Life of Wellness Institute

You don't have to be a teacher to study yoga deeply.

You don't have to know the whole path yet.

You can start with the part that calls to you.

This is what yoga is to me. What is it to you?

If you would like to learn more about yoga and the programs we offer, you can find all the info through the link in bio.

And if you resonate with this, give a follow! I would love to welcome you to our community

The real practice is what happens inside it.

The sensations, the breath, the thoughts that arise, the stories you tell yourself, the places you hold tension, the places you feel nothing at all. And not just on the mat, but through out the day.

The poses or practices of yoga don’t care if you’re “good” at it. It cares if you’re paying attention.

And that’s what makes it so powerful. Not because it changes your body (though it can). Because it changes your relationship to your body. To your mind. To your nervous system.

When you practice yoga, you’re not just on your mat stretching muscles, holding shapes, flowing in vinyasa. You’re teaching your nervous system that it’s safe to slow down. That it’s okay to feel what you feel. That you can be with discomfort without needing to escape it. That even when life gets fast, urgent, or catches our breath, we can set our internal pace and state.

And this is where the social media wellness industry gets it wrong. Yoga has been turned into something all about the aesthetics and the flexibility. Where comparison and body image issues are at an all time high.

I’m on a mission to change that.

If you’d like to learn more about true yoga and where it comes from, I invite you to follow me and consider joining my yoga foundations course that is happening this fall.

Grounded in Viniyoga and trauma-informed principles, this module reframes yoga philosophy as a set of tools you can use in every class, session, or personal practice.

Whether you’re a yoga teacher who wants to strengthen their foundations, looking to become a 200hr certified yoga teach, a clinician looking to integrate yoga into their mental health practice, or just interested in exploring your passion, I would love to welcome you.

This module can be taken alone, or as the first step in becoming a certified 200hr yoga teacher. (CE credits available)

You can learn more through the link in my bio, or book a call with me to explore potential pathways for your goals with yoga training.

These are the real horror movies.

Not because they’re scary. Because they’ve been normalized.

“Alignment is the same for every body”
Ahimsa (non-harming) asks us: whose body gets left out of that statement? Whose anatomy doesn’t fit the mold? Real yoga makes room for every body. Not forces them into a shape.

“You just need more discipline”
Tapas (discipline) was never meant to be punishment. It’s the heat of showing up with compassion, not the fire of self-destruction. Burnout isn’t a lack of discipline. It’s a lack of support.

“Trauma-informed training” (one weekend, $3k)
Satya (truthfulness) means calling things what they are. You cannot become trauma-informed in a weekend. You can begin a journey. But selling a certificate as expertise? That’s not truth. That’s marketing.

“Real yogis don’t need props”
Aparigraha (non-attachment) asks us to let go of the image of what a “real yogi” looks like. Props aren’t weakness. They’re wisdom. They say: I know my body today. I’ll meet it where it is.

“Just breathe through it”
Ishvara pranidhana (surrender) isn’t about bypassing what’s actually here. It’s not “just breathe through the pain.” It’s: what does this moment need? Sometimes that’s a breath. Sometimes it’s stopping. Sometimes it’s tears. Surrender means listening, not overriding.

The yoga industry has sold us a lot of horror stories dressed up as wisdom.

But the real practice? It’s kinder than that. It’s slower. It makes room for you—all of you—without needing you to fit a mold.

That’s the yoga I’m here for.

🤍

Is it just me… or are you also tired of seeing all the trendy content about nervous system regulation that isn’t even accurate half the time, and give false expectations?

The goal of healing isn’t to jerk the wheel and demand you immediately merge into the fast lane of intense, intimate connection. That’s terrifying and dangerous. The goal is to gently, with immense self-compassion, explore what it feels like to gradually and safely turn the wheel.

Maybe you just turn on your turn signal first, or consider turning it on.

Maybe you ease over just a few inches into the next lane.

You stay there until you can breathe with ease. You notice, “Okay, this lane feels different, but I am still safe. My heart is beating, and I am here.”

That gentle exploration is yoga.

It’s the practice of building distress tolerance by gently and progressively stretching and expanding our window of tolerance.

It’s using breath as an anchor when anxiety arises at the thought of replying to a text. It’s using a supportive pose to feel the solid ground under you when shame whispers that you’re broken for struggling.

It’s the practice of self-compassion, talking to yourself with the kindness you’d offer that scared part, instead of disgust for its fear and suffering.

Yoga offers us a toolbox to stay present with the discomfort of the new lane, without the expectation of doing it just a moment longer than last time.

It helps us regulate the physiological response so the brain can lay down a new, fainter track: “Vulnerability doesn’t always mean catastrophe. Connection can be safe.”

This is slow work. It’s not linear. Some days you’ll need to stay firmly in your known lane, and that’s not a failure; it’s skillful self-care.

Healing isn’t about living in a fortress or forcing yourself into the storm. It’s about learning to drive, with more and more skill and grace, on the whole snowy, beautiful, unpredictable road of being human.

It’s about finding more lanes where you can finally, softly, breathe.

If you’d like to dive deeper into this, I would love to offer you a free video training:

Understanding Your Nervous System: Tools For Safety and Resilience

Comment “SAFETY” to register for this free training

We often focus on the event itself as the trauma. The single, shattering moment. We think, “That is the thing that hurt me.” And while that’s true, it’s not the whole truth.

Through my own lived and professional experience, I’ve come to understand that it’s our internal experience of what happened - the fear, the shame, the powerlessness - that gets trapped in our body and nervous system.

But what Dr. Maté is saying here goes even further, drilling down to the very bedrock of the wound.

He is saying that the trauma is not just the event, and not even just our personal lived experience of it. The trauma is also in the pre-existing conditions that guaranteed our isolation, shame, fear and powerlessness. The trauma began in all the moments before the main event that taught us we would be alone in our suffering, that society would look at us with shame.

It’s in the subtle glances, the dismissed feelings, the times we were told to “stop being so sensitive.” It’s in the cultural narratives that taught us to be strong, to not make a scene, to protect the family secret, or that our bodies were not our own. It’s the learned knowledge, deeply encoded in our nervous system, that there would be no container, no witness, no soft landing if we fell apart. And so much more!

So when these devastating events happen, we are not just reacting to them. We are reacting with a nervous system that already knows it is alone. That we could face shame in our society. The silence isn’t a choice; it’s a pre-programmed response. We don’t tell anyone because, on some primal level, we have already learned that no one can hold it. That there is a real risk that we will be treated with shame and blame.

This reframes everything. It means the work isn’t just about processing the one big event. It’s about uncovering and healing all the tiny, cumulative fractures in trust that came before it—the fractures that made it inevitable we would shatter in silence.

It’s not just, “Why did this happen to me?”
It’s, “What had I already learned about the world that made me believe I had to face it completely alone?”

And that is a question that lives in th

Healing is messy… and that’s kind of the point.

It’s about showing up and caring for all the parts of yourself, not just the parts we like and want to share.

If your healing journey doesn’t look anything like the girls you saw on Instagram, chances are hers doesn’t look like that either!

Everyone’s journey will look different and that’s okay ❤️

Fascia isn’t picky. It doesn’t care if you’re in a yoga class or standing in your kitchen waiting for water to boil.

It just wants to move.

Not a workout. Not another thing to add to your to-do list. Just... life. Dancing while you do the dishes. Stretching before bed. Taking the long way to the bathroom so you get a few extra steps.

Yes, yoga helps. But it doesn’t have to be a fiery class. It can be the gentle stretch you do first thing in the morning. The breath you take before you reach for your phone. The pause where you listen and breathe into your body.

Your body doesn’t need perfection. It needs permission and play. To move. To rest. To be.

So dance in your kitchen. You’re not being silly. You’re taking care of your fascia.

🤍

What are your thoughts on this?