I had a profound transformation (physically and mentally) when I completed my 200hr yoga teacher training in 2015. I also REALLY enjoyed teaching classes after I completed the program. Holding space and teaching yoga felt meaningful, and the people who came to class were noticing shifts in themselves & their lives too.  

Then I stopped teaching and practicing.

 A couple of reasons why:

-Life shifted. I focused energy into my relationship with my husband; nursing school took up every second of my existence; eventually my two little boys also consumed more of me than I thought I had available. We decided to sell our home, so we renovated the entire thing and sold it at the very start of the pandemic. We bought land & my husband chose to build from scratch (he cleared our property and used the trees for lumber for the house. Currently he's working on the joinery). We moved in with my parents to make this vision come to life. Somewhere in there I decided switched careers; I left my job as an RN to open my massage practice. And motherhood was a whole new world and I was barely hanging on.  So yeah, yoga was NOT on my mind (lol).

-The yoga industry took off and became very superficial (what I was exposed to at the time anyway). It seemed like the message that was being conveyed was that to do yoga (or teach it) you had to be skinny, look cute in leggings, do all the splits and headstands & then post it on social media and have a ton of people follow you. This sealed the deal on not practicing or teaching again. I mean I had two kids, my body felt like it was morphed, and I certainly wasn’t doing headstands anymore. So I strayed.  

A lot more has happened since straying from my practice. I went through periods of anxiety, moments of depression, excitement, feeling lost, finding myself, then feeling lost again, a million transitions, learning and navigating motherhood, ebbing and flowing with my marriage. I’ve felt disconnected from myself & of course, the curse of social media had consumed myself with what other people are doing vs what I should be doing (I have a love-hate relationship with social media). 

The most influential thing that has happened since I last practiced was staying really sick after having Covid in 2022 (this will be a blog for another time). During recovery, a lot surfaced for me & I was realigned with the path I needed to be on. I made several positive changes because of this; one of them was diving back into yoga education. Yoga philosophy resonated with me on an incredibly deep level & slowly, I started shift back into the yoga world.

So, here I am again, 7 years later, on my mat, reconnecting with my practice (and beginning to teach classes again).

What I’ve learned & why yoga is becoming the center of my being:

• The philosophical side of yoga has allowed to create a meaningful and intentional life.
• I’m always learning and evolving, becoming a better version of myself. When I picked up a book on yoga philosophy, I was INSTANTLY hooked & I refer to it frequently.
• It teaches me how to be a good human.
• The physical side (poses, asana) helps me move out of my mind and into my body. Moving my body literally balances out the chaos in my head.
• It shows me the sh*t I need to work on. It unravels the toxic attitudes and habits I have.
• It reminds me of how AMAZING my life is. I am incredibly blessed. Livin' the dream. 
• It forces me to creates space for myself, to be ALONE and figure life out.
• It brings a sense of balance and connection to navigate through this insanely complex world we’re living in.

I don’t practice poses every day. I try my best to move my body when I can, and if it happens on my mat- perfect. Sometimes I just pick up my philosophy book in the morning & then helps me set my intention for the day.  What’s most important to me right now, is connecting with meaning of yoga and how I can integrate it into my life so that I can live in a balanced, purposeful way. Everything else comes together as it should when I am able to achieve that.