I had the privilege of taking my first 200 hours of yoga teacher training at the studio where I was already practicing. I didn’t realize how special that was at the time. I had grown in my practice as part of a community from the moment the studio opened its doors, and what we had there was pretty damn special.

There was a collective energy of growth and empowerment.

Even though we were all in very different places in our lives, the practice was the cohesiveness that unified us all.

Those first years were the most transformative in my journey of self-discovery. But as with any journey, open doors led to new thresholds to cross.

Photo credit to Jennifer Hunter and Root2Rise Yoga Studio - in the "beginning"

Eventually, I found myself on the "panel" of guiding new teachers. There, I learned that while we are all on this same journey, we might just be at different parts of the process. You don’t have to be an expert to hold space for someone else. You simply have to be the one who has gone before—one rung higher on the ladder, making the choice to reach your hand out and help the next person up.

A real, authentic yoga teacher training is never just about breaking down poses and learning how to teach. (Had I known how much deeper it went, I honestly don’t know if I would've had the courage to start… lol).

We sat and we talked. A LOT. One of the biggest parts of a yoga practice is inquiry. To be a yoga teacher, you have to be willing to show up in front of people and speak from your own lived experiences.

THAT IS HARD. But it is exactly what I respected most about my own revered teachers and mentors.

So, with this new round of soon-to-be teachers, I sat in conversation. It was an honor to be part of their process. I don’t remember the exact exercise, but we journaled about where we felt stuck in our own lives, and then we shared.

Sitting there in the room, I journaled a bit too. While everyone else was sharing, I fully expected to be passed over. This isn’t MY training, right?

But that was never the way of doing things there. We were ALL in the work.

I gulped and shared my own place of “stuckness” as a recovering overachiever. And the words from my teacher and mentor (who now says she just wants to keep being my biggest fan) were this:

“Why do you think that you have to DO more to BE more?”

BOOM.

Every cell in my body wept.

I had lived the majority of my life chasing a version of success that left me constantly trapped in feeling:

• OVERWORKED

• OVERPLANNED

• OVERSTIMULATED

• OVERCOMPLICATED

In that exact moment, I knew I was completely OVER it!

Our individual paths sometimes bring cathartic experiences like these. We can turn away from them, or we can decide to move forward in a completely new way. That is the process of expansion—the willingness to break through the old container and create a new one.

That is whole-heart living. When we connect our actions to our heart, we become optimistic about a different future. We can hold space for others with compassion while being vulnerable enough to show our authentic selves to the world. Expansion doesn't have to be about doing more. It is simply uncovering more about who you already are.

I will be continuing my journey through the five elements with an upcoming practice exploring the fire element and how it relates to authentic expression and expansion. I’d love to both hold space for you and grow with you.

Yin Yoga Summer Expansion: The Fire Element

• When: Sunday, July 26 | 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM

• Where: MPower Yoga, Houma

• [ Click HERE to Register ]