Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone
In 2012, I enrolled in a 200-hour yoga teacher training program. I completed the coursework and passed all the tests except one: the final test-out class, where I would demonstrate my ability to teach by leading a yoga class.
I talked myself out of it.
I told myself I didn’t have anything particularly special to offer. There were already so many newly certified yoga teachers. Did the world really need another one?
Besides, my son needed me. Between raising him and everything else in my life, I wasn’t sure where teaching would fit.
And so I stopped just short of finishing.
Some of those reasons were practical. Others, looking back, had more to do with my confidence. But my interest in teaching never really went away. In the meantime, I kept taking more and more trainings, primarily focused on the Ashtanga Yoga method.
Years later, immediately after completing my certification, I found myself unexpectedly called upon to teach a Vinyasa class when the scheduled teacher was stuck in traffic. I was nervous, but I agreed to step in. No time to prepare. No time to be nervous.
I made it through the class, although I spent plenty of time afterward thinking about everything I could have done differently. I wrote about that experience in 2019, calling the post When Called to Serve.
Now, seven years later, I find myself thinking about that experience again.
This year has brought several opportunities to step outside my comfort zone. Publishing Keeping Pace, a memoir about my personal grief journey, was a big one. Sharing something so personal with the world felt enormous. And apparently, that wasn’t enough. I went on to record the audiobook myself, too.
Both experiences required me to do things I hadn’t done before and to become comfortable with a certain amount of uncertainty.
And then came some unexpected teaching opportunities.
Most of my teaching has centered around Mysore-style Ashtanga yoga. It’s a practice I know well, and one where I feel comfortable working individually with students as they move through their own practice. I don’t have to stand at the front of the room and lead everyone through a sequence. Instead, I observe, offer guidance one on one, and respond to what each student needs.
Recently, though, Erica Valentine, one of my fellow teachers at Breathe Together Yoga, has asked me to cover some of her classes while she’s away pursuing her own opportunities.
First came Candlelight Sound Bath, Meditation & Gentle Movement. More recently, she asked me to teach her all-levels Vinyasa classes with optional strength work.
Neither is exactly in my wheelhouse.
Before teaching my first candlelight class, Erica generously spent part of a Saturday with me, showing me how she works with the different instruments and giving me a chance to try them myself. She also loaned me a collection of instruments, including crystal bowls, metal singing bowls, bells, ocean drums, a rain stick, and chimes.
The candlelight class has me guiding students through gentle movement and meditation before settling into a sound bath. I’m learning how to work with the instruments, how to pace the different portions of class, and how to create an experience that feels cohesive.
I’ve even been practicing my sound baths at home with my two Labrador retrievers, ages two and six. They’re usually wild and crazy, but apparently the sound bath works on them. They fall asleep! I’m not sure there’s a better endorsement.
I’ve also purchased my first sound bath instrument, a shaker made from kenari seed nutshells. I have only one more candlelight class scheduled, but apparently that hasn’t stopped me from starting my own collection. I’m looking forward to trying it out.
The Vinyasa classes challenge me in a different way. I’m creating sequences that flow, offering variations for different abilities, and incorporating optional strength work with light weights. Vinyasa is more familiar territory for me than sound baths, but every teacher brings something different to a class, and I’ve enjoyed exploring how to make these classes my own.
For the strength portion, I draw a little from my own experience training at the gym, both independently and with personal trainers. I try to focus on form and controlled movement so that even with lighter weights, students can experience the exercises and the muscles they’re working.
A few of the guys have commented on the light weight selection. I suppose when you’re accustomed to lifting heavier weights, two-, three-, and five-pound dumbbells might not seem like much. But there’s plenty to explore with lighter weights when you slow things down and pay attention to how you’re moving. And let’s not forget, you don’t need weights at all to work on strength. Sometimes, simply engaging your muscles more intentionally is enough to make a familiar movement feel entirely different.
It’s a very different experience from walking around the Mysore room, observing and assisting students. Both classes require more preparation than my usual teaching, and both push me outside my comfort zone.
But here’s the thing. I love teaching them. Read More
When the Body Remembers
Kapotasana has a way of finding me.
I don’t rush into it. I reach up before I reach back. I press my legs firmly into the mat and take my time creating space, especially in my low back where I’ve learned not to collapse. The first round I practice on my own. The second goes deeper, with steady support behind me. I feel grounded. Safe. Strong enough to explore the edge.
When I come upright again—back on my knees—something shifts.
Without my hands on the floor, as my back body lifts the weight of my torso, a surge rises through the front of me. Not joy this time. Something heavier. I can feel it building before I understand it.
I reach for a wheel and fold forward over it, letting my spine return toward neutral. The edge presses just below my sternum. My knees hold it in place. I breathe. And then the tears come.
I know why. Read More
How Much Do We Affect One Another — Even When We Don’t Mean To?
In a recent class, a teacher offered a simple reminder that stayed with me:
our energy on the mat doesn’t exist in isolation. It affects the people practicing beside us.
They invited us to consider practicing not just for ourselves, but for our neighbors.
To let that awareness shape the way we move and breathe — almost like an intention we carry through the practice.
It immediately brought to mind an experience I had earlier this year.
Two students were practicing near one another. One arrived clearly carrying a lot — moving quickly, breathing loudly, pushing hard through the sequence. The other seemed increasingly affected by that pace and intensity. Eventually, they rolled up their mat and left early.
When I later encouraged the first student to slow down and find a bit more ease, the suggestion didn’t land well. There was frustration. Tension. Only later did I learn what they had been carrying into the room that day — a high-stakes test or interview later that morning, the kind that tightens the body long before we’re aware it’s happening.
That conversation stayed with me.
Not because anyone did anything wrong, but because it revealed something subtle and true:
we often show up to practice carrying far more than we realize — and what we carry doesn’t stay contained.
I was in the middle of my own stressful season at the time, navigating uncertainty and change. It made me wonder how often my energy had spilled into shared spaces without my noticing. How often I, too, had practiced while holding tension, urgency, or distraction — and how that may have affected others.
None of this is about blame.
It’s about awareness. Read More
The Shape Is Never the Point
The shape is never the point.
It’s the calming of the mind,
the steadying of breath,
the quiet that rises when we soften around the edges.
This is where peace lives.
Where spiritual happiness finds room to grow.
Where practice becomes a way back to yourself.
Some days the body feels open and willing.
Other days it feels heavy, resistant, unfamiliar.
But the mat doesn’t keep score — we do.
We’re the ones who label a practice “good” or “bad,”
who compare today’s body to yesterday’s,
who expect our poses to look a certain way
and then silently scold ourselves when they don’t.
But what if the practice isn’t asking for perfection at all?
What if it’s asking for presence?
Inspired, Grateful, and Growing
Six months ago, I stepped into something new: teaching a led class at BTY. I called it Ashtanga Inspired Yoga because I wanted to move away from the word Intro. To me, “intro” suggested that the class was only for beginners, or that it would stop serving students once they learned the basics. My hope was to create a space that honors the traditional Ashtanga sequences while leaving room for creativity — and, most importantly, a space where every student feels safe, welcome, and respected in their practice.
At first, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel teaching a full hour-long led class after so many years of teaching Mysore-style. Mysore has always felt like home — the quiet room, the one-to-one attention, the steady rhythm of students practicing at their own pace. But something unexpected happened. Over these past six months, a core group of students has returned week after week. I’ve found myself inspired by their dedication, their curiosity, and their questions — constant reminders that yoga isn’t about hierarchy, but about shared exploration.
Their energy has spilled into my own practice. I’ve been exploring new ways of inhabiting familiar poses and playing with how the sequence can open up when approached with curiosity. Teaching this class has reminded me that yoga is both tradition and living practice — something that grows with us.
And now, the class itself is about to grow too. Beginning in October, Ashtanga Inspired Yoga will shift and simplify to become Ashtanga Yoga. It will continue in person at BTY and will also be available online via Zoom.