Upright posture is sometimes believed to be the end result of a helluva lot of sit-ups. So I submit to you my plump, can’t-do-a-sit-up-if-her-life-depended-on-it toddler. Look at how her spine lengthens even in a difficult position! I’m not saying that there is no advantage to abdominal strength, however the link between tight stomachs and good posture is, well, weak. The postural response is activated by the lengthening of muscles flanking the spine. This is what babies are developing during “tummy time.” A lot of our cultural cues like, “sit up straight,” or “chest up, shoulders back” aren’t ..read more

Within days of moving up here, I found myself chasing a goose across a Metro-North parking lot at 11 p.m. Had I lost it already? I approached the bird with an old white bedsheet spread between my hands like a villain from Scooby Doo. I would gain a few steps and then the goose would powerwaddle away, looking back periodically from the corner of its beady eyes. As it eluded me, its long neck swayed upward as if giving a Master class in elegance and the Alexander Technique. Earlier in the evening, my wife walked by the goose which was sprawled on a grassy rectangle between parked cars and a ..read more

About two months ago, my family and I drove our car out of Brooklyn, trailed by a 26 foot moving truck which was packed to the gills with our belongings. We’re out! Finito! Brooklyn no more (except for visiting friends, my wife’s haircuts, a concert next month…). We moved upriver, to the lower Hudson Valley, where the commuter trains are plentiful, the houses are aging, and the yard is wild. Red tailed hawks spiral overhead, making for a sparse, nervous chipmunk population. Because we care about “charm” and because our budget was lean, we bought a 200-year-old house. An amazing artist and weav ..read more

This November I’m teaming up with Jeff Rubin, founder of Unconditional Healing and a longtime friend and mentor, to offer a brand-new retreat – Unconditional Healing: Holding Sacred View During Uncertain Times. Uncertainty is a condition of life – our health, career, politics, and relationships have no script to follow and no guarantees. Sometimes, as with an illness or layoff, we receive a major unsettling dose of risk. Stress and fear can cause us to either tune out (i.e. crawl into my phone) or burnout (‘I can’t even deal…’). Jeff and I have created a weekend that brings the ..read more

Atop a hill on my property is a large two floor studio (shown above) Up until now, my kids have been smooshing play dough and pretending to be dogs in there. Starting this spring, however, I’m kicking them out! (Okay, just relocating them.) I will start hosting half-day retreats, workshops, and all-around meditation hoedowns in the studio. I’d love for you to come. Here’s the details: Topics: I would like to continue themes from Your Body Is Your Practice, my monthly series at The Interdependence Project. – How can we work with the body as a cornerstone of our spiritual or mindfulness practice ..read more

We have this recurring nightmare in my house where my wife and I are sitting in the kitchen after putting the kids to bed. After 20 minutes of silence upstairs, just as our withered and awkward adult personalities are again beginning to emerge, we hear a crackle from the baby video monitor which means someone is physically handling the microphone in my daughter’s room. We sink into our stools and resign ourselves to the punishment ahead. My 2 ½-year-old has rocked her wheeled crib across the room and is now cupping the baby monitor in her hands like an evil sorceress. Her nose and mouth fill t ..read more

Typically, the new year is when we try to cut ties with our piteous ways and get on the path of higher living. But where are we supposed to find the motivation to last through January? The self-improvement industry depends upon most resolutions petering out year after year. So how do we stretch our comfort zone and somehow still be kind and understanding? My latest tack is to find someone who inspires you and let yourself be pulled along in the wake of their example. The opposite of envy (a typical motivator in our culture) is admiration or appreciation. Let yourself see in someone else what i ..read more

In this special Hanukkah edition, I’m delighted to share this short piece from my friend and colleague, Emily Herzlin, founder of Mindful Astoria. Emily is a writer and mindfulness teacher at Sloan-Kettering, and is writing a book on the connections between Jewish traditions and mindfulness. Enjoy.   כִּֽי־ע֖†מְִּךָ†מְק֣וֹר†חַיִּ֑ים†בּ֜†אְֽוֹרְךָ†נִרְאֶה־אֽוֹר Ki imcha m’kor chayyim, b’orcha nirei or For with You is the source of life, in Your light we see light (Psalm 36:9)     When I was a child, I loved going with my family to the special Shabbat-Hanukkah service at our synagogue. All the ..read more

There’s this very important point in the healing process that’s difficult to detect: it’s when the quest to get better becomes a test of one’s self-worth. “Am I the kind of person who can heal themselves, overcome this challenge, or is it true, as I have quietly believed, that I don’t have what it takes?” The Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron, writes that we tend to view everything in our life as a test. Your door hinge is squeaky? It’s because you’re lazy and hopeless with handiwork. The bank teller is uncharacteristically friendly? It’s because she wants to leave her family and run away with yo ..read more

In recent weeks, I’ve reluctantly become acquainted with my 200-year-old cellar. When it rains all day, the concrete floor becomes damp like a thin layer of perspiration on my forehead. Though empty, the cellar is not uninhabited. Small creatures with large, receptive eyes move around in the thick darkness and drink up the moisture. A particularly large species of hopping insect (about an inch long) – let’s hear it for the Camel Cricket! – thrive down there. Army green and sharply jointed, they look like alien scouts probing for suitable colony. The crickets are physically harmless but psychol ..read more