Authentic. Showing Up. Living Life. Striving.

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...