I am so proud to have finished this certificate.  Every since I have been a yoga instructor ( 16 years!) , I have taught in a trauma informed manner ( as I learned through this course!)

It is so important to me that my students feel safe, loved and accepted for how they choose to express themselves.  As a person who has lived through significant trauma in my life, I came to yoga pretty broken.  Some days my self loathing made it difficult to stand in a class in some poses.  I am so glad that my teachers were also trauma informed and always made me feel safe and gave me a voice .

It took a long time, deep work with my shadow side and breath to gain the sense of balance and curiosity again.   I think that is why I have always taught the way that I do, because of all the work that I had to do on self to return to my true self. 

Now that we are online for awhile, it is such an honor to be able to assist you to find strength and healing within your home. 

Please let me know how I can be of assistance helping you to find materials and resources on your healing path.  Also please let me know if a pose ever makes you feel uncomfortable.  You never have to explain why a pose makes you uncomfortable, just that it does.

Your healing will always be the most important yoga we can do together!

I haven't done a flow like this in a while, but looking back, I still love it!  I love that this flow works with the thighs so very well, includes balance and mobilization of the joints within the body.

As you can see from this series, I have been teaching in a trauma informed, creating community and inclusion, and body positive manner.  It is just who I have been as a yoga teacher, it isn't because I took a class or because there is now a curvy market to tap into.  Teaching people that YOGA IS, is what my hearts cry has always been. 

To be clear, I did and have taken curvy and body positive classes as a yoga teacher because even with as much as I believe in this teaching, I do't always get it right!  I keep looking for new skills all the time, from other teachers and from my favorite teacher...YOU!

I love looking at my teaching from the past as well as how much my understanding of yoga has changed, my body has changed, and how I relate to my body has changed.   I do teach this sequence a lot differently now for sure.

Yet, did you notice how I used a block on one side and not the other?  Yes, this is what I am always talking in yoga, be in the body at the moment.   I try to not make assumptions as to what I may need, I reach for what I do need!  Like one block for balance on one side. 

Also in this class, I talk about the abs, like moving the extra skin to get deeper into a pose.  In my classes, we learn to love all parts of ourselves and not to judge any part of the body.  As you can see, I have always been a curvy yogi and have taught those principles for 16 years!

However you choose to express your yoga is yours.  In my classes, I emphasize that and when you attend , you will find people helping each other!  Why?  Because we have been there!!

If you are ready to move through shame, deeper into a more loving way of expressing your beauty, then please join us.  I will be also putting new content up soon.

Remember, I love you just as you are.  You do have a yoga body and it is perfect just as you are today!

 GIThis flow seems so simple, yet this is one of my first profound yoga experiences. I learned how to drop the shame in my abs, to connected my back and learn to stand up straight. 

When I teach at the inpatient treatment center, this is often when the students will either have one or other other response. Students will either make jokes or will get really serious about how they are moving their body.  

I was taught in massage school and have seen this truth for the past 26 years, we hold shame, guilt and anger in our abs.  Yet this gentle work using the movement with this sensitive area can help with emotional integration. 

I have spent many an hour crying on my mat as I was moving the emotions and pain through my body.  As I did my work, I have become freer.

Allow your self the freedom to feel and move toward your power of self love and compassion. Give it a try, you will feel the power that you have within.

I still love this series. It may seem like it is about the abs, but the bolster really helps you to become aware of the vertebra and how you can learn to isolate one at a time. 

Allow yourself to move slowly through this series and to learn to move with the breath. First try the flow, then add in the breath. Make sure that you draw the abs in deeper to protect your low back.  Maybe you can't pull up all the way, that's ok, draw up as far as you can with breath. 

A small joke that we have in my class is that the first one is always " clunky", your body will organize to the flow. Have patience and fun. 

​You are loved.

Ahhh, still teach this flow, every week.  One of my favorites.  
I have changed it up a bit, but the sequences is the same.  There is nothing else other than this sequence that makes the arthritis in my neck and shoulders quiet. 

Nothing else like this sequence allows me to be both in my grief and in my hope at the same time.  If you have are in experiencing grief, opening the chest becomes a game changer.
I remember going through my divorce.  I think the people thought I was having an easy time of it and I think from the outside , I could understand that perception. Things looked like I was happy, I ( erroneously ) was in a new relationship, new house, all my kids, new grandbaby. The internal rearranging however, took all I had.  I would double over in panic attacks, cry out his name in the middle of the night, and spent a lot of time missing him.  As sad as it is to say, I still think the divorce had to happen, yet I lost a good friend and still miss him at times. 

The pain was locked in my chest so very deep.  A cry that is so big you can't cry it, do you know the one? My yoga came to the rescue. I laid on the floor on my back, legs up on a chair, back of my knees on the chair.  I stretched my arms out to my sides and opened my chest to the heavens and breathed.  The breaths at first were so shallow, the deeper I got, the heavier my chest got, until I started to cry. It was a flood.  I felt like I cried out every ounce of water out of my body.  For 20 minutes, I laid on that floor, sobbing, breathing, looking a wreck, healing , and growing.  When I got up, things changed.  I was still sad and it took a while for the panic attacks to stop.  But the crying at night stopped, the ruminating stopped, the story telling stopped. 

It took a good cleaning of my own house to come back to my true heart. 

This is hard work and yet worth it.  Make sure you are in a place where you feel safe and supported.  Then lie down, open your arms and breathe. The breath will take care of the rest. You may have to do this more than once.  ( and while this is a very powerful pose, please know that the information that your breath brings up may be best processed with a mental health professional- I love that part.  My breath helps me know what I need to work on next !) You will notice each time a bit more clearing, a bit more joy, a few less sobs though there may still be tears.

Heart opening, one of my favorite poses and definitely worth the work and the benefits are amazing!! 

I have always taught yoga the same way.  Kinda funny now it is " cool". I consider myself a teacher holistically and the poses are a part of that teaching, as is the heart.

We have always started in a circle, I introduce myself and the topic for the day.  Always trying to keep it meaningful and modern with the philosophy of yoga in mind. Each student gets to say why they are in the class and what they need.  It doesn't matter their answer, it is the truth they have that day.

Then we move together in a group to process the information on a cellular level.  

So it was on this day on the video and the teaching that says are still the same questions that I battle in my head to date " What is holding me back?"  What does hold me back from fully expressing my yoga?  My dreams?  My joy? Asking to have my needs met? Meeting my own needs?

I don't know that there is one answer for every concern.  One place it starts for me is noticing the fear or sadness.  Sometimes when I am in a pose, I will just feel too vulnerable that day.  Maybe I am processing something from my past, sometimes from the current life challenging situation.  Other times, it is body shame.  As a trauma survivor, I am surprised at how often shame still comes up for me.  Many times a teacher will say to feel a certain part of my body, it can be some place as simple as my knee.  But if my mind is processing.a fear or pain all of a sudden , I can't bend my knee or it makes me want to cry/have an anxiety attack.  Or if I am struggling with abandonment again, I may not attend a class at all, I am not ready for the integration. 

Yes, there are many reasons that I allow myself to be held back.  The wonderful answer for me has become, I don't let myself stay there.  As best I can, I notice when I am stuck and ask myself "what do I want to do about this?" Honestly , sometimes the answer is "nothing, I am too overwhelmed".  Other times it's all about knuckling in and doing what I need to do and am ready to move through.

Always know that in the yoga studio and with a teacher, it is ok for you to be fully expressed.  If you in any way feel shamed or uncomfortable, please know yoga is still for you.  Maybe that teacher is not trauma informed ( and I have seen a lot of those teachers who think they are and then still do triggering cues and poses!).  Forgive them quickly and go to another class. 

Yoga is one of the ways that I can access the information about my blocks holistically, mind, body and spirit.  May you find your way to remove your blocks that heals you. May you take the time and give yourself a ton of permissions to take all the time you need to heal. remember healing is a journey, not a destination.

 I hope that I will see you on the mat with me as we both walk through the healing that yoga brings us both.

Namaste

I remember my first yoga class.  " OK class, let's do a small warm up of sun salutations!"  8 intermediate level sun salutations for this fat girl almost killed me.  The only reason I didn't run out of the door screaming is because I needed the gym credit for college. 

And that teacher changed my life.  There was never one day, one pose or one emotion that she couldn't support me through.  She just saw possibilities in me where I saw flaws and defects. 

I was so inspired that I took a yoga teacher training, my teacher and the classmates also saw beauty in my body.   They supported my every move.

Then I began to teach.  Please know that I love all the people I have been blessed to teach and to teach with.  Every one has taught me lessons.  The people who laughed at me when I said I was a yoga teacher , the yoga teachers that said I couldn't really love yoga or I wouldn't be ( you know---they meant fat), the students who would come in and never come back because I had nothing to teach them.

Or my personal favorite, when my body positive class was boycotted because I called it My Real Bodyoga.  ( You see I have always believed that I get to define my real body as I choose and so do you)

Yes, being the first body positive teacher in my area was hard.  It still can be sometimes.  There is still prejudice.  I will never be asked to be in the promo materials for a studio, often times my opinions and education of 16 years of yoga plus 12 years of being a body worker is ignored or minimized. 

And here I still stand.  Proud of my body. When the doctor gave me difficult news last year, I took to my mat with a passion.  When Covid hit, I took to the mat again.

 I have a taught yoga to probably over a thousand wonderful souls .  Many have gone on to other teachers, some have stayed for years, many have found healing, some have found their smile again.  All have been accepted for who they choose to be and how they express themselves.

Love yourself just as you are.  That is where the change begins.  It isn't a change to a different size or diet, the change begins when you learn to stop chasing what others want and begin to demand more from your life.  Less judgement, more love. 

It's time.  For you and me to lean into loving ourselves just as we are. 

If you have struggled with body image, I am your teacher.   I will sit with you as long as you need, move slowly or quickly, moving and breathing together.  Until.....until you get the Yoga Smile.  Once you get that smile, you will never go back to believing anything less than you are amazing.