Elemental Yoga Flows

Yoga, when taught well, transcends mere physical postures—it becomes a holistic practice that connects us to our essential nature and moves us into inner stillness. True spirituality requires discipline; it’s not haphazard, random, or just doing whatever, whenever. In Elemental Flows: 40 Days of Sacred Yoga, I invite you to explore the profound wisdom of yoga as a spiritual discipline through the elements—Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Space—and learn how they align with the chakras to deepen self-understanding, healing, and transformation.

Each element—Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Space—resonates with specific aspects of our physical and energetic bodies. By aligning our practice with these elements, we can enhance our physical stability, emotional balance, mental clarity, intuitive insight, and spiritual connection. This practice adapts to meet our evolving needs and the changing seasons.

Watch this mini-lecture, which introduces the five elements...

We've all been there - falling off our yoga practice wagon. Life gets busy, distractions happen, and suddenly you realize it's been weeks since we last rolled out our mat. But since yoga is a lifelong practice. It's not about being perfect but about showing up again, even when it's hard.

When we fall off track, it is a valuable opportunity for growth and learning. It's a chance to reflect on why we stopped practicing and what we can do to get back on track. Maybe it's a lack of motivation, too busy of a schedule, or simply forgetting how good it feels to move and breathe mindfully or something deeper that you are avoiding.

To gently and kindly get back into your yoga groove, check out a mini-lesson and full-length guided practice, 'Get back in your wagon' below. Remember, it's okay to stumble. What's important is that you keep coming back to your practice with an open heart and a willingness to learn. Yoga is a journey, and every step - even the ones off the wagon - is...

discover the holistic power of yoga therapy

Yoga therapy is an integrated blend of yoga and healthcare, providing a holistic approach to well-being. As your yoga therapist, my aim is to guide you in creating a personalized and evolving daily practice that addresses your overall health, gradually reducing any suffering you may be experiencing while complementing other treatments. Together, we will delve into the root causes of your health concerns and find sustainable and tailored solutions that treat your entire being and work towards your personal goals.

Your personal practice will equip you with valuable tools to manage stress, combat loneliness, and promote a greater sense of harmony in your life. Whether you're dealing with back pain, sleep issues, panic attacks, or digestion problems, your practice can have positive effects that extend beyond the initial concern.

In my role as your yoga therapist, my primary focus is to listen and understand your symptoms, painting a...

In this post, I will share the essential elements of creating a joyful holy day ritual and ceremonial celebration. The practices I share here can combine to facilitate a time of focused inward attention to reconnect with who you are at your core, release the past, and become more open with life.

I'll share the essential elements of meaningful ritual below and in the above audio, we do them together in practice with prompts for journaling or facilitating intimate sharing among friends and family. I recommend looking over this once and then over the next few days making time to engage more deeply with creating a personal and meaningful tradition for yourself. 

Listed below are what I understand to be the essential elements of meaningful ritual and the invitation here is to consider them as your personal practice takes shape. I share more about my personal experience with them in the audio accompaniment above. Keep in mind that ritual can take place over...

When is the last time you tried to connect with your own heart and what you truly want for your life? It's harder to do than it seems but it is a powerful practice I hope to help you understand in this one post. Take a moment to ask yourself now in whatever way feels right to you: what is it you want at your core?

Ok... I'll go first, what do I really really want? What is it that keeps me devoted to my practice and aspiring toward my unique purpose?

I want to live in a world with more soul.

I know I'm doing well when I am centering my actions around this deep core desire. Connecting to my heart's desire is how I started to make choices that cleared away obligations and trauma patterning from the past. It's how I cultivated a discernment about right action for me in my life. It's why I teach and work with people to create a life they love on a soul level. 

Maybe you are finding that feeling like 'I should do that'  isn't creating the consistency you expected of...

Hit play above to listen in on a weekly Establish a Practice Breathwork and Meditation Challenge call to hear how my yoga practice helped me finally escape from a tyrant! It isn't often known how deep and rich the teachings on meditation are in the yoga tradition. I'd like to change that by sharing my experience of escaping my own inner tyrant by following the map that yoga offers us to work with our mind, not from it.

I hope hearing about what I've experienced from my efforts to create a healing yoga practice for myself can give you an idea of how much you can learn about yourself and how to reclaim your own attention through a devoted yoga practice. 

Are you ready to commit to breathwork and meditation practice that will support you and your mental health this holiday season and for a long time to come?  Join my Establish a Practice Challenge where I teach you step-by-step to take your meditation practice from 'sit there and take it' or...

The above audio is an 8-minute guided breathwork practice from my Establish a Practice: Breathwork and Meditation Challenge. I recommend you lie down, make yourself comfortable, and do it before reading this article or going any further. You certainly won't regret it! 

I hope you enjoyed the pause.

Ok so, as I mentioned I call my month-long breathwork and meditation challenge Establish a Practice and I wanted to tell you why and what it means to be 'established'.

Currently, breathwork and meditation practices are becoming really popular (which I love) but much of the purpose behind these practices is missed or misunderstood. I wanted to create a challenge that helped you understand the deeper meanings of these practices that fuel consistency and give you an experience of my heart-centered and practical approach as a yoga therapist and strength coach.

I share lots of my personal experience in practice so that you might embark on this endeavor with an understanding of what...

In the main yoga text I learned from there are only two teachings about posture practice. 

The first teaching on posture says we should find a steady comfortable posture that is easeful. A way of holding ourselves with exactly the right amount of effort. My experience in embodying this particular type of action in daily practice is that it has helped me to cultivate a sense of inner stability that goes beyond external circumstances. 

When someone is hoping to utilize practices like breathwork and meditation to cope with anxiety and support healing and recovery it is best to take things in a step-by-step way. You could even say this methodology for programming is like yoga's built-in trauma-informed approach.

Each of my online programs takes this step-by-step approach (krama) so that you can embody and integrate at a pace that is right for you. If your yoga practice hasn't stuck before it could be because hopping in on random classes skips a lot of steps in...

This is a one hour experiential and motivational session was specifically for nurse educators in Springfield MO. I customize each talk to be as relevant as possible for the audience!

You can learn more about my yoga therapy programs and workplace sessions at this link or book a call with me directly below. 

Read below for some musings on my new lens in lfie and see a video of my introduction at SYF or click play above to enjoy listening in to my full mini lecture and practice at the Sedona Yoga Festival June 2-5 2022. (Click here to learn about joining me in 2023!)

I’ve worn glasses since I was five. Pretty thick ones from the start that progressively got thicker as I got older. I got contact lenses in the third grade so that I could see my first true love, the basketball hoop, better. I hated the limited vision in the periphery. Having extremely blurry vision has always been something I struggled with and the same is true for seeing my life and actions clearly. From these experiences, I know how much can shift from a new lens both literally and metaphorically 

Just like getting that first pair of glasses at 5 and contacts at 8, yoga has been the lens that I’ve tried on that made things feel more clear to me. When I started to see the world through the lens of the five...