Madeleine's Most Recent Posts

The smallest shift for the biggest change….

I went to a gentle yoga class the other day thinking it would be good to stretch, slow down and breathe. What I got was much less, and much, much more. As we climbed in and out of postures, the pace was slow… much slower than I had anticipated. When I realized this, I had

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Breathing as therapy?

    “Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?” Mary Oliver I gave a talk recently on writing as remembering. Not writing memoir or historical remembering, but as an act of remembering who we truly are before the world told us who to be. Do you remember being a child and

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Where do you get hooked?

  You know where you get hooked. It’s the neighbour, the friend, the co-worker, the pain, the childhood story, the…… on and on. You know already. For me, it was when one of my kids called me on something in myself that was totally true! Anxiety? Defensiveness? Anger?  = Hooked.   What causes you pain

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Wisdom.. what is it and where can I get some?

  Hello Dear Friends, It has been some time as I have been busy cooking up fall classes and offerings. I will be the featured author at the Shuswap Writers Group coffee house on September 22nd as well as Thursday Mindfulness class starts this week (see all details below). My long-awaited book “Mindful Breathing: Simple,

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What happens when you stay open…

  Has anyone ever told you to ‘just relax’ when you are anxious? Or ‘don’t worry’ when you are worried? What happens?   My experience has been that those bits of advice are probably not helpful. In fact, they often work the opposite way. Similarly, when we tell ourselves “I’m going to stop worrying’ or

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The best advice to relax ever…

“Living in the present unburdens you. Don’t worry too much. You can envision and acknowledge your life’s complexity but do so in the present, so you do not lose the vitality of life. Look around. See the people, the scene, sense the warmth of your body, feel the mood and your pulsing heart. If you

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How to make every day a blast

I do this work because I love it, but mostly because we have so much more potential to live better lives than we think we do. While I was on holiday recently I met a man who asked me what I do back home. As I explained to him what I teach and practice, tears

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3 ways to bring mindfulness into your day

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~ Confucius   I am travelling in Italy at the moment, and I am simultaneously struck by the richness and complexity of art and architecture and at the same time the simplicity of life.  I’m a big fan of keeping it simple. This is

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What is yoga? Probably not what you think it is!

  The traditional definition of yoga is ‘to yoke’, meaning to bind, join together in union. What exactly does this mean and why should you care? As a yoga practitioner for over 20 years, let me give you what I have found to be true. My yoga has meant different things to me at different

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