Get ready, get set, launch!
Get ready, get set, launch!
the rebirth of Yoga Mama
This was me back in my San Francisco Days, pre-kids. Just so you know, I consider jumping a form of yoga, too:)
“Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.”
-Delia Owens
Timing is everything. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve realized and re-realized this in life.
Yoga has been one of my best teachers of this principle: that life is constantly changing and that motherhood highlights those changes. How many times have you blinked and noticed your children were bigger, different, precious? How many times have you woken up and realized that you are somehow different, too?
Sometimes I torture myself wondering…what if I had chosen to be a working mom instead of a stay-at-home mom? Of course, there’s that saying that “All moms are working moms” and it’s true. Why do we differentiate, when we know we’re all busy?
That’s really what inspired me to start this newsletter in 2018. After my daughter was born in 2016, I knew that my yoga practice would never be the same. I would never be the same. My work would never be the same. I re-realized all that when my son was born in 2020. So what was I to do about that?
Adapt. Modify my yoga practice to suit my Tired Self, my Inspired Self, my Distracted and Ever-Changing Self, my Grounded Self, My Concerned Self…the list goes on. Motherhood asks us to be more responsive, not just to all these aspects of ourselves but to our families, too. So I felt the call to respond to the challenges and changes busy mamas everywhere face. That’s where this newsletter came in: to help you all know and believe that you, too, can practice yoga no matter how busy, distracted, or stressed you are. There’s a Zen proverb that says, “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour.”
But I won’t ask you to sit for an hour. Instead I’ll invite you to integrate mini yoga sessions into your days with the idea that a little bit every day goes a long way. Will you join me?
On the Autumnal Equinox (this Friday!) I’ll be launching the paid version of this newsletter. For $5 a month, you’ll get:
A yoga pose focus: specific instruction on a chosen yoga pose, some variation and modifications of that pose to make it accessible to all/most people, and some ways to incorporate that pose into movements or sequences.
One restorative yoga practice: I am just wrapping up a restorative yoga training and am excited to offer this for you to add to your practice! Sometimes when you think you’re too tired to do yoga, it’s really just time for a more nurturing practice like yoga nidra, simple pranayama, or restorative yoga.
A kids’ yoga practice: this is for those who want to share yoga with their little ones, or for mamas who want a young-at-heart activity to add to their practice:). I was trained in 2013 to teach kids through Kidding Around Yoga and had the pleasure of sharing those teachings in schools around San Francisco. Here’s a link to some of the blog posts I wrote for their site.
Seasonal reflection: my own poetic interpretation of how yoga practice can change and flow according to the seasons (do I have any Southern Hemisphere Mamas here? Or Mamas that don’t live in a place with four seasons? Let me know!).
A breath focus: guidance on a simple pranayama practice to go along with the pose focus and/or the seasonal theme.
If you continue to be a free subscriber, don’t worry! Numbers 4 and 5 above will be available to everyone, paid or unpaid subscribers. The great news is that as I hit my stride with this new structure, I’ll begin to offer more along with the paid subscription (I’m thinking things like live (online) classes and events, journal prompts, peeks into hot topics in modern yoga, monthly FAQ on various aspects of yoga, and more brief guided video practices like meditations and yoga sequences).
Until then, I thought I’d share one of my OG posts from 2018. At the end of the post is a brief guided meditation for the Autumnal Equinox. Enjoy!
I hope you’ll join me in my journey to getting yourself and other mamas practicing real yoga every day, no matter what. So if you know someone else who would enjoy this newsletter, please spread the love! Share a post with them or invite them to subscribe:)
