Melt down into your mat and stretch out on your back. Relax and release, letting your weight sink into the mat. Take a moment to check into your body with a sensory body scan. Let your awareness move through your body from head to toe and toe to head. Where, in your body, are you released? Where held? Where warm? Where cool? Really notice the changes in your body and thoughts from moment to moment. Focusing on the breath, notice that the exhalation is the release breath, the relaxation phase of breathing.

It’s late December, 2014, and I’m driving across the Bay Bridge in heavy traffic & even heavier rain. Cars are speeding by me, going too fast for the wet road. I’m nervous. I turn off the news on the radio, not wanting to hear more about the housing crisis and income inequality in San Francisco, where I live. I’m all too familiar with these troubles.