I don’t feel sad and there’s a way that feels wrong, a betrayal to the good mother idea. Like when Soli was an infant and I just couldn’t sleep with her in the family bed. I needed more space to sleep, and that felt like an a-front to the wholesome natural mother I fancied myself.

Which brings me back to the pain of self doubt, the subtle yet profound ways we are robbed of wellbeing because we don’t fit a mold, we don’t feel the way we’re supposed to.

The burden of emotional expectation is a wet blanket on wellbeing.

We have so many moments when we don’t measure up. We don’t feel happy even though we’re on vacation, so there must be something wrong with us. We don’t feel grateful for all of the blessings in our lives, so there must be something wrong with us. We aren’t blissed out by new motherhood, so there must be something wrong with us.

Like thoughts, we let emotions mean something about us. But if we looked closely, we’d see we don’t choose the weather of our hearts. They’re fickle, they’re wet, they’re bright, they’re shut down. The temperature is always changing, whether we like it or not.

So we don’t need to manage or evaluate our emotional terrain. We can trust the rightness of our own hearts a visitor we can welcome, a phenomenon that will change.

Wes Nisker said, “you are not your fault.”

When we stop blaming ourselves for how we feel we can start caring instead. We Can trust every emotion is right, because it’s what’s arising.

We don’t need to give it a second thought.

When There’s nothing wrong with us what’s left is the possibility and capacity to be happy. We can rest.

We can enjoy what’s actually here when we’re not dwelling on what should be.

Needing a little inner freedom?

You know where I’ll be at 4:30pm. You can become a founding member while you’re T it.

Xoxo

Carina

P.S. if you loved this, please like and share. It means a lot.

I hope I see you!

xoxo

Carina

It’s the scariest day of the year.

It’s exciting too. The possibility. The starting fresh.

There’s so much leaning into how it’s all going to go that it squeezes out the present, makes the moment rigid and shallow. Like plaster on top of gold.

It makes me think of the superstructure Charlotte Joko Beck wrote about. It’s this building we build atop a building. It’s extra.

It creates a cover over our essential okness.

When we feel scared, we might do extra things to compensate because we’re afraid if we rely on the naked moment we’ll get hurt. So we guard ourselves by trying extra hard, by pushing, by being who we think we need to be to be accepted. We tense up. We postpone ease.

But what if we led with it instead?

What if instead of waiting for things to settle, we just settled? The Buddha called it the backward step. Christ called it lying down in the green pasture. Magdeline listened instead of staying busy with the hustle of women’s work (aka the Martha Mary dilemma).

We don’t need the superstructure. Being extra is exhausting. Trying is an indication we don’t feel enough as we are.

Faith is softening my gut. Faith is taking a breath when I feel urgent. Faith is letting down my guard. Faith is being at ease before I have any reason to be.

Slowing down is the road less travelled. Staying soft when we don’t know how it’s all going to go is a radical act of freedom. It’s the place where all good things emerge.

Ready to dismantle the superstructure?

Come to class tonight at 4:30.

I’ll be there.

Will I see you?

Xoxo

Carina

P.S. if you love this, please like and share. It keeps me writing.

Work started for me this week!

So I’m not quite finished with my installment to you.

But I am teaching tonight.

In case you need to breath some new life into your reality.

In case you need some Undivided attention.

Xoxo

Carina

Now as the last days of my break are ahead of me, the words flash through my mind again and again.

It goes fast. Enjoy it.

The going fast part is the part that breaks my heart. And it’s not just the season.

Everything goes so fast and I can’t stop it. Like sands through the hourglass, indeed (the days of our lives tag line keeps flashing in my mind, though I was firmly in the all my children camp, thanks to my nana).

I’ve never been so aware that it’s all going away.

No wonder the Buddha sought a timeless contentment, and Jesus everlasting life. No wonder Mary Oliver took to the woods and put Molly in charge of protecting her solitude.

It’s all going too fast to be busy. It’s too precious to be squandered and squeezed.

Savoring leads to satisfaction. I was moved hearing Thomas Keating, during an interview in his last years, say he was content to die, that he had been filled by life.

He was satiated.

Satiation happens through savoring, and savoring needs space and simplicity.

So, as I write this to you, I am in Big Sur at my beloved hermitage, and it occurs to me, not for the first time, that it’s my mind and its elaborations that make me miserable. The naked moment is enough. It’s when I get caught by the future or the past that my lamenting begins…

What’s going to happen if my schools’ charter doesn’t get renewed? Soli is leaving for college, everything is going to change and it won’t be good. What if Myron gets sick? What if Arthur gets off track? The dog is gonna die before I know it, she’s already almost middle age. What if AI takes my job? What if there are no jobs left for the kids? Before I know it, I’m going to be dead.

When I look for okness in the future, this is what I get caught on. So, what’s the answer?

Be. Here. Now

It always comes back to presence, to a devotion to the senses and sensations in my body. Without embodiment, my projections steal the show.

But here, the breeze feels soothing. Here, the bird is singing. Here, my body can soften. Here, there’s only one thing at a time.

It’s the only place my mind can calm, this place of mystery. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m not lost.

This place called here is the place we visit when we gather to practice. All you have to do is get yourself here at 4:30pm.

When you do, I’ll be there.

You coming home?

Xoxo

Carina

P.S. if you loved this, pretty please heart and share. It keeps me writing to you.

Also, my day long meditation retreat, Buddhism and the Body, is tomorrow. If you’re around LB this Saturday, you totally should come. It’s been years since I’ve offered a day long and who knows when I’ll do it again.

Also, did you know the Mary Oliver documentary is out in limited release right now. Not sure where it’s playing around you, but in LA it’s in Glendale and Beverly Hills. I’m seeing it Sunday.

Also, did you know I’m teaching tonight?

Will I see you?

xoxo,

Carina

Best to me anyway.

My mind was blown on many occasion, but one in particular is coming to me as I write to you. I was at Kira Sloane’s LuLu Bandhas, this little spanish bungalow of a studio complete with a framed picture of wonder woman on the bathroom altar.

We had just laid down in rest pose and she said, “relaxation is a practice.”

In other words, it’s not easy or we wouldn’t have to practice it.

I hadn’t realized until that moment that I held my anxiety against myself, like it was my own personal failing that I didn’t feel at ease in my own skin, that I carried a blanket of nameless shame around with me.

A burden no one knew about.

It was a turning point, not that this feeling ever went away, but the seeing of it changed it, continues to change it like a knot once tightly wound that loosens every time its massaged apart by patient fingers.

Until one day there’s nothing to show for it but the kinks in the fibers.

Life is sweet when it emerges, dreadful when it’s anticipated. The forecasting of the future often feels tense, even when what’s expected is good.

The buddha taught brilliantly that good or bad things happening are not the cause of the deep satisfaction we long for, so the whole gaming out that our minds do is based on a lie. Its activity is inherently innocent but insidious when we’re believing there is an actual monster under the bed.

It’s a good thing we have choices about where we put our attention, and training our awareness to take refuge below the space between the ears is the portal to relaxing the grip that threatens to gobble the moments of life slipping by,

whether we choose to enjoy them or not.

I can think of nothing scarier than being ruled by the shame monster, with its insistence that there is something wrong with us for thinking and feeling the way that we do.

The revolution begins the moment we decide to slouch toward the bethlehem of the body.

I’ll be leading a quiet kind of uprising tonight at 4:30pm at Yogalutionmovement.

Will I see you?

xoxo,

Carina

P.S. If you loved this, pretty please like and share. It really does keep me writing.

P.P.S. Come sit with me Saturday 7/25 for a day long meditation retreat at the best yoga studio in Long Beach. You can register HERE.

P.P.P.S.

“...I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

xoxo

Carina

We’re happy doing what the deepest self likes.

And the deepest self takes some diving.

We’re not gonna find it on our phones. Or by being busy. Or by leaning into what’s next.

We won’t ever find what we’re looking for searching.

But there is something to uncover.

We’re not selfish for wanting to be happy.

We’re just looking in all the wrong places, waiting for the dust that never settles to suddenly settle.

But what if we really, truly, could be happy for no reason? Content and easily satisfied?

Imagine that.

But we have to give ourselves our own undivided attention to uncover this capacity. We have to let our hearts and minds rest.

That’s why I’m hosting this day long retreat. It’s for yogi’s who want to experience the buddhas teachings.

And for the next 24 hours you’ll save $30.

The Buddha taught four foundations that systematically unearth our essential nature. These explorations recover our body’s knowing, revealing the root of true happiness.

We will explore the first foundation, mindfulness of the body, through guided practice and dharma talks. Learn the tools that unlock our body’s natural capacities to be happy for no reason.

Location:

Yogalutionmovement

244 Redondo Avenue Long Beach, CA 90803

Date:

Saturday July 25, 2026

Time:

2pm-8pm

Cost: $97 usually/$67🤪 until midnight 7/10

Bring:

Comfy clothes, journal, water, yoga mat, meditation cushion (if you have one. If not, we have some), a snack to eat at short meal break

Your Teacher:

Will I see you? If you’d like to come, you can venmo me here:

I was well acquainted with anxiety and panic, but never saw the relationship they had to nothing happening until I was on my third day of meditation. It was after lunch, I’m sitting as usual, and this awful feeling showed up. I wanted to get up, but instead I silently asked, “what is this?” to no one at all and that no one knew it was boredom.

The moment I named it, it became tolerable, even interesting. I was oddly relieved,

and surprised,

to realize I’d never consciously known this feeling. The knowing of it changed it, took the sense of mistake out, took the sting out.

Then this sense that I could sit forever. The sweetness of contentment, also something I’d never consciously clocked, filled me. For the rest of the retreat, I was easily satisfied by whatever came.

Boredom as portal. Who knew?

Our life does a lot to steal opportunities to hit the nothing happening wall, and because we aren’t familiar with it, it terrifies us. Throw in childhood trauma and life without drama feels like death.

No wonder we can’t sit still.

On our recent trip to the hermitage in Big Sur, Myron fretted the trip wasn’t long enough to get bored. He’s developed a capacity to meet emptiness, knowing what lies on the other side.

A fulfillment with things as they are, then the birds and the trees and the ocean can be absorbed and metabolized. There can be true restoration and recalibration and you don’t need a vacation from your vacation.

Since life doesn’t welcome the big B, we need to create spaces in our life where our natural peace and joy can emerge. We need to feel safe entering the portal, knowing not what lies on the other side, but that whatever it is will feel like home.

Need to feel at ease in your own skin again? You know where I’ll be tonight at 4:30pm.

Come see what’s on the other side.

Xoxo

Carina

P.S. if you loved this, please heart and share. It really does keep me writing.

P.P.S. Come to my daylong, for the chance to marinate in goodness.

P.P.S

The Clearing

Do not try to change the world

Or do anything else grandiose

Instead create a clearing

In the dense forest of your life

Until the song that is yours alone to sing

Falls into your own cupped hands

And you meet it

Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so in need of rescue.

-Martha Postelwait

Imagine a snake trying to squeeze back into its dull, crinkly old skin. Imagine what it would do to the bright, new shiny skin. Imagine a bird picking up her old feathers trying to stick them back into the bright, new ones.

It doesn’t make any sense.

I think I’m thinking about change and how to lean into what’s new instead of roll around in what’s useless because there’s a lot of it happening in my life right now.

I made a big career shift in late 2022. I started over again in a lot of ways, not a popular mid life vocational decision. Who am I now as an educator and spiritual teacher? How do I shed the old skin of my prior self so I can do something new? Who am I becoming now?

Soli is going to college. Arthur is gaining more and more independence. So Myron and I are in a new relational phase, like when it was just us but not like it at all. What do we want to create now?

I don’t know yet, but the question is exciting.

It’s good news that progress always wins. The road is never straight. It always meanders. What’s important is that we don’t think the back and forth is a mistake.

So I can trust where I am. I don’t need to be in drive and I certainly don’t want to be in reverse. I can be in neutral. Than drive will happen, and the road will be the right one. Though the destination is never clear, because I’m not there yet. So to expect clarity is foolish. Everything ahead is murky. What fun would it be otherwise?

Neutral is underrated. It’s the place where nothing happens, but nothing happens without it. Right now we’re in Big Sur at the hermitage and we went to the Henri Miller library yesterday, for the first time in four years since the road north has been closed on HWY 1. The motto of the place is, “the place where nothing happens” and, of course, it’s a firestorm of creativity. In the last five years alone it’s hosted Patti Smith, Phillip Glass, and Laurie Anderson.

Stillness organizes everything else. Without it, we’re all just going nowhere in a hurry. We will all get there. There’s no time to rush.

What’s wanting to be birthed in this next phase of your life? If you need some stillness so the sorting can happen, I’ll be teaching tonight at 4:30pm at Yogalutionmovement.

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

When else are you going to listen?

Xoxo

Carina

P.S. if you loved this, please heart and share. It keeps me going.

P.P.S. I may never do it again, so don’t wait. My day long retreat is coming July 25th. If you wonder how Buddhism and yoga work together, or you just need a little recalibration.

P.P.P.S

“All good things come to an end

To make room for the new good thing

Just around the bend”

-Chikyo

I am lovable.

I am beautiful.

I am worthy.

It’s safe to enjoy my life.

Let me highlight that last line.

Enjoyment has, never to my recollection, just happened. Not while I’ve been sober anyway. That’s why I love alcohol, it gives me easy access to euphoric mind states. But I’m an idiot under its influence, and the cleanup isn’t outweighed by the fleeting feeling. Plus, I could never get drunk enough.

I’ve been sober for 10 years.

So enjoying my life requires intention, an inclination of my mind toward whatever I’m registering as beautiful, good, and true. It’s easy to forget, whilst my attention gets drawn to the shiny objects of worry, fantasy, perseveration, and comparison whenever it’s left unattended.

This isn’t just me. It’s the negativity bias.

It’s a human brain glitch that helped in the saber-toothed tiger days.

When my attention is left alone it likes to imagine the worst.

When someone doesn’t call me back they must be mad at me. Then the spiral: What did I do wrong? They’re so judgmental, I don’t need people like that in my life. I’ve always given them grace.

And on and on.

But when my attention is gathered, when I’m supervising it, I can direct it. It’s always better off at home in my body, doing whatever I’m doing, not split.

So when I pet the dog, I pet the dog. I add enjoyment. I can enjoy petting the dog. I can enjoy writing this entry to you. I can enjoy the smell of coffee, the bubbles in the bath, the good song on the radio.

It’s good news that our attention is flexible. It means we have some control over our own happiness. It means we don’t need to be pinging based on conditions that we have no way of influencing, like AI or gas prices or what a knucklehead Trump is.

We’ll be giving our minds and hearts shelter from the storm tonight at 4:30pm at Yogalutionmovement. If you’ve been needing to feel good again, you should come.

Will I see you?

Xoxo

Carina

P.S. if you loved this, heart and share.

P.P.S. Free July 25th? Come to my day long meditation retreat, Buddhism and the Body.

P.P.P.S

Each day you didn’t enjoy wasn’t yours:

You just got through it. Whatever you live

Without enjoying, you don’t live.

You don’t have to love or drink or smile.

The sun’s reflection in a puddle of water

Is enough, if it pleases you.

Happy those who, placing their delight

In slight things, are never deprived

Of each day’s natural fortune!

Fernando Pessoa

You know where I’ll be at 4:30pm.

What else are you planning to do with your one wild and precious life?

Xoxo

Carina

In this day-long retreat, we will explore the first foundation, mindfulness of the body, through guided practice and dharma talks. Learn the tools that unlock our body’s natural capacities to be happy for no reason.

Location:

Yogalutionmovement

244 Redondo Avenue Long Beach, CA 90803

Date:

Saturday July 25, 2026

Time:

2pm-8pm

Cost: $97

Bring:

Comfy clothes, journal, water, yoga mat, meditation cushion (if you have one. If not, we have some), a snack to eat at short meal break

Your Teacher:

Will I see you? If you’d like to come, you can venmo me here:

If, like me,

You could use some

idle and blessed moments

Strung together

So you can remember

What it feels like

To be at ease

In your own skin?

Come see me.

I’m teaching tonight.

4:30pm

Xoxo

Carina

That same weekend we were walking on the Bluff and caught the outdoor roller rink in full glory. It inspired me to get some skates of my own, not unlike the ones I had as a little girl.

I don’t have much point to this installation, except to share and maybe inspire you to have some fun.

A fresh mind is refreshing.

Come refresh yours with me tonight at 4:30pm. You know where I’ll be.

Xoxo

Carina

P.S. if you love this, share it! (Pretty please)

P.P.S. Buddhism and the Body, my day long meditation retreat, is coming Saturday July 25th from 2-8pm. See you there? Registration coming soon.

To be idle and blessed,

Nothing more

Nothing less.

Tonight at 4:30pm at Yogalutionmovement.

Join me?

Xoxo

Carina

I’m worried about work and the fog horn is a lullaby.

I have too much to do and the kids are alright.

In other words, this too.

In other words, happiness need not be postponed.

In other words, the ducks are never in a row.

So why wait?

Letting in the good can be a continuous practice.

Better than anxiety.

Better than dread.

We’re always practicing something.

Receiving blessings is a verb. It won’t happen when I don’t remember it. What will happen is the pissing away of my one wild and precious life as I wait for all the ducks to line up.

There’s always a million things right and a million things wrong.

But the things that are wrong are used to getting all the attention.

How do we undo this? Whenever I notice I’m perseverating on some worry or personal deficiency, I make myself include what else there is.

I’m insecure and it smells like spring.

I’m worried and I can see Catalina island.

I feel fat and the ducks are back in their puddle on the grass.

AI will destroy our livelihood and it feels good to take a deep breath.

One doesn’t erase the other, but my mind is aired out, not so dominated by the nonsense. From there I can include more things that are good, beautiful, and true.

I’m irritated and I love the colors in that painting and the sunlight at dusk is soothing.

From here I can get out of my head altogether and shift to breathing into my belly.

You get the idea.

We practice letting in the good every yin class I teach. I’m teaching one tonight at 4:30.

In case you need to remember some goodness.

Will I see you?

Xoxo,

Carina

P.S. if you loved this, heart and share it.

P.P.S. Stay tuned for my July 25th day long meditation retreat, Buddhism and the Body.

We are all moved in! We’re still swimming in boxes but the transition is complete. The above video is the house empty. I’ll record another with all our stuff in a future entry.

I anticipated a harder adjustment than it’s been. Our new place is half the size of our old one, so I anticipated feeling cramped and regretful. But I don’t feel any of that. The size pulls our family together more and I adore the location and the view.

How we think things will be is never how it actually is. The forecast can’t be trusted.

Unless you’re predicting a beautiful yoga class with me tonight at 4:30 pm.

Will I see you?

xoxo,

Carina

P.S. Stay tuned for my upcoming daylong retreat, Buddhism and the Body coming the last Saturday of July.

The Poet 
    She is working now, in a room
    not unlike this one,
    the one where I write, or you read.
    Her table is covered with paper.
    The light of the lamp would be
    tempered by a shade, where the bulb’s
    single harshness might dissolve,
    but it is not, she has taken it off.
    Her poems? I will never know them,
    though they are the ones I most need.
    Even the alphabet she writes in
    I cannot decipher. Her chair --
    Let us imagine whether it is leather
    or canvas, vinyl or wicker. Let her
    have a chair, her shadeless lamp,
    the table. Let one or two she loves
    be in the next room. Let the door
    be closed, the sleeping ones healthy.
    Let her have time, and silence,
    enough paper to make mistakes and go on.

                          Jane Hirshfield

Then, an invitation. 
To practice with me tonight at 4:30pm.

She deserves some time and silence.

xoxo,
Carina

P.S. Stay tuned for my day long retreat in July at the studio, Buddhism and the Body.