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Finding Myself and Confidence, On and Off the Mat

all my life have battled with self esteem and confidence issues. for years i had been put down and made fun of by just about everyone, even some family members (my mother included), so i knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix.

i worked through most of the pain through some books and with the help of my amazing husband. and if you ask those who knew me during my dark period they can tell you that by the end of the book stage i had come worlds from where i was. but i still wasn't 100%.

it was soon after this that i really got into yoga. i did it then to help ease my pain and past injuries, little did i know all it would do for me. as you all know i was able to reverse all the pain issues (i no longer needed to take pain killers, use heating pads or icy hot, or beg my poor husband for back rubs, and was able to make my knee like a knee again, which in itself is a miracle. i also lost 50 pounds. it's funny how it all starts with something right? little do we know that how the journey starts or what caused it to begin would be the main reason for it.

once the physical pain was gone it began healing the emotional and mental pains. i was able to leave my ego out of the equation and just have fun on the mat. if i fell, no worries; if i flew, then great! it also became a source of therapy for me, an outlet. bad day at work, take it out on the mat. get in a fight with my mom, take it out on the mat. feeling insecure, take it out on the mat. it didn't matter what life threw at me, i could handle it, i could work through it.

i noticed once i started to gain more confidence i was able to do more challenging poses, poses i had on the "will never be able to do" list. now it seems like i am crossing another one off that list all the time!

i am also becoming more comfortable in my skin. i'm no afraid to wear what i want or do my hair how i want. if someone doesn't like it, that's fine. it's their opinion and they are entitled to it. i am also not shying away from wearing something that may show a little leg or is form fitting. recently my husband told me that i am walking and holding myself with more confidence. this came up after i said that it seems wherever i go lately, people are so nice to me, and i'm still not use to that. i was use to people not seeing me, feeling invisible. and i believe this is because at the time, subconsciously, i wanted to be invisible. now i feel like i have hidden from the world for too long, so i am putting myself out there. already i have had some amazing opportunities happen: first a tv spot on a local channel for a big name company, then my photo in yoga journal, and soon a modeling shoot with a local clothing company. i still can't believe all this has happened. i keep telling myself that this is God's way of letting me know that i have chosen the right path in life. even it meant basically losing my mother and sister.

i am also making things happen, i wanted to learn belly dancing and i had a feeling others would, so i went about setting up a workshop at the studio. same with acro yoga.

29 has been a life changing year for me; from opening up my own yoga studio (a dream come true), to getting a tattoo (thank you again cyber mom), to being ok with who i am and loving myself just the way i am, to going out there and trying fun and exciting things, like acro yoga.

as a child my childhood was taken away from me, i had to basically raise my little sister from 9 until i got thrown out of the house. so i never knew it was ok to do things that made me happy, to live life and enjoy doing so... and now i am!

so here's to living life to it's fullest, on and off the mat!

namaste!!!!!!

Lifting Off...

so years ago when i started yoga my practice was very basic. at the time even triangle pose was too much for my body. now i can look back and laugh, for i have come so far.i remember picking up issues of yoga journal and looking through the pictures wishes i could do those poses. everything from a full seated forward fold to a beautiful wheel, or a strong handstand or graceful pigeon variation (the one were your foot is in the nook of your arm). i would spend months, sometimes years working on mastering said poses, while relishing in the journey the entire time. now i say mastering loosely as i believe no one can ever truly master any pose, for the body is always changing...as the years have past i still will pick a pose i believe is beyond my means and work on it, only to surprise myself, and sometimes my husband, when i am able to do it LOL. most recently i have been on an arm balance kick, with a dash of wheel pose LOL.

i will explain. so as you all know i "mastered" wheel pose, but of course that wasn't enough for this little yogi, oh no, after that she wanted to learn and achieve a one legged wheel! so after conquering my fear.... being inverted in a back bend with head and back in compromising position then adding in a bit of balance and strength but making it so only 3 limbs and not 4 were holding me in place... i was able to raise that leg high and proud! now it's a personal favorite!

now onto the arm balance fun... arm balances were always a pipe dream for me. when i began to say i had no upper body strength or core strength was a major understatement LOL. even downdog was tough for me and going from plank to chaturanga to either cobra or updog? not even on the map. i would belly flop like shamu through those. but i never gave up. i kept at it and slowly but surely i started to grow my little bean sprouts, this is the name i have coined for my biceps LOL. then it was conquering side plank, showing that chaturanga how it's done, and then i began to take flight with my first ever arm balance pose, scale pose. overtime i began working on crow, and you all know the story of my handstand. lately it's been side crow, astavakrasana, and firefly.
then the other day i saw an article the lovely and talented kathryn budig did on coming into elephant's trunk pose. i was intrigued to say the least. so today i set about attempting this one. i hadn't had time to practice or attempt during my personal time and ended up incorporating it into one of my classes LOL. we have messed with arm balances before in that class and they were game! so we prepared for flight and some of us even lifted off, i was one of them! it was such a great energy in the room after we all attempted this pose. and no one cared if they could or couldn't do it, just trying it was more than enough for us all!

i guess that's part of what i love about yoga so much, the never ending journey...

*** special thank you's go out to my hubby and michele for taking the photos! <3 ***

Setting Boundaries...

We all struggle with this at some point in time in our lives... for me this truly hit home this past week.

I am a people pleaser. I will please others before myself, even if that means that I have to give up something, etc. I am also a businesswoman and studio owner... put these two things together and what do you get? A pushed to her limits yogi that can snap at any moment... And the other day I did.

It's funny what the final straw turns out to be. A funny look, a misunderstood comment... for me it was a minor argument about a song with my husband that ended with me in tears in his arms and a very strong curling iron... I won't get into the specifics of the argument because they are trivial, and no I didn't throw the curling iron at my husband, just the mirror LOL and don't worry both are fine.

The point of this is that I shouldn't have let myself get pushed that far. No one should.

I am teaching an insane amount of classes, all by myself, and running my studio (for the most part) all by myself, and to have clients tell me how I should do things, why I have a downtime between classes, etc. really got to me last week.

I mean here I am putting my heart and soul into my studio and you are giving me a hard time because I am taking an hour break before classes to eat a banana and recharge a little? Seriously?

I felt so unappreciated last week it wasn't funny. I had days where I just wanted to disappear and not deal with anyone. Not good when all I do all day long is deal with people LOL. But I bit my tongue and kept my mean thoughts to myself. And come Sunday I took 90% of the day for myself. No phone, no texting, no email... I cut myself off from the business world (and my personal world aside from my husband). This had to be one of the hardest things I have had to do, aside from not putting some overbearing customers in their place LOL.

By the end of the day I was relishing in my me time and wishing I had more. I have now decided to make this a Sunday ritual and to do this in the evenings after I am done instructing for the day.

This also got me thinking... in my goal to please everyone I lost myself. I took away my me time, my hubby and me time, my errand time, my sleep in past 5am time... It has also made me consider cutting back on classes, maybe taking another day off, so I would only be going strong 5 days a week instead of 6.

I am struggling to make this last part work because I know it's going to tick some people off. But in the long run it will make for a much happier me, which means classes that will kick your butt when they are suppose to and relax you when you need it.

So as of right now I am assessing my schedule and seeing which day I can eliminate some work time to make room for some April time.

The moral of all this rambling is, in the midst of making everyone happy, PLEASE don't forget about yourself, your wants, your needs, your YOU time. Because no one can do it for you...

My History with Wheel Pose...

Wheel pose and I have not always been the best of friends. For years Bridge pose was as close as I could come to this pose, and I had accepted the fact that it might always be this way.

I wasn't blessed with the best back, I have a very deep arch (if I lay down flat on my back I can place my whole arm underneath me without moving my spine one bit), I also use to suffer from many back issues as many of you already know. So whenever I would attempt this pose I felt like a twig about to snap in two. So being the good yogi that I am, I listened to my body and quite trying to do this pose. I focused on other poses and aspects of my practice.A year or so later we needed a photo of this pose and didn't know of anyone who could do it, so it fell on to me. So, keeping a sense of humor and a lot of compassion for myself, I attempted it.

Let's just say it certainly wasn't the prettiest Wheel pose you have ever seen, but it was the best I had ever done. The big thing was I wasn't in pain. Which surprised me, I had clearly had it in my head that this would just be one of those poses that I was never meant to do.
During that year I had gained a ton of flexibility and strength, I just hadn't realized how much of both! In the past when I would try this pose my arms would shake and my back would ache.But this time, this time I was strong enough to hold it up for about 10 seconds, and thanks to my mentor, Sadie Nardini, I learned the neat little trick of lifting up my heels to take the pressure off my low back.
Needless to say, this first photo op of my Wheel pose wasn't used, LOL. But it did allow me to add it back into my life and my practice. After a few weeks/months we tried the pose again for a shoot and this time we had lift off! I actually resembled a wheel and not a broken, fallen down an elevator shaft, and then was hit by a bus wheel LOL.
Recently when I did an important photo shoot (I had no idea how important it would end up becoming) for some pictures for the studio I rose up to the challenge of doing Wheel. It was a warm summer day and the sun was setting, I brushed away as many twigs as I could and laid down to prepare for the pose. I lifted up and away into it! Here's where all that practice came in handy... I love the two people who photographed me, I love them with all of my heart and then some, but something happens to people when they use a camera... they forget that time doesn't stand still for the person doing the pose, LOL. I must have held that Wheel (strong and solid, i might add too!) for at least 1-2 minutes LOL. They had to get images from different angles, etc. I was amazed when I finally came down from it how far I have come.


It's amazing what happens when we accept our bodies for what they are, know are limits, believe in ourselves, and sometimes just toss all worry out the window and just have fun with it!

Which leads me to the very exciting part of this post...From that shoot came some amazing photos, one which was just picked by Yoga Journal (yes THE Yoga Journal) to be used in a web slide show AND in the Table of Contents section in their magazine! Who would have thought my sad little broken wheel would become a shiny one in the pages of Yoga Journal! (And I could care less if my photo is the size of a dime, it's still in the magazine! hehe)


So as you can see, never give up, never stop dreaming, because you never know what the future will hold!

Namaste!

Photo Credits: Troy, Jennifer Martin, & Brendan Cantrell

Partner Yoga Class July 3, 2010

Better late then never right? Sorry for the delay, life has been keeping me very busy lately.

We had an amazing time at our first partner yoga class! The turnout was pretty good considering it was a holiday weekend.

We would love to get another one going so let us know when you would like to see the next one!

To view all the photos, please click here.

Quote: June 30, 2010

The sun never says to the earth, "you owe me"... Look what happens with a love like that, it lights up the whole sky.
Hafiz