Yoga With Kelly

For the past couple of weeks I have been feeling pent up with anger, stress, and a constant nagging chronic pain in my shoulder that just won't leave me alone. I'd dealing with a lot of tension coming from work, struggling to find my passion there and a scheduled that was demanding more time from me than I could give and it was slowly starting to chisel away at my spirit. I was being broken down and all that was left was anger and resentment.  I found myself constantly complaining about things and then turning around doing the same things I was complaining about. I was often asking myself 'What are you doing?' 'What is wrong with you?' I struggled with these questions for what seemed like weeks. I couldn't get a handle on anything. I was slowly falling a part. I often have conversations with myself, back and forth, like talking with a therapist but the conversation is just between me and myself.  I will break everything down. I will ask myself question...

You... Yes you. Sitting there on the couch, 4 seasons deep in a Netflix binge. You say you can't do yoga?! I say you can. Part of yoga is just showing up to the mat. The rest we can work with. Yoga is a learning process. It is about progress. It's about dedication, commitment, time... It's about connecting with yourself, finding out who you really are. And these things are scary. But they don't have to be. Yoga instructors are there to help guide you to a better you. They want to help you succeed. They want you to feel relief. It is difficult to let go of things. These things that we hold on to, cling to. We have a hard time parting with them. They hold memories, maybe pain, maybe pleasure, happy/sad. They may no longer be serving us, but yet we refuse to let go. Yoga is about letting go. It is about release. It is about finding joy when you can now stretch a little farther into a pose you were struggling with. Yoga is about balance, unity, dev...

Yoga isn't always about the postures, the poses themselves. Yoga is more than that... It is about finding balance in every day life. A balance between the good and the bad. I have some terrible road rage. But I work to be friendly in every other aspect of life. I am lazy and enjoy my rest. But I work hard. It is always about the balance. Even when doing the poses they are used to balance both sides of the body. When we find our lives off balance it is more difficult to appreciate the little things. We fall into turmoil and depression and anxiety. And sometimes, if you are like me, your physical yoga practice suffers. In those times I have to remind myself that yoga can be done in other ways. When I tend my garden and take time to admire it, I am practicing yoga. When I take time to respect nature, I am practicing yoga. When I take time to smile at someone, I am practicing yoga. When I am open minded and take time to see another's point of view, I am practicin...

What led me to yoga teacher training and some of the best weekends of my life was a journey that I never dreamed my life would take. Due to a series of events I ended up in YTT, as we yogis like to call it in January of 2017. I had made a move from my home in Florida to a friend’s house in Ohio. I quickly began a job at a day care as a preschool assistant. Later on I was promoted to lead teacher. Then another year down the road I was in yoga teacher training with Carrie Treister and a wonderful group of other trainees. The weekends were long, I learned a lot about myself, and there was so much yoga. I was in yoga nirvana. When I began teaching preschool as a lead teacher I fell in love with teaching. I had people asking me why I didn’t go get my teaching certificate. At the point yoga had become increasingly more active in my life, a more important part of my life. Shortly after I took over lead teaching I was asked to teach the children a yoga class once a week, that was 4...

My yoga opened my heart to light, love, peace and honor. It has done wonderful things to change my life. I believe all things are beautiful and I invite more peace into my heart. I began yoga because I hated working out at the gym but knew I needed to do some sort of physical activity, other than walking. I fell in love with yoga because it brought me happiness. I felt energized, I felt peaceful, and I felt good in my body after every class. It was a beautiful form of practice, like a dance. I felt free. After working on my physical practice for a few years I wanted to know more about where yoga came from and what it was all about. I began studying yoga on a deeper level. I realized that yoga was about more than just the poses. The yoga philosophy really spoke to me. And the more I read the more I wanted to know. Yoga philosophy teaches us peace, love and honor among many other things. It teaches us about joining the body, mind and spirit into one entity. And above all i...

When life gives you light and a fire in your belly you go after it. You follow it where ever it may take you. My yoga practice has definitely changed since I took my first studio class back in the mid 2000’s. My family and I were on a cruise to the Bahamas, my second time visiting the island by boat. One of the things that I wanted to do while on the ship was take a yoga class. I read through all of the classes they had to offer, picked one and told my brother he was coming along with me. I had no idea what to expect but the view of the ocean sailing along in front of us   and my brother by my side I was ready for whatever the class would bring. What it brought was new light into the yoga community for me. I wanted to take more classes and move my home based practice into a studio practice. When we got back from that trip I finally decided to see a chiropractor about my chronic migraines. Instead I found out about my scoliosis and how yoga could be beneficial to the ove...

How to Build and start a Home Practice A good foundation is the base for a well built house, building, apartment, store front, etc we all know that. A well built yoga practice also begins with a good foundation. Building a home practice allows you to move at your own pace and get into your body and explore the many benefits of yoga. It is a way for you to find out more about yourself and your body. My yoga journey began as a home practice. While yoga in a studio is a wonderful experience it can be intimidating – too fast passed, costly, too far away or have an inconvenient schedule. A home practice is on your time, at your pace and in an environment you find comfortable. As I mentioned my yoga practice began as a home practice. I was unsure of where to being. I first used books that I had found at the bookstore and a mat my mom had given me that she had received from a work contest. I then moved up to videos, dvds and then eventually moved on to YouTube videos unt...

Last post I introduced you into the world of Restorative Yoga. Now that we have a better understanding of what Restorative Yoga is... Let's talk about the benefits we get from doing restorative yoga. We've all heard that yoga is very beneficial to our lives and to our health. This is true when living a true yoga life.  When we continuously practice, when we listen to our bodies, when we have the right mindset, when we nurture ourselves, body and mind, when we live life to the fullest this is when yoga is most beneficial to us. We've all seen those people on social media who can bend themselves into crazy poses. But just like all athletes it takes continual practice to get to where they are. I have worked over many years to get to where I am at. However, that is not solely what yoga is about, the asanas (poses) are only one part of a much bigger yoga picture.  Yoga is a much deeper practice one that can be very fulling to our lives and our health, for everyone... not ...

I have been getting this question a lot. When I tell people that I do restorative type yoga their immediate response is... What is restorative yoga? Then I began to question it myself, trying to come up with the best answer. At first when I would try to answer this question my words get all jumbled and I was never exactly sure what to say. I know what restorative yoga is of course. I see how the body moves... I see it with my eyes; I see it with my mind. I watch how people move. I watch how people stand. I watch how people sit. I want to go around and fix all of their postures. Then I become fully aware of how I am sitting or standing. But when it comes time for me to explain it to someone with words I haven't come up with the best collection of them to full describe what restorative yoga is. So that's what I am here to do. To put into words what restorative yoga is... It begins with B.K.S. Iyengar. In his form of Hatha yoga the student and teacher focus on alignment ...