Studio Schedule Week of 9/06/2026 | What Meditation Never Gave Me (And Gyrotonic Did)
Maple branch with orange and gold autumn leaves against a blue sky, overlooking a golden meadow.
image via rustygage on Pixabay
Happy Labor Day!
I went down the rabbit hole of this Atlantic article by Olga Khazan. The Dark Side of Mindfulness highlights the work of Dr. Willoughby Britton, a doctor of psychology who started out as a mindfulness teacher before pursuing her doctorate at the University of Arizona. Most of us have the impression that meditation would help us improve our sleep and ease anxiety and depression. What she found in her small initial study, and in her subsequent life’s work, was that for some people it has quite the opposite result.
People who knew me 20+ years ago would definitely say a twenty-something Harriet would have benefited from a meditation practice with those benefits. What I found when trying to count my breaths and empty my mind of thoughts was incredible frustration and irritation. I would brush off the helpful suggestions of well-meaning friends (and my husband), saying it’s just not for me (or, in my more frustrated times, “why don’t YOU meditate?”). My attempts at meditation rubbed my face in failure, and it didn’t feel helpful. Khazan’s article was validation that meditation was not for me, particularly at that time in my life. I eventually found a chanting meditation practice that I helped me cope with the stressors surrounding IVF treatments, but I realized that my main form of meditation throughout my life had been the movement ritual of a ballet barre.
GYROTONIC® brings me back to that moving meditation from ballet class. Like dance classes, Gyrotonic exercise has a starting framework that is consistent in it’s variability. Even without music, Gyrotonic focuses on the rhythmic quality of your movement, and that rhythm and breath combination helps to invigorate and enliven our bodies and minds. The easeful, fluid movement brings an opportunity to reap some of the benefits that meditation can provide, learning to let go of hyper-focusing on specific areas of the body and tuning in to a overall sense of coordination, breath, and general wellbeing.
I have felt similarities to the overstimulating effects of meditation after participating in multi-day Gyrotonic continuing education courses, but find Master Trainers both acknowledge and find balance to these stimulating qualities in presenting educational material. The GYROKINESIS® Essentials class formats focus on the calming qualities of the Gyrotonic Method, providing a compliment to stimulating effects of exercise. The Unwinding portion of a session or class also helps with the transition from energizing focus to return to the rhythms of daily life.
As we prepare for the remaining portion of the year — would you believe only 10 weeks of regular practice remain? — we’re focusing on these integrational aspects of the Gyrotonic Method, using the clarity we’ve gained from Arch and Curl, Spirals, Side Arching and Waves to support ourselves and identify what will serve us going forward.
WHAT I’M READING
Why Is Leadership Riskier for Women? — JSTOR Daily
New research digs into why women are underrepresented in top leadership roles — not simply lower ambition, but a well-founded expectation of harsher consequences when things go wrong. Anticipated sanctions alone account for close to a third of the gap. Worth sitting with, especially post-Labor Day.
When The U.S. Paid Off The Entire National Debt (And Why It Didn't Last) — NPR / Planet Money
Andrew Jackson hated debt so much he paid off the entire national debt in 1835 — the only debt-free year in U.S. history. It lasted exactly twelve months before a land bubble collapsed into the longest depression the country had seen. A strange, fitting Labor Day footnote on the myth of "done."
