Continue the excellent work!

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What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind….

Putting clean, healthy, organic food into my body and getting on my yoga mat every day makes me feel great, too, and I am so glad that my words and yoga inspire you.

That makes me happy!!

I am simply following my heart and my dharma, and that is why things flow easily and joyfully.

And that’s what Prana Power Yoga and every instructor who teaches at Prana Power Yoga encourages you to do–follow your heart (not your ego and competition and fear).

We all deserve to feel happy and great, so rock on Sistah!!

And please introduce yourself next time you take my class.

The next time I teach is Tuesday August 19th at 9:30am at Prana Newton.

Have the best day ever!!

Namaste!!

Taylor

PS – I need to add that I’ve taken my share of classes at Prana too and agree with Madison before the class teacher tell you to do your best and not to compare yourself with your neighbors. I always feel amazing when I leave Prana, it’s my therapy. hehe…

A great post, I learned a lot from it….

Please keep these excellent posts coming….

From that standpoint, I find myself wondering if all of this emphasis on food choices, whether healthy or un, raw or cooked, is somewhat the flip side of disordered eating. While passion born from experience is a wonderful thing, and it feels empowering to share that which informs us in a positive manner, I almost start to feel like there is a tendency towards allowing food, whether raw or vegan, to define and label as opposed to enlighten and enhance. Just a thought. Discuss at will, or dismiss and on to the next subject. Celebrate your inner fireworks, and rock your 4th.

I am on Nantucket for a week and was only able now to respond to your many wonderful posts.

A big shout out and gratitude to you all–Lulu, Jacqui, Madison, Sara, Elizabeth, Suzanne, Gigi, Adrienne, Chrissy, and Adrienne(Brock’s mom)–for your heart-felt responses.

When Philippe and I opened Prana Power Yoga Newton six years ago, I knew that I was “putting myself out there,” so to speak. When you teach yoga, you literally “put yourself out/up there” in front of many people (with very little clothing on, no less–LOL), and open your heart to deliver the best class you can at that moment. Students in our teacher training programs are often stunned by how challenging this is to do when we ask them to teach their first sun salutation A. We hear “I had no idea it was this challenging” a lot.

Then when we opened Prana NYC, I again knew the position in which I was putting myself, and I wholeheartedly committed. Same for Prana Cambridge and Prana Winchester.

And with Super-mom.com, it is no different. In fact, it may even be a bit more intense since I put up new words every single day on my site and blog and anyone can look at these words at any time of any day and respond… vs. me teaching a 90 minute class in one of our four studios and chatting with students before and afterward.

So I fully took on, accepted, and owned the responsibility of “putting myself out there” when we opened all four of our Prana studios and when I launched Super-mom.com on Mother’s Day, and I still do.

What this means is that when I make a statement, describe an experience, share an opinion, and open up my heart, people can choose to agree or disagree. Sometimes there are strong emotions around the agreement or disagreement, sometimes not. My work has been to learn how to let it go and come from a place of non-attachment to results and/or approval.

So I speak my truth, I share my words, and I let go.

Sometimes it is more challenging to let go than others (like when I see a post from my ten-year-old daughter who is clearly upset by something that’s been said and is being protective of her mom) but in the end, I always let go and every time it gets easier–as with anything.

I smile when I hear someone say “Oh, Taylor, I am a people-pleaser. I want everyone to like me.”

Who doesn’t?

It’s human nature to want to be loved/liked/appreciated/accepted. And that’s OK. What can be painful is to require this for joy. The more you “put yourself out there,” the more you will be asked to let go.

The purpose of Super-mom.com is to inspire, connect, and support Super-people of all “types.” This means you!! So whether you agree with what I say or not, if you are feeling good/better/more connected/more inspired/ more supported/more knowledgeable after reading my site and blog, rock on!! Come back again–often. If you are not, then that’s totally fine too. Take what you want, and leave the rest. Who knows, maybe you learned something.

The Buddha said: “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”

Of course I do not expect that everyone will agree with every single thing that I write/feel/live/talk about. That’s not the nature of the universe!! We are all beautifully different creations and we are all on different paths. My path has lead me again and again to teach. This is what my spirit loves and I listen to my spirit, Sistah!! I teach no matter where I am/what I am doing, and I do so without thinking or trying. It’s like breathing. Writing is also like breathing to me. Very natural and flows quite easily and joyfully.

I also love to learn, and I am learning all the time. I am always listening, noticing, watching, wondering, asking…and taking it all in. I learn so much from my children, who are like sponges. I aspire to soak up as much as they do and with a totally open heart and mind.

And I am learning from each and every one of you. Every time you write. I love responding to your posts, and want to be able to respond individually to every post, and so far I have, but as a sweet Super-mom wrote me in an email recently, this may not be possible at some point and it’s not necessary and/or expected (her words).

It seems that time has now come since I am on Nanucket this week with our family and my husband’s parents and so I’m not going to be online much (and am writing this now from a clunky computer that I’m not used to). So seeing all of your (wonderful) comments, the universe has now made it clear that I can no longer respond to each and every comment.

Now to speak directly to Lulu, since she raised some interesting and thought-provoking points, first let me say that girl, when I wrote this article I knew it would push buttons!! So it took a fair amount of courage to put it up, since I believe that people are way more sensitive about the food they eat than they are about religion, politics or sex. No doubt. But my spirit channeled this article, and I follow my spirit’s guidance, so up it went.

It makes sense, by the way, that food is such a sensitive subject. It’s very intimate!! We are consuming food many times per day (especially if you’re a grazer like my entire family) and food is often times connected with family and love from an early age. It’s all about nourishment–and survival (literally).

So on that note, it’s REALLY REALLY important to never feel restricted. Re. food or anything in life. The purpose of life is joy and in order to experience joy we must feel free. Freedom and joy come hand in hand. And OY, if anyone of you reading this has ever had an eating disorder, or maybe you have one now, it’s just awful. Talk about a prison.

So back to Lulu’s post, from reading your words, Lulu, I think that you may be confusing choice with restriction in the case of my raw food lifestyle. I do not restrict nor do I believe in restriction. Girl, been there, done that, chose not to buy the tee shirt. Or ever go back.

I explained it to a student once like this: You can make a choice to do something or you can restrict yourself from doing something. These feel very different energetically. When I make a choice not to step out into the middle of a busy street in NYC with cars whizzing by, I am not restricting myself, I am choosing something that I know is the best thing for me and that will make me feel the best overall. One could argue, “Well, you are restricting. Because you haven’t stepped out in the middle of the street you are not free.”

Just as someone can argue “Well, the fact that you don’t eat cooked food means that you are restricting and therefore, not free.”

But in my experience, after four years of the raw vegan lifestyle (I use the word “lifestyle” because I don’t like the four letter word d-i-e-t), I don’t have any desire to eat cooked food–it doesn’t even appeal to me–just as I don’t have any desire to step out in the middle of a busy NYC street. I am not of course saying that eating cooked food is like walking out in the middle of a busy NYC street–LOL, it’s just one way to explain the difference between choice and restriction.

There are always so many things going on in this universe and we are all making choices all the time re. what to do, not do, watch, buy, eat, say, listen to, etc. We are choosing. It is necessary that we choose one thing over the other since one cannot do everything simultaneously. And if we are coming from our calm, clear center–from our spirit-we always make the right choice. We always choose the right path. With integrity and grace.

If I felt like eating a (cooked) spinach calzone, I would eat it. I haven’t had the desire now for over four years. If that desire hits (or if I want to snag one of those chocolate Easter eggs from my child’s Easter basket and chow it down), I’m on it!! I listen to my body and my spirit in each moment.

So Lulu, I hear you and rock on with your hot chocolate with extra whipped cream(Quintessence in the East Village of NYC makes a great raw one), your Easter candy, and your ice cream (Pure Food and Wine in Union Square NYC makes a raw mint chocolate chip ice cream to LIVE for…we bring many pints home in a cooler!!). Enjoy and continue listening to your spirit.

Elizabeth, if you are dizzy when you eat all raw then it’s not right for you at this time and may never be. I don’t know–only you do. You should always feel amazing. That said, yes, there are times when you may detox a bit and not feel great for a short period of time…but more often than not, you should feel energized, satisfied, and clear while eating raw–any percentage of raw. So again, I think it’s awesome that you’ve found what works for you now–brewsky and all.

Again, it’s not about labels or 100% or not…it’s about how you FEEL. Always. Not just with food, of course. How do you feel when you are doing what you are doing? Spending time with whom you’re spending time with? Reading what you are reading? Always pay attention and shift when your emotions and spirit indicate to do so.

I can create whatever I want–with raw food and also in my life. When I choose to create something, I do. And so do you.

Lulu’s statement “Though there is no competition in yoga, your studio IS competing with other studios (and coming out on top!) – so you are in fact competing on another level” does not resonate with me, and that’s OK. I remember having this conversation with a reporter from the BBJ and she kept talking about “the competition” and how does Prana “compete” and I kept saying over and over again: “That is not my reality. I believe in abundance and I compete with no one.” She didn’t really understand what I was saying, but she was a good sport about it all, and I got her to try my class.

In my reality, I don’t compete with other yoga studios, as competition is a mindset—an energy—and one that I do not buy into or reflect. Competition is based upon a scarcity mentality in my opinion. I believe in abundance, not scarcity, and if I believe in abundance then competition can not exist. Competition means there is a scarcity of resources. And that is not the reality i choose.

The Tao says: “Because she competes with no one, no one can compete with her.”

I have come a long way from when I lived at the Nick Bolletieri Tennis Academy in Sarasota, Florida in 1979 at age 12, where I was literally trained to COMPETE and WIN. Period. It was a very painful way to live and be and I am never going back. The truth is that you never “get there.” There is always another hoop. Yoga brought me out of that lifestyle, and I am eternally grateful.

Staying with this idea of abundance, I, like Lulu, love to be outdoors—to walk, run, swim, and bike with my children and feel the air and smell the trees and the flowers—total bliss!! I also love to hike in the mountains with my children and just lie on the grass and take in the energy of the universe. My children and I also spend a lot of time at the beach, playing in the sand and splashing in the waves. Just wonderful!! There is nothing like the sparkle of the sun on the ocean…I wrote about that in my article “All That Glitters.” Loving my yoga practice does not mean that I don’t love other things as well. Again, I live my life with a strong belief in abundance. I don’t believe in scarcity (i.e. if I love my yoga practice then that is all that I love and so I must not love walking, running, biking, swimming, hiking, etc.).

And Lulu, while I totally support your path and opinion about the raw lifestyle, it is not my reality that it is hard to be raw. In my reality, it is easy. But we all have different paths and different realities and I create mine and you create yours—that’s the power and the beauty of deliberate creation.

In the four years I’ve been raw, I’ve shown many the raw path who have found it to be easy as well, but that doesn’t mean that that is your reality. I am celebrating everyone’s lives and choices on Super-mom.com. Thank goodness for variety–it’s beautiful. The point is to support each other’s choices—whatever what they are. In food choices, parenting, relationships, academic and spiritual growth, exercise, etc. That is the point of Super-mom.com. I believe that all moms are super-moms and we should all treat each other as such, even if our realities look different.

I was actually hypoglycemic and pre-diabetic before I went raw and my raw vegan lifestyle healed me, as it has healed countless others with these and other even more “serious” and debilitating health issues. There is a lot of information on the healing effects of the raw food lifestyle in many of the books in my Super-foods section–there is way too much information to get into here. Adrienne also touched on this point in her post.

I think that all of this dialogue is a good thing—because if we are all open to each other, we can hear each other’s words and take what we want and leave the rest. And learn and grow from every single experience.

The Buddha said “Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.”

Have the best day ever!!

Namaste!!

Taylor

P.S. Suzanne, I also wrote you an email about this but when I’m not on my own computer, I’m never quite sure if my emails actually arrive where I send them, so I’ll tell you again here that one of your comments was accidentally “SPAM-ED” before I even had a chance to read it. I saw your post where you noticed your comment wasn’t up and I wanted you to know why.

I have been getting about 100 “trackbacks” to my site daily for the past several days and so I go on to my site moderator (Word Press) daily to put these trackbacks into a SPAM folder (trackbacks are not from a person, they are automatically generated from sites and the ones my site has received have had nothing to do with Super-mom.com and contain inappropriate content). While I was in the process of putting 70 trackbacks into the SPAM folder–one at a time–one of your comments was put in the SPAM folder accidentally, and I don’t even know how. I knew it went in but don’t know how to access my SPAM folder yet to get it out/read it. I intended on emailing you right when it happened to let you know and ask you to re-submit the post, but got pulled from the computer by my three kids–till now. I would love to read what you wrote, as would other Super-people, so if you can submit it again (if you somehow have it saved), I would be super-grateful. I’m so sorry–I am just learning about trackbacks and SPAM, and it’s a process. I am going to talk with my web designer when we are home to understand more. I am looking forward to reading what you said and yes, this is a forum for many opinions and thoughts–so rock on Sistah!!

P.P.S.S. Super-mom Gigi, I recommend a Breville juicer and an Excalibur dehydrator. Other Super-people please chime in because Dan from Quintessence in NYC told me he prefers the Jack Lalane juicer to the Breville. We have the Breville and love it but I’ve never owned the Lalane.