A little bit more about me...
It was in California in 2017 while on a sisters’ road trip across the States in a ’78 Westfalia Van that I stepped into a yoga studio for the very first time. I remember being surprised when we were invited to take our socks off. Now being barefoot is one of my favourite things about my practice. Yoga comes from a Sanskrit word that means “to unite”. What better way to find a sense of balance and deepen our connection to ourselves and the natural world then to stand barefoot on our mat or directly on the earth. I think it has always been the invitation to balance and wholeness that drew me back to yoga after our trip and continues to draw me back to my mat today. Whether through deepening awareness of my breath, compassion for my body, curiosity about my emotions, or openness towards my intra-connection with all things, yoga has given me a daily opportunity to remember my belonging to the simplicity and complexity of life on this planet. By coming home to my experience within, I become more aware of all the beings with whom I share this home with on a planetary, and even cosmic level.
“As above, so below; as within, so without; as in the universe, so the soul” – Hermes Trismegistus.
After completing our cross-continent road trip, a friend invited me to a local yoga studio in my home town. After a few trial classes, I bought an annual pass, and over the course of the year, I found a daily routine that grounded and nurtured me unlike any other form of ‘exercise’ I had experienced. Of course, yoga is much more than exercise, and even in a mainstream, commercialized yoga studio, I caught glimpses of this more-ness. I still look back on that year of yoga classes with fondness as I remember candlelit stretch classes with my sisters and sweating it out with friends to bumping music after a long day at school or work. I even invited Andrew (my soon-to-be partner) to a free week at the studio after we first met. It was here that the dream to become a yoga instructor began to take root within me. However, to this point I had only experienced a westernized version of yoga in this dimly lit, heated studio full of mirrors and loud music. And I had misconceptions and insecurities that told me I didn’t have the right body type to be a successful yoga instructor.
“Yoga is not a work-out; it is a work-in. And this is the point of spiritual practice, to make us teachable, to open up our hearts, and focus our awareness so that we can know what we already know and be who we already are.” – Rolf Gates
“True yoga is not about the shape of your body, but the shape of your life. Yoga is not to be performed; it is to be lived.” – Aadil Palkhivala, Fire of Love
During COVID, Andrew and I found ourselves at a cross-roads, looking for our next adventure. The desire to study yoga was shimmering in my tummy, and fluttering in my throat. With all my insecurities and misconceptions accepted and embraced, Andrew encouraged me to follow my body’s lead and study yoga. Before I knew it, he had our flights booked for a 3 month trip to the Caribbean and I had an online yoga teacher training purchased and waiting for me. And this is how I found myself practicing yoga on our veranda with a warm, tropical breeze dancing around me, and the Caribbean Sea twinkling below me every day for nearly two months. Some days I could even see Andrew on his dive boat skimming by or dropping anchor above the coral reef in the bay where we lived. And for the first time, I experienced yoga as a deeply quiet, personal, and meditative practice. And though I was practicing alone for much of the time, I never felt more aware of my connectedness with all beings. From the birds and trees surrounding me in a flurry of rustling, swooping, and singing, to the loved ones I was missing, to the insects, plant, animals, places, and people I had never met.
“We appear to be separate beings, but actually, we are all expressions of the One Life, the ocean of Consciousness; no wave is actually separate from the ocean at all.” – Jeff Foster
After our time in the Caribbean, we moved to Victoria, BC where I started my career as a yoga teacher. I remember the excitement and nervousness of teaching my first class. And the pinch-me moment of looking in the mirror, mop in hand ready to clean the studio after everyone had left. I may have danced around with that mop in that empty studio full of candles still glowing. I often still feel that same excitement and joy after a class of sharing yoga with friends and strangers in my very own studio here on Pender Island. As a yoga teacher, I am ever on a learning journey and I consider it a true gift to share what I love with others and to hold space for the body and soul journeys of whoever may walk through my studio doors.
“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self” – The Bhagavad Gita
“The true purpose of yoga is to discover that aspect of your being that can never be lost.” – Deepak Chopra
“The nature of yoga is to shine the light of awareness into the darkest corners of the body” – Jason Crandell
“Yoga is self-discovery in motion” – Shayla Quinn