Yoga is life.

I love my job. I am so fortunate. Being a yoga instructor is such a rewarding job.
It makes you feel good to be sharing your passion with other people.
I teach a class and I am in another "zone".
Every worry I have is gone. Every thought, every concern disappears.
I am a different person. I am outspoken and a leader.
I let go of my insecurities and I am confident with who I am.
Teaching is magic.
I give a lot during a yoga class though. I share my energy with every student.
I send out positive thoughts, positive vibes, good energy etc.
After teaching 8-10 class a week...... it can drain you.
I have to remember to practice on my own and renew my energy.
We all have shitty days. We all have days where we just don't want to do anything.
Being a yoga instructor you can't go to work angry/sad/frustrated.
You have to come to class with a smile and positive thoughts to share.
It's not always easy. Sometimes it feels impossible.
On days like this, I dread teaching at first because it's normal instinct.
After the class begins and I start flowing everything else falls away.
Nothing else matters except that class and those students.
I get those 60 minutes to be completely free with my students.
I get to share my creativity with the people who come to practice with me.
Yoga is not just a form of exercise. It's a way to live your life.
Free from judgment. Free from ego. Free from attachment.
Free from hatred. Free from anger.
It's not just the physical practice that can be magical.
It's the quiet moments in between when your mind is at peace and heart completely open.
It's not about your past. It's about the person you are working to become.
It's not about how you look in a pose. It's not about what brand your yoga pants are.
It's not about the person on the mat beside you. It's about your mind, body and soul.
It is about finding complete happiness with yourself and your life,
no matter where it may take you.
Yoga doesn't judge you. It doesn't deny you.
Being a teacher is not a competition with every other teacher.
You can't compare one teacher to another,
we are individuals with different thoughts and ways of living and teaching.
We have different ideas to bring to practice.
Some of us are more gentle while others are more intense.
We are human too. We can't master every pose just because we took a 200hr training.
We face challenges in life as well. We struggle with our daily practice.
We fight to sit still for a 5 minute meditation.
To some, teaching is natural instinct. To others it takes days/months/years of practice.
We are our own person with thoughts, feelings, emotions etc.
Remember this in the next class you're in. It may change your way of thinking.
Yoga is bigger than all of us. It is a lifestyle to work towards every day.
Yoga. Is. Life.

I'm only human, I'm bound to make some mistakes.

"I wanna walk, in righteousness, but I keep tripping over ditches of my selfishness...."

Lately life has seemed a little "off" to me. No matter how good things are going for me I feel that I have forgotten to be thankful for it all. I have taken so many people for granted. I have not always treated people in my life as well as they deserve to be treated.

I can be spiteful. I can be selfish. I can be rude and sarcastic. I don't always think before I speak. Sometimes my words hurt more than they help. At times I am so guarded I forget how to let others in (without burdening them with my past).  As much as I try to be this "good person" I fail miserably at times. I challenge people. I test the limits. I can be unappreciative. I forget how to love.

I notice this in my relationship with those closest to me. My mom. My sister. My boyfriend. I tend to be short tempered. Easily annoyed. Thoughtless with my words. I am sarcastic but I shouldn't make those I love feel "stupid" or inadequate.

My heart is big and my love is bigger. I am a giver, a nurturer. When you come into my life, I want to make sure you are happy. I try to be open and carefree. I am a listener. I sit quietly and take it all in. At times this isn't good, sometimes I need to talk and let it all out. I have to move deeper into my positive aspects and let go of the negative.

I write all this because my body has been talking to me lately. I have been tripping over my words (stuttering, not being able to get the right word out, especially when teaching). My right eye has been twitching constantly for the past week. I have been restless beyond belief. All of these things seem to be caused by stress (or lack of sleep). How ironic that the yoga teacher, who works everyday to relax others and make their life a little happier, is stressed out and unhappy.

I have forgotten to take time for myself. To practice what I teach. To talk about my problems and all the things going on in my life. This past year has brought so many changes in my life. I tend to bottle it all up, instead of let it all go. Yes, some of the things are wonderful things to happen but they are still huge life changes and with that can come stress.

I went through a 3 month training to teach yoga. I moved from CA back to NC. I started working new jobs teaching yoga. I moved back in with my mom. I started a new "serious" relationship for the first time in I don't know.....5 years? My boyfriend is in the military and lives 2.5 hours away from me. I sat with my mom in the hospital for days while she had a major 7 hour surgery. My dog was killed after being hit by a car. One month later my grandpa passed away unexpectedly in my backyard when I was the only one here with him.  I've struggled constantly on having a relationship with my father.

I need to get on the right track. To deal with all the stress that has been going on in my life. To show love and compassion towards those closest to me. To use my words to help and inspire. I need to work daily at becoming who I truly want to be. I want to connect with the land. To meditate daily (outside if possible). I want to get back to my own daily yoga practice. I want to appreciate everything I have in my life. Love all of the beautiful people that I am so fortunate to have in my life.

I want to respect, honor, and inspire my family and my boyfriend. They all deserve the world for what they do for me and I want to show them how much they mean to me. It is the absolute least I can do. Life is too freaking short to do anything else than love with all I've got.

I'll be Missing You.

Lately some days have just been unbearable. All I want to do is lay in my bed. Losing my Grandpa, and being the one to find him has truly taken a toll on my body and mind. He was the sweetest man I knew. He gave anything he could to anyone who would take it. He was constantly working fundraisers to give to people who needed it. He was a joker, a funny guy who would always put a smile on my face the minute I saw him. He made my heart happy. My grandpa was a quiet man who took a lot in and had so much knowledge of all sorts of things. I remember sitting my his truck one day playing with this toy that taught kids about the presidents. He knew every single one of the answers and I don't think I knew even one.  I believe I learned to listen from him, to take things in and speak with words that had meaning and value. I definitely think I got his sense of humor, his sarcasm and joking ways. My grandpa was there for me when my father wasn't. He was the dad I needed at times and didn't have. I asked him a few years ago , if I ever got married, would he walk me down the aisle. It took him a minute, he wanted me to b sure it was what I wanted but then he agreed. It makes me so sad he will never get to see me get married. That my children will never get the chance to meet the most amazing man in my life. His memory will live on and I will have so many funny stories to share but really I just want him back here with me. I want to hear his funny laugh when he was trying not to laugh. His laugh when someone (or he) tells an inappropriate joke. I want my dog and him to be back so he can come tell me how Freedom is in the backyard cussing cause I won't go get her a cheeseburger. I want to have another yardsale with him. Spending the entire morning trying to sell junk for way more than it is worth and getting lots of good laughs at peoples reactions to his prices. I want one more of the best hugs in the entire world. I have never met a person who could give a better hug than my grandpa. He was a tough Sgt Major in the Marine corps but really he was a big sweet teddy bear that everybody loved and admired.

I get so mad some days. I get so sad. Some days I can't even stand to think about him or the memories because it just hurts too much. Thinking about his laugh and smile. His beautiful blue eyes. His big arms that could make any day better. The way he joked like a little kid. He cared so much and loved so much. He just wanted to see his family happy. I learned a lot from him. I will continue learning from him. No matter how hard my day is I have to remember the good. Remember how fortunate I am. How much love there is throughout my family. I have to remember that we are all in this together. We all share the same love and we have to give it and receive it openly.

I mostly wrote this for myself. I cried the entire time but I needed it. It's hard for me to open up and talk about what happened. But writing this, remembering him, it helped.  I miss my Grandpa more than words could ever express.

From my experience....

Many of my days have been spent trying to make my life into something I wanted it to be.

I would go places and do things depending on what society expected. 

When I was in my teens I actually believed I needed to go to a university, start a great career, find the "perfect guy", get married, have kids and live happily ever after. 

I stopped believing that when I was about 19 or 20. I no longer believe there is some ideal life we are supposed to live. There is no path we are all meant to follow together, exactly the same. 

I have traveled a good amount since I was 20 and I have experienced truly amazing things but I have come to realize I may have been traveling for some of the wrong reasons.

I believe in the back of my mind I was always secretly hoping to find love along the road. Some hippy man with long hair and bare feet that would sweep me off my feet, into his VW van and drive me around North America. I mean, I guess we all have those "dreams" but I feel many days of my traveling were spent seeking out this man, trying to force it to happen. I was not genuinely happy because I was always wanting something more. 

Now that I am 25 (I know that is not old but I have experienced more in my life) I have noticed a few things. 

First, I think in order for you to be genuinely happy in your life you need to be working a job that you love. Work a job that you look forward to going to every single day. Do something that makes you feel like you are making a positive impact on the world and people around you. A job that makes you want to tell people all the time about your amazing experiences with the people you work with and the job that you get to do. Don't work a job that makes you dread getting out of bed every morning. Don't work somewhere that leaves you feeling stressed and overwhelmed every time you are there. Don't work in a place that has negative energy all around (from the boss, to the janitor). Find something you are passionate about, something you can picture yourself doing for the rest of you life, and make it your "career". 

Second, I believe we need to surround ourselves with positive, like-minded people. I read a quote that said "we become like the 5 people you spend the most time with, choose carefully". Take a minute to really think about that. Who are you around the most in your life? Where is most of your time spent? With family? Friends? Co-workers? Pets? Now, how do you feel about these people? Are they people you wouldn't mind being like? Or are they people who you hope to never become? It is important you surround yourself with happy people that help you become a better person. People who motivate and inspire you, not people who bring you down and stress you out. Choose. Wisely. 

Third, stop worrying about what society thinks you need to be. I've spent too much of my life worrying about what society thinks. What should I wear? What should I eat? When should I get married? Should I have kids by now? Am I too fat? Should I have more money? etc etc etc. Doing that gets us nowhere. We should only worry about what it is we enjoy, how we feel about ourselves and what makes us the most happy in life. Society is fucked up. It's incredibly unrealistic in more ways than one. Listen to YOUR heart, listen to YOUR mind, listen to what it is YOU want. 

Fourth, stop caring so much about money. Yes, we all want to make enough money to live a comfortable life without worries of paying bills or running out of food. But if our days our spent simply focusing on how much money we are making and constantly needing more, we will never be satisfied. If it turns out that you get to work a job you are absolutely in love with AND makes tons of money, awesome! Otherwise be happy with what you have. Stop feeling that you need to have the next best thing. Those fancy restaurants will never be as good as a meal made at home with loved ones. Who cares what brand of anything you have. Don't give in to the richness of society. We can easily get by with much less than we believe. I have read that people that live in places where they have less are often happier because they aren't living a life constantly working to get more and more, they are okay with what they have. 

Fifth, stop searching for your "perfect soul mate". I know from experience, the person you are meant to be with will come along when you least expect it, when you stop searching. Immerse yourself in activities you love. Start that new hobby you have been wanting to try for the past few years. Take a class, yoga, kick boxing, zumba, book club, cooking, etc. Find those things in life that excite you and jump in to them all, the right person, with similar interest will fall into your arms. Wait until you're ready though. Allow yourself time alone, time to be single and know how it feels to live on your own, independent. Many people my age seem so dependent on having another person around, sometimes just to have them around not because they are in love or care deeply about the other person, just so they aren't lonely. Find out who you are as a person, what makes you happy, what you want to accomplish in your life, then let someone else join you in your journey. Like I said earlier I had my "dream guy" but that didn't exactly work out. I now have an amazing guy that is in the military (something I never wanted) but we share so many common interest and ideas on life. We do yoga together, we workout, we cook food, we talk, we read, we joke and laugh constantly, we talk about our future and goals we have for ourselves. I have never been so comfortable with another person before. When it is right, you know. This guy came along right when I had stopped looking, when I was ready to move off again to some far away place and never look back. Let it happen on its own. 

Lastly! Let go of everything in your life that is no longer serving you. Let go of things that stress you out, make you angry, cause you pain, heartache, discomfort, worry etc. No matter what it is. If it's your job, find a new one. If it's where you live, move. If it's your family, distance yourself. If it's your spouse, let them go. If it's your friends, find new ones. Allow yourself this. Don't have anything in your life just to have it, enjoy and appreciate everything. 

You and everyone around you deserve to find happiness and peace in life. If we all did these things I think the world would become a little lighter, a little happier, a little brighter. Try it out. Let me know how it goes.

Remember,

Stay humble. Be grateful. Love Freely.

Namaste

Yoga isn't a Body Type.

I hear so many people saying "Oh, she's got a perfect yoga body." And in my head I think, what does that even mean? Since when is there a specific type of body for yoga? It makes me so sad when people think they can't practice yoga because they are bigger than other people, or older than others, or less flexible than some. Everyone has a perfect body for yoga.

Yoga has become my biggest passion over the last year. I have finally found my calling and I feel it is my goal to spread the joy of yoga to everyone I meet.

 To me, yoga isn't just something I teach. Yoga isn't just a set of poses I practice. Yoga isn't a workout you do just to get fit. Yoga isn't what you do to get the "perfect yoga body". Because, honestly what is that body ? If it was meant to be that way, I wouldn't be teaching yoga because this girl has some curves and I love them.

To me, yoga is a lifestyle. You carry yoga with you on and off your mat. Yoga is something you live and breathe. It is a vision you share with everyone you meet. Besides the asanas and pranayama practice, yoga is about looking deeper within yourself. Learning who you are and becoming the person you want to be. It is about sharing love and joy with everyone. Yoga teaches you to let go of those things in life not serving you and to be okay allowing yourself to do so. It is about becoming a better person and helping others around you do the same. It is about loving without limits. Yoga helps you love the person you are...at this very moment. It teaches you to live in the present, because "it's the only place that life exists".

Yoga is a way of living your life. I wish I could share that with everyone. I wish everyone would stop thinking you have to look a certain way to practice. Or that your poses have to be "perfect", because we all have different bodies and we all can't achieve a pose that looks exactly like another persons. Sometimes our anatomy can prevent us from getting as deep in a pose as another person.

It's all about having the perfect practice for YOUR body and learning to let go of the thoughts of what someone else is doing or how you believe you are supposed to look in the pose. Close your eyes. Listen to your body. Feel the pose. When you leave your mat. Carry your breath with you. Carry the lightness with you. Carry the happiness with you. And share it. Share every last bit of it. With everyone you meet.

This is what I am trying my best to do.

I will do things I've never done before, 'cause I'm powerful and I'm not afraid anymore...

I believe I have finally found that "thing". You know the thing you spend your life trying to find? Something that makes you happy doing day in and day out. The thing that doesn't make you drag your feet walking out the door to go do. The thing that makes you feel like you're doing something good with your life. Something that you feel so proud to tell people about.

Teaching yoga is making me such a happy person. I feel strong and positive and like I am making a positive impact on people around me. I've only taught 3 classes so far and after every class I feel so.....good. I love sharing something I love so much with other people. Knowing that people who have never tried yoga before are coming to my class makes me feel amazing. When the people return for the next class I am humbled.  You know people can leave telling you it was a great class and that they really enjoyed it but the proof lies in if they return to your class or not. Nobody is obligated to me and it makes me happy to know that people are coming back and my class is slowly growing.

This is just the beginning. I am just getting started on this journey but already I feel so great about what I am doing. Knowing that (hopefully) for at least an hour I can help relieve someone of the stress and worry that may have built up over the course of their day or week is something special. I truly cannot wait to start teaching kids along with doing classes for adults. I feel like I have so much to offer and I can't wait to begin sharing it with more people.

I am no Master, I know Nothing.

So I've spent most of my life being incredibly confused when it comes to religion. It was never something I made a huge part of my life, in fact it was something I often tried to distance myself from. There were just so many things I would read or have questions about and would be told to "just believe, you just have to trust". I guess for me that has always been difficult to do.

I've been doing so much thinking lately with my yoga course. It's opened my eyes in many different ways. It is changing my life on a daily basis. I've become less fearful of religion and more open to hearing what people believe and why they believe what they do. I have become closer with the earth (which probably sounds silly to some people) but it has made me realize this world we are living in is so incredibly magical. The people we share this world with are beautiful. We are fully provided for.

But, upon further thinking and meditation I have come to realize we (America) are such a greedy society. We take more than we need. We waste more than some will ever even have. We don't nurture that earth that provides for us, instead we continue to build and tear down the beautiful, natural habitat that's been created for us. We pollute our air, our ocean, our land. We seem to forget where we began. Living off the land. Growing our own food. Hunting to provide for our family, simply because it was needed to survive. Now we seem to expect meat at every meal, not even stopping to think where it came from or how it got to us. We waste unbelievable amounts of food on a daily basis yet we have people starving in all parts of the world. Our greed seems to be overpowering the need to sustain our earth. The earth that provides for us every single day. The earth that provides us a place to grow our own fruits/vegetables/herbs etc. The earth that allows animals to live and grow. The earth the supplies us with ample amounts of water.

We. Have. So. Much.

Yet we seem to appreciate so little. So much is taken for granted on a daily basis. This isn't me talking just about other people, I am as guilty as the next person. But what is different is that I am learning and I am trying to grow and make changes in attempt to make a difference.

Now, I've gotten a little off track but my whole point is that this world we live in is amazing. As are the people we share it with. Regardless of your religion or what background you have.....love seems to be the bottom line. Sometimes I used to say "If there is a God why would he let these terrible things happen?". But what I seem to have learned is that we make these things happen. We separate people. We create groups of people who are "more important" than others. We have weapons and wars. We create greed over money and materialistic things. We form organized religions that exclude certain people for something they may do differently that others. Instead we should be coming together as one united WORLD. We should all share love and laughter and light. We should grow our own food and raise our animals with love and compassion. We should appreciate that land that has been given to us and never take one square foot for granted. Our love has to be one love, for all creatures, all beings, all land, all of everything on this earth. Then, I believe, changes will begin to happen.

So, as I continue my journey I continue to make changes. I continue to become wiser every day. My eyes are opened a little bit wider with every sunrise. With every sunset I try to reflect what has been given to me and how I became so lucky. I want to stop taking things for granted and TRULY appreciate every little thing that I have. Every beautiful person in my life. The sunsets I see. The moon. The stars. The plants. The animals. Everything. I am so provided for. I am diving deeper into my spiritual practice and continuing to try and find my own path.

Sending all my love to all my friends reading this <3 p="">