by Brianna | Dec 9, 2011 | Change
Growing up my grandparents ate sardines on saltines and I thought it was the grossest thing ever. It was a hatred founded on sight. Never tried one, was never willing. Sardines were way outside my comfort zone. Personal comfort zones serve as a form of self-protection and there are things that will always be outside these lines in the sand for good and relevant reasons. From my perspective, the issues happen if there is no reason for protection and that discomfort or aversion is unfounded. It is then that rather than protect us are zone of comfort begins to hinder us and hem us in. Through my personal practice I have learned that the only way to expand my zone of comfort is to push through my discomfort and do it anyway. That is how I fell in love with chanting, discovered the power of breath-work, and most recently found a way to teach my joyful song. FYI: Usually, I talk about this right before I make my students super uncomfortable and push them to do the practice anyway. I have to fess that I am not a Vegetarian. I was for a long time and now I am not. I am however a mindful eater. I try for organic and sustainable. I read about food trends, participate in an international food club and when I cook it is with intention. My longstanding favorite ingredient is love. Recently, I heard about sardines from several different perspectives. Chefs love them and even the Wall Street Journal had an article about the best way to offer canned versions up. They are...
by Brianna | Dec 1, 2011 | Affirmations, Healing
In my roles as a teacher, yogi and healer I draw on my life experiences to create parables so that others may learn, expand, and grow. Sometimes, these offerings fall completely flat. But every once in a while a story becomes part of the rhythm of my classes. A touchstone for me, and possibly, an anchor for my regular students. Of course there is also the fact that if you are going to make new and unsuspecting people sing and dance, possibly hug strangers, hold hands, or any number of crazy things (really it is limitless) I find it good to explain to them why. What’s wonderful is that there are ample reasons why, I tell them a few, throw in a little scientific fact, and we begin. Maybe they believe me, maybe they don’t but at that point we are all in it and I watch them transform. Without a doubt there are some things in my life that are too deep and too personal to utilize in this way. Before I can take my life and shift it into a healing story there is a need for pause. The emotion, the raw emotion needs to settle before I can hold the wound for others to observe. Lately, after rarely speaking of it in my classes, I have started to share the practices I utilized when I had chronic fatigue. To be honest I had wanted to teach several of the techniques for many years but I wasn’t ready. The emotion was still too close to the surface to share it. That time though passed for me this...
by Brianna | Nov 17, 2011 | gratitude
Every Thanksgiving of my childhood my family traveled from Maine in order to spend time with my Armenian family. Those gatherings were meaningful to me and through them I forged very close bonds with my cousins and many of my elders. It was mainly through those gatherings that I was able to spend time with my Great-grandmother. She was a force at 4’9” and to this day she is my personal hero. She lived until I was 7 and I remember that she had orthopedic shoes, black clothes, and a voice thick with her accent. I also remember that she loved me. I think of her often but at this time of year she looms large in my mind. My inheritance from her is her story and a worn-out apron that I wear whenever I make Armenian food for my family. When the Armenian Genocide started my grandmother was 14. My family at that time was wealthy and my Great-great-grandfather was in the first wave of killings. To help her daughter escape, my Great-great-grandmother lined a dress for her with gold coins. My Great-grandmother, her cousin and a handful of other children, left the next day walking from Armenia. Two years of walking. Many Armenians were marching to their death and my Great-grandmother was moving foot following foot towards hope. In China she boarded a boat and landed in California. She was detained for not being married. Luckily the Armenian network was strong and it was strangers that found her an Armenian man to marry. He was 20 years her senior and lived in Massachusetts. She boarded the train...
