complement it. Plus, Kripalu’s Lead Nutritionist, Kathie Swift, tells us why the dahl is a nutritional smorgasbord.
February Healthy Living Recipes
Red Lentil Dahl
Raisin Date Chutney
Cilantro Mint Chutney
desktop wallpaper
Enjoy the beauty of the Berkshires every day with Kripalu’s desktop wallpaper. Available with and without a calendar.
Easy to download.
we love to hear from you
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welcome
February may be the shortest month of the year, but for those who’ve been snowbound for a while, the darkest, coldest month can also feel like the longest. With this issue of Kripalu Online, we hope to warm you up inside and out with ideas on how to rekindle desire and passion in your relationships, get your body moving, balance your energy with breath, and celebrate Valentine’s Day a whole new way!
let’s talk about sex
by Nora Isaacs
In a country in which many people grow up divorced from their bodies, what is the role of sex in our lives? And how do we talk about it and navigate its challenges? In this piece, which features the wisdom of several Kripalu presenters whose work focuses on sexuality and relationships, writer and former Yoga Journal editor Nora Isaacs explores intimacy, communication, and fulfillment.
After almost three decades of marriage, Iris and David Burnett had a stable partnership. “But we needed a little reconnection,” recalls Iris. They discovered a course with Kate and Joel Feldman, who run Conscious Relationship workshops for couples. Once there, they learned something that transformed their state of intimacy, sexuality, and marriage. “They taught us how to talk in a safe place,” says Iris. Talking, it turned out, helped to reignite their sexual lives and enhance their day-to-day life together. What they learned over the course of two workshops and some private sessions with the Feldmans has given them a road map to the fulfilling intimate life that had eluded them for decades. Says Iris: “We learned how to communicate with each other in a way that we never did in thirty years.”
Many people—straight or gay, married or single—find themselves in a similar place: plodding along with a so-so sex life, relating on a superficial level, and with a nagging feeling that, somehow, they aren’t quite reaching their fullest potential. Vaguely troubled with the status quo, many of us yearn for more profound intimacy—but have no idea how to get there. It’s no wonder. The path to such fulfillment, it turns out, is littered with societal misconceptions, unnecessary obstacles, and crossed communication.
But the experts say don’t give up. Taking small yet crucial steps like talking about your desires, taking responsibility for your satisfaction, and approaching sexuality consciously can help break the frustrating cycle of dissatisfaction. It may not sound sexy, but profound honesty, deep listening, and clear communication can hold the key to unlocking a fulfilling intimate life.
Roadblocks to Intimacy
It’s no wonder that people have a hard time talking about sex. A deep current of discomfort around the topic runs through our society. “In general, in this culture, sex is considered something separate from life, done behind locked doors after you’ve taken your socks off,” says Gina Ogden, sex therapist and the author of The Return of Desire: A Guide to Rediscovering your Sexual Passion. According to Ogden, “there is much evidence in our earliest cultures that sex and Spirit were one, and that the coming together of the god and goddess was the creative impulse in the world,” say Ogden. But as civilization marched forward, she says, various institutions decided that dividing sex and Spirit was the fast track to controlling large groups of people. “Now we have this dualistic and divisive way of thinking, which is embedded in all of our institutions, from religion to medicine to law to education.”
This kind of secretive veil around sexuality permeates our partnerships, according to Kate Feldman. She says she consistently works with couples who simply don’t talk about their needs and desires, instead expecting that each should automatically know what the other one wants.
Poor communication isn’t the only obstacle to a robust sexuality, says Esther Perel, a couples and family therapist and author of Mating in Captivity. She points to a whole host of long-term, deeply held inner beliefs that can be potential roadblocks for individuals, including lack of sense of self-worth, lack of entitlement about pleasure, nonacceptance of body image, feelings of shame and guilt, family messages, cultural and religious restrictions, and the inability to experience freedom and autonomy. “If you tell me how you were loved, I’ll know how you make love,” she says.
It’s Not About Technique
Rather than focusing on ways to communicate better, many people think that improving their sexual technique is the answer. But the hype about learning the “perfect” technique to please your partner turns out to be one huge sexual myth. “For me, the essence of high-quality sexual intimacy is not having any technique,” says Alan Lowen, founder of the personal and spiritual growth Art of Being workshops. “What I’ve experienced and witnessed is that the techniques are only valuable when supporting a state of being in which people are already intimately connected with their whole constellation of feelings.”
If you don’t bring your whole self to the bedroom, he says, you run the risk of shutting down from your partner—pretty much ensuring that true intimacy won’t happen. “In order to have a beautiful intimate sexual life,” says Lowen, “you need to make the connection between the sexual energy and integrating your feelings.”
This beautiful intimate life can be particularly elusive for long-term partners who love each other but don’t desire one another anymore. “What fits people emotionally isn’t exactly what excites them sexually,” says Perel, In these cases, she says that restructuring the emotional element of the relationship will inevitably result in a more fulfilling sex life. “People don’t just want more sex, they want better sex that connects them with a sense or renewal, joy, and the capacity to reimagine themselves.”
A Paradigm Shift
The first step toward a more liberating and inclusive form of intimacy starts with shifting the paradigm. “Instead of just physical, I want to try to broaden the conversation to a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual level, so people can talk about the meaning and feelings, as well as the behaviors,” says Ogden, who reminds us that sexual energy can also be expressed through eye contact, meditation, bringing your chakras in line, and heart-to-heart contact. “Couples who focus mainly on the goal of orgasm often miss many other experiences and narrow their sexual repertoire,” says Feldman. Without the pressure of achieving orgasm, we are freer to explore other kinds of non-goal-oriented touch like cuddling, kissing, or massage: “A satisfying and robust sexual life originates from regular, non-demand touch, in and outside the bedroom,” Feldman reminds us.
The bottom line is that when it comes to intimacy, there is no right or wrong. “There is a misconception that there is some perfect way to do and be sexually,” says Feldman. “A couple’s sex life is one they create together as an intimate team, and there are no rights and wrongs—only some good principles.” Among these principles, she says, are feeling good about your body, thinking of sex as a healthy part of our lives, and giving ourselves permission to evolve sexually as we age.
A Spiritual Perspective
While some spiritual traditions advocate sexual celibacy or restraint as the fast track to spiritual elevation, a tantric approach considers sexuality as a joyful, natural, and healthy part of our existence to be celebrated. And a body-centered practice like yoga or qigong can certainly help us connect our sexuality with our life-force energy, says Saida Désilets, cofounder of the Alchemy of Passion with Sol Sebastian. A practice like yoga helps us to slow down, become aware of the breath and sensations in the body, and “to have some life-force energy to play with, have access to that energy, and to become conscious of what is subtle,” says Désilets.
Yoga teaches us awareness—but it’s up to us to practice this awareness rather than simply trying to muscle our way through to the ultimate pose. The same can be said about sex: It’s our choice whether we practice consciously to deepen our relationship, or unconsciously to gain power or manipulate. Ultimately, bringing the kind of consciousness we cultivate through our yoga practice might provide much-needed healing for our intimate lives, leading to the kind of union of body, mind, and spirit that yogis seek on the mat or the cushion. “If done consciously, sex can dissolve our notions of isolation or separation and [help us] feel something bigger than our own personality,” says Sebastian. “It’s an initiation that leads us from a sense of separation and into a sense of being a part of something greater than ourselves.”
Nora Isaacs, a former senior editor at Yoga Journal, is a San Francisco–based journalist who writes about health and spirituality and is the author of Women in Overdrive: Find Balance and Overcome Burnout at Any Age. www.noraisaacs.comFind out about upcoming programs at Kripalu with Gina Ogden, Kate and Joel Feldman, Esther Perel, Saida Désilets, Sol Sebastian, and Alan Lowen.
spreading the word …
Helping Haiti
Disaster aid is still urgently needed. Do your part today by donating to one of the organizations coordinating disaster relief. Day by day, we are making a difference.
See a list of organizations you can donate to (including easy text donations).
V-Day: A New Way to Celebrate Valentine’s Day
More than just one day, V-Day is a global movement dedicated to ending violence against women and girls throughout the world. Founded by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, V-Day’s series of February events includes annual benefit performances of the play and screenings of the documentary Until the Violence Stops—all to raise awareness and funds for local organizations working against violence toward women.
Celebrate women and help stop the violence: find out more about V-Day.
Living Routes: A New Kind of Study Abroad
Know a student who’s ready to raise their environmental consciousness? Perfect for the eco-curious college student, Living Routes provides the opportunity to learn about sustainable development, green building, organic agriculture, and women’s empowerment through study-abroad experiences based in eco-villages throughout the world, in locations like India, Scotland, Senegal, and Peru.
Investigate solutions to pressing environmental issues (and earn college credit while you’re at it): check out Living Routes.
quote of the month
The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love, and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe.
—Deepak Chopra, world leader in the field of mind-body medicine
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