Thoughts From Annie

Dear Friends, I recently had the exceptional opportunity to assist Zen teacher Roshi Joan Halifax at the Mindful Leadership Summit here in DC. Her day-long workshop was about Compassionate Leadership, and she started class by asking people to gather themselves into groups of about eight people. Then each person was to select in their mind…

Melting Water Dear Friends, I had the great fortune of attending a week-long gathering in the Black Hills of South Dakota last month in which more than 100 Buddhist practitioners camped together and listened to the voices of native people share about their history and their lives. There was a lot of suffering voiced, which…

Things I Did When I Was Hangry: Navigating a Peaceful Relationship with Food by Annie Mahon This edition of “Thoughts from Annie” is excerpted from Annie’s new book, released just this month by Parallax Press. Things I Did When I Was Hangry is available for purchase in the Circle Yoga shop. Please join us at the…

While Annie is away on vacation, we’re sharing this archived Thoughts from Annie post. It originally appeared in September 2013. Dear Friends, I was out hiking by myself on the Appalachian Trail this afternoon, and as I turned to head home I started up a hill. Right away the voice in my head said, “Ugh, uphill.”…

Hermit Mind Dear Friends, Yesterday I got an email from my husband with the subject, “Crazy Story!” Intrigued, I followed the link to a long article entitled, “The Strange and Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit.” It told the story of a 20-year-old man who left home and moved into a tent in the…

Impermanence and What’s Changing at the Studio “Ah the knowledge of impermanence that haunts our days is their very fragrance.” – Rilke Dear Friends, When I began writing this monthly letter to all of you back in 2004, it was a way to update our two hundred-or-so readers about the happenings at the studio. Now and…

Getting Off the Teeter-Totter Dear Friends, I was recently at a playground with my five-year-old niece Evie. It was a beautiful spring day, and Evie hopped onto a teeter-totter with another little girl about the same age. They teetered up and down — first Evie was up and the other girl was down, then the…

The Art of Suffering…or Let Your Love Shine Dear Friends, I had a conversation with friends recently about our childhoods and especially our mothers. Both of the women I was talking to had serious difficulties with their moms, and each expressed the feeling that they thought that their mother didn’t really like them much. Both…

As I was finishing a meeting downtown one morning, I checked the DC NextBus iPhone app and saw that a bus was arriving at my stop in just seven minutes. I said good-bye to the group, jaywalked across the street and jogged awkwardly toward Connecticut Avenue. I could see that my bus hadn’t arrived yet, but I knew I…

How to Wake Up… Or 80{635ce6e164da35558ada9b360ffa3aad1e10c6ad4ce54c35623c30541d8f979b} Enlightened Dear Friends, This morning, like most mornings, my husband’s iPhone alarm went off at 4:00 am. He promptly turned it off. Around 5:00 am, our sunrise clock began to glow, but neither one of us noticed. At 5:30 am, the travel alarm I keep by my bedside rang…