goodness

wellness for real life

I’m flannery foster.

I’m not a life coach.

I teach you how to help your self,
by yourself.

join me for the annual goodtrip:india , March 1 -16, 2015

practice

Due to significant demand, I formalized a curriculum for my students to apply my strategies for wellness to their own lives.

We work virtually for greater consistency and success. We focusing on a different dimension of wellness weekly to determine where imbalance exists. We utilize my strategies to achieve equilibrium.

These tools are yours forever to navigate your next transition on your own. I'm available for individual sessions when if you find yourself in uncharted territory or simply require an empathetic listener to remind you of the skills you've acquired.
Having owned and managed multiple businesses and employed and managed hundreds of people over the past 25 years, I have an intimate understanding of the challenges facing entrepreneurs and organizations.

The same principals of wellness apply to groups and individuals.

While financial remuneration is the primary component of compensation for your team, creating an environment and culture that contributes to their wellness will ensure the same return for Ownership, Management and HR...as well as increased profitability.
I teach the practical application of the 8 Limbs of Yoga in my Intro to Goodyoga workshop
I can abbreviate and expand the content of my offering to rom one hour to one week to suit the needs of your studio, business or event.
Studios have reported ongoing increased attendance by participants following my workshops.

Businesses have told me that their teams have bonded and benefited from communication and coping skills.

Let's discuss your needs and how I can serve them.
I’ve personally taught 20 complete teacher trainings and I was formerly teacher training program advisor for YogaWorks, the world’s largest training program.
While I can no longer allocate the time required to conduct my own trainings, I'd love to consult on your studio's program and teach individual workshops as available.
With the most traveled yoga teacher in the world, goodtrips go off the beaten path for an epic, ethical adventure you won’t experience at any resort.
Join me March 1 - 16, 2025 for my annual tour of India's spiritual centers.

read my student’s stories here.

philosophy

According to The National Wellness Institute, founded by Dr. Bill Hettler, who coined the word, “wellness“:
- is a conscious, self-directed, and evolving process of achieving one’s full potential.
- encompasses lifestyle, mental and spiritual well-being, and the environment.
- is positive, affirming, and contributes to living a long and healthy life.
- is multicultural and holistic, involving multiple dimensions.
Dr. Hettler offered 6 pillars in 1972 to define and assess one’s overall health, with 2 more eventually added for common usage. They are:
1. Physical
2. Emotional
3. Spiritual
4. Occupational
5. Social
6. Intellectual
7. Environmental
8. Financial
Acknowledging that our health is the result of balance across and attention to all areas of our existence is the first step to contentment.
Yoga has become synonymous with a form of physical exercise that bares little resemblance to the practice of Patanjali’s 8 Limbed Philosophy designed to achieve peace of mind.

The third limb, Asana, the poses we call “Yoga,“ means “seat“ and, more poetically, “circumstance.“ Patanjali said very little about 3rd Limb. Just 3 words. “Shtiram Sukham Asanam,“ or, “Strong, Comfortable Seat.”
When I’m “doing Yoga,“ I’m meditating, whether seated or moving. The other positions are designed to prepare the body to sit in stillness for an hour or, like the Buddha, 40 days and 40 nights, while equanimously observing the sensations in one’s bodies, absent of aversion or craving.
The Buddha was, in fact, a Yogi, but his discoveries while meditating innovated beyond the practice that prepared him for his realization.
Buddha’s found that the practice of yoga fell short of ending his suffering. It was a mere distraction or comfort from suffering, not a cure.

In his meditation, he realized that seeking an answer outside of oneself, a devotional practice, provided only temporary respite rather than permanent relief.
His technique, called Vipassana, pulls the weed of our suffering from the root. WE are the cause of our suffering, so WE can provide the only cure.
Vipassana can be summed up in a single sentence: Equanimous awareness of one’s sensations, absent of aversion and craving.
A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.
Eudaimonia, the Greek term best translated as “good spirit,“ “happiness,“ or “flourishing“, requires 3 behaviors, according to Aristotle:
- Live virtuously.
- Focus on what you can control
- Taking accountability for your actions.
In short, a good life is derived from good choices and good deeds.
Simple…but, for some reason, not easy.
Lebanese Mathematician and Philosopher Nassim Talep said, “ A Stoic is a Buddhist with an attitude.

About 200 years after the Buddha taught the lessons of his enlightenment in Northern India, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his contemporaries Seneca and Epictetus, inspired by the Greeks, similarly determined that peace of mind was the worthiest goal to work toward.

They also agreed that the best approach to achieve this is to maintain equanimity in response to external events.
Meditation was the Buddha’s method of practice. Marcus Aurelius’ wrote in his Meditations, “Every hour focus your mind attentively…on the performance of the task in hand, with dignity, human sympathy, benevolence and freedom, and leave aside all other thoughts. You will achieve this, if you perform each action as if it were your last…”
While their opinions differ on the killing of animals and indulging in sexual pleasure (the Romans were more liberal), they agreed that, as Epictetus stated, “Men are disturbed not by events but by their opinion about events.”
These are universal truths that have proven successful for millenia and remain applicable today. What I find most remarkable, though, is that the same concerns continue to plague humans despite our innovations in technology and psychology.

We can travel faster, protect ourselves from disease, live longer, yet our own minds still cause us suffering, and only our own minds can end that suffering.