Consumerism, Life, Choices

This morning I spent hours talking with a friend, on topics far ranging. We spent some time talking about consumerism as it lives in our culture in America, and how we as Americans are actually somewhat unique in the world in our relationship to consumption and national economics.

I have found that as I wind up 2007 and begin to transition to 2008 I have been thinking alot about money, about my use of energy, and about the choices I have made and am making every day in the manner in which I conduct my business activities as a yogi, with a determination to be conscious and responsible, and meet my obligations and commitments from that place.

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself listening to this excellent podcast this afternoon, a conversation between Bill Moyers and Benjamin Barber, the author of Consumed. Bill Moyers is a genuine gift to our culture, and to the hope we retain for dialogue and intelligent discourse to contribute to our progress towards becoming better human beings.

I invite you to listen to the podcast, engage with the issues they discuss. We are in a unique position as yoga teachers and practitioners to engage with these cultural issues. We have, as a profession and an avocation, chosen to engage wholeheartedly with issues of significance around 'stuff and money', and with the nature of health and wellness. While we often engage personally, we are frequently challenged by our teachers to expand beyond our smaller worlds and engage with our communities. While this can be daunting on many levels, calling for us to look deeply inward and examine the real nature of our relationship with 'stuff and money', it is a worthwhile inquiry. And beyond the inquiry, if we can engage others in this dialogue, we can be supportive of our culture as we 'tangle' with detaching from this extreme consumerism we seem to have been born into.

Time, Balance and Focus - Sadhana and Blogging

As I've written before, when I started this blog, I was told that when I stopped writing for awhile I had to 'pick it up again', and that over time I had the chance of getting more regular in my writing, through this practice of stopping and starting again.

In some ways, this reminds me of my starting to practice yoga and learning to incorporate meditation into my life.

I wanted to enjoy the benefits of meditation (sort of like wanting to blog), and some days I actually did meditate. But it was only after I finally began to genuinely practice sadhana that the full benefits of these practices were available. I had made a choice, and I began to live within that commitment. And I only made the choice when I was ready, and I became ready by learning what I could by observing my experience over time. I learned in a deep way that my time spent in practice was time of the highest value.

As for blogging, for months now I have been busier in many ways - certainly in new ways, and in ways that have required me to grow, expand, and shift who I am as a manager and business person. While I have 'wanted' to write, I have also needed to maintain my balance as best as possible in a very expansive time. I found I was simply not available to write...I couldn't bring the focus necessary to do justice to something I would express publicly, so I didn't write.

Today this has changed, and I am glad to be back writing. In many ways I am different, my business activities are changing, the team of extraordinary yogic business professionals I work with has changed and grown, and as we start to wind up 2007 and move into 2008 I am curious and inspired by the possibilities that are present.

Yogic Office Space?

Today I began a conversation with the staff of our yoga centers to consider how we could furnish our new offices, and could we afford to bring everyone together into one offic, and leave ourselves with a place we'd all like to work. No sense in creating the physical basis for an effective team, but doing it in a space that was either too expensive for us to afford, or too 'deadening' to be a place we want to work.

This is a great conversation, and I think it is vital that we solve it, since so many of us live with the deadened daily experience of 'corporate' workspaces. We have to find a yogic, healthful alternative!

Values, Yoga and Lifestyle Change

We are living in - you might say swimming in- a culture that has become so oriented around the physical, and around money as an exclusive measure of one's worth, that the conversation is rarely had. Our virtually exclusive acceptance of money as equivalent to self worth is inconsistent with a yogic understanding of life, and it is useful to break up this mindset. I especially enjoy finding examples of this 'breaking up' in action.

Since much of the practice of yoga is a 'freeing up' of this attachment, something we strive to do in the way we begin to relate to our physical body, as well as in the manner in which we start to use our mind to focus our attention.

I recently ran across these two guys - Graham and Graeme - talking about money and 'status'. Its a podcast that you can download for free. You can also read about it here.

Along the way towards making changes to bring the usefulness and power of a yogic perspective into your life you will likely begin to think through issues around money and status, so as to deconstruct this relationshio for yourself. I think you'll find this podcast useful.

Rich (Raghurai)

Non-Attachment - Are we making progress?

Here's an interesting post which seems to suggest a bit of 'push back' against that seemingly unstoppable consumerism in our culture. Its written by Andrea Learned, who writes about marketing to women, and this particular segment is at the Huffington Post. The post is entitled " Who Are the Joneses, Anyway, And Why Do We Keep Up With Them? Here's one of the key paragraphs:

Here's the thing from the business perspective: Society is at a consuming crossroads, but not every consumer is aware of it yet -- and businesses are really lagging behind. As more consumers do realize and change their buying habits toward a more sustainable lifestyle, brands have an opportunity to take the lead within their industries. They can be the first on their blocks to deliver and market around the idea that less, or smaller, can be more.

When I talk about the 'yogic edge' in our business lives, this is a great example. Here's a marketing concept that is very in tune with our values, with the yogic philosophy of letting go, not identifying with 'stuff'. Granted, it is just a step, but it is a step in the right direction, and it illuminates an approach that a creative business person could explore to stay true to their yogic values, and eminently competitive!

Rich (Raghurai)

Tom Peters, Yoga, and a Non-Linear World

Tom Peters has long been a favorite of mine, even in my pre-yogi days. Today, his blog is very accessible, he utilizes a very transparent style, and lets you in on what he is doing, thinking, and who he is talking to.

I just read this post on "100 Ways to Succeed #95: NON-LINEARITY RULES."

The post is about having leadership teams 'be' non-linear, start to think non-linearly, and to understand that most things do not happen linearly.

I have no tidy "tip" here, but rather an extraordinary plea that you implicitly put "non-linear" thinking atop your and your leadership team's agenda—permanently. This may mean hiring poets and astrologers and putting homeless folks on your advisory board. It may mean sabbaticals or yoga, sabbaticals and yoga.

In fact, the Yogic Edge in business includes this perspective. As we learn yoga, we learn the art of being in the present moment, breathing with our experience. This is vital for 'dancing' with non-linear life. One learns to respond 'in the moment' most effectively by practice, and that practice can be done on a mat, in meditation, and through study.

One other thought. This post by Tom got me to thinking how important it is for managers to learn the deeper aspects of yoga, not just the physical asana practice. It is here, in the philosophical learning that managers will really prepare themselves for 'battle with the non-linear'!

Yoga in Health Care - What is Possible?

Here's two different new articles about Health care - both provide some perspective on our society's choices. I wonder how limited the choices appear to our society at large, since yoga is so poorly offered as a real choice.

In this first article, we see a yoga instructor teaching yoga to Cancer patients. I'm impressed by the apparent intention of the instructor to provide a genuine experience. Here's a quote:

Dr. Maria Jorgensen, an oncologist with Memorial, said healing yoga is not about performing a variety of physical poses.

"It works at more profound levels than the body," she said. "It helps the patients learn techniques to put their minds at rest and not be caught in the emotion of the moment. We have a power of mind over our bodies that we tend to ignore."

Read the whole article, it is a fine example of a yoga instructor and a medical facility working together to serve.

The second article is about a new intervention which won an award at a Wharton business plan competition. The intervention is by NP Solutions, and is about injecting a hydrogel treatment into a disc that is degenerating, focusing on a 20-something marketplace. What caught my attention here is that our society is quite ready to fund this sort of research, but finding the money to fund research into a yogic resolution of this sort of level of chronic pain - even though it will likely cost less, and have other beneficial side effects (unlike the medical intervention) - is much more difficult, given the dynamics of the revenue and profit model associated with yoga practice versus medical intervention.

Here's a link to the article on the Wharton competition. Look for the section on NP Solutions, which starts this way:

NP Solutions: One of the largest potential markets in the world of biotechnology is treating lower back pain, since many people begin to suffer some form of degenerative disc disease in their late 20s, and the vast majority of sufferers are not disabled severely enough for highly invasive and risky treatments, such as spinal fusion.

As a society we have choices, and I believe we have a contribution to make by bringing a yogic perspective to solving these problems of allocating resources for health care.

The Urban Zen Initiative - Well-being Forum

So much great work is going on to bring the East and the West together. Here's one I just heard about today, brought into existence by Donna Karan.

Donna Karan Launches Urban Zen's First Initiative--The Well-being Forum

April 26, 2007

NEW YORK -- "Imagine if Eastern Philosophy harmonized with Western medical practice and if we treated the patient with the same passion with which we treat the disease ... When my husband Stephan, and best friend Lynn Kohlman were stricken with cancer, so much was missing from their care. They needed the powerful science from Western medicine, but they also needed the healing that can only be accessed from the heart, spirit and alternative approaches. Out of my frustration with the care they received at even the best medical facilities, a commitment was born. My mission is to create a working environment where the worlds of conventional and alternative medical practices unite to create new ways of healing, health and well being, focused on the total human and medical needs of the patient." Donna Karan

Read More....

And here is more from the Integrator Blog.

Raghurai

Yoga in Advertising - Great Piece

This is an interview from 2002, from On the Media, an NPR show. There is a text version

Here's an illustration of how yoga is being portrayed:

'when all is said and done, potential customers will flip a magazine page to find Andrea Brook assuming a dramatic asana [sp?] -- poised in the presence of M&K speakers.'

And here is some of the rationale:

STEVEN POWERS: What are the qualities that a person like Andrea or any talented yogi has? Balance -Power - Focus - Clarity.

We've lived for the last few years with this sort of imagery permiating our adveristing...for better or for worse. I do agree with the reporter, and the teacher portrayed in the piece....more awareness of yoga is good. Period.

Raghurai

Yoga Foundations

I'm very curious about this sort of foundation. A yoga center working to use the legal and tax system appropriately in order to be able to offer more service to their community.

The yoga center has decided to form a non-profit Show Me Yoga Education Foundation. According to SMYC Director Jan Harcourt, “forming the foundation will help us bring the health benefits of yoga to more teens as well as to seniors and others in our community, regardless of their ability to pay for classes.”

I'm on the hunt for more of these, I'm imagining that there are more?

Raghurai

Super Brain Yoga?

Here's an article about a yogic exercise

Super brain yoga. It's the latest energy therapy that combines movement and breath with specific hand placement on certain parts of the body and leg movements. The exercise involves a person holding each ear lobe and breathing in a certain manner while squatting at the same time to activate the brain. Research has shown that there are points along the ear that correspond to different parts of the body, said Connie Williams, a super brain yoga instructor in Gulf Breeze.

I'm fascinated by articles like this. Years ago this would have been way too 'out there' to get into a paper like the Pensacola News Journal. But, today yoga is so popular, and putting any phrase together with yoga seems to bring in readership. Now, on to the next question...does it work?

This is the heart of the matter. How does a consumer choose what works and what doesn't when this sort of information is 'pouring' into the public awareness?

Changing How We Keep Score

For some time, it has been apparent to me that we have to change the way we keep score if we are going to alter the corporate model for business to be more socially contributory. Too often, talking to business people, or the general public, the rote answer to why businesses can't consider more than the 'cash' bottom line, I hear them say, "that's our legal obligation to the shareholders'. All true, but it begs the point. Shareholders establish the parameters under which the corporate entity operates.

This new model -'B-corporations' sounds very promising to me. I love the idea of a legal structure that binds us as participants to a broader 'bottom line'. (The link is to an NPR podcast from Marketplace.)

As a yogically oriented business person, we MUST consider way more than the 'cash' bottom line. This structure suggests a possibility for a firm foundation for doing just that! I'm looking forward to watching where this goes.

Rich (Raghurai)

'Yoga' Apparel-Maker IPO - Communication Challenges and the Marketplace

Once again we are seeing that the yoga 'industry' is framed in the public awareness through the high profile IPO of Lululemon. Lululemon is a maker of high end 'yoga clothing', based in Canada.

This quote from a second article is somewhat revealing of how the yoga market is viewed in the financial world. Note bold is mine:

David Howell, president of consultancy Associate Marketing International, said Lululemon has few limitations to mass-market potential beyond its prices. (Yoga pants cost $70 to $100.)

"They don't sell inexpensive items, so it limits their market a bit, but people do tend to reach a bit to buy there. There is a lot of status attached to what you wear in exercise class."

Here's another quote from this Financial Post article, from Luke Sklar, founder of Toronto-based market research firm Sklar Wilton & Associates. The focus speaks for itself.

"They are on the short list of great Canadian retail success stories. They deserve to be very successful. I think they do a fantastic job rooted in high-quality product with a great look. Luon (a proprietary stretch fabric developed by the retailer and contained in most of its athletic clothing) holds up, and women are convinced that it makes their butts look better."

As marketers and business people seeking to thrive in the marketplace, while remaining true to our yogic foundations, we constantly strive to communicate through the mindset that fosters this sort of emphasis.

I'm Back!

Well, when a friend gave me some pointers about blogging he said that if I stopped, all I had to do was start again! So, I'm taking his advice. For the last 2 months we had a 'glitch' getting the blog moved over to theyogicedge.com, instead of the url being at blogger. However, it is now moved...yeah!!!! So please look back in from time to time, and lets see what we can see about the nature of the market that is the 'yoga industry' as it evolves.

Sat Nam to all....
Raghurai

Food

As most of us who practice yoga have learned, food is critical to our health. What we eat and how we eat is at the heart of our personal practices.

When we work to explore the 'yogic edge' of our lives, we have to begin to look at all of our practices, how those practices are formed, and what will it take to re-examine them, to apply ancient wisdom and right action to our day to day lives.

This article by Michael Pollen, who's most recent book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” was chosen by the editors of The New York Times Book Review as one of the 10 best books of 2006, is a fabulous intro to the range of issues that we have to consider as we begin to bring our awareness to our food.

The yogic edge is about walking the razor's edge necessary to live in our society with a yogi's sensibilities. This article gives us a great perspective on the societal forces that are in the background of our relationship to food, forces that have moved this relationship from wholistic (consuming food) to nutritionalist (consuming and relating to food as a reductionist collection of nutrients).

Living as a yogi in applying this sort of sensibility - "eat more veges and fruit " , instead of "get more omega-3's, 6's and some oatbran" to our entire life experience.

So the yogi addresses stress by breathing, eating, meditating and balance in life, not through the latest advertised pill to 'reduce stress'!

Yoga in Public Schools - The 'Edge' of Yoga?

Here's another NY Times article about yoga, this time its about YogaEd, one of the emerging programs for bringing yoga into the public schools. There are lots of arguments for this - the decreasing physical fitness of youth in our country, the ADD 'epidemic', and other problems which stem directly from the industrial age practice of putting children in chairs in a school room to learn material by rote.

The big issue raised, and it is an issue that will always be present as we bring yoga into the west, is an issue of secular versus spiritual versus religious context. YogaEd simply tries to remove any hinduism-like aspects of yoga, and teach the physical exercise, incorporating some meditative 'time in'. A workable approach to westernizing?

SYTAR 2007 - The Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research

I've just returned from SYTAR last night. It was a momentous gathering. The event was originally planned for 200-250 people, and this weekend over 800 yoga teachers, self-identified yoga therapists, medical professionals, and other interested parties gathered to hear about research, to meet with colleagues, and to work together to build what some think will be a new profession - a Yoga Therapist.

I suspect that this endeavor will prove to be a notable milestone along the way, but the issues that were raised in the face of the challenge are substantial. From my viewpoint, I am not even sure it is a worthy objective, to seek to use the name 'therapist' a term so rooted in our floundering western medical system.

As yoga teachers we face many challenges in this attempt. Licensing, establishment of standards and consistency of delivery are only the tip of the iceberg here. The real substance of the issue is the spiritual dynamic of yoga, and how to preserve that dynamic while entering into a conversation oriented around an allopathic western paradigm.

To their credit, speaker after speaker emphasized the importance of not losing the 'yoga' from the 'therapy'. However, what was notably absent was the instructions for how to 'practice'. The agenda notably avoided legal issues, regulatory issues and pragmatic realtities such as 'when do we bump into HIPPA?'

While it is likely too early to address these issues substantively, it is for me a concern that they were not even mentioned in passing. I think the outset is a great time for bringing the pragmatic issues forward, so that the structures can be designed to address them. This didn't happen here.

I'm very much in support of the effort, and I'll write more about it over time.

Research Study on Yoga to Support Sleep in Cancer Survivors

This study is a fairly large study, taking place at 24 locations, and intended to include 300 participants. The three-year study is being funded by the National Cancer Institute. The study called YOCAS (Yoga for Cancer Survivors) is a randomized controlled trial. The objective is to provide a standard for clinical care.

The yoga will include gentle Hatha yoga sessions twice each week for four weeks. Sessions are designed to "teach participants release and relaxation techniques to reduce mental activity and provide a physiologic basis for deep relaxation and transition to sleep."

Karen Mustian, the principal investigator on this study works out of the Center for Future Health, at the University of Rochester. This sounds like a excellent group, working to build the distinction they are calling Proactive Health Systems which "alerts individuals when their health status trends away from normal, and helps them return to health."

Yoga Can Make You Healthy AND Happy....Western Science Strives to Understand Happiness

One of the 3 major styles of yoga that we teach at Yoga Yoga is Kundalini Yoga, as taught by Yogi Bhajan. Yogi Bhajan believed that 'happiness was our birthright', something he said over and over again.

As yoga teachers, one of the most important things we strive to give to our students is a sense of well-being and happiness. This sense is a natural outgrowth of practicing yoga.

Here's a fascinating article that provides some insight into the western scientific approach to understanding happiness. No small feat, or insignificant action, one point the article makes is the strong evidence that being happy increases your life expectancy dramatically!

So...do yoga, be happy, live longer....and be around to serve others...

Keeping it Human


From my perspective, business (or enterprise) building is at it's heart a 'design problem'. In this case, how do we design our yoga centers so that they take advantage of the best techniques of business management and technology, while staying genuine places of human contact.

Signal vs. Noise, [a weblog by 37signals about entrepreneurship, design, experience, simplicity, constraints, pop culture, our products, products we like, and more] often has some really useful insights and information worth thinking about.

In this post, The power of rough edges, (one of their BEST posts from 2006) Matt from 37 Signals writes about web design techniques that allow for more authenticity and humanity. This soooooo vital! Its clear that we as a culture are not going to stop using technology, and we are going to continue to scale towards larger and larger enterprises. We NEED people to think about the issues that let us keep the humanity in....through design, through commitment and through skill. Here's one more great quote from this post:

The value of authentic
Authenticity is underrated. People forgive a multitude of sins in exchange for it. Sure, aim for perfection and professionalism when it’s called for. But don’t overlook the power that comes from being authentic, appropriate, and human.

We can't teach yoga if we don't 'stay human'. And 'staying human' while staying competitive and profitable seems to require an exquisite sense of designing 'for' human enterprise. These guys 'get it'.

Can Yoga Play a Role In the National Health Care Dialogue?

One of my objectives in writing, and in working with the teachers and staff at Yoga Yoga on our initiative to develop what we are calling 'complementary care' programs, or 'personal self-care' programs, is to become an active participant in the national health care dialogue. I believe, as I think many yoga practitioners and teachers believe, that there is great opportunity to foster wellness and well-being through yoga, and through supporting individuals - one at a time - to practice yoga.

Here's a great quote from an article by a Dr. Welch (bold is my emphasis):

Perhaps someone should start monitoring a new health metric: the proportion of the population not requiring medical care. And the National Institutes of Health could propose a new goal for medical researchers: reduce the need for medical services, not increase it.

I think that by simply supporting a national conversation on wellness - something that yoga teachers and many other 'alternative' providers seem to be much more inclined to do than most any member of the 'healthcare' system - we CAN make a difference!

Welcome to the New Year, and a Look at the Yoga Market courtesy of the NY Times

Those of us who work in the 'yoga industry' (funny even to put those words together!) are well aware of both the growth of the industry, and the 'frenzy' around this growth.

This article from the Times is a great 'window' into the mindset of what the general market (whatever that is) thinks of when they talk about 'the yoga market'.

The article begins by focusing on Yoga Journal's 11th Annual Estes Park Conference. Of course, bear in mind that this is the Yoga Journal sold by John Abbott to Active Interest Media in 2005, so this is now strictly a financial play...a company owned by shareholders as an investment vehicle, not a mission based organization.

After a quick mention about Shiva Rea leading a sort of yoga 'rave', we turn immediately to the 64 vendors and isles of clothing.

Then another one-liner about the "renowned" yoga teachers, followed by about 20 paragraphs focusing on shopping, fashion and more shopping.

We hear about Prana, bought by Liz Claiborne, Lulelemon, "a professed “yoga-inspired athletic apparel company” (owned by Advent International and Highland Capital Partners), who "last year hired a veteran Reebok exec as CEO", Prudential Financial's efforts to tie health into their marketing, Ford Motor's approach to reaching young women to sell cars, and a few jewelry designers selling into the market with "Price tags for ..(that) can be heaven-high".

Where's the yoga????

You can see in this article the real challenge of bringing yoga into the west. The only lens that this author - and really our culture - has for thinking about it's place in our world is materially based and economic. There is no context or 'listening' for the depth of what yoga offers.

What if the author worked to stress the real benefits of yoga in bringing health and happiness into our society? What about even looking at examples of the health care benefits, scientifically proven?

What about simply spending some time talking about the genuine contribution that thousands and thousands independent yoga teachers make day after day, quietly bringing more happiness, less stress, more health and a more positive outlook on life to the millions of yoga practitioners in communities far and wide.

Its harder work to communicate this difference, but it is actually the difference that is being made. The jewelry and the clothes do NOT bring the results. Its okay for the clothes and jewelry to be spoken about...but PLEASE....lets try to communicate that none of the results happen without practice. Yoga is simply one of those things that you cannot just 'buy' the result with.