Archive for March 2020
Acting Consciously
Audio Version Several years ago, I learned an important lesson about change management. Change can be threatening to many people and it evokes strong feelings often including anger. The important lesson I learned was that anger can actually be a grief response. Change, even welcomed change, often means we have to give up something which…
Read MorePaying Attention
Audio Version When I teach a yoga class or lead a workshop in Leadership Yoga, I have a usual way of beginning. Whether we are standing or in a seated position, we start as we began this series with our breath. The second component of the start of a yoga class is letting our breath…
Read MoreLeadership and Breathing
Audio Version This story belongs to Sharon Justice, former AVP and Dean of Students at UT Austin, my supervisor for almost eleven years, and my friend and mentor for many more years than that. She has told me often that one of the primary lessons of her experience as a new Dean came from a…
Read MoreYoga and breathing
Audio Version As we continue to explore the importance of breath this week, today we’ll look at the importance of the breath in yoga. Tomorrow, we’ll finish the week exploring the role of the breath in leadership. In the United States, we tend to focus on the physical aspects of yoga. Most people have seen…
Read MoreLeadership Yoga Workshop
Audio Version Today, I’ll share the story of the origin and purpose of the original Leadership Yoga workshop and a bit of information about yoga itself. Today’s meditation is a poem for challenging times. I had been teaching undergraduate courses in leadership for several years when I enrolled in a yoga teacher training program. As…
Read MoreExhaling
Audio Version Photo by vincenzo di giorgi on Unsplash Yesterday I mentioned that science has something to teach us about breathing. We’ll explore that idea a bit further. When someone is stressed or anxious, we often suggest they take a deep breath. We instinctively know that this will help them calm down. And we watch…
Read MoreLeadership Yoga
Audio Version Yoga begins with our breath. When I was new to yoga the attention paid to breathing didn’t make sense to me, but it does now. Even when I am not taking time to take classes or practice yoga formally, I use the lessons I have learned about breathing all the time. Just one…
Read MoreSuggestions and Reminders for Challenging Times
As someone who has Learner and Input as two of her top five Strengths, I’ve spent a lot of time online over the past few days and the one thing I know for sure is that my friends and colleagues on campuses across the country are doing amazing work. You’re thinking about students, and staff,…
Read MoreGabriella’s Song
“Among the winding canals and streets of Venice, something wonderful is happening! There’s a sweet song on everyone’s lips – a song that began with a little girl named Gabriella. It’s a song that makes the baker laugh, brings the widow to tears, and causes the gondolier to swoon. And it’s just the tune that inspires…
Read MoreCrisis Management*
Laryngitis isn’t something I have experienced often, but there have been two memorable occasions. One when I flew from Lubbock to Boston to participate in the NASPA-Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education interview program. (For those who are NASPA members, this was long before it became TPE.) I whispered and croaked my way through eight…
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