Passionate owner of Mindful Modern Mind yoga and real life human person. I am an artist, musician, blogger, dog owner, Netflix junkie, foodie, warrior woman and perfectly imperfect yogi. To start, I want to share with you a little bit about myself and my journey towards yoga and what I found on the mat.

Like many women my age I started going to yoga classes as a fitness regimen. I wanted to lose a few pounds whilst twisting myself into a pretzel, so I could gaze at my brand new rock hard abs looking impossibly peaceful like one of those Pinterest models. But yoga had other plans for me. My time on the mat revealed there was so much more to yoga than a strong shapely physique. Amidst the stretching and the sweating I found myself feeling a lot. I was somehow dislodging my repressed trauma and emotions and soon found I was able to revisit them, acknowledge them and eventually heal from them.

The healing did not come easy. I am not going to lie to you, I cried a lot in my early yoga classes and it was extremely embarrassing. I honestly thought I was doing it wrong. Opening the Pandora's box within me was extremely painful and at first it was terrifying. It was like a real life stress dream; like being bare naked in a school assembly full of Abercrombie models. But I quickly realized that my crying was not only ok, but welcomed by teachers and my fellow students alike. There was always someone there with a hug, words of encouragement or a warming personal story of healing through yoga. Still, during this time I lost sleep, experienced extreme weight loss and weight gain and depression. It was, after all, not pleasant digging up the reanimated corpses of past demons and facing them head-on with an giant axe in warrior one. But I did it. And for the first time ever I could feel myself gaining ground against those demons; I was getting better. 

I was skipping nights out at the bar to wake up early and meditate. I was taking control of my diet and creating non-negotiable 'me' time to pamper myself. I was becoming more philanthropic, helping others and in turn helping myself. I was breathing better, sleeping better, sitting straighter, judging less, laughing more, becoming a better listener and a better friend. If you have not yet practiced yoga, it is difficult to explain how these things are related, but trust me, they are. 

It was at this point that I knew I wanted to be a yoga teacher. I rushed off to the beach did my 200 hour yoga teacher training in the Sivananda tradition and shortly after, Yoga Nidra teacher training. (if you, like most people have no idea what Yoga Nidra is, its cool, you can find a break down here.) To this day, it remains the hardest and best thing I have ever done. I began breathing easier, communicating better, finding more fulfillment out of my life-stuff and BONUS; the people around me began experiencing the same things the more I shared. 

I had such a profound recovery experience (which you can read more about on my blog) that I became obsessed with finding those in need of healing and sharing what I learned and giving my fellow imperfect humans the tools to heal themselves. To use a tired phrase, I finally found my calling. I fell in love. I fell in love with wellness and being well. I fell in love with the reality that a formally anxious, neurotic, mentally ill and traumatized insomniac such as myself could finally find some peace in the world. I fell in love with knowing this healing and ease of being can belong to everyone.

I still do not have washboard abs and I will not sit here and tell you that my demons are gone, trust me, they're still around. They've just become more like annoying interns instead of the CEOs of my life and Yoga gives me the weapon to keep them the hell out of my cubicle! Ok, thats a pretty obscure analogy but you get the idea. Basically, Yoga and Yoga Nidra transformed my life and it is my immense privilege to pay forward the wisdom that has been so lovingly given to me.

if you are still reading this and we never have the privilege of meeting I thank you for stopping by. Know that you are loved and healing is possible.