I first found yoga in 2001 as a form of exercise. I enjoyed the emphasis on physical strength and flexibility but felt very uncomfortable with the stillness of meditation and savasana.
A few years later I had a serious back injury and discovered the healing potential of yoga in a physical sense. However, it took years for me to discover that I hold emotions in my body and that stillness was so uncomfortable because it required me to sit with myself and all my feelings.
I decided to take a 200-hour teacher training in 2013 at Yoga House in Pasadena to deepen my practice and as a way to explore the feelings that came up when I stepped onto my mat. I loved what I learned about my mind/ body connection, but felt I had just scratched the surface of what yoga has to offer.
In 2018 I took a 300-hour training, again at Yoga House, and expanded my knowledge of therapeutic yoga and the healing power of yoga.
I became a mama in 2016 after a very rough and anxiety-riddled pregnancy. I had a couple of early trips to the hospital and was put on bed rest at 20 weeks of pregnancy.
My daughter ended up arriving a month early and her birth was not at all what I had expected or hoped it to be. I felt so grateful to have her in my arms and healthy, yet I felt a lot of grief and anger about how her birth had gone.
Coming back to my yoga practice after giving birth was a bit of a shock. My body didn’t feel like my own and I had to relearn how to move and breathe.
Yoga helped me to settle back into my body and find a space just for me in a time where my every moment and thought was for my daughter.
I discovered that I was pregnant again in early 2021. I was very excited and determined to have a different pregnancy experience, and thought taking a prenatal teacher training would be the perfect way to use my love of yoga in a new way.
I signed up for the Ma Yoga teacher training and loved the alignment principles as well as the community that Ma Yoga offered. Unfortunately, I lost the pregnancy at around 11 weeks.
I received so much love and support from Jessica and the Ma Yoga community. I decided to continue the training despite my devastation and grief, and found that helping other mamas helped me work through my own feelings.
One of the hardest things to deal with in pregnancy and motherhood is that we are not in control of much. We can do our best to be healthy and to be present with the baby growing inside (or the child we are blessed with), but we are just along for the ride as our bodies and lives change in unimaginable ways.
Ma Yoga teaches us to be receptive and make space in our bodies and in our hearts for whatever we face.
We can draw upon our inner strength to get through difficult times. We can flow with our challenges instead of fighting against them. We can ground ourselves in the present moment. And we can offer love and light to ourselves and others through community.
