Thank you TO YOU FACEBOOKIE ... from ME..

This was my wall post for tonight before I turn in... I write this blog FOR YOU as my thanks for being the BRIGHTER, BETTER ILLUMINATING and UPLIFTING character in MY FACEBOOK WORLD.....


I have to shake my head here. I have been getting several emails from people writing me to ask "Aimee, is it saying I am facebook stalking you, that I am obsesed with your profile page, pictures etc?? So, to ANY who find THIS post, I share this...

It is my hope that we ALL get back to a bigger knowing. Nearly ALL our humanity's problems across the board are because of a NEED for drama, and fear and judgement... Yet, the isolation and angst and all this excess worry,anxiety is NOT working out for a one of us either ....

.Facebook, like life itself, is what WE create it to be, and there has to be enough of us out there who choose to want to focus on preserving and protecting what means something to us , well IN GOOD STANDING.. and IN HIGHER VIBE!

Facebook , like ANYTHING else will always have those rare idiots who want to TRASH something that can be VITAL to us all in so many ways...
Facebook, if done right, can be a beautiful conduit so many out there could gain from...

It stands for being a gateway for CONNECTION or a REconnect. With A LAUGH. By a TOUCHING, SWEET photo we share of our loved ones,WITH our loved ones. Someone's inspirational, motivational, insightful wall post. A cool blog. A way for a soldier overseas to connect with his or her family. Friends we MISS and LOVE so much that moved overseas. A childhood friend we held dear but got busy and just lost touch with who finds us again. A great utube song or skit that we all love and forgot about shared.
How about meeting new people that we would never would have found otherwise? For me they are from California, Africa, England, France, Canada, Moscow. Thanks to Facebook, Some of the best people this world holds have found me again.... Childhood hs. friends from my earlier roots in Orford HS, WHS, from Alabama, Montana, or the ones I grew up with in Connecticut.. (Connie, Trista, Rhonda, Kent, Mark..).Yoga teachers and students from all over, even Africa that I am humbled to find, support, and share my small life with FROM MY ZIP.. (Moses, Sadick, Sam, Irene)
My kids who like to write on my wall during the day, or a yoga student who wants to say hi OFF the mat....my kids friends who appreciate my wall post to help them through turbulent teen years...


Guys, DONCHA YA SEE?

We can focus ALL OUR LIVES on DARK and things to be afraid of , or gossip or judge..
Such a fear of connecting , so it creates a need to immediately shrink back from LIGHT, from kindness, from friendships deepening...

So, it comes down to choice.... WE CAN STOP BUYING into this need to be constantly in fear..

and FOCUS instead on something GOOD, BEAUTIFUL and HOPEFUL and UPLIFTING in a human world or cyber world that can constantly have us ONLY SEEING the DARKER side of things right up our very last breath.

To be completely raw here?

I AM near 40 years WEARY and worn OUT by fear based, constant fight or flight way of thinking that only CREATING a LIVING experience that made me once only always draw back, distrust, disengage ,and disconnect.

It finally dawned on me, that all dark is afraid of light.
There are plenty of people to not engage with, but if we all go back to closing UP shop? We keep the RIGHT ONES out TOO!

Isn't there plenty more we can tune in or engage in than this UNNECCESSARY Panic of what friends WE CONFIRMED held interest or intrigue or curiousity about who we are from a place of INward expression?

I have been in awe of so many of my friends creativity, wall posts, humor , love on days I need it as much as anyone else I aim to offer when people see my page.

So, um.. NO, I was NOT laying in bed worrying and wringing my hands over which friends of mine that I allowed into my facebook world were peeking at my page.I got far better things to put energy towards. It makes me SAD that friends of mine would be so worried.
Time will be up for all of us before we know it. I for one, wish not to sit in my coffin and say "I WISH I HAD ONE MORE DAY to STEER CLEAR of PEOPLE who were kind, friendly, interested in what I had to say or write or offer or share?
Instead, I will say "I wonder what ELSE I could have done if I pulled off the freelane of FEAR based thinking and living.

Being that several people my family knows have passed away in the last 2 weeks of cancers, car wrecks, or suicide..
I wonder what THEY would say about the way we all live in fear.. in isolation... I hope now you understand me better.. Thanks for making it so FUN and ILLUMINATING for ME to share in your life..
Ps.. What is in the vibe of LIGHT and LOVE deserves to stay That way..

With Bright light, levity and love.. AImee Leona DeRoehna... Smooch!

It is ONLY change .... :) The yoga teacher speaks openly about her own "process"

Act 1? Our empty mind, a ball of clay, in hands of all others, molding us with THEIR beliefs, opinions," say so". Filling our heads with all they know, and who THEY THINK WE ARE. We are told we DON"T KNOW, so we give it up to THEM. Act 2? DEfending who it is we THINK we are. Act 3? Growing up, getting over ourselves, dropping swords & being willing to REcreate "us" anew.



If your reading this, and your pondering , or mulling over what I said? Then, you my friend are a SEEKER. You largely looked and listened to others OUTside you to create you. Somehow, what once was working is not working well or at all. You have grown restless, bored, agitated, discontent. Some part of you INside is trying to get your attention, or is about to. You maybe have been aware inside for a long time, yet in fear of the NEW, you keep that bigger knowing closeted. Regardless, it is getting through to you anyway. Usually in the silence.
Maybe, you want to make some changes, but your afraid of the response or reaction from others? Maybe you are not comfortable with certain feelings or your waking up in the night or tossing and turning but saying to another "go back to sleep, I am FINE".
Inside, your saying what you will. Yet, there is a part of you your fighting. A part of you that has outgrown something or other.


So, if You are finding this, then YOU have been spotted dear one.
No one would know better than me, that maybe despite appearances, and images, and what your saying.. there is a part of you that no longer is content with a certain something or other. Be it an unhealthy habit, mindset, attitude, experience, weight, job, geography, relationship.

You are sensing something inside or outside, that maybe just does not feel right, fit anymore, or make ANY sense whatsoever.

I want you to know this. I wrote this because Like attracts LIke. I too am RIGHT WITH YOU, so I write this to share and to hold space , necessary space. I wrote this because to strip it all down? I FEEL YOU.


For a long time now, I have been on a journey. A journey using power yoga, and all this mind- body mojo & it's practices as solid tools for me to strengthen, deepen, and heal some parts of me , retrieving also some parts of me I once ditched to appease others, or rejected myself when those outside me did.


I have been on a path where I slowly began to understand and explore an Aimee Leona DeRoehn from the inside out. Yoga has been the supportive vehicle to help grow my esteem to look within and with a the bigger perspective to the process of healing ANYTHING. It has moved me back into alignment with a more whole version of the self, WHOLE is surely more gracefully stronger than a self that is scattered, fearful or in pieces.
When we are more intact, it is like being on ALL cylinders, head, heart and body aligned with the present moment in front of us, rather than stuck in yesterday or yesteryear or anxious about the future.
That said? Those processes for me personally over the last several years have taught me a few things I offer you.
When we are more intact and centered in head , heart and body with the NOW?

We have moved closer to our own "inner guru", our own intuitive voice that will always pave and lead the way to the RIGHT LIFE. When we begin to value that inner voice again, and act on its guidance, rather than stuff it down, we begin to lose interest in ALL the excess opinions, suggestions, and direction from others. We begin to figure out our own intuition we have sorta left curbside, because we believed OTHERS knew BETTER for us? We see how ditching it and ignoring it has not always been for our BEST interest.
Instead, going along with , letting others tell us or think for us, can and has steered us into things, places, and people that got us there by someone who was NOT with our BEST in mind, or by someone who was NOT really getting US, or wanting to see us where they wanted us instead.
When we begin to get back to trusting that small voice inside, whether it be on a yoga mat or in life, when we stop second guessing it? We begin to see it working ON OUR BEHALF.
We begin to trust it, and suddenly it teaches us to TRUST OURSELVES MORE. With a sense of trust about the direction we are taking , we DO grab stronger to the wheel of our own life, really being able to rely on that guidance, rather than doubt it, or cast it aside simply means we begin to show up to life, with MORE faith and LESS fear. We set down a need to prove ourselves, or defend something we feel guided from within. We stop asking others for direction on what we should do, if it is okay for us to feel a certain way, if we can have permission to move towards something or someone or someplace new.

Added bonus, When we are more filled up from withIN, we have more to offer others. MUCH MORE.


All this is sure easier being said or reading than it is to do the work to get to this place.

So, If possible, I want to share with you that all that yoga has taught me, was ME being a WORK IN LENGTHY process.


Lengthy because I resisted and fought instead what I have always actually known. Yet, I also want you to know that I am in Act 3 right now. It took awhile for me to get here because I was not ready or hungry enough for THIS deeper, more advanced part of the journey. By the way, no one , NO ONE, can take that journey for us. Nor should they. We would be cheating ourselves, and missing out, on valuable wisdom we would not get otherwise unless we have walked that path, or go inside the self, to return back to that inner voice that will always steer us in the right direction. That will get us to know by way of feeling what is right , what is not for us.

There is timing and stepping stones to our whole life journey. I was mislead. I once ever felt getting to the destination, hearing that final boarding call.. In truth, it is the journey. WE rush the journey, in a big yank to get to the end.
Yet, it is all the parts between the first step and the end that we must pay attention to, celebrating every step will create a sense of joy and curiousity about the process.
It is ALL the growing pains and steps we had to go through to ensure it was indeed OUR journey in its RIGHT timing. For me to get to Act 3, I had to be willing to explore and BE with and then say goodbye with GRACE Act 1 and 2.

I feel as though I am waking UP. I needed to. It was time. It was TIME to wake up, a LONG TIME AGO. To be frank, I felt it THEN. Yet, I preferred to stay asleep, or pretend to sleep, because I was scared to go beyond where and who I was.

Ya see, our ego mind only KNOWS yesterday, and all that went with it. Our minds prefer things to STAY the same, it is what we are comfortable with, what we KNOW.

Yet, nothing changes if nothing changes. if the mind is scared of NEW, then we make sure nothing DOES change.

For a long time, I have been in a space where I, the yoga teacher was AFRAID to GROW. On and off my own mat, in my own teaching, in the roles and versions of Aimee I and others only ever knew UP TO NOW.

I was not just afraid to let go of what I KNEW, who or what my life was. I was REALLY REALLY afraid.

Yet, despite fear, resistance, and reaction, I became aware of something inside me trying to get my attention.

It started as this sort of strong, but gentle nudging. That nudging, that feeling inside freaked me out!!! Initially, I did all the things I only ever did for defense mechanisms. I stayed busy, I ate long after I was not hungry, I went to the kitchen when I had ZERO hunger, I fidgeted, I tossed and turned in my bed in the dark, I stayed awake and kept busy when I needed sleep, I would turn the radio up to drown out the feeling. I avoided yoga or running or hiking in the quiet of the woods, because i did not want to FEEL what I felt. It is in our body that we FEEL things, our heart and our gut. Like it or not, it is truth we can run from for awhile, but if it is really TRUE and NECESSARY for us to listen TO? It does not go away.
I avoided it because I FELT something inside pushing, poking me , prodding me to want to make some... GASP!!! CHANGE!!!! Personally, and in my life. Yet, my ego and life that I only ever was familiar with was MY COMFORT zone. My life and my mindset liked , and for a long time things to REMAIN the SAME. So, I began this sort of tiny, bigger battle within. I will save you the trouble and time. A FEARFUL ego primes itself for a fight it NEVER WILL WIN. TRUTH CAN NOT HIDE.

We can stuff it out or stuff our head, ears, and bodies with ALL WE WANT. IT will find a way through anyway. I knew this even while engaged in a lengthy, tiresome, battle with myself.
NO matter just how much my big head tried to wage or win the war with a far BIGGER WISER heart. God ensures that the truths we NEED to pay attention to, will find its way to the surface. My former teacher, Baron Baptiste has this simple, but stellar saying "Close the energy in one area, it will find its way through another.
Here is the truth. I could try to avoid it WITHIN all I wanted, yet, it started showing up in other places.

I began to witness it coming through the kind, firm voice of others that LOVED me BIGGER to speak the real deal that I , Aimee DeRoehn was attempting to mask, or minimize. To really make sure I heard it what I felt , it also began to show up in my body. Through excess weight, through tightness in my chest, through injury in my left hip and shoulder, through insomnia, or being extremely suddenly wiped out,

Still I fought the better knowing. So, instead my body began to fight, and my own physical health started to fall apart too.

Finally, a very kind, well respected doctor took a loving, firm look at me and said "MAKE SOME CHANGES NOW that will make your spirit THRIVE inside that body of yours or COUNT ON A CANCER, or some other illness.

"I can give you a prescription for such and such or I can RESPECT and CARE for you more as a patient and give you the real deal. Which do you prefer? I was getting to tired and to sick and tired of BEING sick and tired to argue anymore.

"Give it to me, whether I like it or not, Doc."

"Your body is tired, sick, and shutting down because your spirit INside is unhappy, being contained, and all set with things as they are. I have a sense you know this but your avoiding the truth inside.
But my guess is that you are moving towards a depression, which is weakening the immune system , and created more repeated illnesses, and ailments.
The real PAIN in THE ASS here is that you have no real magnetics any longer for MUCH of your life. You are aware of it, repressing it is going to restrict life force, and resisting the truth is not going to make it go away either. Fight it and you won't be just working through a depression. You will struggle yourself right to an early grave. Face it, admit it, and do what you know you need to and LET GO and watch your health improve too! And PLEASE, will you just forgive yourself for things not in your control, things you would not do had you known better, or if you paid more attention to your own inherent GOOD SENSE?? A need to punish yourself is making you hurt all over too. So, while your at it, forgive others too. I am not trying to scare you Kid, I am trying to steer you back to HEALTH from the inside out."
Tough medicine to swallow, but HEALING and humbly GOOD MEDICINE just the same! Put like that? We put down the fight.

Another dear friend, and mentor said " Quit chasing, just sit still, settle down, Get clear , get grounded, and rooted, and then let things come TO YOU."



All were and are RIGHT.

So, I write this with tears. My sicknesses, etc. were more exacerbated by fear of making changes. It was though I had one foot in the old, and one in the new. I knew deep inside the OLD did not fit me anymore or feel right, Yet the new was .. well, NEW. and RISKY, and UNKNOWN , and that was to edgy to cross or move into. With one foot in the old, and one in the new, and the mind afraid to put BOTH feet in the NEW....
Well, you might say I got stuck for awhile. I also put PLENTY of excess efforts on things NOT working AT ALL. After awhile, you begin to see that what takes that MUCH WORK to make it WORK without MUCH improvement or success? is NOT GOING TO, or IT IS NOT MEANT TO.

Yet, the more I denied something? Dug my heels in and worked harder? Kept trying to turn DOWN the inner Dolby surround sound? The louder it got. Only "louder" was not in the way Webster's defines it.

Ya see, it was not shouting. It was NOT fighting with me. It got stronger, and yet quieter.
By the way, that is HOW you know the difference. The ego gets scared of what is being sensed inside, and so it gets louder. The heart of us (soul) however, knows there is no power or real strength at all in raising the voice and REacting.
It instead shows its power by getting stronger, with MORE Grace, by getting more LOVING while still speaking very simply. By teaching us, LESS IS MORE.

Yet, I am a late bloomer on transforming in the right timing. Maybe because I do not wear a watch, and wish instead to cling to what I have only ever known.
Yet, no matter how much I tried to stuff it down, deny it, stay busy to avoid FEELING it, keep trying to command it so nothing would change. It kept finding me, in the stillness, while I cleaned house, went on drives alone by myself, away from the noisiness of others. It also really found me when hiking in the woods, in the quiet of nature, in the early morning before the world's decibel could drown it out, being busy could get moving and take me with it.

I would FEEL it, this inner voice, this inner knowing that was trying to speak simply to my head to say "Admit it, you have changed, so THIS is no longer right for you. or "Admit it, you want MORE but you think you must keep settling for LESS. or bigger, "Admit it, YOUR NOT HAPPY anymore, and if your honest, you have NOT been TRULY happy for a long time. Everything looks right on the outside, but INside you know the bigger truth and the better truth. Admit it, your afraid to tell others how you feel for fear you will hurt them, upset them or worse PISS EM OFF."

Try as I may to fight it or argue myself or argue another. I had outgrown some things about myself , and my life that only mirrored a "former" Aimee, could say anything to anyone outside me. I could even look at myself in the mirror and try to convince myself what I FELT was NOT RIGHT.


In essence and in truth? What I felt was scary. Especially to my own ego that was scared to change. Scared to be that bold with myself. Yet, my inner voice did not deserve to be shut off, or shut down. NO matter what I attempted to present, or pretend to myself or others?

IT knew the truth, I was not happy, I had also stayed in things LONG completed inside, I was entirely FILLED to the brim of my bucket on certain parts of my life. I was COMPLETE and ALL DONE with things I actually always THOUGHT I would NEVER outgrow or want or NEED to EVER part with. Raw truth? I was sick of certain parts of myself I once would rather cling to, or defend, or rationalize or justify.

And yet? Still, I was fighting this bigger voice, because it simply represented a ME that I was only ever afraid to step into, yet somewhere along the way, that Aimee kept evolving and growing herself anyway. She was wanting to take her seat. For me to exceed a need for a smaller self steering me through a smaller, lackluster life, she would HAVE to be ALLOWED to take her seat.


Do you ever notice right about the time some part of us knows it is about to let GO?

There is a sense of anxiety, maybe total panic, a strong reaction where we try to argue with what we felt? In all this, we definitely cling tighter?? WE grip, defend, hold on with all our might? Perhaps, Get angrier with our feelings. Try to stuff them down deeper. Argue with someone else's sharper vision to spot this?

Do you ever notice that denying things does not make them go away? Shoving them aside, or stuffing them down begins to feel like a big beach ball we held under water a long time, only to have it POP RIGHT BACK UP?

WHAT WE RESIST if it is TRUE does not go away, it PERSISTS.

Once we get exhausted enough? We see that our energy is DRAINED by the false pretenses, pretending, posing. Our ego mind, that never will win that bigger battle? It finally begins to stop battling the heart. We begin to understand that we have an inner compass for a reason. It is meant to be respected and valued by LISTENING to it, and taking ACTION so that we KNOW if we KNOW what we THINK we know!

It is our intuition, a knowing we were all born with, yet in listening to others, or being told we did not know better? We looked to tune into the voice of others instead.
In being more in tune to that, and not with ourselves, maybe we turned it down or turned it off. Perhaps, we never took that knowing seriously to begin with so it never got a real shot at developing. Maybe we filled up our bodies with excess food, processed food, sugar, cigarettes, caffeine, drugs , alcohol.. ALL are things that DEPRESS and DULL our vitality, and our own FEELING. All things to make or keep things fuzzy, or cloudy, to keep our own SENSATIONAL inner sensation from sharper High Def!

Yet, why? What are we doing? By WE, I mean ME as well as anyone else.

The truth is this. It is that feeling that will ALWAYS be like a best friend, really looking out FOR us, keep us safe when needed. It is also practical. If our mind is more quiet, and less cluttered up with anxiety, fear, or excess chatter? It will be able to help us to REmember what we need to REMEMBER. Whether it be to pick up milk and toilet paper at the grocery store, or take this exit, or to call so and so before the day is over.
Most of all, it has no interest in steering us to anything but THE RIGHT PLACES and PEOPLE, and OPPORTUNITIES.

When we finally stop arguing this,we begin to understand the soul of us has the RIGHT information our own logic could benefit by listening to. Later, we look back and we say things like "I KNEW IT."
Our intuition stays on our ass on purpose! Later, we always look back and say I should have done this ages ago, I just felt like I should a long time. Or, I felt this before. Man, "Had I only listened before,I "just knew", I just had this "sense" this strong hunch, this "feeling". etc.

All we are referring to was the voice inside. Now have you ever noticed that as you are getting ready to embrace the direction or path you feel you should take?


Then, there appears to be others, who without our saying a word, intuitively get a "sense" there is something happening, there is a part of us changing, fading out or separating. They get scared. Out of that fear, comes a bigger need to cling, REact, or criticize an us that is moving towards making that very shift. Perhaps, they boldly try to put their foot down, or block or condemn who or what path we want to go towards. "Chaos always comes BEFORE a shift", the chaos is from the ones who FIGHT THE SHIFT. There seems to be more turbulence if one is not ready to go in the same direction, but does not want you to leave THEM either.

Sometimes, the hard thing and the right thing are the very same. If we or others can not love us BIGGER to set us free, well, um.. then it gets edgy.

You know you are REALLY all complete on something, if we can find the courage to speak our truth about changes withOUT a need to DEFEND or engage in REaction with others.


When we get done fighting ourselves, we lose the need to pick the sword back up to fight with others. Save your energy, and move towards compassion instead. After all, when you have done the exploration within to talk your self off your own ledge. You know your off the ledge when you can let go with LOVE and GRATITUDE.


That will work with ANYTHING we decide to part with. It lessens the need for added resistance pain , backlash, punishment and drama. The ego fighting change will only look for more SUFFERING about it. PAY NO MIND. :) See that all that is REALLY happening is that we (we, meaning YOU AND ME) have OUTgrown a version of US that once NEEDED all the things, people, and smaller mindset that fit GRRRREAT with who we were A TIME BEFORE. Yet, we are ALL evolving, and we are ALL susposed to. We once NEEDED to be crawling before walking, show up for 2nd grade BEFORE it was TIME to graduate to the 3rd grade. There was once a time we NEEDED training wheels, before we took off on a mtn. bike, or maybe to please someone else, we once needed to stay with the career that others thought we should want to choose, but after enough time being miserable, or calling in sick, we get it that is NOT our thing. There was timing to all of it. There was a natural process to all of it also. If we can get back to being in awe of what is natural, we see there is a natural timing to things. Nothing NATURALLY shows up before its "time". Look at nature and we see that.


I share this with you. There are parts of my personality, parts of my life that mirrored that smaller, scared sense of self that honestly, no longer "gell" or reflect who I am moving towards TODAY. Yet, I could not fight that anymore, or the fight came to a HALT, because at one time, that version of me, and that life once ONLY ever fit the bill for a more timid, smaller, Aimee who wanted and NEEDED to stay comfortable, stay safe, and cozy up to a certain sense of self. Definitely a self that only had a need to never go to far beyond my comfort zone.

Also, largely much of a version of me that was largely created by others who really were NOT in tune to me. Or being said by a very harsh ego.

Lately, in my attempts to sit still MORE, I can hear better that inner guidance. It is finding me at a time in my life where I have decided that my bucket is full. TO FULL.. It is time to clear the decks, dump the bucket, KICK the bucket entirely on a me that is NOT really me.
It has been vulnerable, edgy, and scary to say the least.

Yet, also a relief. Most of my life was all built on sand. Much of this once fit, and now tugs and pinches and hurts to stay suited up instead.

Act 3 , being humble enough to share and speak to this, and be empty myself completely.
So, I can be filled back up with something far BETTER instead.

I am grateful for ALL the characters, experiences etc that showed up to show me who I am TRULY NOT.

I love all of it, and say goodbye to it, to an Aimee who THOUGHT it TRUE with grace.

I support YOUR PATH and who are you NOW becoming as well..

WHOLEHEARTEDLY!
xxxooo

what we resist persists,.... getting unstuck.. from INside the yoga teacher's view..

from the pages of my book... "I spent my whole life running from pain, be it physical, mental or emotional.. ...



Physical tension compromised of all the other sports I did & wanting to waste NO time stretching when I could be lifting , running , boxing or ANYthing else instead... mental from the inner critic in my head, and emotional from childhood trauma and just the shit that went down that I just did NOT want to FEEL thank you VERY much. I used near every vice in the world to numb, escape, essentially NOT feel.. I ran miles and miles to stay far away from pain, therefore my pain?a huge part of me, that I could not accept.. I stayed and strayed far away FROM myself..I numbed myself through food, I chose shallow relationships on purpose so I never really had to let anyone go near or get near my own heart. IN the end???"I made it my job to love others and put so much time into all that, that I ate up the clock with loving OUTSIDE so that no one came or got that close to me. NOt on my watch. Power yoga taught me one simple thing. What WE RESIST PERSISTS.. That it was AVOIDING pain that was creating my suffering.. NOT feeling it..I was scared to death to go near that part of myself, to be vulnerable. Vulnerable and admitting the truth to yourself IS HOW we get brave enough to go towards what we are all fearing.. or feeling bad about. FEAR lessens and when you go into what you feel that is HURTING.. your vulnerablity is your essence and strength.. is where you retrieve back a piece of power and will PUSH YOU THROUGH with soul force, not bullying our way through.. Meeting ourselves where we are at is acceptance, none of us have to LIKE what is happening, but accepting it means oNe thing. WE STOP JUDGING and FIGHTING it.. and that is the gateway to heal.

WHat is brought to light becomes light..having gone through my own fires, and WALKING through them I feel I am more than qualified to speak to you.. Hey, God will use the flimsiest resume.. The deal is this, the thing we are afraid to do, feel, go towards?? IS what we will always be up against in mind too..
Not going towards it is what will keep it chasing our mental tail.. Not to mention, it will be what we LOSE power over to..
In truth, I was reminded of it again tonight...
Sorry, did ya think I was SO above anything or you these days? Nah, guess again.
I am what you are.. A TRANSFORMATION in progress..

Plus, it is good to think you mastered something only to have the universe toss it back at you again to see how that mastery thing is whipping itself up.
;)

Tonight, in my own practice, I found myself in a place that I had not been used to for a long time. Normally, having had built a discipline of this practice, meditation etc from the ground up, to create a solid foundation I normally have ZERO problem climbing down the mental staircase and being totally present with my practice, my body, breath, aligment, and the class itself. Yet, tonight ALL OVER THE PLACE..

For those of you who are not throwing down regular downdogs? (No worries, I am not reserving anything for ONLY those who do. YOUR acceptance whether you do downdog or not is not a concern to me. YOu only have an all access pass!!!)

So, anyways.. tonight, I was all over the place on my mat.. Now , many do not get how this whole yogah thing works! Well, when we can not find physical balance, it is because we are disconnected from the body, pose, life as we are in our heads to much.. The mental calm is guiding the rest.. ONly for me.. there was a pretty deafening mental Metallica concert in my head that seemed to want to bang on a drum all the live long day..

I was feeling like anyone else would be about it. FRUSTRATED.. ANNOYED..
Like I said, I am NOT that different from YOU when you have something ruminating through your mental closet.. No doubt it is just as difficult to be fully paying attention to the thing in front of you..
Try as we might to PUSH it OUT of the mind, yeah right!!!

Eventually, feeling so OFF..I just stopped.. I just laid down on my bed, and thought "Man , what the heck is my problem??"

Hint, if you ask , you will get an answer..All the sudden, my body was able to give me a message.. Our bodies communicate to us through feeling, that is the only way they know how..
My body was in pain. Plain and simple.. Physical pain, but when I probed deeper and finally it came to me. I was in pain and conflict and torn up about something else in my heart. My head knew it too, and the two seemed to mirror each other.
When I just finally STOPPED fighting. fighting being so off balance, the practice feeling hard in a way it normally does not.There in was the answer.
I was in pain, and therein lied my journey THROUGH it..

I suddenly just laid there quiet enough, and closed my eyes, and asked WHAT was tieing me up, what was consuming me that was so awful , it was seeping into my practice, my day , my driving down South last week.

There in the dark I knew. When I finally allowed it to come up from the surface , I began to feel my eyes well up, and hot tears stung my cheeks, and then just a whole baby back of sobs...

Yet you know what? When I finally remembered what this practice taught me, that it was the way to bring myself some relief, hence breathing room.
Repressed emotions by the way, not dealt with??

They NUMB US.. They close OFF the vital energy of a loving heart. We become emotionless instead. WE think we are doing ourselves some big favor, in truth, take it from the girl who ran all the time so she could be anywhere but in her emotional landscape was actually begining to create an emotional dead zone..
Let's face it, NO ONE wants to hurt..
But as REM says, "EVERYBODY HURTS SOMETIMES"
If you want to get through that time a bit faster, then GO TOWARDS IT..

From a spiritual perspective, aka metaphysical level, (emotional reasons and blocks for our phsical stress , tension, sickness etc..) Tension is just an energy block, be it physical, mental or emotional...
EMOTIONS are described as ENERGY IN MOTION.. except when we get dropped off an emotional cliff, it takes our breath away and we just move into survival zone instead, just getting through the motions..
The body sets this up for a mechanism we can employ when going through any sort of experience where REALITY JUST BITES..
The breath is walled off when we are so hurt, scared, stressed, etc.. The breath walls off on purpose..

NOT breathing , NOT FEELING or severely LIMITING our feeling about what is happening.. Sometimes, we just shut down and shut in and close off or squeeze our eyes shut and without even being aware, we wall off our own breathing too. So, that if it hurts, or it is painful, or bad, at LEAST we don't REALLY feel the truth of JUST HOW MUCH.

So, what occurs is the body is all encompassing and understanding that it is the MIND that won't go towards it. In truth, the body has the superior wisdom to know if this is not addressed, WE AINT GETTING BEYOND IT..

I did not any of this mind body stuff back then.. UNTIL yoga. I was the one MOST in pain, and yet MOST disconnected from the understanding that my LIFE experiences , past or the ones in front of me, were creating my PHYSCIAL fatigue, my depression, my anxiety, my tension, my getting sick all the time.
I was sick and tired truly the most when I was in the MOST UNhealthy, UNsupportive relationships.
Worse? So were my kids!!!!

So, now I can share some of this with you, whether it is kinda embarrasing or not , because when we KNOW BETTER , we can DO BETTER..

So, in hopes of sharing my trainwrecks, all the stuff I avoided, and would not face or admit or get help for.. I blocked my own physical health too.

Feelings are felt IN the body, no one says "I THINK I have a heart ache, or stomach ache or headache..
IT IS FELT..

What we FEEL is how our body, (hence the intuitive voice INside us) that is only ever looking out for us, and what would be good for us , and will keep us safe on a practical level, but also keep us getting to the RIGHT stuff of life is a voice we basically have been taught to shut out.. We tune more into to OTHERS, we ask everyone else for their suggestion, opinion , advice..
We began doing this as children , seeking grown ups to guide us. Some did a great job and their words really steered us in the RIGHT direction, MANY were so lost themselves, and we learn that later when we end up in some bushes in our life..
What is it we ALWAYS say in the end?? " I KNEW IT, I knew I should have done.. gone... said yes, said no etc..
"I just had A FEELING"

Is the language we all use right? I just had a "SENSE" . I just had a FUNNY FEELING that I should NOT xyz.... Something INside me said listen to my gut, listen to my heart"

Yet , we spent a majority of time turning the volume DOWN, yet we feel it or hear things inside or have a knowing loud and clear..
PAY attention to that if it keeps occuring, pay attention to something you feel or keep thinking about over and over..
THAT is your internal compass trying to steer you and guide you.. To keep you safe, or keep your where you should now be..

BY the way, maybe if I expose my own ego here, you might undertand me better when I say..or ask you..
HOw much time have we thought or felt we should do XYZ? ONLY to have our inner critic, which is also largely birthed by the one most influential in your life instructing you, NOT rooting for YOU to be your best, succeed, be happy, do anything THAT major etc..

TURN THAT VOLUME DOWN, not your own heart and gut sense..
WE were all born with that internal compass, and what I have learned and researched constantly?

The internal compass is our higher self , all knowing , leading us in the RIGHT direction... It is the voice within that is meant to be our very best friend. If we tune into it, we will know to begin to trust it..
IT looks out for us, and it keeps us moving towards what would make us thrive, and be happiest.

WE MUST deal with what we won't feel, because if we won't feel , we stay DISengaged from the higher knowing part of ourselves..

Close off the energy in one place, it will want to find another way OUT..
TRUTH always wants to RISE above, we make ourselves UNneccessarily sick when we deny it.
IF we won't admit it to us, we wil NOT admit it to another..
I did not want to admit I was suffering , I was in pain.. Because I could not go near it with a yardstick, but it chased me around my whole life instead.. I would NOT be able to EVER begin to get beyond it either..
Back then, or tonight...

TOnight, having remembered all this SIMPLE mind body wisdom, I realized my PHYSICAL pain, was also created by blocking my feelings from coming through..
From ignoring them, trying to do my old same old thing, shoving them aside..
Shutting myself off, keeping myself EXTRA busy
ANYTHING to not go there..
Only here is the secret no one informed us in a health class..


TENSION, creates RESISTANCE. and not facing or feeling our pain blocks off the flow of our mental , emotional , physical well being..
WE can do all kinds of stuff in the meantime to avoid it, bury it, etc LIKE I WAS..
BUt all we are gonna do is STAY STUCK WITH IT. probably nearly every minute of time..
HENCE NO FREEDOM FROM IT..

and NO FEELING , yet, still it sits inside trying to PUSH itself up to the surface of our bodies, our hearts our minds...

IT is ALL CONNECTED you know .. well, NOW you do..
NOt dealing , we block it... blocking it is like a huge river that now has a big damn obstructing the river from flowing..

The energy in our bodies is the very exact same. When we will not feel our shit, it blocks off the emotional energy. When we won't recognize that , we numb ourselves, and there is your STUCK ENERGY..
WE think the pain is the problem..
It is NOT .. the pain is not the thing that hurts most. THe pain itself or the thing on our mind, inside us the most is INFORMATION from the body about why YOU FEEL the way you do..
WHen it feels ignored, it GETS LOUDER.. it raps HARDER, it pushes , pokes, prods and wants OUT..
Ignore it long enough, and by the time it is dealt with, usually the IMPloding finally EXPLODES. It is far bigger issue, not because it IS that big a deal, but because the pain builds bigger INside , and wants OUT.

Once we get that, we can begin to understand , if we block off our feelings all the time, we are setting up for a constant DAM of energy flow our bodies need to keep alive and to stay healthy..

When there is to much obstruction in the way from what is and has not simply been dealt with???
Take it from me . LEARN from me.. The body gets so exhausted, and worn down. HOLDING the truth of pain IN is what actually takes a LOT of energy from us, VITAL energy we need..
It is simply the equivalent of clenching our bodies so tight. Eventually, we MUST lset go, surrender the CLENCHING, the BALLING UP, the SQUEEZING and HOLDING IT ALL IN..
because we become sheerly exhausted by all the time we spent HOLDING it in. when we are doing this, we hold our breath in too..

TEnsion being held and not handled with care, BEGS to free itself from US..It is our mind, our closed off angry heart, etc. that WON"t let go..

It is the MIND in the WAY of the body..
When really the body says "hey, let's just face this, lay it down, admit it, grieve, surrender etc..

SO, tonight being reminded so STRONGLY of what I only live , speak and breathe in my teaching..

Tonght, the yoga teacher had to lay down her frustration. It was just ONE practice, why get so worked up. Yoga did not care what was happening, in fact YOGA energy says BRING iT..
Yoga and the spriritual practices seem to say "I KNOW YOUR TRUTH, YOUR BODY WON't LIE. I KNOW your struggling , come anyway etc..
Yoga taught me to be ALL ENCOMPASSING, not all or nothing like I was so rigidly conditoned , therefore always coming or going..

To go towards my pain with an easy mild mannered approach as though it was my own children's pain.
I began to cry, and then I cried harder, and I admitted to myself what hurt so much. Then, after some heavy ass sobs, some snot ;) , and the deepest tears held at the root. I found my tight shoulders and hips let go..
i felt space in my lungs for me to breathe again, I felt space FROM what was troubling me deep down the most. I felt SPACE to think and feel something ELSE as it did not consume me so painfully anymore..
NOthing changed, but EVERYTHING had , I HAD changed..

I had laid down the need to dive back into much more emotional eating, dive back into a super whirlwind of activity to NOT feel to NOT have the time to SIT STILL and BE , I laid it down, laid me down, got the answers inside, cried a good bit if time. and then, the intensity of it let go of me..

because my mind and heart STOPPED FIGHTING.
IN truth, I make it my job now to embrace what I feel.. IF I won't go towards MY feelings with any love or compassion or gentlenes? Damn staight I am NOT going to be able to feel anything close to that for what is paining you..
If I won't go towards MY own emotonal discomfort.what makes you think I could possibly hold a bigger space than others would FOR YOURS..

If I won't FEEL, then I have lost the ability to FEEL period, intuiitive guidance included..

THINK LESS , FEEL MORE..
Ps.. If you were raised by someone who spent years AVOIDING , or DENYING, or using anything to GO Towards their stuff..
THey sure could not teach you anything different..
They may try to SAY anything, but INSIDE we FEEL the difference...

Bring back YOUR FEELING HEART..
As soon as you go towards the thing your mind fears most? THERE IS NO FEAR.. and we see it is more a JEDI mind trick the EGO plays on US..
When there is NO fear based thinking, there is NO fear FEELING, when there is NO fire of fearful thinking and feeling, there is NO EXPERIENCE That occurs to VALIDATE FEAR..

WHen there is courage to go towards the doors we won't open, and finally we do, POWER is returned, CONFIDENCE and feeling OKAY with A PART of ourselves that was only SHUT OFF or we stayed tuned OUT too??

Means we STOP fighting discomfort, and EMPOWER ourselves and not some vice that will only be a short term relationship from US , we learn to be more all encompassing of ALL OUR FEELINGS< not just our "good happy easy ones"..

Yoga , SElf love, teach UNconditional .. and it teaches us COURAGE does not mean we only go near something when the fear is gone.. THE MIND WILL RUN THAT STORY OF FEAR and ANGST ALL DAMN DAY into our sleep!!!
COUrage , TRUE courage is to be able to face that part of ourselves that cries out to inform us how our body is holding up. If we ignore that feeling, we might lose THE OPPORTUNITY to get info to us BEFORE we get so sick instead..

If we ingore that part of us, then we DISS US..

and that will have us going through life feeling everyone else has a lack of regard for our feeling. Everyone else is not supporting our feelings, or acknowledging them...
THE BUDDHA said "YOUR MIND IS CREATING YOUR WORLD>. YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS are creating YOUR LIFE..

YOU FEEL FOR YOU. first, YOU support you FIRST, YOU acknowledge YOu first, then it stops being so painful if others don't , or you will see that PEOPLE OUTSIDE YOU WILL MIRROR YOu..

I had NO plan a few hours ago to write to you and share this. I had NO plan of sharing my pain with ME..
I also was wiped out for the last few hours, then the crying gave me energy and a more settled feeling BACK..
Avoiding pain, numbing out, denying truth, is not how I can roll anymore. EVen if it slaps me in the face, kicks my emotional heart to the curb, PRETENDING to myself is not an option..
Yoga taught me TO GET REAL..

and besides, once you found a taste of something better, YOU NEVER WANT TO GO BACK TO THE OLD WAY.. OLD LIFE..
I felt REnewed after crying and just surrendering..There was an intensity that lifted itself, a more settled feeling in mind. SETTLED MORE IN MIND and HEART..
MORE RELAXED IN BODY, and BREATH comes IN and OUT easier too. WHy? Simple.. NOTHING ABOUT the mind is IN the way of it..


NEW was it indeed.. after all, the way out is THROUGH..
BLOCKED ENERGY no longer a noose around me..
FREEDOM...
BE FREEDOM. KEEP THE FLOW GOING... and begin to VALUE your own feelings, like em or not.. if they are YOUR FEELINGS, and you won't acknowledge them? YOU won't acknowlege you, so who else will? YOur feelings are of value, because YOU are of value..
Period, the END. Where did we get it , everyone else's feelings matter and we spend countless hours doting on theirs, and scratching us off the list..

Yet, the thing is ? What I learned ??? FEEL FOR ME MORE.. FEEL MORE HEART FOR ALL, NOT LESS..
Usually, the missing piece here is we first VALIDATE US , and then we move into a bigger space of understanding having been slighted etc..
What is blocking your path IS the path.. and we can not get far past it otherwise... no matter how much we look the part, or pretend..
Who better than ME to know?
I FEEL YOU..
PS. Feel free to get a hold of me and TAKE ME WITH YOU when you wish not to face it alone.. TOgether , we go where we would NOT go alone... and I already FELT and LIVED MOST EVERYTHING..
IF I am not running scared from my experience or pain. I can HANDLE YOUR OWN to EMPOWER YOU to go there too. Somtimes, we just need some back up from one who has been near his or her own similar..
Like I said, we aint different..

NOT REALLY..

What is brought to light BECOMES LIGHT..
AIm
LOve AIm

Blog bits until the real story emerges...

There are so many things to love and value about Power Vinyasa Yoga I would not know where to begin. The knowledge of breath, mind, body is so limitless.

While writing my book about it all, I thought of those of you who want that book done NOW. I thought "If they are that hungry, why wait?"
So, if your hungry, whether you do yoga or not, or want to try it but forgot, or maybe you do but you never knew WHAT you were suposed to get out of it? I thought I would bring the 5000 year old bread winning knowledge to YOU and we break off a piece a time. Ideally, because all my yoga has given not just my body strength and flexibility but truly brought me way way WAY into deep mental and emotional rooted healing, moving me towards wholeness and empowerment that gives more deeper, richer meaning to my LIFE's value.


Now Ya see, I grew up the oldest of five kids. Later, four more bros and a sister came in through my stellar step father. Trust me, big families? Anyone out there who comes from them knows it is deeply ingrained in you to SHARE. I have deep roots from that to NOT be a hoarder, or be selfish. I am not sure how to be.
I am not a hoarder, and what I know has helped me personally, as I grew more confident I began to stop teaching yoga as just exercise and began to teach it from a place of deeper knowing, It was met with empowering so many students with a sense of true powerful wisdom to click and create an AHA! oN and off their mat.
So, whether you do yogah or not, I could give a shit. If this transformed me, and so many of my students over the years , why would I keep that on reserve FROM YOU?

Yoga itself means "YOKE" and yoke means BRING TOGETHER.. Vinyasa means "flow" or that withOUT barriers and obstruction.

On a yoga mat, we usually learn into our first few down dogs that there IS a barrier that is blocking us from TOTAL flexibility.

Hence, we feel the slightest physical resistance, and if we don't know that the exhales will release muscle tension FOR US, we immediately TIGHTEN MORE. It makes sense, not a one of us feel comfortable with discomfort. The mind goes into a huge story of pain and angst and creates more of the same. Hence, that is also where we begin to want to check out of our bodies, want out of the room, etc..
Is that not true of us all? In our life, when the heat is ON, we want OUT! If we have someone coming at us with attitude, or upet, we go into putting on our armor and yelling louder back, defending. You get the jist.
Yet, yoga teaches us that whether your plugged in fully to your own body, or checked out, your body is always still feeling the effects of your thoughts and your feelings..
The truth? Simple. There is no true separation of mind and body. On some level, in and out of yoga class, we DO KNOW THIS.
If we are stressing out, we are not thinking about our bodies, and what we are doing to em, but our bodies try to get our attention by tightening up, a tight chest, a stomach tied in knots, a heart ACHE?
Anything I share with you? Like I said, YOU ALWAYS ALREADY know. YOUR OWN LEARNING from me will be your deeper personal wisdom REmembered.

So, very often it takes a bit of time to get the body to flow and move freely through the practice. If we are more in our heads than our bodies, and our thoughts are creating any angst, irritation, upset, sadness, distraction, fear, anxiety, then it impedes the FLOW of UNobstructed, FREE flowing FLUID, calm, easy breath. When our breath gets WALLED off, we actually get MORE reactive, therefore less able to focus on taking SIMPLE ACTION in the present.
That breath going M.I.A.? Simply walls us off from getting badly needed oxygen to the lungs and brain.
What happens when we can not get air? We panic. Here is a trick I taught myself, ( you should know I spent most of my life experiences were rooted in DEEP rooted panic, I spent most of my life holding my breath, and spent most of my junior year of high school breathing into a paperbag!) NOW you see why I want you to get all this far sooner than me? I am not interested in watching you suffer, and besides your energy is meant for far greater things than panic, and fear and anxiety, YOU HAVE FAR MORE VITAL PLACES TO BE than trapped in your own mind and also body.
So, if you want a way out, my insights might get you to see how EASY your cage could have been unlocked!
IF ever you can NOT breathe?? BREATHE OUT first.. Carbon dioxide and emotional tension has built up to EXCESS that is DAMNING UP the flow of oxygen for your lungs and brain. If you can not get air , you will fight for AIR, and you will always be STUCK IN SURVIVAL MODE, and STUCK in places in your life that you probably also need to break free from, but are afraid to make a move.
If you can not get out of survival mode, you will never be able to THRIVE truly or find the life your soul knows IS readily available to you.
I am here to get you BACK OUT ON THE ROAD OF YOUR LIFE.. all this keeps us stuck in our own traffic otherwise.
SEt the breath free to go, and your INhale finds YOU! The slower, deeper breaths you take, and AN EVEN BIGGER focus on letting GO? Instantly, the mind begins to get present again, and the body moves away from fight or flight.

For the majority of us, especially with the way the globe has been going these days, it is MORE normal to CHRONINCALLY and constantly be upset, stressed , anxious, worried, about something or other. Our breathing is more active in SHORT and shallow.. and when it comes to OXYGEN for our bodies? MORE IS MORE..
The more short and shallow breathing, we never truly take the air INTo our bodies, so our focus is also JUST NOT THERE either, meaning we are never really that INTO what we are doing. We are more apt to be distracted, more apt to become REactive, our body postures are more apt to express DEFENSE. If we are in defense, we will look for excess ways to control, all are coming from a place of fear and a ready for FLIGHT.

We become and live mindlessly. We will struggle with an ability to show up for our work, our activities, our ANYTHING and EVERYTHING from start to finish. We will have one foot in and one foot out!
WE lack a sense of a true feeling of grounding in our own legs and feet, hence a floaty feeling or going through the motions and on the outside, it shows a lack of presence, or attention or interest in the moment in front of us.


Lack of breathing? a learned response from earlier luggage of life going dow from stuff our minds or hearts had a hardship handling creating a half lived life.
If That then should shine a lot to you on why you get MORE stressed, more uptight, more fearful, more anxious. I shed light to you on this, OUR THOUGHTS are roots to the FEELING felt in our body. If those thoughts are creating any angst? Well, our head chatter gets so big and literally puts us in fear based flight or fight or anger.. It simply steers us further away, and more engaged we are in our frazzled or upsetting or fearful or angry thoughts, the more a story based on fear deeply gets RErooted into the mind, and the nervous system.

The more upset, and the whole time, our bodies are getting the brunt of it. We simply become more DISengaged we are from our bodies. Yet, our bodies are reacting constantly, by manifesting as physical and emotional tension, over time, cutting off the flow of our vitality, and wearing down the immune system, and creating illness, and over a lengthy period of time, disease. All tension in the body is mirroring one important thing for us all to sit up and WAKE UP and take note!

The thinking mind in stress is shutting off the breath. If it shuts off the breath, it puts our mind in a deep freeze of MORE strife and deep freeze of oxygen, having a way to flow into the body! Yet, not breathing also cuts us off from being present to FEELING. The breath is our bridge to climb down from our heads and BACK INTO OUR BODIES. When our breath checks out , we are CHECKED out. Period!
When our thoughts are not flowing towards peace, ease, calm, our breath is not there either, hence OUR lights are ON, but we are truly NOT home.
Fear checks us ALL OUT of our bodies, we stand looking the part, but inside only we know if we are there or not.

Think of the times, your doing what you love? Your so living in the present moment, fully there, fully engaged, and ALIVE. and you know what? There is no strife and the breath is freely flowing for you too. There is no need of a internal fight to get air, simply because there is no fight outside you.
The battle creating the real war for our bodies, or our lives? It is INSIDE us before it is ever outside.



Yoga also teaches us that our body parts have NO interest in NOt supporting the other. I do not see body parts REFUSE to make something easier. THe spine for example holds deep wisdom. It knows if it stays strong, it EMPOWERS the core. If the core is drawn into the body, and considered a bridge to link the upper and lower limbs together, then the spine feels more at ease and does not have to work overtime to keep the body stable and upright. The core muscles drawing into the body give deeper support to the spine, and also gives it a lift! The quadraceps know first hand if the hamstrings are not as strong, it is because an excessive amount of tension is keeping the back side of the thighs from being able to move the leg with more freedom. The hamstrings being tight then puts excessive pressure on the quads to become more of the "workhorse" muscles. However, when students take a forward bend, and simply engage the front of our thighs and pressing them into the back of the thighs, the hamstrings FEEL MORE SUPPORTED to RELEASE the deep tension they hold. Once we engage the legs more fully in that forward bend? The upper body begins to pour itself forward off the hip hinge to truly release the spine. Why? Simple. The upper body feels the pillar of strength from the bigger muscles of the legs, and with that stability, the upper body can relax a bit and move towards freedom to really let go.
Yet, Is that not true of all of us on the planet though? When we really truly feel the mental, emotional, or physical support from someone who truly loves us UNconditionally? It brings TRUE and total deep peace to the mind and heart and from there? We can loosen our grip, let go of such a need to control, and we can do the deeper more courageous work to not grip tighter, but LET GO. With stability, we can lean back, we can go into places we ourselves are resisting because we are simply quietly silently afraid to go alone?
The body feels exactly that same way. In yoga, it is stability of mind to body, the power and anchor of being present, and the true knowing that with a foundation of stability, we experience freedom to let go and go beyond the stuck places we stay because of fear. The stiffness in the body is not really in the body. The stiffness is FIRST in the mind that then sends a tight feeling into the body and the body stiffens as the effect.

Yet, regardless of how disengaged we become from our bodies, they hold the deeper wisdom to teach us the power of coming back together. Aligning WITH the breath, and letting the body move and make its way from pose to pose.
SImply put, in Vinyasa yoga, the body knows alignment and stacking of our joints is a collective effort that will ENHANCE flow. ie: Knee over ankle, shoulders over wrists? That simple COLLABORATIVE effort of joints connecting and lining up as a team, make the practice itself A BREEZE! When the breath is there leading, not only does it lead the way for fluidity to show back up, for softening of tight muscles to show up but it also is a serious anchor for the mind. Mind AND body in sync? Head bowing to the heart? FLOW , effortless...
Well, a lot LESS like work anyway.

Well, over time, all that body wisdom taught me that there should be NO separation from EVERYONE being able to access a bunch of this yoga perspective that would make LIFE ITSELF easier! Truly, there is no real separation between any of us. Different bodies, different haircuts, different levels,YES! ABSOLUTELY,yet everyone of us knows fear, anger, sadness, lonely, bored, restless, edgy, resistance, stuck, drama, happy, healthy, sick, broke, some level of abundance, sleepness nights, heartbreak, loss, death, birth, lost, found, vulnerability, ego, upset, a bad dream, our first love, separateness and union ..... you get it...

So, here I am..

After all, When you feel you landed some serious wisdom to help you in your life, like yoga whispers "SHARE THIS" "Don't be selfish." Yoga is meant to move our ego of us out of the way, so we can open wide and expand and deepen our knowing by sharing it with others. Where we can share ourselves bigger with others. Guess what? I will go so far as to say, it is OUR obligation to SHARE and light a path for others. So, selflessly I share...

What is on your BIG KID menu? it is TIME TO HAVE IT YOUR WAY!

I know this amazing girl who landed briefly in my zipcode and left me forever changed on a buffet of levels.

Her name is Rachel Fielding, who I instantly loved, and felt drawn to when she showed up wanting to work together to create BIG yoga love! She was an Anusara teacher, a Reiki healer like myself, and she was also a master of teachers to others of the Law of Attraction, and Course in Miracles.
She transformed her own life from being broke, stuck, trapped, into total freedom and abundance. She came to New Hampshire feeling guided to teach others to TAP their own ABUNDANCE and ATTRACT the right things to them. I think she was so many things in such a TOTAL package, I probably did not even digest WHO she was and what she brought to my life until she was fading out, and packing her bags.

I watched her transform herself beyond the girl who arrived. She showed up , happily married, and in her power as a teacher, and life coach for others. She had me at HELLO. I did not think she could evolve bigger or radiate more love and light!
She was one who was SHOWING UP FULLY for life, which from where I was at at that time, was IMPRESSIVE and ADMIRABLE but a bit daunting to a more fearFUL me of my own ABUNDANCE wanting to bust out.
Yet, when Rachel walked OUT of this town, she was a COMPLETE butterfly. Her ten year SAFE marriage ENDED,all the while not looking, found the real love of her life, and gave it all up to get back to HER ultimate happiness instead. She had to admit as much as she loved our area, it simply was not HER place,

So, instead , saying goodbye right as she also told me the news she was about to be a mom for the first time. A kid who chooses HER for a mom knows his shit.
Truly, he does, he was just born a short few days ago.. I welcome baby boy BODE thanking him for his knowing on just when to arrive, no doubt on to a mom like his, who was investing in nurturing and mothering friends like me in large limbo. One foot in my old doors, and one foot scared shitless to step into the new. THat sense of being in two places, our head keeping us in the old, our heart itching to get out the door and go forth fearlesssly in the new takes its own special timing to arrive into. I am thankful for Bode's perfect natural timing to come into all this Chex Mix after things could fall apart, come back together right and after some adjust of better decisions , we knew we helped each other in the right timing to be able to support that we could ALL stand stronger on BOTH legs and feet. Rachel saw my wobbly newborn calf like legs standing on such shaky ground in my own life and offered me something that gave me TRUE stronger legs to stand on. I wanna share that with you.. I feel that is what we are all meant to do.. To share our experiences that helped us to OWN true internal wisdom and see if perhaps we can shed light to others..


Rachel, I think of often, and I am MORE awake to the things she taught me NOW than I was at the time I had her right at my side.
We wake up when we wake up. She woke me up one day, in a way that was NOT playing around, and that demonstated her TRUE love for me as her friend.
She taught me something I wanted to share with you, or maybe you will pass on to others in the right timing.. I also share it while sharing my own personal lesser moment, to land me this level of wisdom. I add in a dash or two of my own gentle knowing too.


I was back and forth as I had been for a long, long time hemming and hawing about so many decisions in my life.


My work, NOT the teaching itself, but some of the other dynamics, were consuming me with full throttle stress so bad, it was swallowing up my energy, my mood, my health, and ME whole. The level of stress was so big and intimidating, and haunting me constantly, yet , sadly, I could not find the voice I needed in saying It was time to GO, and letting it GO. So, I tiptoed aroudn quietly so as to not rile others, meanwhile, losing more and more personal power to step back into my life and step up to make change.


I spent much time resisting getting out of bed till the last possible minute, and because nothing was changing, it got worse, and I began swapping trips to the bathroom to toss my cookies instead.
When no one could hear me, and people were heavily snoring in their beds, I lay awake tossing and turning and finally just burying a pillow over my head and crying quietly to sleep. No matter how much I tried to avoid the truth inside , my body seemed to have my number, and my body began to fall apart too, slowly but surely. I looked dragged out, my hair began to fall out, my stomach constantly in a knot, hence the tossing cookies shortly thereafter.

To top it off, one of the places I put my energy in retreating was in a relationship that that same voice inside me was also whispering, then raising its tone a bit louder, and finally, screaming to be let go. The two together had me in one twisted knot, and I was working over time to hold it together tighter, because what was standing in the way from the badly needed Unravel was the knot of angst and under it, my HUGE FEAR. I clung tighter and tighter to that fear, working it with all I could so I could stay hidden behind it, and curtailing any NECESSARY ACTION.
I clung tighter, and spent much time shopping for an endless supply of emotional ducktape furiously trying to hold it all together, walling myself OFF further so as to not feel the pain of such a mess on all fronts, simply feeling besides myself to survive one minute to the next, to say NOTHING about having a courage, or energy To BE DOING anything about all the sticky clean up!
To be honest,although I was so overwhelmed and feeling DISempowered about how big of a mess both were.


BOTH were rapidly showing up to BE a JOKE.. and it was starting to become NO laughing matter!
THEY WERE NOT working, and I guess I did what anyone in survival mode sorta does. CHOSE THE LESSER evil to cling to so as to have some bit of reprieve of the greater than. Deep down, though, I was NOT fooling myself.


After an evening before of some complete Lifetime Drama, Rachel happened to show up, and she knew I needed to talk. My silence spoke to that. She , being an intuitive herself had that kinda sixth sense about things.
Rachel pulled me into her vehicle and we sat in my driveway, and I carried on with the empty details I even was getting sick of, but felt stuck in.
She listened to me vent, dramatize, and yes, WHINE for a long time.
She was compassionate, fully attentive, and then stopped and looked at me, and said something I will NEVER allow myself to forget, especially NOW,
She truly and ultimately really had MY BEST IN MIND when she hit me with something that stopped all the B.S. , my shield, and mask off, she stopped me in my tracks.

"Aim, honey, what do YOU WANT?"

"Huh? I pressed. No, just wait, and let me finish telling you what happened"

"NO, Aim, I already know, really I do. I know where this is all going. So, instead I just want to ask you this."

"Stop this. STOP."

STOP IT. and just get quiet , shut OFF the drama, and just tell me IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT FOR YOUR LIFE?" For YOU, if you are not going to consider YOU, how about yOUR KIDS?"

"NO" of course not. I argued , my voice rising in reaction.

She was centered enough to NOT cater to my edge.

She said "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

Immediately, her words were heard but my ego would not allow them to sink in, Quick to REact, and shoot off at the mouth instead about what I did not want..

She said , I DID NOT ask you what you DIDN'T want.
I asked you one simple question...."WHAT DO YOU WANT?

"Look, here is the deal"
You get yourself so involved in stuff that does NOt honor you, people who do NOT see the YOu they are with, work shit that is just RIDICULOUS, draining you and totally leaving you DRY.
"So, WHAT DO YOU WANT INSTEAD."

This, I share with you , as I was reminded of it once again today, even though she is long gone from my zipcode, and mothering her own newborn son just a few days old, now that she was no longer NEEDED to mother me.

She said "When you go to a restaurant , you pick up the menu , and you have to speak to the waiter on what YOU WANT to eat to GET IT , right?"
If you show up, look at the menu, and say "I don't want chicken, I don't want veal, I don't want fish.. KNOW THIS, until you look at that menu and PICK OUT what the HELL YOU WANT to have on YOUR PLATE, your NOT getting ANY FOOD!"
"In fact, you won't GET ANY MEAL, and certainly not the one you WANT.

"So, NO MORE of this what you don't want, the universe hears it, and YET , your life MIRRORS YOU STILL GOING HUNGRY and UNsatisfied."

She was right. I knew it. Iknew it so big, I just stopped saying anything. Not to be ignorant but maybe to CHEW the soul food guidance she gave me that if I remember to come back to it, It feeds me fOR LIFE.

She was right. I loved my teaching so much, but I LOATHED so much of what was going down behind the scenes. I had outgrown a need to wanna do it anymore, the way it was.
I wondered about taking my teaching to a deeper level,
In fact, My only reprieve was IN teaching. It was a chance for me to let the rest TO rest in my mind if only for a short while. I needed that commercial break from my own life as much as I could offer that space for students.

Not only did my mind know I wanted OUT of things, but I hesitateed out of a sense of a bound commitment, not to mention binding contracts to others. Binding contracts with NO breathing room in any arena, by the way? SHOULD NOT be signed on the dotted line.
Yet, regardlesss, it felt so out of my control, and I felt it was not my place to speak up in fear of upsetting and hurting others, I felt bound to and obligated to. That sense of obligation was cutting off my own air.
A part of me shut down and shut down TIGHT , feeling NO way out.. In truth, as a yoga teacher, breathing master, I can ASSURE you when we show up in our life in things that we FEEL we have so little breathing room of our own or we feel so NOT wanting to be there, it literally moves us into survival mode, and to literally survive what and where we feel we are left NO PEACEFUL WAY OUT. WE instinctively wall off the breath so as TO NOT FEEL just how BAD it is..


I was trapped on all accounts. Or so my ego was working hard to convince me. I did what I needed to survive as long as I could.. If there is one thing I USED to pride myself on, it was in how long I could "get by" in the worst conditions.

Slowly , Rachel was silently teaching me to SEE how my pretending it was all fine, was creating such a damper to my happiness on the outside. Feeding into a survival mode energy I needed to make it through some hairy shit as a kid was STILL showing back up as an old pattern and playing back out. however, this time, that that level of stoicism was not a place that gave me any sense of strength in my life but overwhelm to weaken instead. In my fear, I gripped tighter, yet it kept tearing me down on every level otherwise.

Doctors began to pick up on just how OFF I seemed , began to probe gently and ask big questions.


Truth always wants to be honored and find its way OUT of DARKNESS.. WE can slam the door shut on bringing the truth to light but in the end, it looks for ANOTHER EXIT OUT."Close the energy off in one area, and it will seek another outlet to free itself."

This time the exit was showing up in my health going out the door! My doctor determining my health was definitely deteriorating due to my repressed tension and anxiety was kind enough to remain LOVINGLY HELLbent to say "DEROEHN, FOR REAL, THIS IS KILLING YOU, and it is time for you to GET OUT OF THIS, your health is coming apart at the seams."
It was. I guess because I felt this overinflated pride that was NOt helping me to stay gripping to my conditioning of "toughing it out and a deep rooted, just close your eyes and put on your sticktuitiveness cape." Yet, the firm, yet tenderhanded Rachel, was the wake up call my own ego hellbent to hold it all together and keep suffering at any cost would NOT EVER BE DESIGNED to allow me. Well, Rachel and a few doctor s who was NOT going to cater to my "NO pain, no gain conditioned CRAP.

Eventually, you learn that there are doctors who believe in true heathcare reform, when they are considerate enough to say, "If you don't let go of this. You will manifest a cancer. It is as simple as that."
To grab hold of your face, and look right into your eyes, and say slowly and quietly, the very thing that your ego needs to be able to find its way OUT of a NEED to be imprisoned.: My doctor said "Look at me,No matter what anyone tells you, you are doing NO one, especially your kids, any favors by staying in things your own ego and the ego of others INSIST or DEMAND or YELL at you to STAY IN.. There is NO NEED of this, contract, obligation to others or not. I can see your organs depleted and blocked and your not so much sad as you are MAD, so your backing yourself right up against your old door of depression, and anxiety." "In case you forgot, THAT IS NOT YOGA!"
In my fear, I forgot. And as often as we can all forget the truth, we need others , yoga teachers included to SHOW UP and speak to us on what we KNOW and seem to have simply lost for someone else to feel better.
"There is NOTHING enligtening about shrinking so another feels better around you."


NOR is anyone loving you who wants to see you shrink down or step away from what is good for you, or a better fit for you. My relationship, and my landlords who knew I was a little Red Riding Hood, did NOT like to see Rachel coming towards either of my doors.


Depression , in case you were not aware , is our feeling that on some level we can not show up with ease and comfort FULLY for our lives and we can not show up that is, if we DO NOT WANT TO.
We feel sad, intimidated and especially powerless to make it feel good. And underneath that heavy sadness, and isolation, and weighted fatigue is also in fact, our ANGER about the whole thing not changing , not being in our power to change it, TURNED INSIDE OUT.
The body is depleted and exhausted constantly fatigued, or UNable to sleep. In a need to further keep showing up for others, or for a life, deep down we KNOW inside we have OUTgrown, if we feel we can not say or do anything about it, or that we have the right to, we shut down, ultimately abandoning US instead. Our INternal barometer of UNhappy does us our well being, our body, our health, or those around us NO favors. Our UNhappy and settling COSTS us over time, like a row of dominoes, on every level, in every area of our lives, instead.

My relationship really did not and could not and would never really have a balanced partnership where I had any sense of emotional true SOLID solid ground, therefore, I constantly gripped tighter to a wheel because there was little support,hence any real sense of freedom to relax otherwise, no matter how much, how long that I denied that to myself.
If I was really honest, this was from the start.
The signs are there from the start. THe foundation itself was missing some vital parts, and so the castle on top was always about to topple to the ground too.

Take note also of anyone in your life who truly cares for you, and is not about to sit quiet while the bullshit piles up, watching you become buried underneath.

Know that if you have someone in your corner to shine a light on some painful truths, or offer you something better for your ego to ponder, there will be plenty who will be close by, claim to be close to you start squawking, wanting you to squash that conscious, loving, truthful person right out of your life.
Pay extra attention to that, I had to .. and that helped me to see the one claiming to love me, wanting me to cancel out such a good person like Rachel and friend was NOT loving me at all..
Later, you learn that the person feels totally intimdated by someone who breezes in and says "HEy, wake up, this is NOT love! Are you seriously gonna sit here and say that you fullfilled by this?" is going to raise their voice because what we they won't tell you is that if you wake up, they might get downsized. In truth, when a source of light as bright as Rach is, waltes in , your blinded awake by truths all without her saying a word.
The presence of light is enough and everyone needs the switch flipped on.

A conscious, loving friend will do the harder thing. The harder path , however, LEADS TO THE EASY LIFE. The truth is this, when we wake up, we EMPOWER those in the dark TO GROW past themselves too.
THE EASY WAY will always lead us to the HARD LIFE!!


Yet, I felt beyond overwhelmed to DO anything about anything. I truly believed I lacked power over it,my physical body screaming EXHAUSTION seemed to validate that.

It was Rachel deciding to make BETTER use of her own time, and friendships, coming by, the doctor's visit shortly behind her, that got me to begin to just STOP and slam on the mental brakes of story, of drama, of BULLSHIT from continuing one more second.
NOTHING going outside my own kids, was GOING .. was FLOWING.. and until I found the big courage to say that to someone I trusted and I knew loved me big enough to keep rooting for mY happiness, NOTHING OUTSIDE ME WAS GOING TO CHANGE. Beyond Rachel or a doctor, UNTIL I LOVED ME big enough, this would probably STILL be playing out.

Vinyasa yoga is powerful. VINYASA means FLOW.. and when our breath is not flowing ,some part of our thinking mind and emotional closet is in turmoil. Eventually leading to FIGHT OR FLIGHT, and that will immediately play out in an area of OUR LIFE to NOT FLOW either.
When we deny, repress, shove down, stuff down, NOTHING REAL can come to the surface and RELEASE ITSELF and AID in our FLOW of thinking clearer, calmer, and feeling or living better either.

In fact, when we depress, and repress, and supress, at that level , we wall off our TRUE VITAL LIFE FORCE ENERGY and truly that is what depletes us.. The physical body houses the mental and emotional bodies and when they get jammed pack to excess, or hardened with strife or heartbreak, etc.. to keep going, we go into survival, essentially becoming NUMB and EMOTIONLESS , hence going through the motions. Resisting our own feelings, because they bring us discomfort, etc has us not being able to feel, explore or express our truth. We hide our own honest feelings from ourselves and from others.


At the same time, I learned in all this that UNTIL I worked through my whole rainbow of flavors of FRUITLESS emotion, and learned to love it instead. I was still going to get an express meal delivered of a life that felt like a empty, bland plate. A Side dish, not a full plate.

Yet, I had to LOVE it for what it gave me. Whether I wanted to say it out loud or not, I was not ready, and I was unsure what to do, how it would go down.
In that fear, more hesitation set in. When we don't ACT on what we want to do, fear grows and we hold ourselves back. Hence another reason for our tight hamstrings, the back part of our legs, to feel the fear in the mind, and so they mirror that by pulling back in fear too.


I needed to hide, I needed it to be SO awful, and I could not release the need for taking action. Until I had gratitude for how it kept me SAFE so as to be able to be confident enough to release a need to hold onto the LACK, I could not find courage to play bigger.
It gave me an opportunity to keep playing small, and feel like a powerless child, and in truth, I was TERRIFIED to admit out loud how UNhappy I was, at work , in my relationship that appeared "alright" on the surface. As UNhappy as I was, I learned that sitting silent on that alone was better than getting everyone else UPSET.

No matter how much I constantly was at work wearing myself out to make things work, try harder, give things more chances, in truth, they were not working, and they were NOT going to , because they were NOT susposed to.

After a certain amount of time, we begin to wake up and SEE and FEEL how things NOT working after reasonable efforts, are NOT meant to. We can pussyfoot around it or tip toe or anything we want as long as we NEED to. Being scared to make bigger changes, is so daunting, si if there is a need for it, it is because our fears are running the show. We wonder why nothing better is happening. Fear is designed to keep us STUCK and fear of UNknown keeps us hunkered down a lot longer too. Fear gets louder, the fearful ego of others who also know things are not right, gets LOUDER when they fear they are going to be left behind. and to prevent us from NOT stepping up and daring to claim what it IS we DO WANT on our plate..

I gotta expose my ego to you, so you will know that the truth is this.... We are getting what we are putting out there either way.
OUr prayers are being answered. We can say we are saying NO to things but if our bodies are there, then we are, so on some level , WE ARE SAYING YES!
At the same time, we can say YES, but if our arms are crossed , on some level we are RESISTING too...
If I expose me humbly, then you will know that any at point of your life where you can nod your head cause your heart knows that you too deep down resonate from the place I speak from. You might resonate with this stuff better to expose you,as I am taking off the mask and shield to say,"BEEN YOU BROTHER OR SISTER, SO I FEEL YOU..
I AM ON TO YOU, simply because I HAD TO HAVE MY OWN NUMBER FIRST..

I know all to well what is like to use my own controlling ego rather than just admit I am scared..
WHat I learned PAINFULLY, but learned regardless, is that we make it so much harder than it is .. I held up the line for my business space, and the guy I was dating while holding up my own. I guess he did not want to go either, but the truth kept trying to push itself UP from the surface..When I watched things in my rental space break , fall apart, stop working out of the blue, I had to admit that there was something bigger in place that also knew this whole deal was A BUM DEAL. .. Sleeping on that, made it far worse.
I held on because I thought that was the BEST it would or could get. In truth, I had to let it go, because until we get big and bad enough to just drop to our knees and say "I GIVE".
Let it Go for me.. nothing better can replace it.
The new is always going to be greater than the old.

Looking back today, seeing how I was paralyzed at the thought to let it go, that the sky would fall down, if i admitted I was struggling or unhappy. I can see now how there was no real strength at all. There was an excessive need to control the situation, to my own satisfaction simply because I was afraid to say what I really needed to instead.
NOthing better came for me until I did.


Here is what I also learned, that if your afraid to DO the work to UNdo things..
Say out loud something very simple, and TRUST that the God that loves you , that higher power KNOWS full WELL your hugely fearful to be a bad guy or bad girl too, and admit that things are no longer working for you. THat you have outgrown things. Trust instead all you really gotta do, is SURRENDER.. and offer to get out of the way for what is NOT serving or working on behalf of a life for you to FLOW and feel GOOD in.

Say out loud, you release the need to keep battling this, and drop your sword...
Stand back and watch from a bigger perspective the power of Grace coming in and tearing down what was going to ONLY crumble before to long anyway.
No worries, your better days are only a bit away. The universe that watches lovingly over us, only wants us to be in our life THRIVING more than just surviving and getting by. That creates a RIPPLE of unhappy that spreads to others being UNhappy. When we are that miserable, we are blocked from love, from living fully and freely. That love and happy is the ultimate healing medicine for a body, a child, a family, a neighborhood, from here to the other side of the world. Both will be felt on either end.


Release a need to stay UNhappy in your own living breathing life. When you know happy, it is truly self LESS , when we FEEL that sense of contentment and life well lived, ALL WE WANT is to NOT contain it but simply to lead others to the well of that too, and drink heartily.



The universe will back it up for us either way.
After all, as RACHEL said "Until you get clear inside yourself, what it is YOU WANT for your life instead. God will let you keep starving, not because he wants that, but simply because he feeds off the choice of FREE WILL..
So, you gotta be WILLING to come forth to the kitchen and tell the head chef how you want your meal prepared.. In truth, because HE is waiting for YOU to step UP and ASK for what you WANT to see ON YOUR MENU, and it is OKAY to completely REwrite that menu.

Until then, he leaves it TRULY all up to Y O U.... the power is WITHIN you, tap the higher power of you instead when making such decisions..

I could not argue her because she was coming from a place of defenseless and being in her center. She also had done just that for her own life, so she could feel for the fearful me.
She could even love me enough to drive away and simply let me STAY where I was at, but I guess she figured while she was there listening, if I was willing to quiet down , she would take a chance and toss that simple fact at me knowing if said RIGHT with LOVE , there wouldn't be a need for a food FIGHT.

As I look back, I guess I realize now that that advice came to me in a way it could not be ignored, although, I guess because I felt so vulnerable to begin with, It took a bit of time to ALLOW something bigger to let it COME UNDONE FOR ME

That our greater power is in surrender, and allowing things to come Undone for us that no longer serve on our behalf.. Until then, we will only truly ALLOW ourselves a MORSEL of a meal for a divine life. And that is ON US to speak to OUR INNER MANAGER ABOUT.
Please don't mince words.

It is SO easy to sit and drag on about what we don't want, or what is not working, and if we ALLOW it then, we are NUKING a bigger level of self love and will settle for table scraps instead.


Rachel gave me that advice, and I can see how wanting to please everyone else at the table of Aimee DeRoehn always set me up to never get a REAL HOT TRULY DELICOUS MEAL.
I guess it comes from coming from a big family, being the oldest and wanting my brothers and sisters to NEVER go without. I ate in a way back then, where you would almost not know I was even at the table. SHocker!


Raising my siblings for a good chunk of their early years, I was often left to come home from school and bang out dinner , help with homework, give baths, clean house at such an early age. I often ate quickly, overseeing everyone else, often waiting till midnight to get my own homework done etc.. The truth is this.
We owe it to ourselves to see what is not working or messing up our smoother path, and look at where it started at the first step. The present level of thinking mind, experiences that repeat themselves over and over, have a ROOT to them..
So, until we have the understanding that if we no longer care for something to repeat itself in our lives, we must look at it subconsciously, or it continues to grow deeper ruts in the mud. Not look at it with upset, or heal it first, then we get to the AHA! I SEE WHY I AM WHAT I AM..
YOu can REwrite the mental program in a way that serves yOU BETTER. it is okay to UNlearn some of the ways we were taught.
Truly. WE should..
So, in exploring a bit of my own early ideas about what was right and not okay, based on what was taught to me, I learned this sorta thing of my wanting everyone ELSE to be first, have the best, have the biggest taught them to all have a full plate from me. Yet the part of me that felt it SELFISH to serve me , would NOT allow ME to have a full plate. So, for me, it was more like whatever anyone wanted to give me for the seconds , I guess on some level I sadly decided that was ALL i should have. So, the universe gave me for left overs and coming from a background of scarcity, taught me to just be grateful and shut up and eat..

The truth is , the universe puts someone LIKE RACHEL in OUR LIFE, or maybe USES ME as A more LOVING MESSENGER in your world, whether our ego wants to swallow it or not, or put our dukes up instead of just allowing it to digest.

Rachel was stellar, and embodies what I aim to be.

A TRUE spiritual waitress.. She knew my bigger need to stay small, obscure, stuck, powerless, and on retreat was being controlled by the bigger ingredient of fear.

I was afraid to UNdo what I knew I NEEDED to , especially alone, knowing it would not go over well.

Yet, what my fearful mind never left room on my plate for was this..
When WE are finally clear headed and clear hearted about HOW SACRED this LIFE is. We stop playing around with it, pushing work , relationships, and etc, that we really don't have a real like for to keep showing up on our plate. When we decide how much more VITAL and SOUL GIVING the more QUALITY experiences of people, work we LOVE to leap out of bed for that does not feel like work, we will keep accepting what is convenient and truly junk food.

When we get CLEAR in our head and heart for how staying in things and showing up for hours and hours at a time in places that leave our soul hungry and our ego stalking a soup kitchen defensively for something MORE than THIS to eat.. We will always GO HUNGRY, our stomach growling restless, and eventually the energy inside us gets SMALLER.. and shutting the BEST OF US down, creating physical, mental , emotional malnutrition for the soul that whispers "This is NOT nourishing me"

Having been at that place MOST of my life, and being MAD as hell QUIETLY which MASKED itself as a HUGE bib of heavy depression.

I can tell you that it IS safe and IT IS your JOB in the kitchen of your own life to find the courage to dine alone one day, dropping the ego's sharp fork , and in the silence , allow the soul of you to speak to you on what deep inside WILL FEED AND NOURISH you from the inside out.
Your time here to DINE in this life is short, and will be gone before you know it.

YOu gotta get to a place where you realize IT IS UP TO YOU , no one else to DECIDE what you want on your own UNIQUE menu that honors you, and that is what the head chef in the heavens is waiting for. It is also just as important to know that as soon as you say I AM SCARED, or say that you have spent so much time checking to see everyone else had their beverage filled and plate stacked, that maybe in fact , you spent next to NO time figuring YOU out.. The soul of you beckons and says GET TO KNOW YOU..
SO, when you say what you want, you have an energy behind it, and when you say "This is not for me' there will be an energy of strength behind your statements that no one will argue trying to keep peddling.
YOu will be RESPECTED. and YOU WILL RESPECT YOURSELF for the amount of LOVE you have grown for you, that ultimately will honor everyone else.


Everyone has different tastes, and preferences for what foods they like and what they would rather pass to the next table.
It is not different for what your life should look like too. You gotta get to a place where you realize that there is a UNIVERSE who works on your behalf, who already knows the soul of you knows what you want on your plate, what you want to clear, and you can trust that is a loving God who really feels sad when you let others spit in your food.

It is 2011, I am glad that Rachel showed up disguised as just that, A SPIRITUAL WAITRESS.. I needed to know that kinda explanation on the "Secret" of life.

She informed me also that when we say we DO NOT want this or that, the universe blanketing us, sees NOTHING as a DON't, that is why all our so called sour bits of life can be put into the compost and REcycled.
So, when we waste our time saying DON'T all the time, and the universe takes nothing as NEGATIVE or BAD , it immediately sets us up JUST FOR THAT..
CROSS OUT DON'T.. and the sentence simply reads I WANT , and we get IRONICALLY over and over and over , the leftovers of all the stuff we say we DO NOT WANT to eat..
Be honest with me.
How many times have you simply said out loud or to another the sentence that starts with the words "I DON'T WANT"
How many times? "I don't want to be late, keep arguing about this, want this to keep happening , go through this anymore, want you to do this anymore.."

ONLY to have to REPEAT it as you felt you were not heard, or saying it again, means you mean BUSINESS...
How many times have you said I DON"T WANT only to have the very thing you stated you did not want KEEP ON...

The universe is a huge copy machine.. Take out "Don't" and it reads I WANT TO BE LATE, KEEP ARGUING , KEEP DOING THIS."
Get it?


I know , I know , alot of info here, chew on it, a little bite at a time, but don't sit at your table anymore of your own life on this one fact.
IT IS A NEW YEAR..
It iS OKAY to scrape your plate and decide once and for all, that it is SELFLESS to say out loud what you want to eat, or that your tastebuds have changed,
After all, ME, YOU, WE are the ones WHO EAT IT ANYWAY.
Your the one eating it, so if you decide you happen NOT to like it? It is Ok. It is food that another might want a bite of that suits them better instead.

Quit holding up your line and know that the line you hold up holds it up for the others.


If you don't feel you can ask for what you want as I ALWAYS NEVER DID.. You will find yourself abandoning the table more than really taking your seat..
EAT and LIVE WELL.. if not now, WHEN?
Your spiritual waitress...
In finally allowing myself what I want, in not pushing that around on my plate, waiting in suffered silence on another meal cart or menu to come around, I get it more than ever that I AM THE ONE who EATS it, better make it a meal I want to LEAP TO THE TABLE FOR.
IF i can finally have that, I will save you the trouble of standing on the sidelines in LUNCHLADY land, and I invite you to the big kids table with me.
I write to you ONLY and in my fullest heart's support you get what I seek, the MEAL of your life that YOU also really want..
EASIER HAPPIER DIGESTION for your system follows..

I know the MEATY courage it takes to BREAK NEW BREAD.
So, let's come to the table and do it together.
EAT , DRINK and BE MERRY....

Waking up to the universe knowing that IT is waiting ON US TO SIT DOWN AND ORDER FROM THE MENU that our SOUL hungers for..

LOVING a cancer,getting fired, divorce, depression.. EMBRACING pain... to find the diamond in the rough....

Thank you so much to all of you for enjoying THE PERFECT MAN...

Today, I got to teach.. although, gotta say I AM THE ONE to get more from the students, although they insist it is all about thanking me.

I am so glad that yoga has humbled me enough to constantly keep me a VULNERABLE student, open to learn from MY STUDENTS...
Learn yoga FROM MY OWN body speaking to me on my mat, outside of what I can read in fine print about yogah!

This I gotta share, in hopes that you really begin to UNDERSTAND full on, I DO NOT GIVE ONE FLYING LOTUS POSE.. ;) if you DO yoga practice or not.. In fact, I love the skeptics, the ones clueless to what yoga's benefits are.. I remember MY OWN SKEPTICAL, NOT INTERESTED thank you very much days too..

So, I can't judge a skeptic or someone who puts their hand up saying NO thanks.. IF I go back to judging that person for NOT Being a yogi, then I am back to judging ME... When we REmember just how much WE resisted something, but then learn that ultimately what we are fighting so much could damn be sure be HEAVEN ON EARTH. I beleive somehow my ego knew that ahead of the game which is why I spent more time with my Nike's on so I could keep my closed mind and BE OUT.

Eventually, SOMETHING brings us to our knees, and we find ourselves willing to be open to the possibility of things we NEVER would THINK to say yes too.
They say YOGA findS US, we DO NOT find yoga..

Today, the deeper understanding showed up for me ..

After class, two people spoke to me. Both inwardly conflicted for different reasons.. Being that yoga has brought ME to my mat to finally, after MUCH FIGHT and FLIGHT to just drop my sword, leave the sneakers at the door I always kept close for a faster getaway, and realize there was NO real GETTING AROUND IT. My only chance at something beyond survival or something BEYOND pain was in giving up my defense, and just courageously move towards WHAT THE HELL was TRULY bothering me.

I am grateful for yoga to teach me this, cause I was taught to NOT go near anything that hurt, or upset me. I learned instead to look AWAY from anything, numb it with a variety of meds, food, especially sweets, at one time cigaretttes, etc.. or numb it by NOT feeling it, and repressing it instead. I looked for every way OUT away from it, but it always deeply haunting the recesses of my mind and tightening my heart, and my own physical body felt stiff as a board. I also learned to really BRIGHTEN MY SMILE so as to assure everyone how FINE i was..

Yoga was on to EVERY BIT OF MY EGO, but only to shine a light towards a better way. WE fight what we don't know, and we cling tighter to what we have known simply cause it is a habit, learned by people bigger than us that taught us THEY knew better, and it can be edgy to step away from some of the rules of our family tribe... it is also edgy to move into something different, because THIS OR THAT IS all we know, and a mind afraid to give that up, is fearful to give up some pieces of knowing that have simply FORMED our identity.


Who wants to tamper with that?

Yoga.....


Yoga giving that tool of gently surrendering showed me that I have to go IN to really come OUT the other side, where I have truly FELT myself do the work to get to the OTHER SIDE. That other side, has brought me to sit with and side with another with such a wholehearted sincere empathy, where I can be present in my heart , where tears in truly listening show up too.

We can't take anyone where we have not been OURselves. I have been to about every dark ditch there is. I have FELT my own pitch blackness, my own gut and chest knotted up tight, I have felt my own feeling of numbing. I have remembered all the provisions I brought in to help me manage feelings I felt intimidated and overwhelmed to feel. I have not forgotten what it is like to feel so bothered by something, and felt that it was so NOT OKAY to come near anyone else and talk about it for fear they might be burdened, bothered, angry, etc.
Yoga and I say "BRING IT" and together we will go where we were anxious to go alone.
I found that portal for SELF EMPATHY and COMPASSION and bringing to light the shadowy stuff BECOMES available for LIGHT and for LOVE.
It grew my heart bigger than it already was. It is easy to be kinder and gentler to another having a hard time, than it can be to be that nice to OURself. Yet, anyone who allows themselves that nurturing can TRULY hold a nurturing, nourishing, trusted place and bigger space for all the REAL stuff to come OUT of hiding.

Yoga has taught me something I NEVER trusted until MOST recently. That the real truth is, there is TRULY little to fix. We only try to play God so to speak because we feel it IS ONLY UP TO US.. and in doing that, we RESIST bigger help from a power that is far bigger than you or me...
"I who hold large galaxies together CAN handle the small details of your life"

Yoga has taught me that everything IS capable of its own healing, and has its OWN timing for doing so. We simply have to let our ego take off the Timex and get back to things NATURALLY coming together, coming undone where needed and taking care of THEMSELVES.
Things will naturally take care of themselves. Relief huh? We can take our hands OFF the wheel of doing it all , and just LET THINGS BE for bigger, better more rooted healing done RIGHT instead.

So, in light of the phrase, when we learn something from our own understanding , we THEN teach it to others. When we heal US, we then have a tangible heartfelt seat to support another's healing.

One sweet woman came up to me and she shared with me how my classes were a huge support in her life while she was trying to find a job. SHe had lost her job, and she had been applying every place for the last few months, with every NO, it was rocking her confidence more and more. Yoga classes were a way for her to get some space FROM self doubt, defeat, and exhaustion from being rejected one to many times. Hey, there is ONLY so much ANY of us can take you know?

Meanwhile, while NOT being employed, it brought her further back to one of her deepest loves, Tai Chi, practicing and taking a retreat here and there.
Tai Chi coming back to her stronger was sorta shifting her mind about wanting to go back to HER FORMER career FOR work...
Then, the other day, she hit a breakthrough, not in a job so to speak, but in an opportunity to receive accreditation for Tai Chi, with a famous teacher.
She was excited about all this, but a part of her ego would NOT let her REALLY be THAT elated. after all this is not being productive in society, without a REAL job, and a paycheck..
Yet, somehow without the money to pay up front out of pocket for her training, she somehow was DIVINELY blessed with a scholarship, and then a friend came forth to offer to pay for her airfare.
Hmmm.. Go figure...
YOu see what I am getting at here kids? Suddenly, I KNEW.. and I KNEW also that in figuring HER so called "problem" out, it helped me to also better KNOW MINE..

I said Your ego is MISinforming you.. You were NOT susposed to have a "J O B" right now. Your real LOVE is Tai Chi, yet your SETTLING for something your heart does not REALLY get jumpstarted by, because you bought into this idea that someone else told you should be doing for a paycheck."
" For a time, that was okay , with you, cause YOU were NOT awake and in tune to your own DEEPER INNER KNOWING of what Y O U would really love to do for a "job". Yet, what she was getting out of yoga is FAR beyond exercise, or getting space from the classified ads and pumping out another useless resume.
I teach people what yoga taught me, and brought ME back to. INTUITION..
We all had it walking into our lives, intuition is the SIMPLE and VITAL way our body talks shop to us about what we REALLY feel in our heart and our gut. In listening to that, we are navigated by our soul's voice to OUR VERY BEST, to the RIGHT people, to the RIGHT opportunities, to the LIFE WE WILL BEST LOVE and FEEL GOOD living.

It also helps us to suddenly KNOW what we need to for practical information too.
This is why I teach yoga, it brings the heaven TO EARTH from the unique soul instruction for every one of us..

We begin to lose that inner voice, when we are young, when we are told to listen to those outside us, who KNOW better. Surely, as kids, we NEED that instruction.. but I believe that what is helping MY OWN children better is this yoga teaching thing they are getting from me through osmosis. They come to me with their stuff, asking THE SMART YOGA LADY what the hell they ought to do to figure out their adolescent luggage and challenges, and my first sentence these days is "WHAT DO YOU THINK?"

Any kid around your company, please consider they DO have their own intelligence that will float up from the bottom of their own heart or tummy, and they instinctively DO know best. When we share that bigger wisdom before we think to throw in all our big bad comments like "Cause I said so, cause I know what is best for you" .. we teach them TO TRUST THEMSELVES.

And if they act on the wisdom of their own soul, which IS our best friend, looking and wanting THE BEST for us, we teach them to go by what feels RIGHT , while supporting them, we teach them to have an INNER confidence, and in trusting that INNER sense, means they ask others LESS what to do, and that sense of inner trust acted upon, teaches them, teaches us all AGAIN, that we REALLY DO KNOW what to do, if we would act on what we FEEL guided to do. and then we start having a real PLAYBOOK for HOW to live OUR lives best.

This woman, in getting in more downdogs has been doing deep inner work to get BACK to listening to what the soul inside her body wanted , TO GO BACK TO TAI CHI...
NOW in honoring that wisdom, she is finding that even without the FUNDS the opportunity shows UP to make it happen, with NONE her doing anything but being willing to receive for a change.

NONE of this would have gone down the way it is unfolding if she had been putting in 65 hours into a job. There would be no space. Nor would she have the energy to do the deeper asking, seh would be wiped out from putting in so many hours at a work place doing work she is NOT fullfilled by. Anything we show up for hours at a time, or years at a time, we are not really TRULY feeling? Is not ever going to have us wanting to contribute a whole hell of a lot, nor are we doing anyone else any favors being there, yes?

This woman is NOT meant to be working so she could have the empty space to FIND HER LIFE's WORK. What makes her feel most alive is Tai Chi, and yoga and I were only interested truly in her getting back to what would make her feel MOST alive..
AnyONE who does work they are PSYCHED about, floods and injects HAPPY into others who come to them for such a service. Also, we will NEVER really have to worry about having enough to eat, cause when your doing your heart' work, your providing a service FOR SPIRIT to UPLIFT others, the reward BACK for that, is abundance.
Period! The end.

I saw this same woman walk in heavy hearted, and heavy footed, each step to go forward a constant unhappy work in progress, just a mere three months ago, TODAY? I saw more SHINE in her eyes, and more pep in her step, and more softening and open, relaxed friendliness than I had prior.
To me, she DESERVED to feel that too, feel MORE about her own good news.

I said "YOUR BEING UNemployed is not to feel down about, but to SEE this was why you have been. You could not find what makes your HEART IGNITE otherwise. This is NOTHING to feel BADLY for, but to get back on your same knees and THANK GOD. LOVE that you got canned simply because you got LIBERATED to get to the work you were BORN to do, to find my classes is just an added bonus, and ultimately if I teach you that, THEN I am giving you what YOU were susposed to get in my classes!"

I realized in saying this to her, that my own higher wisdom was leading ME back to mine. I too am teaching less and less, not because of my want, but because personal family circumstances sorta have me tied more to being close to home, than traveling round the world.
Yet, in releasing my frustration and fear of why things were NOT coming together as my own EGO felt they should. I realized I TOO AM RIGHT WHERE I AM SUSPOSED TO BE.

If my life did NOT come undone the way It did recently, then I would not be here, not be home, or AWAKE in my own body to sense what ELSE I should personally be doing in this so called "waste of time" If, I was not here, I would not be also figuring out in the more quiet, still moments of my own life, that this was NOT a time to waste with feeling less productivity meant LESS worth of me. Less teaching created a REAL AMAZING CLASS! and there is NO TIME NEEDED to waste on feeling I WAS WASTING TIME.
Instead, I was brought to my knees, things fell apart for me, as they did a few years back for me to find this whole YOGAH SHIT in the first place! Apparently, god has forced me to surrender again, and when I surrendered MY ego from thinking NOTHING WAS WORKING, I could see the BIGGER plan above what it LOOKED LIKE.
So, go figure, aside from my love of teaching yoga, I am also meant to be writing, blogging, begining to move towards motivational speaking, and also offering the Cart-ah motivational yoga vids. If I was working so much and all over the place around New England, then I would not be home to write my book, to write my own teacher training, so as to offer MY OWN teacher training at the request of many over the years, I would not have TIME to offer my other soul loves, Reiki, life coaching, intuitive counseling. I myself would not have made the REconnections I HAD to make and had to have integral SPACE to make with my childhood friend who inspired me TO create the Cart-ah! Administration videos. I would not have gone back to teaching at the amazing Laconia Athletic Club, or make the new connections at Fitness Edge, to say NOTHING about all of YOU!!!!!
I would not be as FULLY available to get back to my own best true yoga teaching and training, my own daily yoga practice. I would not be taking care of myself at this deep a level to offer ONLY that to everyone in ways words and preaching can NOt truly hit home about.
Finally, but most importantly, I am HERE BLESSED beyond TEARFUL GRATITUDE to REALLY be HOME more and BE MORE present with my own two teens rapidly finishing out their childhood before my very eyes and really being PRESENT and PLUGGED in as a one woman yoga mom that had always escaped me being so jam packed and a master multi tasker! To be frank, my daughter has been struggling to heal something HUGE and heartbreaking for her young adolescent heart to bear,and I know that all to soon these moments to sit with her while she EMpowers herself to make her own way THROUGH will be gone. She will be gone off to college before I know it. Yet, right now, she needs her mommy, and I know that yoga, having been around 5000 plus years will not be going away anytime soon. MY yoga is ALL THIS, and being able to really be fully here in my heart for my daughter to move towards healing. I would be missing the point of my yoga if I was not able to sense that.


In speaking this to these woman, I saw that they suddenly saw THE LIGHT and could understand what was REALLY going ON bigger than what our small mindedness could ever talk to us about.
She knew suddenly she was EXACTLY where she should be, and somehow , she was still getting her meals even without the money. She was taken care of.
THERE WAS AWESOME METHOD to what FELT like madness! There ALWAYS was a greater plan in place...Her true benefits of today's yoga practice showed UP right then and there. She was indeed liberated when she lost her job, and in thinking BIGGER about it, her ego scolding her for not having a job by now was set free too.

After her, another woman approached me full of fret, embarrassment, and apology for NOT being in my classes.
Yoga found HER when she was given the news of cancer.
How could that be she wondered? She was always focusing on being healthy.
Yet, in the worst of her life, she found the best of it. She was remorseful that she had not been hitting the mat with us recently, wringing her hands of the guilt she felt in talking truthfully as to what was making her skip out on us, so assured I would be upset or feel let down.
Her husband found himself wanting to stay home rather than his usual rushing off to work on Sundays, to offer to make them both breakfast. NOT just plunking cornflakes in a bowl, but really going ALL OUT. The buckwheat pancakes, the fruit salad, fresh ground and brewed coffee to sit and sip slowly while holding hands and talking and laughing as they had not had the chance to in years. REALLY MAKING THE BEST OF HER TIME, rather than thinking it would always be there at another time.
Her already great relationship was good to start , but this apparent so called curse of a cancer to rob her of everything, BROUGHT THEM RIGHT BACK TO GIVING UP anything NOT vital and just get back to THE BEST OF THEM instead.
Somehow, hmm.. go figure , this yoga and this LOVE is giving her cancer a way OUT of her body.
So, I told her that she WAS in yoga class on Sundays!! Yoga and for that matter , cancer was meant to make her SLOW down and see that true MENTAL, EMOTIONAL , and PHYSICAL health is ONLY made more vital bY LOVE and Being LOVED.
She was getting something I, the teacher could not give her, nor was it my place. My job was to instead speak truly to what the HEART of yoga is meant for. a vehicle to steer us BACK to our intuitive knowing about WHO AND WHERE WE WANT TO BE that would ROCK OUR WORLD. and for that matter, WHAT work would also ignite that ROCK YOUR WORLD feeling.
SHE was exactly where she was SUSPOSED TO BE. and she could have the personal invite to show up AFTER her breakfast for all I cared.... she could come to class for the last five mins if she felt up to it.
Whatever I could do to support her LIVING the heart of yoga is what I feel MEANT to do as any sorta teacher..

We have this idea that in the place where our life has totally blown apart, where we have reached that place we shut down, where we LOSE something is ALL SO BAD..
Sure, it bruises our ego, so hold some space to compassionately feel some GOOD greif asking to be felt to be moved through, to get ON to what is really happening.
And there is something SO MUCH BIGGER happening. The soul of us all is the part of us closest to God, and we think when something is NOT working, or falling apart, we gotta stay in the ring at any cost , when anything we are trying to MAKE work is not NATURALLY suposed to. and IS NOT MEANT TO..
When we can understand, that God only has our BEST in mind, we often will have it all come UNdone.. ONLY , and I ASSURE YOU OF THIS PERSONALLY to ASSURE we finally surrender the whole thing, OFFER it up, the pain of it , the feelings of fault, of blame to us or to others, or guilt or anger, or ALL OF IT. OFFER IT UP. Give up the battle, the need to feel SO bad, to feel there is nothing but despair and paralysis. God knows we FIGHT the UNknown so he sorta has to do some UPheaval he knows our own knowing mind, clinging to the familar of yesterday WON't do by itself.
Shortly, thereafter after we stopped fighting, we take our hands OFF the wheel of trying to prevent what wants to come undone, and we just let it happen. When we do that, taken the VITAL time necessary to perhaps, grieve some for anything attributed as a LOSS, we are then more OPEN in ways our head or heart would not be TO SAY YES to things that ONLY can be brought in IN the VOID, in the darkness, in the place of ENDINGS>.
I say that to you, to tell you outright. YOGAH found ME.. a time I wanted to simply go off to school to become a massage therapist, and before I headed into school , I panicked and decided BEFORE I could do that WELL , I needed to go back to counseling and finally go back into the past and HEAL from a history of childhood molestation. Instead it was a emotional door jampacked with such huge pain, and hurt, that I could not handle.
Instead of school , I ended up totally shattered, and brought to my knees, and with everyone around me insisted where I needed to be INSTEAD of a classroom was in a psychiatric ward.
For my delayed post traumatic stress disorder, my lifelong depression and anxiety. It was a reality that BLINDSIDED me. SHAMED me further than the soil of shame I had going, and HARDENED my mind, heart and body to anything BUT a concrete idea my life was OVER...
Yoga found ME there. God is not choosy about how he will GET US ON OUR TRUE PATH.. My life DID end.. to finally BE and BEGIN at the place I actually belonged..
Had I not hit SO FAR DOWN, I would NEVER have WILLINGLY given up anything going.. The job, the relationship, the friendships that were SUSPOSED to fade out.
So, trust that in that dark, your NOT alone, and if you tune into your heart, you might feel that.. and if you feel it. DARE to feel silly or stupid enough to ASK that energy.. WHAT did you need me to GET from this, where DO I go from here?
And when you get that INNER NUDGE to go places and find people you might not have otherwise? Or a yoga class perhaps that you always said SOON SOON SOON.
You will know that YOU are INDEED in THE LIGHT, and in the hands, and heart of A GOD who ONLY was AT THE READY TO PUT IT BACK TOGETHER so all the pieces can FIT.
RIGHT.
I would NOT steer you wrong. I hope you know that my beloved blogger!!!
Love Aim