Okay, you've made time in your day to have a sweaty yoga practice: bending, folding, and twisting every way possible before a relaxing 5 minute rest in corpse pose. Rock! Now that your body's had some practice, the mind is primed for meditation. Perfect. You set a timer, sit down and get comfortable, close your eyes and ... now what?

There are three practices happening simultaneously throughout your life, whether we're aware of it or not- practice with the body, practice with the breath, practice with the mind. In most yoga classes, physical poses are the focus, with occasional mention of breath here and there. You're lucky if you find a class in NYC that adds in meditation at all. What's backwards about this? Meditation is the whole point.

"The breath is a private affair," my student tells me. This is one of those moments when everything stops, and you can perceive the profound meaning of the words still echoing off the walls. Taken at face value, your ego filter interprets it as a stuffy statement, a refusal to follow along with the suggestion of the teacher. If you follow The Four Agreements and practice #2: "Don't take anything personally," you uncover a gold mine.

Preserving a daily meditation practice is tough. You would think that teaching yoga would instill a staying drive and discipline in you, but I have to say, while teaching has deepened my personal practice on the mat and sharpened my awareness off of it, I have not yet solidified a regular meditation practice for myself. But I do have a goal – to make my meditation practice a more consistent one by the time fall rolls around.