MY YOGA JOURNEY

As a teenager I battled anxiety, depression and an eating disorder; I was in desperate need of holistic help. I found a Rodney Yee yoga VHS tape in my mom's junk drawer and decided to give it a try.  Like any first-timer, I was confused and challenged by the foreign movements and breath instruction, but it helped me sleep so I stuck with it for a couple months. The seed of yoga was planted. I found my way into a Bikram Yoga studio at 19 and started going regularly, appreciating the heat, intensity and focus it demanded. Eventually I grew tired of the monotony of the poses and the militaristic teaching style, and while it served as a nice distraction, I was still battling my demons fiercely.

One fateful day while I was living in Boulder, Colorado I arrived late at the Bikram studio and missed my opportunity to attend class. Needing a yoga fix, I remembered there was a different type of yoga studio down the street and went there instead. That was my first vinyasa class and since that moment, I don't think a day has gone by that I haven't had yoga on the brain.

I started practicing every single day, sometimes two or three times per day. I was in love with the grace of flowing between poses and the stillness in between; the fire that burned in my muscles during those long holds and the rush of endorphins after back-bending. The physical changes were notable, but there was a deeper shift that started to happen. I no longer had a belly full of anxiety, and the inertia of self-doubt that had been holding me for years started to loosen it's grip. I felt like I could move forward. The critical voices in my head were quieter. My self-love was growing. The act of showing up for myself to practice every day and breathing intentionally was like finding the medicine I had been needing for a very long time.

Through the practice of staying in poses through discomfort, I started to feel at home inside myself. I learned to sit in my feelings and recognize the value in them, no matter how enormous or petty they seemed. I grew the courage to stop numbing myself, and over time stopped engaging in self-destructive behaviors. My practice was to feel. It was, at first, overwhelming, as years of buried emotions started surfacing, but I learned to balance them and had yoga as a healthy way to cope. I learned to be ok with feeling messy and needy. I accepted my humanness, stood tall in it, and this empowered me. I knew I had to share this practice and completed a 600 hour teacher training in 2009. I've since studied with master teachers including Richard Freeman, Ana Forrest, Seane Corn, Baron Baptiste and Rusty Wells to name a few.

After teaching group classes and workshops for 13 years and creating and leading two teacher trainings, I made an inspired decision to enroll in yoga therapy training in 2023 through Optimal State Yoga Therapy School with Amy Wheeler and underwent another rigorous, well-rounded and powerful 800 hours of training.

My relationship to yoga continues to evolve through all my transformations as a woman. My practice has changed, slowed down, grown much quieter. I practice because it holds me in remembrance that I am an instrument of the divine with a powerful purpose in this world. I practice because it reminds me that I am a strong and messy human. Yoga helps me be a better mother, daughter, sister, friend and partner. It's a practice of self-love and presence, and we can only be present with others to the degree that we are present with ourselves. As time goes by and my awareness deepens, I grow increasingly and humbly aware of the way my thoughts affect my life. The roots of my gratitude for the teachings of yoga grow deeper and deeper as life goes on and it remains the one constant mirror, offering me a true reflection, as uncomfortable as it can sometimes be, and remains my steadfast path to healing and growth.