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One morning, after shooting back-to-back weddings, I found myself staring at my memory cards—unable to remember what I had actually captured.
It wasn’t just fatigue. I couldn’t access the emotional memory of moments I had physically witnessed hours earlier.
The father-daughter dance. The vows. The first look. I had been there, camera in hand, doing my job. But something in my brain had stopped recording the present moment.
I had spent years as a photographer chasing what I now call “Green Moments”—those rare points when everything aligns, when breath moves without effort, when thought and action become one. I had first discovered this state at 13, sprinting down a soccer field in Norway, the tall green grass slick beneath my cleats, time slowing as I laced the ball for the winning assist. I found it again behind the camera, capturing authentic emotion by dropping into presence rather than forcing the perfect shot.
But somewhere along the way, I lost access to it.
Most people call what I experienced burnout. I call it rhythm bankruptcy—the state where we’ve depleted our capacity for presence so thoroughly that our system begins to shut down.
Here’s the thing: I did everything we’re told to do. I took time off. I meditated. I exercised. I got more sleep.
It helped, but only temporarily. The moment I returned to my normal life, the same patterns reemerged. What I didn’t understand then was that burnout isn’t just about doing too much—it’s about living in a way that systematically blocks access to our natural state of flow.
Recovery doesn’t just require rest. It requires rhythm.
We’re living through a crisis of rhythm that’s largely invisible because we’ve normalized its symptoms. The average time spent on a single screen before switching tasks is just 47 seconds—down from 2.5 minutes in 2004. We switch, scroll, check, respond, and fragment ourselves into a thousand tiny pieces, then wonder why we feel scattered and depleted even after a full night’s sleep.
The conventional wisdom says push through, optimize harder, find a better productivity system. But pure hustle without rhythm is just a faster route to the same place I found myself that morning: staring at evidence of a life I couldn’t remember living.
My healing began when I stopped trying to fix myself and started studying how presence actually works—not as a peak experience reserved for athletes and artists, but as a biological reality that can be cultivated through specific practices.
What I discovered changed everything: the people who maintained deep presence despite demanding lives weren’t superhuman. They simply understood rhythm—the natural oscillation between focus and release, challenge and recovery, effort and integration.
Ancient wisdom traditions have known this for millennia. In yoga, this rhythm is built into the practice itself—the inhale and exhale, the expansion and contraction, the movement and stillness. The practice of 108 Sun Salutations, traditionally performed at solstices and equinoxes, isn’t just physical exercise. It’s a doorway back to rhythm.
Why 108? The number appears across spiritual traditions as sacred—108 beads on a mala, 108 Upanishads, 108 sacred sites. But beyond symbolism, there’s something that happens when we commit to a practice long enough for the mind to stop counting and the body to take over. Somewhere around salutation 40 or 50, the analytical brain quiets. The inner critic fades. What remains is breath, movement, and presence.
This is the state I had lost. And this practice helped me find my way back.
I’m not suggesting 108 salutations is the only path, but I am suggesting that rhythm—not rest alone—is the medicine many of us are missing.
For years, scattered practitioners and yoga communities around the world have honored the solstices and equinoxes with 108 Sun Salutations—a tradition as old as the practice itself. This year, I’m helping to weave these threads together through The 108 Event, a global gathering that connects those practicing in living rooms, studios, and outdoor spaces across every time zone.
The event is virtual and hybrid—some will join online, others will gather locally with their own communities, all moving together at sunrise and sunset with 108 Sun and Moon Salutations. It’s growing into something larger: a connection point for teachers, speakers, and anyone who believes that rhythm is medicine we can practice together.
Whether it’s 108 salutations or 10, the invitation is the same: to step out of the fragmentation and back into rhythm. To remember that flow isn’t something we achieve through force of will—it’s something we allow to emerge when we create the right conditions.
That morning with the memory cards was a wake-up call. My brain had stopped recording because I had stopped being present for my own life. The way back wasn’t through more effort. It was through returning to the rhythm that had always been available—breath by breath, movement by movement, one salutation at a time.
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