Tara Stiles

I started practicing yoga when I was a teenager, studying classical dance. My body and mind were very open but not very strong. I was trusting, excited, passionate, and receptive. All good qualities when balanced with the proper amount of strength and awareness.

Even if you're a seasoned professional multi-tasker, your body, mind, emotional life, and growth potential can get a blow from over-committing. Take a look at what's on your plate if you're swamped, and you can surely find some space for yourself even when you feel trapped.

Practicing yoga has helped me realize a deeper, grounded way of being in the world. I have learned how to communicate in a meaningful way that makes me smile and have learned the super handy skill of efficiency. Use what you need. Rest what you don't.

Balance takes work. Lots of it. There is no endpoint in balance, no goal, no finalization. Balance requires practice, patience, and - most importantly - movement. We often get stuck in our ways and form habits based on our fears and driven by our insecurities.

Extra weight - whether it's physical, emotional, or spiritual - holds us back from our health and our potential. Overeating is a behavior caused by stress, depression, excitement, fun with friends, self-sabotage, and countless other feelings, emotions, and circumstances. There can always be an occasion to eat and overeat.

Friendships naturally shift over life. We have different friends for different times in our lives, and sometimes it's not the best idea to hang on to a friendship to try to make it work if it's an unhealthy connection.

The mere acknowledgment that 'God is watching' can act as a trap, fueling bad behavior, corruption, and guilt, all remedied by God's forgiveness. No personal responsibility is needed - someone on the outside sees whatever we're doing and makes it all OK.

It's hard to escape bullies that come in many shapes and forms. The processed food industry, corrupt religious organizations, and celebrity worship culture are just a few that we deal with in modern times.

There are people who intensely clutch an idea that yoga is a higher system, not to be lowered to the weight loss or even fitness category. This is the same kind of clutching that has kept yoga part of a tightly knit club for so long since its introduction in America.

We experience happiness as a series of pleasing moments. They come and go like clouds, unpredictable, fleeting, and without responsibility to our desires. Through honest self-work, reflection, and meditation, we begin to string more of these moments together, creating a web-like design of happiness that drapes around our lives.

My parents were/are straight-edge hippies. Mom roamed around gardening so we would have fresh food, and Dad was on wood-chopping duty to heat our passive solar home that they figured out how to design and build together. I was the kid with green peppers in my lunch, and I liked them!

We all strive for balance, often moving to extremes to find ourselves somewhere in the middle where we can sustainably exist in optimal inspiration. Working toward balance takes a lot of ingredients. We need courage, reflection, attention, action, and a push-and-pull relationship between effort and relaxation.

A trap in dealing with difficult people is getting wrapped up in their personality. When we can stay objective and remove ourselves from other people's roller-coaster psychology, we have a much better chance of moving through the situation positively.