Listening, Networking and Finding Deep Inner Peace: TED Talks & Social Networking

Like many of us, I have enjoyed the gift of establishing a network of connections with a wide range of folks around the country, and around the world through the omnipresent infrastructure of the internet. For our parents, their input was limited by physical proximity...ours is not. Every day, most of us receive input from our own personalized information system. Many of my connections are biological - living folks sifting through their own structures, and sending items along, either directly or through their blogs or other constructs. I also use automated tools - blog readers, keyword searches, and other 'content sifters'. This sifted information influences my reality, and who I am, since who I am evolves in a 'dance' with the inputs available to me. I had a teacher once who said 'be careful who you listen to' for just this reason. In our new socially networked world, we now get to create 'who and what we listen to' in a powerful new way!

Recently I have been even more enamored and curious about social networking as it relates to our yoga studios, so I am paying more attention to my own input through these channels. This talk, Stroke of Insight: Jill Bolte Taylor on TED.com, was sent to me by at least 6 diverse players in my personal network. Folks who don't usually send material over (they are mostly not in that role, they are just too busy). How fascinating, if we want to promote something, to notice how promotable a talk is that so deeply touches our wants, desires, connections as human beings. If you have not yet watched the video, just go watch. It will be the most moving 18 minutes you've spent in a long time. Then, give some thought to 2 things:

1. Do you have a message that merits awareness and promotion? Without merit (in whatever context you choose to engage) you will not have the emerging social network opportunities available to you. These networks are ruthless in recognizing value (which is defined in the background, and ONLY in the context of the network!)

2. What are you doing to enhance your social network and your own, personalized information 'funnel'? Your 'edge' is a function of your connections. And your connections have to be growing and 'informed by' the ever changing flow of the market. You must be participating in the networks that are emerging if you want to benefit from them.

Which structures do you use to create your personal information 'funnel'? Blogs? Searches? Facebook friends? Share the most powerful ones in the comments.

Army Seeks Out the 'Yogic Edge'

We are all living with the societal cost of our country's war on Iraq, and as yoga instructors from time to time - depending on our locations and proximity to military bases - we find families of military personnel and both active and retired military in our classes.

We also know that yoga is extraordinarily powerful in reducing stress throughout many systems in our bodies. Here's a post from the Mayo Clinic about yoga and stress).

Now, the military is seeking out help from all avenues (a good thing) to address the growing crisis our soldiers are facing - PTSD. More about PTSD here (Wikipedia), here (VA), and here (NIH).

The military is scrambling for new ways to treat the brain injuries and post-traumatic stress of troops returning home from war. And every kind of therapy -- no matter how far outside the accepted medical form -- is being considered. The Army just unveiled a $4 million program to investigate everything from "spiritual ministry, transcendental meditation, [and] yoga" to "bioenergies such as Qi gong, Reiki, [and] distant healing" to mend the psyches of wounded troops.

While this is an extreme example, those of us who are actively involved with thousands and thousands of individuals and companies striving to solve their health concerns through yoga see, day after day how powerful this ancient technology is. Its great to see the entrenched military establishment seeking out help in this area. Some great work is already being done...if you haven't seen Richard Miller's iRest program, take the time to find out about it.

The government is looking for proposals:

But many of these treatments haven't been held up to much rigorous scientific scrutiny before. So the Army is looking to hand out $4 million in "seedling grants" to "conduc[t] rigorous clinical studies" into all sorts of "novel approaches." Projects "containing preliminary data" will be eligible for up to $1 million. But even "innovative but testable hypotheses without preliminary data" could get as much as $300,000. Proposals are due May 15.

Read the entire article on wired!

The "Bonsai" Organization

Bigger isn't always better for business according to Drucker School of Business Professor, Charles Handy. Here's an interview with Handy from NPR's Marketplace. I like a number of things he says, including that

"if we are not careful, organizations can become the prisons for our souls"

This very much speaks to the challenge we have in building organizations that incorporate yogic values along with strong business acumen and skill. We attract people who want life entwineed with work, in a dynamic, nurturing way, and it is our challenge as managers and business people in this arena to solve this problem and feed people's souls, even as we accomplish powerful results for our organizations.

One other writer who has chronicled this area well is Bo Burlingham in his book, Small Giants, which is a MUST READ for folks wanting to be validated in their search for a poerful, more human work place.

Growing interest in yoga as health therapy

Here's an article that in NY Newsday about yoga therapy.

The article does an adequate job talking about what yoga therapy is, but then towards the end of the article, here's a paragraph that I think is just 'off' in the way that yoga therapy is finding it's way into the marketplace (my bold):

As to where she's going, Page admits it'd be easier to make a living teaching downward-facing dog to dues-paying health club members instead of to patients in hospitals or clinics, or students at schools in low-income communities. Still, she believes in the "healing power of yoga" and is confident that eventually doctors will refer patients to a yoga therapist as routinely as they do a physical therapist today.

If we are not going to ensure that our yoga therapists are compensated more highly than yoga teachers in gyms, then how can we expect them to get trained at a high enough skill level to offer quality care?

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!