The Video below is from 2013!!

Join the My Real Bodyoga Community online , every Saturday morning at 8:30 AM for Yoga on the Ball!  You will work both your abs and your giggle muscle!

Click here to let me know you want to attend!

I am so inspired by the My Real Bodyoga community. You have been my inspiration during this time and new classes and opportunities are in the works!

I have brought back YOGA ON THE BALL on Saturday mornings at 8:30 AM.  I adore the way that the ball helps to increase flexibility while honoring injuries and supporting the core. 

The classes on Mondays at 6:30, Tuesdays at 6 PM and Wednesdays at 10:30 AM are the My Real Bodyoga classes that you have come to know. 

Tuesdays at 4:30 is Restorative Yoga.

You can feel free to buy a class card and attend any of these classes.  Once you have paid, I send you the ZOOM link.

Have you wondered why I am still on ZOOM?  Other studios are live, why not me.  Here is why.  I live for my yoga classes.  I need to kindness and joy that I find on the mat with you and just won't allow the shifting sands of our time to impact if I can spend time with you or not.  So, until flu season is done, I will be online.  You will continue to be safe in my classes and by bringing yoga into your home, you are putting meditation and healing into your own home. 

I am loving yoga with the students that have chosen to follow me online.  I look forward to the opening of the studio next year and am busy making plans to be the first body positive yoga studio in the area.  In my studio, the teachers will be rigorously trained to understand the concepts of power and privilege, will have the compassion and education of being both trauma and body positive informed. ​It will be a safe and welcoming studio from the moment you hit the front door until your experience is completed.  ( PS since what I am building is for US, can you let me know what would make a yoga studio welcoming for YOU!!)

This coming year, there will be specialized coursework on line from Managing Anger with Yoga , to working a plan of recovery.   Make sure you stay informed and watch all the changes!

 Remember, I really do love you and miss those who are back yet.  You are a big part of my smile and joy and I look forward to sharing the mat with you and the continuing community that we have spent 17 years to build!

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