 My yoga journey began blindly. I’d like to think I was divinely led to class week after week, naively thinking I was just going to stretch and get in a good workout to balance out all the running I was doing at the time. Until one day that breakthrough came. As I lay in savasana, tears rolling down my face, my heart burst open, and I realized there was more, more (energy, love, stardust, magic) inside me, more to this practice, more to this life. And I had just begun to scratch the surface, to tear off my mask and the armor I had built around my heart. Rolf Gates said “Each step forward in our practice is a step inward. To practice yoga is to draw ever closer to the truth. As we learn to relax into our truth moment by moment, breath by breath, posture by posture, the need for pretense falls away. We find that we are shedding the layers of armor we’ve created to protect the false self that we present to the world. But as the armor falls away we are confronted by the old fears that created the armor in the first place and that have held it in position for so long.”
 Fast forward four years, and I have found my love language, but not without heavy doses of fear and doubt along the way. Doubt of my worthiness, ability, and capacity to share this practice that I hold so dear to my heart - Fear that I would be seen as a fraud, or interfere with my students growth and process... How can you ever possibly totally embody all that is yoga? But then I remember what I am constantly teaching, Metta, loving kindness and compassion. How can I offer it to dozens of students every week, but not to myself?
I am committing to my 300 Hour Yoga Teacher Training so that I may deepen my knowledge, to re-enlist as a student of life, and ask the bigger questions like: What beliefs hold me back? What scenarios no longer serve me? What patterns drain me? Do I trust the inevitability of success when I say yes to my Dharma? I am doing this training so that I may connect ever more deeply to myself, with love, kindness and compassion so that those vibrations may ripple out into my classes, interactions, relationships, and the universe. Life to me is a about learning and loving. Never stop growing. It’s about being vulnerable and sharing our gifts. It’s about going for it. Being scared shitless and doing it anyway. Shooting for the moon and landing among the stars. Nothing in my life brings me more meaningful joy than sharing yoga - union - to yoke. In a world that feels more and more disconnected from one another, community, mother nature, and most importantly from ourselves I hope to be a conduit for connection and healing. As many of us do, I spent the end of 2017 meditating on what my goals for 2018 would be, and the thing that kept floating to the top was my desire to find true mentorship, to study and learn more along the yogic path and to complete my 300 Hour Teacher Training to become a more masterful teacher and student. So I started researching trainings from every well known teacher, intensive programs in Bali, local programs, etc. And then Lauren took me to Yoga Temple at Del Sol and I met Claudia and Thomas. From the moment I stepped into this space and the class began I knew I was home. I had found my teachers. I know we have only just met and the journey has barely even begun, but I am so excited to learn, to let you live out your dharma as a teacher through me. Since practicing with Claudia and Thomas my teaching has already changed. My passion for the practice has more confidence, more creativity, more vigor and life. Should our journey together end today I am forever grateful for you, and thankful for your teachers and all the teachers who proceed you. Namaste.
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