Getting to Italy and First Impressions

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Per la versione italiana clicca questo link

Day 0 — Departure and Arrival in Italy

Sunday March 1, 2026.

It’s 9:03 at night. My body is exhausted. It’s 3pm back home.

Home… home is here for now. In Italy. It still feels too new to remember that without a little whiplash.

My mind is tired too—but wired. Jet lag has that strange rhythm where I can feel like I might fall asleep standing up, and then suddenly I’m wide awake again, almost normal. Until I get a good night or two of real sleep, I imagine I’ll feel a little disembodied—like I’m participating in my life, but it belongs to someone else.

But we are here. We are here. We did it! No other day ever will be the first day. It’s surreal. I’m too tired to be excited. Except for being tired, it feels oddly very normal. We are sitting on the sofa. There is no TV yet. Daren is reading. We are thinking about opening a laptop or iPad to watch something, but who are we kidding? We are exhausted.

Traveling Overseas with a Dog

The thing everyone wants to know about is Koji (the dog) and how we got him here. This was hands down the most worrisome part of the trip. It was such a great unknown. We had some idea of what would happen, but not really. And holy worry about how he’d feel and behave. If only he could understand human language, we could have warned him what was going to happen.

For anyone who hasn’t flown a dog in cargo before (I didn’t know anyone who has), let me say a little more about what happened.

We left from JFK. For Italy, the only direct flight that would take a dog was ITA, and because of his crate size (large – for a 70 lb dog) they couldn’t guarantee him on a flight until 72 hours before. Obviously that wasn’t going to work for us, so we had to fly non-direct through Frankfurt.

Koji had never been to an airport. We were concerned he’d be out of his mind with being overwhelmed, barking and sniffing like a lunatic. But weirdly he was normal. He just walked around next to us like he’d been doing this his whole life. There were a few barks when one of us had to stand in a different line – more or less to notify us that our group was broken up. But once we acknowledged that the human at his side knows where the other human is and has eyes on them, he was ok.

Once at JFK we had to check in at a special excess baggage area. Our other bags were checked at that time almost normally, but Koji’s check-in was different. We were to bring an airline-approved crate, large enough for him to stand and turn around. We did a lot of paperwork ahead of time, including a health exam 10 days prior to flying that needed to be perfectly timed to get his shipping information back from the USDA. We showed up with everything needed.

They didn’t take him right away. We were allowed to walk him around and bring him out to a pet relief area. They helped us time his departure from us perfectly so we had time to get through security with him having the least amount of time in the crate.

Koji hadn’t been in a crate in almost 12 years. To prepare for this, we brought the crate near his dog bed in the house several weeks ago. We made it seem normal and like a safe place. We had him sit in there for short periods at first, then with the door closed, then longer periods with the door closed. By the time we got to the airport yesterday, with all the excitement of the ride and the stimulation of the airport, he was sniffing his crate as if he wanted to go in there and shut out all the outside stimulation.

Finally the time came where we walked with him over to TSA. He dutifully went in and was loaded on a cart. He squeaked a little, didn’t bark, and we reassured him with positivity that this was ok, it wasn’t against our wishes. And we left.

That was hard, but we did it!

I’d love to say we didn’t worry about it or didn’t talk about him very much, but that would be untrue. I will say, though, that I thought about it and fretted about it a smidge less than I imagined I would.

Once in Rome we weren’t sure how to collect him either. No one really told us. I am scratching my head in hindsight about why we didn’t ask, but it also turned out not to be that big of a deal.

We followed the signs to the excess baggage, but when we saw it we didn’t think it possible that our dog would come out of there. I stayed near the area and the carousel while Daren went to ask about it. Meanwhile I searched the internet about how to do this. Daren came back to confirm what I also found out – that we were in the right place and Koji would be coming out there.

We were both informed that he’d likely be delivered about 30 minutes after the bags came out. So I went to get us some coffee and croissants. I was only gone a few minutes, but when I got back – there was Koji in his crate!

Side note – it was mandatory to zip-tie the crate. Daren wondered how we’d get the zip ties off if we couldn’t carry scissors with us in our carry-ons. I assured him that the airline would be aware of this and bring out something to cut the zip ties.

Also, a side note – which was quite funny: we had to tape his food and water to the top of the crate. So we were running around with zip ties and duct tape – like kidnappers or something. But no scissors.

Well I was wrong and Daren was right to question this. The porter (a non-English-speaking Italian porter, that is) came out and was surprised to see zip ties. No scissors in sight anywhere. I came back while Koji was practically levitating in his crate with excitement, and the porter was using a key to slowly saw away at the zip tie.

We finally got him out. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’d be remiss not to say that I was surprised Koji was just himself. Very thirsty, but more or less his normal goofy self.

We collected our bags and proceeded to the car rental area. Koji trotted alongside me and the trolley cart like he’d been doing this his whole life. He even seemed to know where to go. I’m sure that was his nose picking up on the trail that many humans have traveled before us from baggage to the rentals, but it was weirdly and quickly business as usual for him.

On the way to the airport in the van transport, smiling!
Trotting around the outside of the airport like it’s something he does on the regular
Chillaxing on the floor of JFK in front of his crate
Made it to the other side! Just out of the crate. “Helping” daddy get the bags on the trolley
Sitting out on the porch with us – just like at home!
Resting after the longest day of his dog life

DAY 2

We are just finding our way about.

Yesterday we hit up the stores to stock up on food and essentials. Our landlord and realtor highly suggested a shopping area that has a “Media World,” which is a Best Buy equivalent, and a really large grocery store. It’s kind of like a Walmart, but with more food and fewer non-food items. Not at Walmart prices though.

We were seriously there almost 3 hours. It was truly epic trying to find things in another language. I mean a lot of stuff is the same, like fruits and veggies, but things with labels in cans and boxes are not. I was undertaking the process of finding baking supplies. Some things I just couldn’t find and gave up and ordered on Amazon. Baking soda and baking powder were among the few.

We got back home and unloaded all the loot. That, plus making dinner and walking the dog, wiped us out for the rest of the day. We did squeeze in a short hike down the street where our landlord suggested.

Today was a true feat and success. We ventured out to get new Italian phone numbers and purchase a washer and dryer. Back to the Media World store we went, with some memorized words in Italian on our tongues, to do both – yes both. There is apparently a wireless service in this Media World.

We level-set our expectations based on the day before, anticipating that we would be in the store for a very long time.

We were quickly sidetracked. When we pulled into the parking lot Daren got a notification that our boxes from the States had been attempted for delivery, but the driver turned around because we didn’t answer the door. We’d only left like 10 minutes before! Of course that’s when they came.

We looked into the Send My Bags service we used and for some forsaken reason it said that if we weren’t home, to leave it with a neighbor, but the “neighbor” was a Tabaccheria. Huh?

A Tabaccheria, by the way, is a small corner type of 7/11-ish store with more cigarettes and lotto tickets than food, but the same idea.

We ended up sitting in the car on a live chat trying to figure out how we could pick up our boxes at a local DHL. We were so bummed to miss this delivery. We finally got it sorted and saw that we’d be able to pick up our boxes the next day.

Satisfied, we put on our armor and trudged back into Media World to attempt to communicate in a foreign language.

Amazingly – we walked out about an hour later with a washer and dryer on order, arriving by delivery with installation next week – AND new SIM cards and phone numbers.

Trying to figure out words and understand them is exhausting but also exhilarating. We were so excited that we’d accomplished this that we took ourselves out for lunch. We went to the piazza in town to one of the only places that was open. It was the kind of place my father would have loved and I would have hated, but the food was good! And quite inexpensive. However, we spent the whole meal messing around with our phones trying to figure out how to keep and use our American phone numbers and use the Italian data plan. With some Google and ChatGPT we were able to configure it all without too much fanfare.

At the end of lunch I checked my email and saw that 11 Amazon packages had arrived. Yikes! Then weirdly Daren got an email that our boxes from the U.S. were indeed delivered to a Tabaccheria. At the moment this Tabaccheria was closed and there were these boxes at home.

Side note: We are learning that almost all places close around 1pm and re-open around 3:30–4. They are serious about a lunch break! Wow. I can’t even fathom it. Most places open at 9 and then close at 7. It’s a 10-hour day, but with a really long break in between. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet.

We went back home to tend to these boxes. I was imagining how cramped we were probably making the walk past our apartment, and it turns out I wasn’t wrong!

Next we were off to the Tabaccheria to get our boxes from home, and entered the address in the GPS. This all seemed so crazy and we thought there was a slim chance our boxes would be there, especially considering how we asked them to be sent to DHL. We pulled into this tiny side street and waited a few minutes in the car until they re-opened at 3:30. We walked in with the Italian word for boxes just looked up and on our tongues, and behold… all 5 of our boxes were there! It was so exciting.

We grabbed them, came back home, and unpacked and unpacked. I assembled a coat rack. Daren messed around with installing a new TV our landlord dropped off. And exhausted… we had leftovers for dinner.

Daren went for his first run while I think I napped. He took these amazing photos.

Day 4

Just like at home I’m already returning stuff from Amazon. We hit up a Farmers Market. I finally found ginger. We stopped at a new grocery store and found cottage cheese! We were so happy. It was otherwise an uneventful day. I finally had most of the ingredients and implements to make our favorite things. We went home to open more boxes. I went to work making chocolate chip cookies, my favorite oatmeal nearly zero-point Weight Watchers cookies, compote, and my beloved ginger tea.

Day 5

First trip to Florence. Ever. It was a dual-purpose trip. One, to drop off our rental car and pick up our car subscription that we’d be using for the year. And the other reason was to declare my presence in Italy with the state police (Questura).

Mentally preparing to get yelled at by the Questura

The street navigation was the most annoying thing. At the moment Daren is furiously typing about it. I’ll let him elaborate.

The Questura, for what I needed to do, was quite a simple process, but a very long wait. My citizenship lawyer warned me about this so I was prepared. Everyone jokes here about Italian bureaucracy, but in all honesty it’s not that different from U.S. bureaucracy. I needed to do many things to prepare for this trip and to apply for Italian citizenship, and one of them was to get paperwork from the Department of Social Security. I speak the language, knew what I needed, and felt obviously confident enough to communicate this, but I also was prepared in the U.S. to get yelled at by a cranky federal employee (and I wasn’t wrong, I was talked to like I was a complete idiot) – both times I had to go down.

Side note: Why just me at the Questura, dnd why did we have to go? Well Daren got Irish citizenship a few years ago and can be in the EU without fanfare. And I can too for now with the 90-day pass American citizens have. But I will be applying for Italian citizenship as soon as a final piece of paper arrives. If we had flown directly into Italy and I came through the EU borders through Italy I wouldn’t have had to make this Questura stop. But because we had Koji and flown in through Germany, Italy didn’t know I was there so I had to let them know.

While at the Questura with my ticket to wait in line, Daren and Koji went to return the rental car. The area at the Questura was immigration. Here in Italy I am an immigrant. There were people from all over the world and walks of life and ages speaking all kinds of different languages. The main language the employees speak, of course, is Italian with very little English. Like in the U.S., the staff feel like if you will be in Italy you should try speaking Italian (who can blame them?). It was overwhelming and humbling to be there amongst all these other people trying to keep their paperwork in order.

I heard 3 women about my age speaking English with one another, each with different foreign accents. They were talking about how to cleanse from the negative energy of the Questura and the city. This was a conversation right up my alley! I went over to them and said I couldn’t help but overhear their exchange. They welcomed me, we exchanged names and countries of origin, and talked non-stop for the next hour or so. They all lived in Florence and were there for different reasons. All of them love yoga, one was even a yoga teacher. She and I exchanged contact information through WhatsApp. That was lovely. I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again, but it was nice to just speak English and meet new people.

This trip Beat Me Up. I was ready to call it a day by noon when I was done at the Questura but we pushed through it. We had lunch at an Indian place that allowed Koji to come inside – yes INSIDE! They gave him water (which he was very grateful for) and we enjoyed our first Indian meal (so good!).

We walked around a bit worried about how Koji would behave in a city. He is a well-traveled dog. He boated with us and visited our kids in college with us. He’s been up and down the East Coast and even to Canada, but he has spent very little time in cities. He surprised us by trotting alongside us like he’s been doing this his whole life! So we made our way from the car rental at the train station to the Duomo. Neither Daren nor I were wearing comfortable shoes. And the dog was kind of beat so we stopped there. But we felt victorious for making it to a monument, getting a car, and checking off this annoying task I had to do at the Questura.

Coffee and other things we are getting used to

Everyone knows that Europeans, Italians in particular, love strong black coffee. Small cups. When my father (from Italy) used to come to my house and see the cups of coffee we drank he would be annoyed. Every single time he had something to say about it. (Weirdly I remember my mother loving coffee just as much and making the same normal-size American cups and him not saying a word about it… but that is besides the point.) I know this intellectually. I’ve seen it. The rest stops have coffee counters with miniature cups. They look like something a child would play with in a tea set. The natives order their coffee, scoot to this counter, and drink this mini cup in record time and move on. I’m not sure what the purpose is except to caffeinate.

When our rental came with an American coffee maker I was quite happy. Daren does like the small strong black coffee and kind of said something to the effect of when in Rome, but I insisted that for me we keep this American coffee maker. The first day we were here we went to the only open grocery store (Lidl – yes, the same chain as in the U.S.) and bought a small super vacuum-packed bag of coffee, which was the only kind of coffee sold. We were jet-lagged, came back to our new home, and made coffee. It was delicious. The cups provided at the rental were quite small, and even though the coffee maker said 10 cups, it was about a cup and a half each.

To make a long story short…. After purchasing, then returning, mini coffee scoops…. And then buying a nice (I LOVE it) American coffee maker…. 10 cups in these European models do not mean what 10 cups in American models mean. There is no other size coffee scoop than the one we bought (and returned, thinking we bought too small a size). It is what it is. Even “American” coffee here is smaller. So we will either adjust to having about ½ the amount of coffee we enjoy in the morning or make 2 pots. Either way it was a week-long learning curve.

That is just one of the many silly things that tripped us up.

• How to navigate through a toll booth
• Opening plastic tops from bottles
• The necessity of weighing produce and putting a sticker on it to purchase it
• Driving in downtown cities with secret zones where you need a pass (Daren will say more about)
• 2 size plugs, the smaller type not being the converter size sold at airports and other places outside the EU zone

Daren’s take on Driving in Italy

Of all the adjustments an American needs to make while settling into life in Italy, I suspect that none are more challenging than learning how to handle a car and navigate in this new country. At first pass things seem very similar to home: cars drive on the right. Stop signs and traffic lights look the same, and cities are connected by an efficient system of highways with rest stops, overhead signs, construction alerts, and traffic updates. True, there are a lot more traffic circle and fewer traffic lights, but these are easy to handle and actually make driving smoother and more efficient. But after just a few days of driving, this comforting sense of similarity soon dissipates and the real differences become apparent.    First, the roads: they are narrow, winding, and hilly.  Even the highways, while extensive and well-marked, are much narrower with minimal shoulders and lots of curves and hills.  While one gets used to this rather quickly, it requires a higher level of vigilance, especially since highway speeds tend to be faster than in the US, often 130km/hr (80 mph).

Getting gas is another learning experience. Where is the gas cap?  How does it open? In our first vehicle the front door needed to be open to expose and open the cap. How do you activate the pump and pay? In one gas station you had to go to a pay station first and tap or insert your card. In others, you pump first and then pay inside. Not so difficult to handle, but just slightly different than our pay-at-the-pump simplicity in the US. And – these differences while nicely marked are in a foreign language so knowing what to do at each one presents a little more of a  challenge.

Highway tolls are similar to the US and are easy to manage once you figure out the different lanes. You take a ticket when entering and, when exiting, either insert it into a machine and pay by tapping a credit card, or hand it to an attendant and pay them, depending on which toll booth lane you choose. Like the US, Italy has an “Easy Pass” that allows you to avoid cards and cash. Be careful not to accidentally drive through the “Easy Pass” lane as we did on our first sojourn. In so doing on entering the highway, we had no ticket with which to pay when we exited, requiring us to sneak through the gap in the toll gate! I am sure that the police are looking for us as it was added to a growing list of unintended infractions that we’ve been accumulating.

The other major violations we’ve committed occurred while driving in cities and entering zones where we weren’t allowed. Frustratingly, Apple or Google Maps knows nothing about this and simply maps out the best route to get to your destination, infraction zones be damned! We drove on streets indented only for buses and taxis. We nearly drove onto a tram track. Then we innocently drove on several streets that can only be accessed with “special permission”. These zones are indicated by a digital sign reading “ZTL” for Zona a Traffico Limitato. If it says “ ZTL Attivo”, that means it’s active and you need a special pass to enter.  There is a sensor and a traffic camera capturing the identity of each car passing into the Zona. If you don’t have a digital sensor, like and Easy Pass, which you’ve paid for to enable you to pass into these zones, your plate is recorded and fines will be forthcoming. Add to this the fact that city streets are incredibly narrow. Motorcycles and souped up Vespas are flying all around you, trucks are double parking in front of Medieval walls and ancient stone buildings, all while clueless pedestrians (Americans no doubt), are swarming all around with little regard for cross walks.

Then suddenly a road becomes a market and you have to squeeze past food and vegetable stalls, cafes, and throngs of shoppers. Chairs and tables may need to be moved to enable your errant car to pass. And then suddenly a paved road changes to cobblestones and our dental fillings are all jarred out onto the floor mats.

After surviving a drive into Florence to address some bureaucratic residency paperwork and exchange rental cars, we vowed never to drive into an Italian city again, assuming we are not already banned from driving at all by the Italian police. There is a reason why Italy has an excellent system of trains and trams. They are there to help people avoid driving modern vehicles on streets designed for mules, horses, and maybe an occasional oxcart.

For now

This morning it’s Saturday (3/7/26 or as in Italy would be writting 7/3/26), and we finally feel a bit settled. We put together this blog and spent the morning over coffee, writing, and reminiscing about the week we just had. We wanted to capture it all before it’s a distant memory! Onto the next.

We hope you enjoyed reading this. If you’d like to follow us, click the follow button below to get updates when we post. I also hope to update these on Facebook too.

Ciao & Namaste <3

On Christmas Eve in Mountain Pose – the Gift of Perspective

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

5:34 a.m.
December 24

I always note the time when I begin my morning yoga. Mostly to keep an eye on it. If I let myself go, I could move, chant, breathe, and meditate far longer than I intend to. Now that I’m no longer working, I try to keep it to an hour.

But that’s beside the point.

It’s Christmas Eve.

I was going through the asana (movement) portion of my practice when, as happens every morning no matter how cold it is outside, my body warmed enough that I cracked the window—just a hair. I always welcome the exchange of outside air. If air were visible, I imagine I’d see it doing what it naturally wants to do: balancing itself. Not unlike the balancing of breath and energy moving through my body.

I stepped back into Mountain pose.

Suddenly my ears woke up to the outside noises now creeping in.

It was still dark. Across the lagoon, a few houses glowed softly, their lights scattered in the darkness. Cool air brushed my skin. And then—an intrusion. A siren, distant but unmistakable, cut through the quiet.

Years ago, when I was a newer yogi and throughout my 500 hours of teacher training, I practiced in a studio where sirens passed by regularly. Every single time—no matter the teacher—the class would pause. The teacher would acknowledge the sound and offer a moment to send good thoughts to whoever was on the receiving end of that siren.

I’ve kept that habit.

But this morning, standing in Mountain pose with the window cracked and the siren echoing across the water, I was suddenly ten years old again—on the eve of Christmas Eve.

Brooklyn.

School vacation had started, and I was giddy with the thought of no school until after the New Year. I was standing by the front door of our building, the one at the bottom of the stairwell that never locked properly. I was alone, waiting for my parents to come home. I don’t remember where my brothers were.

Before going downstairs, I had been at my parents’ window, looking out into the dark at the buildings across the street—some windows lit, most not. Now I stood behind the door. Cold air slipped through the cracks. Somewhere, a siren wailed.

And in that moment, I remember truly feeling the Christmas spirit for the first time.

I thought about Mary and Joseph, traveling, searching for a place where Mary could give birth. I remembered a teacher once asking us whether, knowing what we know now, we would open the door if they came knocking. I shivered, imagining them walking the cold streets of Brooklyn and stopping at the door in front of me.

I reached into my pocket and found a brand-new ChapStick. My lips were always chapped, though I never paid much attention to it. My mother was constantly handing me ChapStick, and I was constantly losing it. This one was new. I applied it.

Mint.

The first mint ChapStick I’d ever tried. It cooled my lips further, but in a way that felt clean and refreshing. To this day, that scent takes me right back to that moment.

Alone in the dark. Cold air. Mint on my lips. A siren passing by. And the quiet awe of Christmas.

And then—almost immediately—disappointment.

Earlier that evening, I had overheard my mother arguing with my grandmother on the phone. I heard my mother tell her she was not welcome for Christmas. I remember thinking that Christmas wouldn’t feel like Christmas without Grandma there.

Standing in Mountain pose this morning, holding that memory, I briefly wondered what that fight had been about. What could possibly have been so terrible that my grandmother wasn’t allowed to come?

I started doing the math.

I knew that these bans happened—arguments, cutoffs, declarations that someone was “no longer welcome.” And then, eventually, everyone would reconcile and move on. But some holidays passed while the ban was still in place. And those holidays are gone forever.

Now, in this moment of my life, my son—whom I have always been wildly close to—has declared no contact.

Perspective.

For the first time, I truly understood how my grandmother must have felt.

I don’t have grandchildren yet, but I can only imagine how much deeper the pain goes when they’re involved—when you long to see them as much as they long to see you.

Back then, I didn’t understand my parents’ issues with my grandmother. I think they thought she meddled too much. Something about money. I don’t really know.

What I do know is this: my grandmother was the single most important positive influence in my life. I don’t know who I would have been without her.

As a child, I listened to her talk for hours. She loved to talk. As an adult, we spoke for hours each week while I cooked on Sundays. Sometimes we argued—but never in a way that interfered with holidays or love.

She died in 2007, but her words live on. And as I get older, they take on new meaning.

As I continued my practice, I thought about how much I love this time of year, and how different morning yoga feels in winter compared to summer. I thought about what Christmas might be like next year in Italy.

I imagined Christmas in Rocca di Neto, where my father was born. I thought about what it means to be a foreigner—how everything looks familiar and unfamiliar at once. I thought about what it must feel like to go “home” when home is no longer where you live.

Only after visiting Rocca a few weeks ago do I think I can truly appreciate the depth of that difference.

Doing the math again, I realized that on that Christmas Eve in Brooklyn, my father had only been in the United States for sixteen years.

Sixteen years.

At this point in my life, sixteen years ago feels like a blink. It’s nearly as long as I’ve been with Daren, and he still feels new in my life. In the scope of my father’s life then, he was—figuratively—fresh off the boat.

He told us stories about Italy, about traditions, about his parents. But my brothers and I didn’t really understand. It all felt distant, foreign. The grandmother I cared about was here. And that Christmas, I was devastated that I wouldn’t see her.

That year, my grandmother must have been fifty-nine. Around Daren’s age now. My mother was thirty. My father thirty-six. All young adults, really—raising children while still trying to understand themselves.

Over the thousands of hours I spent talking with my grandmother, she often sounded genuinely baffled by the arguments with her children. All of them, at one point or another, cut her off. She often didn’t understand why.

Lately, as my relationship with my son has unraveled, her words echo in my mind—especially around money. The confusion. The pain. Her insistence that she gave out of love, not control. That adults are adults. That gifts are not entitlements.

I’ll leave it there.

I’m turning fifty in two months, and I understand elders now in a way I simply couldn’t a year ago. Losing my father—and intentionally and unintentionally stepping into his experiences—has changed how I see him, how I see family, culture, and the chaos we sometimes mistake for normal.

I understand, in a small way, what it’s like to live inside someone else’s world. To speak from memory and have those memories land on deaf ears—especially when those ears belong to your children.

And Grandma… yes. I get it now. The money. The bafflement. The heartbreak of being shut out for something that was meant only to be loving.

My greatest gift in 2025 is perspective.

Perspective on many things—but most of all, on my elders.

I know there is more to learn. Things I still can’t see. And things my children will someday learn for themselves in their own experience.

You can’t replace experience.

Thanks to yoga, fresh air, sirens and memories for a new perspective this morning. While in Mountain Pose.

Maybe I should go buy some mint ChapStick??

Namaste

A text from my cousin in Italy this morning
Just before sunrise today
Just after sunrise down the street a bit more

On Lessons from Pops

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

For those of you who don’t know, my father passed away on Wednesday. And for those who don’t know, my relationship with him was far from a beautiful “daddy’s little girl” type of scenario. I loved and hated him. I was afraid of him, yet I felt protected from the outside world by him.

My father was an alcoholic, mean, misogynistic, childish, and a bully. But he was also full of life, energy, and joy. He was strong—crazy healthy despite himself—and had the strongest work ethic of anyone I’d ever met. Just as strong was his play ethic: he worked hard and he played hard.

He lived a full life of ups and downs. He made money fast and spent it even faster. He loved drinking, gambling, and chasing women. He didn’t believe women should work or that education mattered. He believed you should take care of yourself and your family with food, shelter, and clothing in a basic sense. There was always enough, but always with the constant worry that maybe there wouldn’t be, the weight of bills looming.

From him, I learned a lot—what to do, what not to do, who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to show up in the world. This both served me and hurt me. The two main lessons I took from him were how to be productive and how to live fully at the extremes of emotion.

He hated the word “relaxing,” unless everything else that could possibly be done was already done. Before he came home, my brothers and I would scour the house for anything out of place, dirty, or unfinished. Yes, it was unhealthy—but it taught me to scan my environment, make lists, remember details, prioritize, and execute with whatever time I had.

This shaped me: I don’t know how to rest. I’m constantly doing, doing something, or several things at once. I am incredibly productive, and I think I like it that way. It’s a blessing and a burden, because I often don’t realize when I’ve pushed myself too far or taken on too much. My father, in an unhealthy way, taught me this.

Another word to describe him: loud. When the work was done, it was time to play and let loose. He had no qualms about body image, running around shirtless with his big belly. He sang at the top of his lungs, danced like a giant silly human without a care, and enjoyed food like there was no tomorrow. He loved sports—football mostly, the NY Giants in particular, but also soccer and basketball. Watching games with him was full of antics and superstition. The whole neighborhood knew if the Giants were winning or losing.

But with his intensity—whether excitement or anger—came loss of control. Things broke. People and animals got hurt, physically or emotionally.

Some of you who know me now might not realize that “loud” was once how I lived too. I still like to dance, be silly, and LAUGH—only now without the drinking and the overkill of noise.

Ultimately, I didn’t stick around to live like he lived or under his rule of thumb. I got the #$&* out of dodge and started a path of my own in the world.

I’ve learned over the course of the past 31 years that I struggle with boundaries. I was never taught them. I didn’t even know they existed. Particularly with extremes of work, play, and emotions—at first I had none. Everything was to the extreme. I’m now at a point in my life where I realize I can detach from those automatic reactions I was taught, and instead have healthier boundaries around rest, relaxation, and emotional highs and lows.

I am not perfect (who is?) and often struggle with doing too much without realizing it, or failing to recognize when I’m overwhelmed until it shows up as anxiety or panic. A lot of yogic work, mental health work, and a little medication have helped keep me balanced most of the time.

I sit here on my front porch on an August Sunday morning with my coffee and thinking about my dad.

There isn’t much rhyme or reason to this blog—just a moment to reflect on how my father shaped my life and who I am right now because of it. If I stay healthy, it’s not unreasonable to imagine living another lifetime beyond the years I’ve already lived (49). I can’t change the past, but I can absolutely change the future and how I choose to show up and react in it.

One day, those who are in my life when I pass will likely reflect on how I lived, what I taught them—whether it’s how they want to live, or how they want to avoid living. My hope is that whatever I put into the world, people experience it in a way that makes them pause—whether positively or negatively—and reflect on how their own experiences shape their behaviors and ultimately guide their decisions about who they want to be in the world.

And maybe, just maybe, that is the truest way my father continues to live on—through the ways he shaped me, both in what I carry forward and in what I’ve chosen to do differently. In that way, his life reminds me that even the hardest stories can become soil for growth, and that the future is always wide open for choosing a new way to live.

Seventh Floor, Going Down

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

I know if I don’t capture the feelings now, I still might be able to later — but they will never feel as they do now.

Today.
My last day of work.
That elevator — the sound made me want to cry.

A hot day, not too different from today.
23 years ago.

5th Floor, Building 2 — right outside my door was the elevator bank.
Mary Susie Conti — the woman I was replacing — was loading up my head with all that I needed to learn.

I was paying rapt attention, but every so often I sussed out the environment. It felt so different to be in an office in the middle of the day instead of home with my two small children, who were now 45 minutes away in a new daycare. Every time I thought of them, my heart hurt just a bit, and I had to intentionally put it out of my mind.

The feel of the air with the open window (at a time when we were allowed to open windows — now I can’t imagine), the humidity in the office, and the sound of the elevator’s electronic voice blathering all day:

“Fifth Floor Going Down… Fifth Floor Going Up.”

Over the next few days and weeks, I slightly startled the 50 or so times a day I heard that electronic voice announcing the floor it landed on and which direction it was going.

Eventually, it became background noise and I didn’t hear it at all. But when I did tune in, no matter the day or time of year, I was transported back to being 26 years old and learning my new job from Mary Susie Conti.

For the past 8+ years, I haven’t come into the office much. I was on a reasonable accommodation and working from home long before COVID. But I have to say — it always felt like home when I did go in.

I honestly believe one of the reasons I got the job is because of that “home”-like feeling.

When I interviewed for that first job, I went through a series of interviews back to back.
Martha Shea was the first person who interviewed me.

Right off the bat, she made it known that if I didn’t pass her muster, the two doctors I would soon interview with would take her consideration into account.

She also made sure to tell me she was prior military and instantly started off by asking about my own military experience.

I was slightly intimidated, but something about her already felt familiar. She was my kind of people — I could tell.

I don’t even know how I wasn’t prepared for the question:
“Why do you want to work here?”

I mean — for heaven’s sake — if a person can’t answer that, they shouldn’t get the job!

Martha asked me that question and my truly unprepared, but terribly raw response — when I looked around — was:

“Because it feels like home.”

Martha cracked a genuine smile and asked me why.

I looked around, asking myself the same thing to understand why I had that feeling.

I saw the government-issued 3-month calendar, where you save paper with the months on both sides. The chairs. The carpet. The signage. The halls. The overhead pages. Men with military regalia ambling down the hall. The feeling I always got crossing from a state line onto federal property.

So that is what I said.
I first pointed to the calendar on the wall, then the chairs. I mentioned something that was broken in a corner and talked about how it all felt familiar.

I didn’t think about puffing everyone up with “helping veterans,” giving back, stories of grandfathers who fought in wars — or all the other things I subsequently heard over the years when I eventually became the interviewer.

My answer was candid and from the heart.

If my interview were a cartoon, Martha would have started off in a knight’s costume — complete with armor — to intimidate me.
Then it would have fallen off, and you would have seen her heart literally melting.

She proudly walked me down the hall to the person who would eventually become my first supervisor at the VA.

With a hand on my shoulder, she introduced me in a way that made it clear she liked me and wanted to take me under her wing.

I already felt protected — and that I was with my people.

Today, I drove into for the last time.

The sunrise down the street from me. A new dawn to a brand new type of day for me.

I saw people parking, taking out their bags and lunches, putting on badges.
These people were donned in suits, scrubs, lab coats — and everything in between.

I vividly remembered those early days of parking in that same lot. The uniforms, cars and smells were so unfamiliar at the time. Now they are all second nature. All these years I have been taking the same steps into the same building and heading to the elevators —

“1st Floor, going up.”

Today, I ran into one of my coworkers walking into the building.

We got on the elevator together, and I heard that same electronic voice, unchanged in all these years.

I asked him about his two young girls. He filled me in and then asked how old my children were now.

28 and 26.
My youngest is now as old as I was when I first started working there.

I worked there for their entire lives.
In some ways, I missed their lives because of that place.

I don’t know who I am without it.

Some people would say I worked there a lifetime (23 years).

Others, who have 40, 45 years in the government, would still consider me a newbie.

It’s all relative. But for me — between the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs — it’s been my whole life.

I had jobs in different buildings and offices. Not too many were close to an elevator bank.

Today, as I left, it was:

“7th Floor, going down.”

It felt like:

“Esterina, now going down and out — into the wider world.”

I sat in the parking lot for a long time.
I read the cards I was given, sitting in my car with the air conditioning blasting.

I felt nostalgic — but very excited.

Driving away was the hardest part.
No tears, but a large lump in my throat.

A piece of my heart will always be there — in those buildings, carpets, walls, files.

And just like that — “7th Floor Going Down” — one chapter closes, and another begins.

The rest of my life. Day 1

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Nothing feels different, but everything feels different.

Chapter 2 is what I am calling this.

I sit across the breakfast table from my husband, but my personal laptop is in place of my work one. There still feels like there are a million things to do. But honestly, not a single one of them really needs to be done.

Was it always like this? Meaning, did anything really ever need to get done?

My heart is beating and I’m racing against the clock—stuff to do… I have to remind myself that there is nothing to actually really do. Today, there will be no sound of bings and chimes to notify me of new emails, Teams messages, or upcoming meetings.

Each of those bings is accompanied (was accompanied—gosh, this will take getting used to) by a spike in alertness and heart rate. At this time of the morning (6:15—YES, Six Flipping Fifteen), my heart rate and anxiety were probably elevated a handful of times.

Whoa, writing that out sounds so unhealthy.
It is unhealthy. But I’ve been doing this for years.

Even when I was physically going into the office, I’d wake up around 5 a.m., and just thinking about the day ahead would spike my anxiety. Sometimes in a productive way, but often in a storm of worry about how to plan the day to squeeze the most out of it—for both home and work.

The drive in would be filled with thoughts, worry, plans, more plans. And once I had two kids—then suddenly four—that planning hit a whole new level: kazillion mode.

Things have been quieter in recent years with the kids out of the house and me working remotely. But the anxious habit stuck around. And so did the bings, dings, and mounting pressure of the average workday.

Not that long ago in a land not faraway

I remember back in 2002, my boss gave me access to her email because she found it overwhelming—she got up to 50 emails a day. I was floored. Fifty! I was getting maybe 10, mostly forwarded from her.

Now that number sounds almost quaint. If you get only 50 work emails a day in this era, you’re lucky.
Managing email has become its own professional skill.

Most of it? Nonsense. But stressful nonetheless.

I felt like I had to walk into each day in full armor, machete in hand, clearing the overgrown weeds before they even had a chance to stop growing. 90% of emails went straight to Trash. Of those, maybe 10% were actually important—but wading through the digital clutter? A waste. So I created workarounds, tasks, and filters.

OK—seriously, I’ve digressed. But wow. It’s all so absurd.

Getting Anyone’s Attention

You can’t count on someone seeing your email. Depending on how someone organizes their inbox (and I’ve seen some truly wild systems), they may never even notice your message.

Urgent? Tag it with an @? Add the exclamation point? All overused. All part of the noise.

So we escalate:
Teams. Work phone. Personal phone. Desk phone.
And all of it—every single one of those tools—comes with a sound, a vibration, a ding that makes your chest tighten and your focus scatter.

But Now…

I closed the door. I shut the laptop.
I walked away.

That’s why I’m sitting here this morning, coffee in hand, at a different computer.

And now I ask myself:
How long will this feeling of impending doom last?
(Not actual doom, of course—nothing I ever did was life-or-death. But that tight-chested feeling… it’s real.)

How long until I can simply be present?

I Want to Be Present

I want to be present in my life. I only get one.
And I’ve spent 49 years rushing through it.

I’m safe now. I don’t need to stress myself out daily.
If I live to be 100, I’m only halfway through.
How lucky is that?

I feel so grateful. So blessed.
And I don’t want to recreate the stressful life I just stepped away from.

It’s funny—I only found out a week ago that yesterday would be my last day of work. I didn’t dare dream about what’s next, out of fear I’d jinx it.

And now? The urge to plan the “what’s next” is already kicking in. But…
I don’t have to figure that out right now, do I?

There’s no rush.

I have the rest of my life—whether that’s a few hours or another 50 years.

Peace,
Esterina

On Being a Federal Government Employee: Fork in the Road

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

April 27th, 2025.

As I sit here on the Metro North Railroad next to my husband on this very sunny, very windy Sunday, late April morning, I’m filled with wanderlust and a sense of possibility. As we speed by I notice trees, mountains, houses, cars, waterways, docks… so many ways of living and modes of travel.  

The subway this morning, leaving New York City, back home to Connecticut

My heart aches to experience it all. I sit and watch, feeling stuck where I am; on a moving train that is going too fast. I am unable to really see, experience or touch any of it.  Destination known.

I marvel at how at any stop I could really get off. How I could take another train to another destination and experience something new. I could…. Why don’t I? Why haven’t I?  

I am a government employee.

A Fork in the Road.  

That is the title now infamous email sent to government employees on January 28th. It quite possibly could open doors, new roads, endless possibilities. However, the doors and possibilities are soured by the ruthless ways civil servants have been discussed in the past few months. 

I am government employee with a possibility of taking early retirement. I am 49 and was not planning to retire for a while. But the possibility cannot stop lingering on my mind. I want to see the world! I want to get out from under the grind, off the crazy train. The past few years, but particularly the past few months have dampened the passion of flames I once had for work. It was long burning down, but the new administration has left but the smallest of sparks still attempting to burn.    

I have given my entire adult life to the United States government. At 18 I went into the Coast Guard. At 22, I continued into the active reserve pool and became a weekend warrior while raising two babies. At 26, I became a civil servant where I have worked ever since. 

I’ve been on a train, on the path set out by many. Get an education, get a job, start a family, get the bigger house…. 

In the past 31 years with very little help from the supposedly educational funds and benefits that tempted me into the military in the first place I obtained a Professional Secretarial Certification, a Bachelors in Business Administration, an MBA, and a certification Healthcare Analytics. 

There were countless other trainings I took through work or on my own. Regardless of where I took these trainings, I immediately gave everything I learned back to the government through my work. Up to and including teaching yoga. 

I chose the government  because like many undiscussed Americans, particularly second generation Americans, I grew up not have basic securities met. We always had food, though food security was something my parents often struggled with. There were enough clothes and enough help to feel ok. We did not have healthcare and my parents did not have jobs with paid vacation or sick time. Retirement is still out of the question for my 74 year old father. My mother passed away at 49, in part to smoking; but more in part to not having access to healthcare. 

I chose the military for the benefits. Paid education, vacation days, and healthcare. The military also seemed as if it were fair and just, that there were rules that had to be followed and consequences for breaking those rules. My home seemed to be a place where there were no consequences and no rights for women or children. As a teenager with looming uncertainty of my future, the military recruiters at the tables stationed around my high school looked healthy, happy and secure in themselves. I wanted that for myself too. 

I still don’t know if recruiters purposely mislead or they themselves do not know, but many of the things I was told were only partial truths. Healthcare is not for life unless you are destitute once you separate from the armed forces. The Montogomery GI Bill hardly paid for a semester let alone an education. I was not able to apply for specialty school right out of bootcamp as an E-3, a benefit I personally took advantage of because I had spent 3 years in junior ROTC. The immediate bump from E-2 to E-3  wasn’t a huge benefit, but the one that likely made what was a tough decision at the time for me. A decision that ended up being a very good one for my life.

Swearing into the United States Military at MEMPS in Brooklyn NY August 9, 1994

From that time, and into my career, and until this very day; there were spouted benefits. Benefits that lured me in, but were not what they seemed to be. Benefits that few who are the gatekeepers to obtaining these benefits even seem to know about. 

My earliest experience was the lack of knowledge at my first duty station on being an E-3. Then seemingly gregarious barriers to putting my name on a wait list for specialty school. I did everything I was supposed to as quickly and efficiently as I could. It seemed to surprise people that I had the oomph to push through the barriers and keep pressing until I got the answers I was seeking. It seemed unnecessarily difficult, but that was only the start of many years ahead of pretty much the same. 

I met and married my first husband who was also in the military at the age of 19. We had no plans of having children anytime soon, but I did know about the benefit to females of taking two years off to raise a child and coming back to finish any required time that was owed to the government. 

When my husband and I were re-located and co-located from the west to east coast, the new dispensary that I was assigned did not carry the birth control pill I had been on for years. I was prescribed a new pill and immediately experienced unwanted side effects.  When I went to the dispensary to discuss these issues; they took some bloodwork to ensure I was not pregnant, prescribed a new type of pill, and asked me to not take any pills until my next cycle. 

My newlywed husband and I were careful, but obviously not careful enough because I never did start that next cycle. I was unintentionally pregnant at 20 years old. My new duty station (which was for the first time in my career on land [opposed to on ship]) helped me to apply for the two year program to raise a child. The administrators and I could not foresee my request being denied because I owed 2 exactly two years and my husband was also a service member. 

The request was denied without an explanation. We were flabbergasted. The men and their wives at my at my station were so supportive and helped me and my husband with taking care of our newborn child. I will forever be grateful for the rallying and support provided. 

October 1996, pregnant with my first born
My baby Thomas at just over a year old with his daddy

Two years later my owed time was up and I had the option to reenlist. For the majority of non-Air station based jobs, most Coast Guard members were required to be stationed on a ship alternating with land stations. Unless they specifically wanted to be on ship duty or if circumstances called, folks were allowed to be stationed on land for back to back tours. 

The military does married couples the honor of trying to station couples together or close by. My husband’s tour was also up. His job required him to be at an Air station which were far and few between. Air stations at the time also required a 1 in every 3 or 1 in every 4 evening overnight obligation. My job as a cook was one of the few jobs in the Coast Guard that did not require overnight stays at all. It was the only way we were able to get by raising our son until that point. That and the help from the members of my station. 

Service members have some input on where they would like to go by filling out what was referred to as a “Dream Sheet”. We filled out our dreams sheets and requested to go anywhere in the world as long as I could be stationed at a land station nearby an Air station so I could be home every evening with our son. It should not have come as a surprise when this reasonable request was denied. Yet it was a surprise and felt like a blow. 

The Commanding and Executive Officers who were fond of my hard work, impressed that I finished a secretarial certificate and was taking college classes, and who were already upset from the denial for the maternity leave I asked for were also infuriated. The Commanding Officer (unprompted) wrote a letter asking for my request to be reconsidered because he felt I was just the kind of person that the Coast Guard should want to keep. He received a response back saying that it was my turn to go on a boat and if I didn’t like it, I did not have to re-enlist. 

I did not reenlist.

I enlisted into the Active Reserves for four years instead. My husband stayed in and I became a military spouse. We had another baby and I finished my bachelor degree. 

Four years later in 2002, both my husband and I had completed all required obligations to the military. It was not long after 9/11 and we decided to take a plunge into the civilian world. 

Finding work in your twenties hot out of the military with little other work experience and family obligations is not easy. I was interested in federal employment because of the benefits and pension.

I applied to dozens of government and private sector positions. It took about 6 months to find a temporary grant funded government position.

During my first few years as a civil servant I applied for the programs and leadership trainings that were available, but I was denied participation because I was not a permanent employee. I went back to school (out of pocket) while working full time and raising 2 children for an MBA. 

I used the information I was learning in school and my personal drive constantly to make my job, my role, and in turn my organization a better place. In 2007 I finished my Masters degree and landed a full time permanent position. About 5 minutes later I was asked to teach and mentor students in the programs I had never taken and had been denied access to. I was not snarly or punishing because I paid for and took my own initiative to learn what they denied me access to. I excitedly obliged because I wanted to provide my organization with the passion and knowledge I myself wanted to share. 

MBA graduation in 2007

I cannot believe that was 18 years ago. Since then I’ve learned even more. In my journey as a government employee I’ve changed as a human, but maintained exceptional performance reviews for every single rating period for 31 years without fail. I have given the government every piece of knowledge I learned, and for many many years, many more hours than I was ever paid for. 

I have since been divorced and remarried. My children have grown and left the nest. I’ve taken many other trainings at work and outside of work. I trudged a personal journey of experiencing C-PTSD from childhood which involved drinking, recovery and a lot of therapy.

Very typical office set up I had (back in the days I had an office that is)
At my ‘hands down’ favorite position I held in Primary Care
Screenshot
Group of lady work friends I had for many years

I’ve been on the path. I was not planning to retire now. I have more to give. But do I want to give it to the government anymore??? 

My heart has not  been in it a while. And the current administration seems to admonish and mock employees like myself. 

Until this very day I am dealing with “benefits” unknown to those who are the gatekeepers. My latest escapade involves healthcare. I have been paying for health insurance for a family through the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) since 2002. A few years ago while I was undergoing intensive outpatient therapy I was part-time and we used my husband’s insurance because the employee share for part-timers is unaffordable. We switched back to my insurance over 4 years ago, but the government has a stipulation that upon retirement in order to keep the FEHB for life, you have to have paid FEHB for the 5 consecutive years prior to retirement. 

This is what stopped me from Taking the Fork in the Road back in January. Healthcare. One of the very reasons I entered into the federal workforce 31 years ago. The lack of which (healthcare) I attribute to my mom passing at 49 years old. The very age I happen to be at the moment.

The only time I did not pay for healthcare was for the short period of time I shortened my work hours to deal with mental health issues.

Most veterans have mental health issues. Most individuals enter the military because the benefits outweigh the personal risks. Most individuals who join at a young age do not have many other options. Those lack of options, lack, limit = mental health issues that if not already experiencing, will likely show up later in life when the dust has settled. Like it did for me.

Back in January when the Fork in the Road email was sent, I read all over the place in OPM guidance and other government sources that under VERA authority (when early retirement is being offered) the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) waives this 5 year healthcare payment requirement. I asked about it at the time. No one has ever heard of it. Of course they haven’t. I’ve been down this sad road before. Benefits that are there but unknown or in some way inaccessible.

My Department is offering VERA again due to impending RIFs (Reduction in Force) and this time it specifically states that OPM is waiving the 5-year requirement. 

Why am I still here? What do I have to gain? 

I think I want to get off the train. I watch the world literally and proverbially whizzing by. A world I long to see and experience. 

I am not one of these mystery civil servants you hear on the news. One of these lazy people who is just taking from the population and needs their job to be cut with a sledge hammer. I gave the government more than I gained from it. I know my job can be involuntary cut in a few weeks. If I get to keep a job at all, there is no guarantee it will be at my salary level or that I enjoy. 

Yes, there is waste in the government. There is waste in all organizations. The fairness I had been seeking when entering the federal workforce is not on everyone’s side. As employees under the rule of the law, we are mostly indistinguishable from one another. All kind of being lumped in with the bath water that our administration wants to throw out.

As I reflect on my journey, I realize that my experiences have shaped me into the person I am today. The highs and lows, the challenges and triumphs, have all contributed to my growth and resilience. While the uncertainty of early retirement looms, I am filled with hope and possibility. I am ready to embrace change and explore new horizons. My dedication to public service has been unwavering, and I am proud of the contributions I have made. As I contemplate the next chapter of my life, I am reminded that there is so much more of me to give. The world is full of opportunities, and I am eager to seize them. 

 

Last photo I have with my mom (far left)

 

Journey Through the Self: Exploring the Five Koshas in Yoga

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.”
– Bhagavad Gita

In the ancient Vedic texts, we find a beautiful framework for understanding the self beyond the physical body. Known as the Panchamaya Kosha system, this five-layered model is still embraced by yoga therapists today as a holistic map for healing and self-discovery.

Each kosha, or “sheath,” represents a different layer of our being—from the tangible to the most subtle essence of who we are. These sheaths are energetic in nature.

Since this is a conceptual idea, it’s not easily visualized. This is an artistic rendition I created, using inspiration from search engines, to give the model a visual form.

Let’s take a guided journey through each layer, pausing along the way to reflect, breathe, and connect.

Annamaya Kosha: The Physical Body

The outermost layer is the Annamaya Kosha, often referred to as the “food body.” Annamaya derives from the words anna (food) and maya (made of), signifying that the body is composed of physical matter sustained by food. It is the densest of the five koshas and the layer most familiar to us—the physical body that we see and touch.

According to the Bhagavad Gita, it is the body that allows us to engage with the material world and fulfill our physical needs.

Yoga asana (postures) help us strengthen and care for this layer. But it’s only the beginning.

Beyond our physical body exists a subtler, more energetic presence—what the yogis call the life force or prana. This leads us to the next kosha: Pranamaya Kosha.

Pranamaya Kosha – The Breath or Energy Body

Beneath the surface of what we see and touch lies a subtler layer of our being—the Pranamaya Kosha, or breath body. This sheath is composed of prana, the vital life energy that flows through and animates us. It is this energy that sustains every physical and mental function. It’s not too dissimilar to “chi,” as known in Chinese traditions.

This kosha both surrounds and penetrates the Annamaya Kosha, flowing through subtle channels known as nadis—akin to the meridians in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Ancient texts speak of nearly 72,000 nadis crisscrossing our being, creating an intricate web of energy distribution as sophisticated as our physical body.

It is said that when this energetic layer is vibrant and balanced, it manifests as vitality, clarity, and resilience. An imbalanced or blocked pranic flow, on the other hand, can lead to physical fatigue, emotional disturbances, or even illness.

Because prana is intimately tied to the breath, pranayama (breath control) becomes a key yogic tool to nourish and regulate this sheath. Practices such as deep diaphragmatic breathing, alternate nostril breathing (nadi shodhana), and kapalabhati invigorate and purify the Pranamaya Kosha, enhancing the flow of energy throughout the body.

Breath becomes the bridge between the body and the mind. As you become more aware of your breath, you tap into the present moment, calming the nervous system and centering the mind.

Manomaya Kosha: The Mental Sheath

The Manomaya Kosha is the “mental sheath,” representing the mind and emotions. It is associated with our thoughts, feelings, and mental patterns, known in Sanskrit as vrittis. This kosha encompasses the mental body—our emotional responses, internal dialogue, and perceptions of the world.

As one of the more subtle layers of our being, the Manomaya Kosha significantly influences how we interpret experiences and impacts our overall well-being. The mind shapes our interactions with the world and colors our experiences with judgment, attachment, and preference.

Cultivating mindfulness is key to mastering this sheath. By learning to observe our thoughts without attachment, we can begin to detach from mental chatter and emotional turbulence. Meditation is a powerful tool for calming the mind and finding inner stillness.

🧘‍♂️ Practice Tip: Let your thoughts come and go without judgment. Be the observer, not the story.

Vijnanamaya Kosha – The Wisdom Body

This kosha is the intellectual or wisdom sheath, housing our intuition, discernment, and inner knowing. It’s the layer of deep insight that enables us to distinguish truth from illusion, and ego from the true Self.

“Listen beyond your thoughts to the quiet wisdom within.”

This sheath transcends ordinary thinking. It’s where we connect with spiritual insight and our inner compass, guiding us toward Svadharma—our true calling.

This kosha is about deep understanding—not just of the world, but of our true nature.

Last night I taught a class and went through this exercise to describe what the 3rd and 4th kosha might look like.

Close your eyes and picture a bright red triangle.
Where did it come from? Your thoughts created it, but it isn’t real. I suggested it, but the image itself is imaginary.
Now ask: Who is seeing that triangle?
It’s not your thoughts—they made it. The one seeing it is the witness. That part of you is real. It watches your thoughts come and go without being them.

The red triangle will fade with the next thought, but the witness remains. It observes what arises—whether from outside influence, subconscious memory, or your own deeper wisdom.

Now, imagine that red triangle turning into a dark purple circle.
Who made that change? Who watched it happen?

This is the heart of self-awareness: You are not your thoughts.
Thoughts pass through like weather. But if you’re not aware, they shape your emotions, breath, and even your body.


The wisdom body discerns the difference between the thoughts and emotions (Manomaya Kosha) and the witness who is unaffected by the thoughts (next kosha). However, your thoughts and emotions do affect your breath and ultimately your physical body. So mind your thoughts!

Anandamaya Kosha – The Bliss Body

At the center of all the koshas lies the Anandamaya Kosha, known as the “bliss body.” This is the most subtle and innermost layer of our being—beyond the physical, energetic, mental, and wisdom layers. It represents our pure essence, a state of peace, joy, and spiritual bliss.

This kosha isn’t shaped by thoughts, emotions, or material form. Instead, it is pure being—the unchanging, eternal part of us, often touched during deep meditation, savasana, or moments of transcendence in everyday life.

It embodies Sat-Chit-Ananda—existence, consciousness, and bliss—where the ego dissolves and unity with all of creation is felt. These aren’t fleeting emotions but deep, abiding joy and contentment, experienced when we are in perfect alignment with our true self.

Practices like meditation, mindfulness, and present-moment awareness help us access this layer. In yoga, it’s the ultimate experience—being one with the divine, at peace, beyond form.

You might even say this is Your Spirit. There’s another blog I wrote just a few weeks ago about this place: https://esterinaanderson.com/2025/02/12/on-your-spirit/

Integrating the Five Koshas

Yoga is not just about stretching our bodies—it’s about integrating all parts of our being: body, breath, mind, wisdom, and spirit. As we journey inward, we realize that these layers are not separate, but interwoven—each one informing and supporting the others.

By nurturing all five koshas, we move closer to our true Self—the eternal spark of consciousness that yoga ultimately helps us remember.

Namaste,

Esterina

On Your Spirit

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

There is a part of you that cannot die. 

Nothing can hurt it. 

It can’t hurt anyone else.

That part of you is incapable of judging. 

It’s unable to get riled up. 

It purely is a witness to the world around it. 

That part of you accepts life on life’s terms. 

That part of you is connected to everything else in the universe. 

It is part of the universal consciousness that just witnesses life as it unfolds. 

 

It’s not happy, sad, or in favor of anyone or anything. It has no ties to the outcome of a single thing. It just is. 

 

Content. Accepting. Peaceful

 

That part is your Everlasting Soul. 

 

It sounds like a creepy church thing (to me). But when I take a step back from those words I personally associate with creepy or religious, I realize that the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism, Buddhism…. all say the same thing. All say we have a soul, spirit, or any word you care to use.

 

All these teachings tell us our soul is imperishable and connected to everything else in the universe. 

 

All these teachings tell us that we can tap into this part of ourselves through prayer, meditation or other forms of contemplation.

 

All these teachings promise that connecting with the deeper source helps us to tune out the noise of the outside world and experience bliss through complete peace. 

 

We all have access to this peace at any moment. Sometimes we find it by accident while walking, looking at a beautiful picture, listening to a piece of music, watching the birds, connecting with another human, or even in a yoga class. There is no right or wrong way to commune with Spirit.

 

What if we saw these great teachings as the allegories they were meant to be and listened to the common themes? 

 

There are so many common themes in these texts. The focus here is on the commonality of spirit and that all the scriptures tell us that our real essence(spirit/soul) simply cannot die. That part lives on past our body’s expiration. 

 

Consider this very special gift, that is not a secret, that every religion, mystic, sage, philosopher, and wisdom teacher has been telling us since the beginning of time. 

 

 

This all sounds lovely, but how is it applied to real life? What does it mean? 

 

Last week in the yoga classes I taught, I used a quote from the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi that says:

 

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words, listen” ~Rumi

 

I hear from so many people that they do not feel connected to a higher power and that something within them longs for it. They look in churches, synagogues, and books for the answers because it is where we have been taught to look.  

 

Personally I am not sure any religion has yet to nail down the perfect prescription for connecting to our souls, but they all have certainly tried and each in its own way has advised us to look no further than within. 

 

“What you seek is seeking you” ~Rumi

 

I can sometimes find this inner peace. In my personal experience I am unable to connect to the spirituality I’m seeking through my brain on an intellectual level. I connect when I shut down thinking and just allow myself to be. 

 

These connections can take place through prayer or meditation. The key is to turn off the non-stop chatterbox voice in your head. The voice that is generated from the brain. 

 

Your spirit is not the voice you hear. The voice is not the real you, the real you is what is hearing that voice. Your spirit is observing the internal noise of that voice and the external world around you. 

 

You are not the angel or devil on your shoulder who are arguing back and forth, justifying a decision or trying to be right. You are the witness listening to these internal dialogues. 

 

The witness is not biased one way or another. The witness just exists. Without judgement or attachment to any kind of an outcome. 

 

We should tap in to recharge, gain perspective, and refuel. Feel the bliss and know that our essence will always be ok. 

 

Does this mean we just sit by and watch the wheels go round and round? I don’t know, but I do not think so. 

 

Religion and spiritual teachings ask us to tap in AND to use our human skills and abilities to do good things in the world.

 

We are not meant to sit completely idle.

 

We need to get off the mat or prie-dieu and do our work in the world. 

 

That work is to make the world a better place than we found it. The work involves using our skills and abilities to influence what we can around us in positive ways. The Serenity Prayer is a perfect guide to keeping that balance of  our circle of control, our circle of influence, where those circles end and where there is little or no control. 

 

Do not be discouraged by what you cannot change. Be the change you want to see. 

 

The strength to accept what can’t be changed,

The courage to change what you can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

 

 

When this is difficult to do, you can always tune back within: 

 

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words, listen” ~Rumi

 

 

And you know what else? This spirit within me – sees that same Spirit within you! 

 

Or as modern day multi-media artist Morgan Harper Nichols writes: “The same light you see in others is shining within you, too.”

 

It’s easier to recognize the spirit in others when you can access it yourself. 

 

Namaste 

 

 

 

 

 

On Gratitude and Self-Care

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Yesterday morning I woke up with that slightly confused feeling of not knowing momentarily where you are or who you are.

It took me a second to adjust. When I did, and I opened my eyes I saw the most beautiful sunrise coming up in my line of vision. I gently touched my husband’s back to wake him up so he could see this gorgeous spectacle outside the window in front of us as well.

We laid there a few minutes in complete silence watching the sun change the colors of the sky so very slowly. It was almost like an artist changing the canvas by mixing the colors they already had on there and making adjustments.

Daren and I have been on a road trip for nearly two weeks and changed locations quite a  bit. It was the first morning in this new place and this view was quite a lovely surprise.

We made our way downstairs to the coffee maker, not knowing how the coffee would turn out. We bumbled around the kitchen and sought to find the things we needed, things we we brought and items in the rental home. We weaved past one another like a well practiced symphony opening and closing cabinets, making do with the things we could find.

Another kitchen, another adjustment. The coffee and breakfast were ok. When it was time to clean up, the previously beautiful sun was at eye level and shining right into the main part of the house and kitchen sink. It was too bright to even see what I was doing. I actually went to find my hand bag to dig out my sunglasses to reach the sponge into the corners of the oddly square shaped pot I made oatmeal in to clean out the parts that were mushy and stuck in this weird pan. The previous evening when we arrived I had felt the opposite, like it was entirely too dark to see anything, no matter how many lights I put on. Both times what I perceived was the wrong level of light – either too much or too little, I felt mildly irritated.

We decided to throw on our shoes to take the dog for a walk and check out the area. I think both Daren and I were a bit disoriented. I went upstairs about 5 times and kept forgetting the same thing. I couldn’t remember where I put my hair tie. Daren couldn’t find his sunglasses. And the sunglasses were direly needed. He came out to walk with us without them.

Suddenly I was really irritated. The sun, the adjustment… the packing and unpacking.

I remembered a conversation I had with a coworker right before I left on vacation almost two weeks ago. She herself just came back from a 2 week vacation and said she thought two weeks was too long to be away. I waved off the thought. I love taking two weeks off and have done it numerous times.

But yesterday morning I knew exactly what she meant. Each of the lovely places (and one which was not lovely) we stayed at was a goldilocks experience in comparison to home where everything is just right. The bed, the height of TV, the shower pressure, the stove… yeah everything.

I missed being home.

My husband and I walked the 3.8 mile route we chose before leaving the house in near silence. I’m not sure we had stopped talking the entire trip, as we somehow have an endless reservoir of things to chat about, but I didn’t want to talk yesterday. I wasn’t feeling it.

I didn’t even know what I was really feeling other than I felt like I had had enough of vacationing. I really just wanted to be home. In my own kitchen, with our coffee maker, and our cats, and bed and shower… and all the creature comforts.

The silence helped me to just feel my emotions and I wondered why I felt like I had had enough.

What is wrong with me? Too much vacation? Is that possible??

I have been practicing how to notice my feelings for over a decade now and I’ve become much more competent after lots and lots and lots of trying to discern what is irking me and/or to come back to a good emotional place.

Yesterday on this walk as we strolled past the billionth cute General Store on this trip, I giggled to myself thinking about how Daren who never complains about anything said something to the effect of “How many lighthouses can we keep going to look at and walk around on their rocks?”. It wasn’t a question as much as an acknowledgement that we needed some time to do nothing and not see all there is to possibly see and cram in.

The lightness and humor I found in what he said was helped me to become grateful that we could do this. I was suddenly annoyed with myself for having been irritated. There are wars going on. People are living in fear. There is poverty. Who am I to feel annoyed by the sunlight in a well-stocked kitchen? Woe is poor me for too much packing and unpacking of our things we are lucky to have.

Then my guilt crept in. I don’t know how common it is, but I feel guilty often about not constantly doing something productive or helpful to the world. In some small way (no, if I’m honest with myself large way), I feel guilty for being able to do nothing except enjoy life for a little while.

So I asked myself why that is, which I actually didn’t have to think about – I knew the answer to it and it had to do with the gratefulness I had suddenly felt that I am on a beautiful walk in a Tuesday morning.

There is so much suffering and pain, hurt and meanness, coldness, depression, poverty… how can I just go about life and take pictures of beautiful things? Sleep in? Make new meals in new places? Dine out and try new foods? My dog has a better life than a lot of people. I have trouble reconciling this!

I try to do my part for the world and to make a difference in other peoples’ lives. But for some reason, I do not think it’s enough.

Is that my problem or is that A problem? I’m not sure.

So we kept walking and I kept thinking.

In the yoga classes I teach, I often highlight the importance of self-care. The importance of filling your own cup.

In the past two weeks I cannot tell you how often I thought or commented to my husband how much nature charges my soul. I’ve referenced video games – particularly the Legend of Zelda. Games where the character is low on “life” and goes to ponds and into the mountains to re-charge. They sit there and you can see on the screen the hearts or whatever symbol of the character’s strength build back up.

I’m not going to lie – I haven’t played video games in a serious way since the late 80’s/early 90’s so I cannot even be sure that is something that is done anymore. But it speaks to the importance of getting away from life; particularly in nature and “recharging”.

I began to reconcile my guilt with the thought of filling my cup. I remembered before I left how much I desperately felt I needed it. I also reconciled this guilt with learning about new things and trying new foods and thinking about new ways to help myself and others be the best version of ourselves in this crazy world. To be a part of helping to make it less crazy. Like the idea of video game characters even realizing they need to refuel before they can keep going out there on their adventures and slaying the “bad” things that threaten us all.

On the way back from walk we passed a house with “free” things in the front which I noticed on the way out, and I grabbed two wooden hanging art things that I envisioned painting onto them some of the photos I had taken. It made me excited to go back to our rental and chose some photos to work with, then to go back home and to paint these wooden treasures.

By the time we got back to the rental, Daren, Koji the dog and myself were winded and thirsty. Daren sat outside to cool off. Koji went to take a long drink, and I grabbed my laptop and sat on the couch to capture some of my ideas. Minutes later I was fantasizing about our next vacation. I thought maybe we can take a long weekend to take a drive and then work remotely from a different place. I started looking at rental places in Upstate NY.

What is wrong with me??? I’m wanting to go home, but I’m already planning our next trip? I am guilty about having so much free, unproductive time, and now planning more.

I almost don’t understand myself, but I think I do. I love so many things. I love life. I also really really like my everyday life at home. When you like your job and family (most of the time); when you love your house, neighborhood, town, friends, hobbies, groups, etc.,  going home from vacation is awesome.

So why do I take vacations? Well – I love to travel too. I really love seeing new places. Imagining what it would be like to live in the dwellings in the locations where we visit. I love visiting new sites, hiking new woods, going to new grocery stores and getting outside to exercise in different places. I love it all. It helps me to miss and appreciate my everyday life too. As we pass homes for sale and I’m compelled to look them up – I am reminded that I love where I am. And most importantly, it recharges me.

I am in complete gratitude for everything around me. It is gratitude that helps put me back into perspective when I fall out of it. How dare I be grumpy about the not so perfect coffee maker? And how dare I feel guilty about doing things I love? I am grateful for that guilt. It helps me to remember that I’m lucky and that I should help others in any possible way that I can do so. Am I perfect at this? No – but I keep doing things and keep trying. If we all did our part to help the world be a better place, it would be a better place. The more I see of it, the more I love and want to protect it and the creatures in it.

I feel so lucky and blessed to love my life and to want to come home from a vacation to get back to it. My life at home is as full as my life on vacation. I remember long ago reading a passage on the importance of making every moment of your life fulfilling, so much so that the desire to retire or vacation while pleasant, is not what you are living for.

Not everyone loves the life they are living. I am very lucky to have that feeling. It’s not to be taken for granted for a single moment.

I am fully aware that this state can change at any moment and that it would be as normal and expected as never having been comfortable and in love with the things and people (and pets) around me.

So for now, for the moment I am thankful for the experience I am having in life. I will try to not feel guilty about it and to do my part to keep making the world a better place. And I will be thankful that time off brings me back to this very perspective of gratitude again and again.

Namaste

Pictured below are the two pieces of free things I picked up and hope to transform into something even more beautiful and meaningful.

On our Clothing Donations and Ghana Beaches

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

If you don’t know about the world wide problem of clothes on the Ghanian beaches, and have a moment, stop right here and just look up  “clothes in the ocean off Ghana” and choose images. What you will see is not an exaggeration. It’s real and it’s disturbing.

The clothes we give away to thrift or place in bins have the best of intentions coming from us. There are people who benefit and get their clothes from these places. But there are not enough people in the world who have clothing needs in comparison to the waste.

Back in 2017 my husband and I traveled to Africa for a few weeks on an overland Safari. Twice we passed through the town of Maun in Botswana. It was the only town with the smallest sign of stores and street vendors that we saw in the entire country. Do you know what they were mostly selling? Clothes. Clothes from first world countries that we buy and donate. Racks and racks upon streets and streets of our old clothes.

You would be hard pressed to meet anyone who hasn’t heard about the horrors of the clothing business and sweat shops. Even though it’s been about 20-30 years since I first heard about it, the problem only seems to be getting worse. More and more shops pop up with more and more humans ‘earning’ starvation level wages, being denied bathroom breaks and sick leave. What’s worse? Knowing this hasn’t helped me to remember to stop with the buying. I did start shopping consignment a few years ago, but it’s so tempting to keep buying cheap inexpensive items online when I need something and it shows up right at my door less than a day later.

But it doesn’t make it right.

Despite my own attempts to streamline and keep a capsule closet, somehow every few months I have an overstuffed closet and find myself purging my clothes, shoes and jewelry, keeping only “what sparks joy”. I attempt the “sparks joy” mantra when I am online and needing for example, a simple pair of black leggings. Do you know how difficult it would  be to find a pair of black leggings in a thrift or consignment shop? That also means I need to leave my couch and spend what little precious time I have off in a store with racks of clothes packed so tight that it hurts my fingers to even push the hangers aside.

So instead I jump on Amazon and put “small black leggings” in the search bar. My intention is for it to end there – just to choose a single pair and get off. But there are so many options I find myself spending entirely too much time clicking on multiple images that are not capris, have fringe, a flap on the waste, some ridiculous pattern… Minutes and minutes tick by. I find one that is perfect, I think! But not my size, they are not black, they don’t carry black. I click and click and I’m in a hole of despair. Then finally I’ll find a pair in a 3 pack. Do I choose the pack of three black or the ones that have black, white and red? I could use a red pair I tell myself, to match the tunic I bought and haven’t worn yet because my last pair of cheap (black none-the-less) leggings have a hole in a seam. Even though black would match, red would match better. And then right next to that 3 pack is another with grey, navy and army green. Those would all match great too! Yay I think. Now that I have spent more time than it would take to drive to a store to find leggings, I finally find a pair. I just bought 6 pairs and I believe I am done.

They seem to arrive 5 minutes later and one of two things will happen. I will either unpack them and put them away, or try them on because they look funny, or see-through or too tight. If I keep them the likelihood of me using them is low – I will more than likely grab the simple black pair over and over until they crumble to trash in a few months and completely forget about these other colors. When I purge my overflowing closet again in a few months I will donate them because I don’t use them. They don’t spark joy.

OR I will try them on and hate them. Then I will find myself having to drive to Kohl’s to return them. Kohls will give me a 5% off coupon at which time I will pass leggings on my way to the far end of the store and I will buy a pair on the spot without trying them on because I am in a rush to get somewhere. The same saga will unfold and those leggings I returned are not going back on a shelf – they are being donated or thrown away (look this up too, it’s true).

This is all from me, with good intentions. Who attempts to only shop fair trade or consignment. And I’m in the hole with the rest of the world. A cog in a horrific wheel of human waste, destroying the planet.

This isn’t just a problem with leggings for me. Or clothes. In the past 6 months I cannot even tell you how many coffee frothers I have been through. I will not even look at Temu. When I search “American Made” or “Fair Trade” – it’s almost as if search engines are broken. All I get are ads, sponsors and the absolute inability to tell where or how anything is made.  

A paragraph from my enraged husband: Now we have a new online shopping service, Temu, that has taken “fast fashion”, the concept of cheap clothes production destined to be worn and thrown out quickly, to a new level. Temu specializes in selling high volume, low quality clothes and other junk from China. They offer incredibly low prices through a combination of Chinese government subsidies, purchasing clothes from Chinese factories that exploit their workers, (look up the factory policy of 996) and avoiding US import taxes by shipping in small quantities.  China makes no secret about its goal of dominating global production of goods, and they do so through anti-competitive practices that leave US made and other non-Chinese producers at a disadvantage. Shop like a billionaire = shop and contribute to mountains of garbage on African beaches, and poor Chinese workers with no time for anything other than work and sleep AND forcing companies from other countries out of business.

I don’t know how to stop the madness, but look at Ghana. It starts with awareness at least. How about “shop like an informed billionaire”.

An article just published today on the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/business/economy/tariffs-amazon-walmart-china-shein.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb&ngrp=mnp&pvid=1B1BD8B6-958A-4F1A-91C1-25CBD779178E