Authentic. Showing Up. Living Life. Striving.

Lessons from the mat….  The counterpose for LIFE…. Supported Fish…..  Think about how we live our daily lives.  Shoulders hunched over, head down, shoulders and neck tense. Fast and hurried.  Just get me through this day as fast as possible so I can go to bed, get back up in the morning and do it all over again.  We don’t trust. We aren’t vulnerable. We don’t use our voice or advocate for ourselves, told to “keep quiet.” We protect and shield our hearts, fear of being hurt, damaged further.  As a yoga teacher and a psychotherapist I have recognized that our practice on the mat often mirrors how we live. Think about your practice, if you have one.  Do you struggle with balance poses? How about balance in life? Do you get anger or frustrated if you have to sit still or are challenged? Do you give up and think you’re not good enough if a class or asana is to challenging or advanced for you? Do you show up in all power classes, pounding aw...

Are the Mountains Calling You? Registration is now open for the Nourish Your Body and Mind Retreat hosted by Caroline Young and myself!  Every New Year’s, we hear about how to change our bodies with the false promise that it will make our lives better. From extreme diets to detoxes and punishing exercise routines, none of it is necessary or healthy, and we are offering you another way! Try something new this year, that will nourish yourself from the inside, out. Spend a peaceful and invigorating weekend in the mountains for two days full of yoga, meditation, mindful hiking, reflection, insightful conversation and nutrition therapy – to help lead you on a path toward the joyful and peaceful reconnection with your authentic, true self.  Retreat will include: 2-night stay in gorgeous North Georgia mountain cabin Nourishing & delicious meals and snacks Gentle & relaxing yoga classes  Guided meditations & visualizations Empowering group cir...

  Trigger The word "trigger" triggers me.  I can't stand it.  Seriously.  As a therapist that works a lot with  eating disorders and substance abuse, I hear it wayyyy too much.  I constantly hear "that's triggering" or "don't be triggering" or "that triggered me" or "you shouldn't say that, it could trigger someone." What does "trigger" even mean? According to dictionary.com, "trigger" has the following definitions: 1.  to initiate or precipitate (a chain of events, scientific reaction, psychological process, etc.): 2. to become active; activate. 3.  anything, as an act or event, that serves as a stimulus and initiates or precipitates a reaction or series of reactions. To me, these definitions sound a lot like emotional responses.  Essentially, that is what a "trigger" is.  It's an emotion. It's a thought. It's an opportunity .  It's something that we h...

Nourish Your Body and Mind Retreat I am beyond excited to announce I have joined forced with a like-minded colleague and new friend Caroline Young — registered dietitian nutritionist and fellow yogi — to host a New Year’s retreat for women who are looking for alternative ways to take care of themselves (all parts) as they step into 2019. Every New Year’s, we hear about how to change our bodies with the false promise that it will make our lives better. From extreme diets to detoxes and punishing exercise routines, none of it is necessary or healthy, and we are offering you another way! Try something new this year, that will nourish yourself from the inside, out. Spend a peaceful and invigorating weekend in the mountains for two days full of yoga, meditation, mindful hiking, reflection, insightful conversation and nutrition therapy – to help lead you on a path toward the joyful and peaceful reconnection with your authentic, true self.  Retreat will include: ...

Attachment.  It's a word I hear frequently in my work as a psychotherapist and as a yoga teacher.  As a therapist, I've used it in the context of an individual having an attachment disorder, unable to bond with others.  This can be a result of many things, abandonment, neglect, or abuse just to name a few.  There are attachment disorders which can result in a myriad of issues during one's life.  However, I am not going to be focusing on these types of disorders today.  Today, I want to focus on the concept of "non-attachment" which is something that is always buzzing around in the yoga world.  Long story short here with some Yoga History... there are 8 limbs of yoga... the physical practice of yoga (asana) is just ONE of the ways to practice yoga.  There are many other ways, including the Yamas and Niyamas, which is basically the "dos and don'ts" in life.  It's like a moral compass if you will.  Aparigraha is one of the Yamas and it ...

I know, I know... I'm an awful blogger and it's been a while since I've posted anything.  I've got a couple blogs in progress that I hope to finish up over the next few weeks or so.  But before I digress to much, I wanted to write a bit more on space and balance.  This theme just came to me during a yoga class I was teaching yesterday. I honestly went into the class without an identified theme, which is unusual for me.  But it was cool because the theme quickly emerged in the class and that was space and balance.  Specifically in the class, was using the breath to create more space in the body and directing our breath into tight spaces in our bodies.  Creating more space.  Which got me thinking.... where do we need to create more space in our lives? How can we create more space in life? What needs to take up less space in our lives? That brings me to balance... oh balance... do we have balance in our lives? Probably not if we are being hon...

I couldn't decide on the title for this blog, so that's why I went with all three of them.  As many of you know, I am all about some fear and embracing our fears {within reason of course, I will NOT try to get over my fear of snakes, so don't even try to come at me with that one}.  So about a month ago, a friend of mine who lives in Charlotte, Jacquelyn, who is a photographer posted that she was going to doing boudoir shoots! She is an amazing photog and so I jokingly {in my usual self-deprecating way} stated that if she needed a test model that require a ton of Photoshop editing, I would be happy to come up! P.S.  If you live in the Charlotte Area and need a photographer, please check out Jacquelyn's work! AMAZING!!! Well, careful what you joke about.... a friend invited me to join a private FB group for a local boudoir photographer and her work was just as stunning as Jacquelyn's! I researched a little bit more about Elizabeth and discovered that she was ver...

Fear.  Such an interesting word.  It can be consuming, keep us trapped, helpless, hopeless.  I've learned in the last 2 years that I needed to change the way I approached things in life.  I can either let fear define me OR I can embrace my fear {as I've talked about before several times on here}.  So what do we do when a feeling is triggered {hate that word} that causes us to freeze and makes us fearful? Recently, some feelings were stirred up for me and ones that I didn't even realize I was struggling with.  These included feelings of abandonment and rejection..oh and I did mention that this also caused an onset of trust issues that I have never struggled with before? Good times! Ha ha! I don't think I realized how abandoned I felt after my most recent trauma occurred and began processing those feelings with my therapist (yes, I see a therapist).  I've always struggled with what Brene Brown calls the "scarcity" problem, never feeling good enough, ...

I got reminded of an important mantra/saying this morning. And it's related to fear.  For the past year of so, I had decided to "embrace my fear" and "do it with fear!" and have certainly been preaching it to many others.  However, I realized today that I wasn't always embracing my fear at every opportunity that I could.  Today I was reminded that I still play it safe with my yoga practice.... I totally admit it, I'm very easily intimated by other teachers and taking their classes, especially if they are more "advanced" in their practice than I am.  Today, I was fortunate enough to be able to take a yoga class after the class I taught this morning, and it's one that has been deemed a challenging one {at least in my mind anyways}.   So today in class, the amazing Jackie at Roswell Yoga Life   encouraged us to "flip our dogs" aka " wild thing " while in downward facing dog.   I froze. This transition/asana has ...

Fat shaming. Skinny shaming. We all say it's what on the inside that counts, but as I look on social media and sit with females daily who all have different body types, skin colors and ages, I see that we are NOT practicing what we "preach."  I did a little unofficial Facebook experiment the other day... Over the course of a couple days, I posted two articles on body shaming that actually promote body acceptance and a couple personal posts about an experience at the gym and signing up for a 10k. Guess which posts got more "likes?" Yep, the fitness and exercise posts. Did I get that attention because I'm being active?  As a society, we talk about how we should all love our bodies but we don't make actions that align with that belief. We falsely believe that if we eat "clean," have a thigh gap, and a bikini bridge, that that somehow makes us immune to struggles and that we are somehow worth more.  PLEASE NOTE- I am NOT advocating that we sit on o...

Funny how certain themes tend to weave their ways into various settings. I'll have the majority of my clients talk about the same theme during a week. Sometimes, it stirs up something in me too...that gives me additional insight into one of my own struggles. This particular theme has been one I myself have personally struggled with during different seasons of my life (just manifesting itself differently now) and one of my clients has continued to struggle with at various times in her life.  Things clicked tonight in our session... At least for me... Think she's still processing it. ☺️ One of my favorite sites is a site called "Elephant Journal," filled with various stories and blogs. Yesterday I came across this one.... http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/10/i-am-not-who-i-once-was-who-we-become-after-trauma/  (sorry I'm not tech savvy enough to do a hyperlink on my phone! 😬). If you don't feel like reading the entire post, it's basically about how someon...

I have always said "life is short." Lately, I've been doing things with fear, taking risks, going on adventures and trying to be more authentic and genuine. I definitely know that many of us take things for granted (myself included) and have also lived by the motto "life is short." Until I heard something the other day that made me really stop and think. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, "Anna Farris is Unqualified." Total guilty pleasure and she's hilarious. I want to be friends with her... I digress.  Anyways, on her podcast, she has fellow celebrities on and they talk and then they call listeners and give them their "unqualified" advice. Chris Evans (Captain America 🇺🇸) was on last week and they somehow stumbled onto a discussion regarding how "short" life is.  I was surprised when he said he didn't think life was short. His thoughts behind this was that we spend soooo much of our time regretting and think...

Something really hit me today. I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I stopped... Sleep away camp for adults??? Not going to lie... My first thought was "sign me up!" How fun does this sound?! And it does sound fun... Everything we did at summer camps when we were kids, plus some added things since its for adults only!  But after a few moments, I really started thinking about this. I laugh all the time and "jokingly" tell my friends that I "can't adult today." I chuckle inside sometimes when my teenage clients talk about how desperate they are to be adults! Oh if only they really knew, is what I want to say!  Think about it though on a bigger level. What is going on with our society and culture where adults don't want to be adults anymore. Where we feel there are too many expectations and too much pressure to be a typical, functioning adult.  Yes, coloring has the same effects on our brain as meditation does, but people are much more likely...

Ego. There's a word that has been ruminating in my head recently and frequently brought up in yoga classes and in therapy sessions! Recently, the word "ego" coincides with thoughts of inflated self-esteem, such as referring to a person's ego. "She has such a big ego!" When used in that context, I certainly would not want to be accused of having a "big ego!!!"  Some history for you. As I'm a genuine and authentic person, I'll be honest. I googled the definition of ego  as it related to Freud (the father of psychoanalysis) as I was too lazy to dig out my old textbooks. I'm the first to admit that many of Freud's theories are "a little out there now," but his definition of the ego is interesting.  Here's how Wikipedia defined it...." Originally, Freud used the word ego to mean a sense of self, but later revised it to mean a set of psychic functions such as judgment, tolerance, reality testing, control, planning, defe...

"Move on" or "I need to move on from this." Or even worse...the dreaded "you should just move on!" Phrases we commonly hear these days when we've encountered something difficult or traumatic in our lives.  But how do we do this? A few months ago, I decided I was quite annoyed by this phrase. I don't like the idea of "moving on" as it feels as if I'm leaving something (or someone behind). I also don't believe in regrets. Every choice I've made, every difficult situation I've encountered has been a part of who I am today and what has helped me to be where I am today.  With loss, there's the notion that we are expected to "move on." How can we do that when the loss is so significant that we can't possibly imagine how to do that! To me, it seems and feels, that I'm leaving the person behind, that I'm also somehow betraying that person and their memory. (More on that topic later though) So the way I se...

Doing versus being. This conflict has been brought to my attention often recently. One of my amazing yoga teachers, Doug Johnson, has also been talking about this conflict and I thought I'd add my two cents to it.  I personally feel that our society is caught up in "doing." We numb with busyness. How much, how fast, and how successful we can describe ourselves has become the norm for how we define ourselves.  It's not enough our kids are in 2 sports and AP classes, they have excel in every single aspect of their lives! Do do do! I know I have been EXTRMELY guilty of numbing with being busy. I've often worked multiple jobs and been lucky to have 1 day off a week. Why? What for? What am I really trying to accomplish?  I decided that I would like to focus on "being" after trauma and tragedy hit my personal life it literally made me stop and evaluate everything in my life. I mean everything. It made me question everything I thought to be true and held close ...

Anger. What comes up for you when you see the word, hear the word, or experience the word "angry?"  It's a bit more understandable than some of those "other" feelings and emotions right? Here's my theory on anger.  It's a secondary emotion.  But wait... What exactly does that mean? It's the emotion that we can "deal" with. It's the one that others can "deal" with. It's okay and socially acceptable to be angry.  But it's more than being angry. Anger gets all the credit. What's underneath your anger? What are you stuffing back inside of you only to have exploding back out more intensely and strongly? It's not anger. That's the easy answer.  It's that "stuff" under the anger that we don't want to deal with. It's the hurt, sadness, frustration, disappointment, and loneliness (just to name a few) that we are really feeling. Lord help me though if I actually say how I am truly feeling and wa...

What do you think of when you hear the word surrender?  Giving up, losing, quitting... I'm sure we could list countless more definitions. My own therapist once told me to "surrender and drift." My initial response to this was "what the....." Give up and give in? No thank you! Not me! I don't like to lose and I'm very competitive. I was receptive to the drifting part, but surrender? Please.  Until I looked up the definition of surrender. Well, here it is... "cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority" Cease resistance.  I like that part. Stop fighting things out of of control. Stop struggling and fusing and over identifying with difficult and dark emotions. Many of us have come to believe that emotions are the enemy. They are not! Our behaviors and reactions are what aren't always healthy or safe. I know personally that when I stop resisting my anxiety and begin to accept it, the level of my anxi...

So a few weeks ago, I took a poll among my friends and asked them to let me know the first word that they thought of when they heard the word "yoga." The following is a list of responses I received: Peace  Happiness Mindfulness Relaxing Pants 😋 Flexibility Bent Stretching Namaste Breath Calm Balance Centered Control Strength  Goodness Surrender Play Of note, more playful responses included Yogi Bear, mat, station wagons, tattoos and some others that were more PG13. ☺️ Additionally, most people that responded to this question, to my knowledge, have little experience with a longstanding yoga practice.  So why did I ask this question? As a therapist and now a yoga teacher in training, I'm starting to make more and more connections between what people are searching for in their lives and what yoga (and a good therapist) can offer them!  Our world seems to be the exact opposite of what we are striving for. As a society,...