How One Woman Struggling with Finding Her Identity Created a New Life Through Yoga

Breathing Space: Twelve Lessons for the Modern Woman by Katrina Repka and Alan Finger Book Review: A

Yogis, relaxation experts and Buddhists all extol the virtues of breath for stress relief and claim breath work unlocks health-compromising stress patterns. I've never been able to experience the power of breath, as they say. I take a few breaths and then do feel calmer, sometimes even more centered but to make a daily habit of breathing deeply never appealed to me. Quite frequently, I forget to take the time to breathe deeply.

The 2009 book, "Breathing Space: Twelve Lessons for the Modern Woman" by yoga teacher Katrina Repka and yogi master Alan Finger finally opened my eyes (and my lungs) to the potential of breathing techniques.

Repka is an early thirty-something woman who leaves her marketing career and hometown of Calgary in Canada to test her merits in New York City. Her friends and family, baffled by her decision, wondered, "How can she uproot herself like that at the time when she should be settling down and starting a family? How could she give up a good job, promising romantic prospects, and more importantly, us?" Though her motivations were not understood by her family, Repka had been drawn to New York City since childhood. One day, with all her courage and little support, she set off for the big city.

"My life in Manhattan was supposed to be the complete opposite of my life in Calgary, Alberta. I would be thinner, smarter, happier, hipper. My work would be glamorous, my days and nights filled with excitement and fascinating new friends. I wasn't going to settle for the comfortable routine that had threatened to stifle me in my old hometown." *

Once she settled in New York and adjusted to the pace and attractions she discovered that she brought her old Calgary self all the way to New York. Her new, glamorous New York self wasn't as easy to keep on, no matter how many Prada shoes she purchased. Old insecurities and reservations bombarded her, screeching more loudly than the big city's noise. Her old self doubt and restlessness was getting in the way. She wrestled with old questions about who she really was and what she wanted her life to be like. The answers, just as they did in Calgary, evaded her. Her frustration continued until she met yogi master Alan Finger. Finger ran a yoga studio in NYC. The studio had many yoga classes and Finger also offered private breathing consultations, that in Repka's case, closely resembled psycho-therapy sessions.

The book, Breathing Space, is broken into chapters that focus on different areas of self growth so the reader can quickly go to a chapter of relevance for themselves. Some of the titles are:

Focus: The power of breath to help you see yourself clearly;

Criticism: The power of breath to erased self-destructive tendencies;

Faith: The power of breath to overcome hesitation and connect with your truth.

As a woman in my thirties, I found Repka's journey especially relevant to my own journey and quest for a fulfilling life. Repka is self effacing and willing to share embarrassing moments and mistakes with her readers but don't be put off by her age. Her explorations, struggles, and victories are common among all women struggling with their identity and for those demanding an enriched life.

* Breathing Space: Twelve Lessons for the Modern Woman by Katrina Repka and Alan Finger
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Allison Frederick believes that Role Modeling is one of the most effective ways to launch a program, improve a product, and personally achieve a higher level of success and goals. www.AllisonFrederick.com

Foreign Film Review: All About My Mother

Few things are more powerful or influential than a relationship between a mother and a child.

A good relationship can be tremendously rewarding and a bad one can leave both of you limping through life. Why is the bond so powerful? Your mother is your first encounter with life, with nourishment, and with survival. All foods, emotions, drinks, and medications a pregnant woman has during pregnancy become the body and mind of the baby. In the womb, everything a mother does directly influences the child she is creating.

No wonder a mother's child grows up to scrutinize and evaluate every single move she makes. The child is still thinking that what his or her mother does directly influences their life intensely.

Literature and film abound with explorations of just who a mother is. A mother is always an enigma. The 1999 Spanish film "All About My Mother" starring Cecilia Roth and Penelope Cruz explores the intrigue of who a mother really is in a very creative way.

The acting is excellent, the story curious, and the characters lovable. There seem to be no true villains in this film even though there are plenty of people causing others pain. But the pain they cause each other seems to be explained; thereby softening the blows.

This film explores the complicated reality of some modern families much like the films Transamerica (2005) and Object of My Affection (1998). The relationships may seem an exaggeration for many but often it is easier to explore truth through exaggeration.

About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com

Life Stew - How Society Influences Female Identity

Have you ever stopped to differentiate between the beliefs you want to have about your life’s direction versus the beliefs you inherit from old habits and from society? Are the expectations of your family, religion, and culture congruent with who you strive to be?

What Exactly Do You Believe?

The beliefs we have about ourselves, about what we should have accomplished, about how we should behave, about what a mother, family, or wife is determine whether we are satisfied with ourselves and ultimately whether we love and accept ourselves. Many women feel frustration and even self-hatred or at least disappointment surrounding their roles as wives, lovers, career women, and mothers. They hold themselves to standards that are based on rules. These rules are based on beliefs about what a woman is.

Women do have a quest at this time in our culture. It is the quest to fully embrace their feminine nature, learning how to value themselves as women and heal the deep wound of the feminine.[i]

What is the deep wound of the feminine? For at least over 4500 years, women, most particularly, woman’s sexuality, has been the domain of the men in their lives; whether it be fathers, brothers, husbands, lovers, or even judges. I am not launching a feminist tirade, but it is critical to acknowledge where we’ve come from and what the past was like for women who came before us.

Each individual is birthed from the societal stew yet our lives are our own expression and responsibility. Part of being an adult is to learn how to stop blaming others and start manifesting ourselves, but this may be hard to do unless we carefully examine what we believe, where we came from, and how these two things relate to each other.

I use the illustration of the stew because a stew has distinct ingredients yet they all influence each other either through dominating flavoring or in more subtle ways. All the ingredients take up the properties of everything that is in the stew. The properties from our societal stew linger in our minds acting like silent partners - governing our lives (our subconscious mind).

Can you name something you did in the last week but now you have no idea why you did it?
Or did you do something you swore you wouldn’t do, but did?

When we take action and make decisions that later baffle us, it is often our silent partner who made the decision for us. Our silent partner believed it was acting in our best interests. It acted for our own survival, to avoid a more painful outcome, or to support subtle – yet critical beliefs we hold. Our silent partner is running around, behind our backs, shaping our lives into something that we later say, “This isn’t how I thought my life would be.”

Name three subtle beliefs you have.
Are some similar to these?

· I can’t take that promotion and still be a good mom.
· I don’t have the money.
· My kids come first.
· If I am not sexually attractive to my husband whenever he wants, he will leave me, or worse – have an affair.
· It’s irresponsible for me to go back to school.

These beliefs – all your beliefs – even the positive ones – originate from the stew. We are like a piece of potato or tofu. We enter this world as an individual. Then we brew in the stew. We are still a piece of potato or tofu, which differs remarkably from carrots or beef, yet we’ve captured the flavorings of all those around us. The secret to a delicious stew, the longer it simmers, the more flavoring ingredients like potatoes and tofu absorb. What beliefs have you absorbed?

Becoming aware of what is influencing us – of what else is in the stew, will help us:

· empower ourselves
· make decisions that generate the outcomes we truly desire
· heal old wounds
· help us be there for the ones we love
· turn dreams into reality

in short, create the life you secretly obsess about.

So what is in your stew? What has your ethnicity, your family, your schools, and your religion taught you about women? What are they teaching your daughter about women?


[i] Murdock, Maureen, “Heroine’s Journey: A Woman’s Quest for Wholeness”, p. 3

About the author: Allison Frederick is a writer and online marketing educator for other creative women. www.FaMissWomen.com offers free Web 2.0 resources. She is also the author of an upcoming novel, A Portrait of Josephine, an academic-lite thriller. Find out how to receive a free copy of the novel by visiting www.portraitofjosephine.com