I cannot tell you how many times I have felt in transition between two worlds. These are often the most challenging times and places to be. In my experience it can bring up our inner worlds insecurities, longings, and laziness. That place of transition is also referred to as a " suspension period", but doesn't a" transition between two worlds" just sound way more fun? Transition also implies movement to me, where suspension feels, to me anyway, like your stagnate or just hanging out.
   Which brings me to the words we use to describe our experiences and how important they are. Just say with me right now "I am in transition" and then say "I am in suspension". I am not here to tell you which one you should use. I am here to shed light on the way saying those two different words that have similar meanings can make you feel. So how did one make you feel vs the other? Again, no right or wrong, what works for me might not work for you and that's okay:). Let's try another one, say aloud with me " I feel anxious about (fill in the blank)" and then say "I feel excited about (same fill in the blank)". What did you notice about just switching out the word anxious with excited? I am going to go out on a limb here and guess you felt a higher vibration with the word excited, if you want to know what I mean do the exercise again. 
     So, here we are in a place of transition or suspension waiting for the next move, job, relationship, whatever it is and we have all the feels. We have an inner dialogue that's hitting us a mile a minute and at times we might feel we are spinning out of control. This is where I cannot encourage you enough to slow it down and take some deep breaths. This is also a great place to look at your thoughts like you are observing your favorite football game or reality show. What words are you telling yourself? and how can you change them in a way that doesn't pull you under but lift you up? Like instead of saying im stressed out could you perhaps say  " my attention is focused on many things at the moment". I know one is much shorter to say but do short cuts in life really add benefit or value? My point is slowing it down to help you come back to a place that feels good for you, we all just want to feel good !! Sometimes its easy to get wrapped up in our thoughts that we completely check out of reality, and that's where a lot of dis ease comes in.
        I am currently once again transitioning between two worlds, almost three haha. I have a baby on the way, I have a house in Durango Colorado that's begging for my textiles which are hanging on my house in Seattle that needs to be packed up and then moved half way across country in a week. It feels like im neither here nor there, but that's okay because I am exactly where I need to be. I have put my intention into actually enjoying the in between no matter how hard somedays seem or how my attention is pulled into many different tasks so how do I begin one?  There is a lot to love about the in between if only we slow it down, change the language a bit and practice gratitude for being right where we are... after all it is where the magic happens.

  In Lifted Body,
      Hannah
        

   
   As my Birthday was approaching this year I new I wanted to celebrate a little differently then I have in the past. Now, if you know me personally you know I am a true Leo and my birthday is a big deal! My past birthdays have been blowouts, horsback parties, surprise parties, many of my birthdays have been spent in exotic far off places,and all of them have involved me telling everyone I meet that day "Hey its my birthday celebrate me" playing the proud Lioness to a T. 
   
    Coming into my 35th trip around the moon and having gone through 22 weeks of pregnancy so far , my whole outlook on what my birthday meant to me shifted.  I have spent 34 years celebrating me, as I rightly due of course, it is a miracle to be alive and well.  Now that my role has shifted from just me to, there is another human inside me right now (so weird, cool amazing) , it somehow didn't feel right to celebrate me soley on my day or flash it around like I had done anything big on my actual birthday in 82.  
     
   What came keenly to my attention was what went down on August 3rd , 1982, my mother gave birth to me! At 4:28 am I came into this world with the cord wrapped twice around my throat and the caul or veil covering my face, I was blue as could be. My mother labored through the night au natural at her midwifes, to bring me into this world and here I am 35 years later about to birth my own baby. 
  
    Birthday , Day of Birth, the day our mothers labored, breathed deeply, maybe screamed, and if they had a natural birth felt pain to bring us here, they endured crazy bodily changes and sacrificed their bodies to create us for 9 months. I truly believe we have it backwards, we need to be honoring our mothers on our birthdays, after all if it wasnt for their undying love and sacrifice we would not be here.  
   
  I am so truly grateful and blessed to be here in this world, learning what its all about to have a grand human experience. I am alive and well because of the beautiful strong and powerful Cynthia Foster who let me occupy her body and who pushed me out into the world. I am honored to be going through the birth process myself, it is truly the most amazing experience I have ever had so far! I feel like I stepped into some sort of powerful womanhood I had no idea existed until now. Some day in early December I will give a new human a birthday and that is just the coolest thing and the most precious gift I could ever ask for. 
 
    I spent yesterday just as I wanted in quiet reflection, loving my body, calming my mind, and filling my spirit with gratitude for this miraculous journey we go on when we choose to step into motherhood and create life. 

    In conclusion remeber on your birthday how you got here and who it was who sacrificed out of love to bring you here. This my 35th year I dedicate to you Mother and I dedicate it to the babe I carry who his making me a Mother. 

   
​  Golds,oranges, shades of blues and greens, divine yellows, and mystical purples, sequins, and glitter, its a magpies heaven. The colors of India are truly breathtaking and leave you feeling swept away.
     Now, I have been living in God's country for some time and have been a frequent visitor to this ancient land but never before have I been so close to it as the last four days. Always admiring the surface and what my perception of the images coming at me were, what I have recently discovered has shattered my version of this reality. 
     I have had the amazing experience to be a part of this www.nirankari.org/mumbai/ amazing mission. In all honesty I was hugely resistant to forgoing my original plan of getting lost in Sri Lanka but when I heard I would be able to teach Pilates to thousands of Indians seeking hope and relief from their chronic pain, my heart took over and my mission became clear. I had no idea what to expect or if the rumor of the 2,4 million indians that attend was true but it did not matter, what mattered  was that I could help FYI the rumors were true:). Standing next to 50 chiropractic doctors who came from all over the world to give of themselves to provide care and instill hope, I have never felt so much oneness. There was not a single person in the tent who I was not apart of, imagine that energy for one second. We would arrive mid morning to a line of 800 people waiting to get ten minutes of our time. They would great us in Namaste bowing their heads and touching our feet, it has been the single most humbling experience of my life. 
     Arriving at my station for that first client of the day the world disappeared for hours. I would hardly have the chance to look up, time was irrelevant, it was me and a million smiles, it was all I needed, There is a common theme when working with the people here in India. Every single one of them is suffering from shoulder pain, back pain, and knee pain. Underneath those beautiful saris most of the woman are suffering from edema. I saw cases where the entire chest ,over the shoulder and half of the back was edema. One man I saw his entire right hamstring was edema and his whole armpit. I looked at x-rays and medical reports where medical doctors had diagnosed something completely out in left field, people on meds that were totally uncalled for. Ugh I feel so mad just recalling this. Diabetes is everywhere and I have a strong desire to start a Foot corrector mission in India. Traveling around teaching this wild place how to take care of their feet. As a Pilates Teacher most of the knee pain, swelling, and pain in the legs from my standpoint is in direct relation to their feet. Flexible ankles with lead bricks attached to them, yikes. I was able to gain two semi hard balls to help get some chewyness into the feet that walked into my world. The response I heard from every single one of those beautiful beings was they felt "light". In a world where they are worked to death, little to no sleep, some of them I imagine haven't been tenderly touched such child birth, I felt deeply moved to be able to provide some relief to the heaviness they carry. 
    
    The chiropracters worked endlessly and I was able to see some true miracles. One of the docs I was working next too had a little girl on the table who was catatonic and paralised from the waist down. She made no noise, no laughter, no smile, empty eyes and a rigid body. He adjusted her atlas the first day...her legs moved. Her atlas was so far twisted there was no neurotranmission firing up and down the spinal cord. After her fourth adjustment two days later she was laughing, smiling, holding her head up, kicking her legs, and was a very happy little girl...It was so fucking amazing and a miracle to be hold, everyone was crying. Another Doc I was next two had a lady come in who could not sit down. She could stand and lay down but was physically unable to sit up right. She said she had been living with that pain and inability for OVER A YEAR! The doc performed a side posture adjustment and the lady started instantly crying from pain relief. She fell to the floor in tears of gratitude and for the first time in a long time she sat in a chair, big fat tears of joy rolling down from her big brown eyes, the brightest smile stretched across her elated face. So many of these miracles, even with myself I saw small miracles everyday just providing movements to practice towards a healthier spine.

    Under the colors of life there is darkness. The miracle occurs when we lift our skirts, shed our shirts and decide not to hide but to embrace this, work with this, be apart of this, and love this. Its so easy to admire the outside but are you brave enough to go backstage, are you strong enough to make a change, are you humble enough to take your clean hands and touch the feet of another?  

Ultimately, the unit of our family, nation or human society is the individuation. And who is that individual? You and I. 

Therefore, no power on earth can possibly fulfill the slogan of ‘world-peace’ and ‘human-brotherhood’ unless relationship between you and I, that is man and man becomes sweet and smooth. 

The fulcrum of every world problem, in reality lies in our own minds and hearts. Far reaching results can only be achieved by making a start at the nearest point and that nearest point is our own self. 

If individual is at peace, the world at large will automatically be at peace. The Mission

​Give, Love, Serve this is the only way.
   Hannah

     

    Hard to believe this is my last post from Bangalore, it means I have been officially living and breathing India for 3 months, whew!
     As I am writing this my heart pounds beneath my chest, my head feels like there is a tornado in it and I am on the verge of tears or crazy laughter. My time here has flown by and stood still, its hard to manage all those emotions. I have over come every sort of challenge you can imagine. I am so grateful for my time here, the people who have come to be my family, its hard to believe I am leaving them. I came here with the expectation of becoming a better Pilates teacher and perhaps I am ,I believe the greatest growth has happened to me internally. It still amazes me after all the traveling around I have achieved that no matter how ready I feel to move on ,the action of leaving saddens me so deeply. It really goes to show you the importance of embracing each moment for they are fleeting and you can never have the moment back no matter how hard you try to hold onto it or replicate it. 
   Bangalore you have graced me with your craziness and loved me with your smell, thank you.
   So tonight David and I leave on a sleeper bus and after an eleven hour journey it will drop us off in the main hub of Kerala, Cochin. From there I have no idea what will happen,  bring it! I am so blessed to live and love in this magical journey of self and life. 
  Without any more words to say, actually thats just not true I have a lot more to say but I'm getting teary so I leave you with a photo story instead.
​    

  My time teaching abroad in India is coming to a close. As the time for anything to end comes close I observe that the challenges you have been faced with all along become more vivid. One of those great challenges for me is the Indian timetable or lack there of. As a nomadic traveler this bothered me seldom,here now working in my career which I love and value very much I am constantly faced with it and it rips me apart.  
   In my old teaching grounds of San Francisco and even when I was in France, if you were late you called, you never not showed up without calling, and you were held accountable for my time, meaning you were charged. It was a rare occasion for any of that to happen I will add, my clients back home showed up on time ready to dive deep and truly valued their time. The studio was a home away from home for them, they would walk in early grab a roller  do some standing footwork, or simply watch... it was cozy and warm, a most welcoming experience. 
   My love for what I teach is deep. When I am not able to give a full lesson because of lateness or someone doesn't bother to show up or even worse does not even bother to communicate why...I feel hurt. I feel hurt with the thoughts that they have little value for themselves, for me, and for Pilates. It doesn't make me happy to charge someone that late cancels or chooses not to show up. I want to help, I want to give its why I chose this path or rather it chose me because this is my great gift. Teaching in India has been one of the hardest teaching experiences of my  life so far. Not because things have  gone upside down as laid out to me, that was hard to accept, but because of the lack of accountability held with clients. 
  After a no show and then arriving 30 min late to a lesson with me walking into the studio talking on her phone for another five minutes, with no apology of being late I had, had enough. I know that there are differences in the way my western mind works and her eastern one works, but respect is an international language. I calmly stated that it would have to be a shortened lesson due to her lateness and I had a client right after her, she remarked she didn't care she wanted a shorter lesson anyway as she as hungover. Okay i said that is fine but I asked that in the future if she could at least communicate that she would be late or not show up as courteous gesture. This was not welcomed or appreciated, therefore as you can imagine the lesson did not carry through. 
   Thats just how India is show up when you show up , still expect whatever it is they expect from you, its hard, its weird and I feel so confused most of the time. Like I said before as a nomadic traveler I love it, I practice patience, and I love the feeling of going with the flow, but for some reason when it comes to my work ethic here, it has been my greatest challenge. I value the work of Pilates, I know what I have to offer and now know I am not willing to sacrifice the respect I put on those gifts. 
    Is that egotistical of me to say? maybe. But I believe for me its more like this. I am challenged with the fact that Indians don't value time like we westerners do, Okay, so I am here to challenge the Indian clients at Pilates for Wellbeing to value their Pilates time.  For me I believe when it comes to your body and showing up for your body, there is no reason to let bad habits stay bad habits and it starts with showing up. When I watch the body in front of me move and I see they shove with their back or tuck their butt, am I just going to let them continue to do that because thats what they are used to? is it going to be good for them to continue to move like that? the answer to both of those questions is NO! So when someone is constantly late or not showing up and refusing to communicate , its a bad habit when it involves me its a bad habit I am now challenging the person to grow away from. I know there is traffic, there is sickness, there is this, there is that but there is no excuse for lack of communication. We live in a world where most people have two phones, there is no excuse. I am not willing to stand down on this one, I simply cannot, every time I have tried I hold resentment towards myself and towards the other person, I know that its because when your not living within your set of values, it feels icky. That doesn't mean the other person has to have your same values but it means I did need to stick up for my own and not simply bow my head to appease them. 

  There is no growth for anyone when someone bows away from their values and conforms to another persons. Take a deep breath and communicate, keeping in mind you may not see eye to eye and thats simply okay. EMPATHY. 

     I have much to write, yet there are no complete sentences. I have started this post three times in the last 1 minute, nothing seemed perfect to give to you... 
     What is true for you right now? If you were to sit still for one minute what would be going on for you? After perhaps ten minutes when maybe you released from you head and traveled to your heart, what then are you sitting with?
      Talking from you mind/thoughts rather than from your heart. This has been a huge issue for me lately. I watched a seemingly boring video the other day but could not take myself away from it, for 48 minutes I stayed hooked on what these two men were saying, they were speaking from the heart and I could not stray away from such openness. Today I started to watch a video on a topic I am very interested in but after 1 minute I walked away from it, I could not feel this persons words, it was their mind talking and my heart was not connected. 
     In western society we are taught to speak from our heads, gather the information make a pointed presentation and speak. Have you ever been to a talk where you can hear words but you feel no connection? Now, have you been to a talk where you feel the speakers energy, you believe every word they are saying, you feel every syllabel form every word that vibrates in your core? Have you yourself found yourself talking and realized your not even connected to what your saying? I am sure you have experienced the other half of that as well, when you are sharing a story or idea and its as if your have lost control and something higher is speaking through you? 
     I can always tell when a person is talking to me from their heart place, how? I feel them, If their coming at me from the habit of their mind I cannot feel them, there are no emotions to accompany their words. Speaking from the mind is great if your intention is to show how intelligent you are and quick witted, but that does nobody any good not even yourself because in the long run you will find emptiness.
   Speaking from the heart you will only find a greater fullfillment. Speaking from the heart is simply speaking the truth, your truth. Speaking from the heart is not to outsmart, outplay, out maniplilate, or seek gain its simply wants to connect and share. Speaking from the heart does not mean the things you have to say others will like, but it doesn't matter its the truth and in the end whether the people around you or even you see it everyone gains.
    Speaking from the heart is not the same as emotionally reacting so please don't confuse the two they are very different. A highly emotional re active person would benefit from meditation and in return find that most of those re actions come from the habit of their mind, not the heart. 
   In my own experience when I try and use all the knowledge in my confided brain to get my point across, it never works. First I find myself getting confused by the habits I've created over the years and therefore the lack of clarity in making my point is lost. In that also if I'm on my game and the words are coming quick and their "on point" I end up hurting or saying things that I don't even mean, leaving me with an emptiness. When I speak from the heart I gain so much, no matter what that truth is for me, nothing can harm me, I am in my truth I am in my higher self and I find I get a deeper connection with whoever is on the other side of my words. The heart never lies only the mind does.     Speak from the heart and you will a neverending sense of peace and happiness. If you find that your heart is up against someone else's mind, stay with your heart, see how people respond to you, perhaps they will let you see their heart as well and what a gift to give.
  NAMASTE
​     H

  

 If you found this triggering, I challenge you to read it again and when you come to a place that triggers you ask yourself "why does this trigger/upset me?" the first response will most likely be a habit from the mind, so go further down breathe into your heart and see what you find there ,now ask yourself again. ​