Tight Isn't Strong

We are frightened by our own bodies. We don’t look at them unless it’s to see how we look in a certain outfit before we walk out the door, make sure our hair and/or make up is done the way we wanted, and our smile looks shiny and bright.  Looking at ourselves becomes motivated by what others will see.  A dear friend told me about a practice his therapist told him to do.  Stand naked in front of a mirror and just start pouring love into all those parts that don’t look the way you wish they would, and all those parts that do.  He said it was sheer torture at first…but then something happened. He found a loophole to loving himself and overcoming the shame he carried.  Most of us are pretty great at putting ourselves down more than honoring our wonderful-ness.

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The pelvic floor is no exception to this shame and holds more than just about any other area of the body for most.  In its relative newness to our awareness, taking care of the health of our pelvic muscles and organs through mindfulness and exercise feels overwhelming, and can create a sense of panic or a brick wall of resistance.  Once we recognize this pattern of reaction to an area of our body, we can begin to reclaim and change our relationship to ourselves. Life really does open a door for us.  We start coming from a whole body and whole mind perspective.  Loving ourselves is the foundation for our physical and personal power.  It begins one breath at a time.  It begins with one self-directed “I love you” at a time.  Just start there.  Every time it crosses your mind…throw an “I love you” to yourself in the mix.  It will change your life.

notice your breathing...

It is more difficult to teach breathing than it is to teach a yoga pose.  It starts with softening the belly.  EVERYTHING goes through a process of digestion; our food, our thoughts, and our emotions. The belly is digestion headquarters. It is the storehouse for everything that enters our awareness to be processed. My point is, sometimes relaxing the belly is a tall order.

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How does this relate to the pelvic floor? When we relax the belly, we can breathe the way our body is designed to breathe. A breath creates movement in our pelvic floor. If we are keeping the belly in a tight ball due to stress or posture, we are doing the same thing to our pelvic floor. Some might ask, “but don’t I want a tight pelvic floor?” Being strong is very different from being tight.  So, if the tummy doesn’t let go and let our body breathe, our health overall, takes a big hit. 

How are you breathing right now? Relax as you breathe in…

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Remembering an Anniversary

Yoga Path began solely as a teacher training school and quickly grew into a school and a studio. While it provided a home base for a yoga community I deeply love,  running a studio changed the relationship I had to my work as a teacher.  During this same time, I was also learning how to be a wife to my awesome husband and a mom to my beautiful son.  I wasn’t a business minded person. I was a yoga teacher who was now running a business and I constantly felt like I was in over my head.  Owning the studio was not my calling, but I kept answering to it anyway for the next seven years.  This was me insane.  I didn’t realize how burnt out and unhappy I had become; that was,  until an event occured that changed the course of my life, and by extension, that of Yoga Path.

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Labor Day weekend of 2018 I was involved an ATV wreck.  My husband and son found me in the woods, flat on my back, 100 feet from the overturned four-wheeler.  My fly through space on this vehicle broke my neck at C2, my jaw all the way through, gave me a traumatic brain injury, and pretty much left me looking like, well,  I had been through an ATV wreck.   I spent the next four months home bound, in a neck brace 24/7.  I had my jaw wired shut for a month.  I should not have lived through the neck injury; most people don’t.  I certainly shouldn’t be walking; rarely anyone does if they survive.  Yet, here I am. I had no choice but to heal. It took a strong support system, two years of physical therapy, mental health therapy, and a lot of patience. The energy that was required in order for that healing to occur is what shaped the course of my life in a new and very healthy way.

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Being away from the studio took its toll, and after a ton of  hard work, fervent loyalty, and heartfelt dedication, the studio stayed viable during my recovery and we brought it back in good standing a year later.   I had to do all the things required of a business owner that I had avoided like the plague in the past...standing up for myself and Yoga Path.  I had the hard conversations, the rough consequences, loss of relationships, and a million jewels of wisdom that were gifted to me through my wreck.  I found my voice, my truth, and I wasn’t going to sacrifice it again because I was too afraid to listen and follow.   I was ready to get back to my calling as a teacher and decided to close the studio.

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Now, I’m sitting here in 2023, maintaining a personal practice that saves my life by reminding me of my light and keeps me from falling into comfortable, familiar, self-doubt and fear.  I’m surrounded by people who love me and who I grow and learn from everyday.  Yoga Path thrives through my work with clients, teaching small classes, working in the community, and leading teacher trainings and workshops.  This is how I give back to the world.  Teaching is a gift and it feeds my soul.  Teaching requires community and Yoga Path’s inclusive community is still a home base.

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The journey back to my body after my wreck gave me a lesson in compassion I have woven into every lesson I lead.  It has opened my heart and allowed me to hold a space of acceptance and safety for my students. It is not a journey that is at all over, and I still struggle. My struggles have changed but they are what comes with being human. My path of self-compassion is a life long lesson. My role in this life is to share what I learn.

Awaken Your Inner Potential-Embrace Pelvic Wellness in 2024

Wow! It has been a really long time since I’ve posted on here! I hope this finds you all happy and healthy.

I have been busy working with private clients and finishing up Teacher Training. The next step in my journey is to continue to share what I’ve learned with others through workshops and webinars. As always, Yoga Path is a continued education provider for yoga clients.

My latest Intensive focused on the pelvic floor and I found it to be an elusive topic to study and an empowering subject to teach. As I continue to dive deeper into these studies, I look forward to offering these teachings in 2024.

I wanted to personally invite you to my upcoming series of webinars focused on pelvic floor health and wellness, entitled "Awaken Your Inner Potential: Embrace Pelvic Wellness in 2024!"

In these webinars, the aim is to empower individuals like you to unlock their inner strength and embrace a vibrant pelvic floor. Together, we will explore various topics such as exercises for pelvic floor health, anatomy, breathing techniques, the energetic body, as well as social challenges. With more knowledge and education, this subject matter can be met with grace and compassion. Because yoga is a mindful practice that encourages self-awareness, it is the perfect platform to dive into the understanding of this very sacred area.

By participating in these webinars, you will have the opportunity to learn valuable insights and tools that will help you to experience a renewed sense of vitality and confidence in all aspects of your life. The overall intention of these sessions is to empower each participant in maintaining a healthy pelvic lifestyle.

The webinars will be held in 2024. To learn more about the webinar series - stay tuned for more communication via email and social media. If you have any questions or require further information, feel free to reach out to me.

I look forward to virtually welcoming you to the "Awaken Your Inner Potential: Embrace Pelvic Wellness in 2024" webinar series. Together, let's embark on a journey towards a stronger, healthier, and more fulfilled pelvic floor.

Wishing you wellness and empowerment, Kate

Why do YOGA Teacher Training?

For ten years I’ve been leading yoga teacher trainings.  For three years Beth Zagurski has been co-teaching with me.  Between the two of us, our decades of experience, and an amazing group of AYTT mentors, our trainings have the capacity to make shift happen.   You can literally click right here and hear it from our graduates.  

Yoga Path teachers have earned their reputation for being  good, safe, educated, capable, compassionate human beings.  When they are in our program, they are getting all of our heartfelt and genuine passion that meets their courage and dedication.  We do not take lightly that we have been entrusted with this part of the journey by our student-teachers.  

Why do teacher training?  Maybe because you feel pulled to learn more for your own personal well-being.  Maybe because you have felt how awesome yoga makes you feel and want to learn how to teach and share it with everyone else.  What I love the most about learning yoga is how it connects me to myself as a whole, complete, loving person.  What I love the most about teaching is watching students come into their bodies. There is a brightness that comes to the eyes, that “a-ha” moment and all of a sudden a whole new way of moving through life is right there!   The longer a student practices, and not just the poses, but practices the compassion, the health of the whole being, the more at peace they find themselves while living in the constant change of moment to moment.  

In 2022 Yoga Path will begin offering retreats, workshops, and small class series.  We will only be offering 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training in the fall.  As a Yoga Alliance Registered School we have in the past offered Continuing Education, Specialized Yoga Training, and continue to offer Yoga Teacher Training.  Programs such as Chair Yoga, Gentle Yoga,  Yoga for Hormones, and Yoga for Bone Health will become available again moving forward.  Yay!  

If you’d like to join us for our September 200 Hour Training  because you just can’t stand to have to wait a-whole-‘nother year, please click here click here to read more about it, and then email me to ask any questions and to register.

Looking forward to studying yoga with you!

All of our teachers and mentors are vaccinated for COVID.  

2021 Yoga Teacher Training

What a trip this past year has been.  As we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we can finally rest our hopes in the all those future hugs and visits we’ve been postponing.  The learning curves we’ve had to embrace around business and family has challenged us in ways we hadn’t expected, least of all the time it gave us to simply be with ourselves.  How did that go for you?

I do believe that my time living homebound after my wreck a couple years ago was good training for being isolated due to the pandemic.  A lot of surrendering to what is had to come into play for the sheer emotional and mental survival of it all.  Deciding to close the studio before the pandemic forced my hand was a godsend.  The time and space I gained in giving up my job as a studio owner was nothing short of a windfall of creativity and a renewed curiosity in the other aspects of my job.  I’m thoroughly enjoying working with clients one-on-one and teaching some of the best yoga teacher training students I’ve ever had. 

Stepping back into teacher training this year was a wild and bumpy ride at first.  One thing that took me by surprise was how absolutely consuming teacher training is.  In the past, I’ve always been running a studio while running the program and could not differentiate where the burn out was coming from because everything demanded my attention all the time.  I also realized I keep waiting for the program to settle, for the lectures to become second nature, and for the nervousness of a new session and all the performance anxiety that goes along with it to go away.  Well, that’s the beauty of teacher training.  The material never gets old because there is always so much more to learn.  A new connection, a new source of information, a new approach to the material is forever offering endless possibilities for navigating day one to graduation day.  

It is super fantastic to be sharing the teaching with Beth Zagurski again.  Even in our literal garden shed turned yoga school (renovations still in progress), she said it felt like homecoming.  YES!!!!!!  Love it!  This session we’ve also had the help of Yoga Path’s  Advanced Teacher Trainers and their support has been indispensable.  They have not only stepped up to offer the 200 hour students oodles of support, guidance, and understanding, they have done the same for me.  Their presence gives the 200 hour students a nurturing group of dedicated, spirited, and beautiful women to fall into, to let their hair down, and to relax into the “why” of teacher training.  It’s so easy for me to get lost in the checklist of lectures to be covered and it’s easy for me to forget how overwhelming all this new material can be for the beginner teacher.  The 500 hour students pick up the slack and they are amazing.  

While it’s been difficult negotiating covid with in-person training, we have done a stellar job, as you will soon see for yourselves once these teachers graduate and get out there teaching.  I can’t say enough how proud I am of these soon-to-be teachers.  And with that said, we have finally settled on dates for our fall session.  Click on the link below to read all about the program and registration details.   If you’re interested in signing up for our fall session, shoot me an email or a phone call.  I sure do miss seeing all us yoga peeps at the studio and have been fortunate enough to grab a cup of coffee can catch up when time allows.  Looking forward to more of that!   Take care and  take a moment to enjoy a slow, full breath in, and long sigh out, and then, “feel your strength, acknowledge your beauty,  and honor your truth.”  

CLICK HERE FOR MORE YTT INFO…

We can choose.

I am asking the yoga teachers who continue to post on FB about the energetic meaning behind, and the qualities of, COVID-19 to please stop!!!

Why? Because people are suffering!  

I’ve seen a lot of social media posts from yoga teachers sharing on the spiritual meaning, the subtle energetic consequences, and the resulting contraction of COVID.  It makes me feel very protective of those I love and those I know are in pain.  

All illness is borne from the cumulative effect of a lifestyle of generations, their mental patterning, emotional health, and very much more.  As yoga teachers, we are introduced to this from the beginning of our yoga studies.  How we approach the subject begins with ahimsa.

Do you think COVID is different than any other illness in that has life threatening potential? Think about cancer, mental health, heart disease, addiction, all of these and more.  Would you,  as well-intentioned as you may be, walk up to someone who is ill and tell them they need to get over their fears?  Would you inform them that if their energy was “right” they would have been, are,  and will be protected from this virus?  NO!  Of course not!  I mean, otherwise, why stop there?  Hit up the cancer ward and when you learn the type of cancer a person is struggling, throw it up next to a subtle anatomy model and tell them where they are going wrong.  And if they are poor, uneducated, diseased, afraid, and someone who has to survive for their next meal day after day; tell them to make time to meditate and cleanse their energy.  

By continuing with a FB platform for your voice, you are speaking to a mass audience that holds within it people you have no idea exist.  To speak so generally to your audience seems an abuse of your knowledge.  It seems an abuse of what you have learned through the work and time you have put into studying human beings through the lens of energy.  It is cruel to publicly expose all who are suffering from this virus. 

IF someone were to ask or you found yourself with those who can enjoy a conversation about the energetic qualities of disease, that’s one thing.  Your words can be very helpful for your clients, your personal students, your friends, and those who ask for it.

We as a people are suffering from COVID, suffering through the fear of getting it, and suffering through the pain of having it. We are suffering through the grief due to the loss of those that have died from it.  Compassion is our call as yoga teachers.  

We can do something in our daily actions through kindness. We can offer to help those who are homebound.  We can focus our energy on healing. We can choose. 

Namaste,

Kate

Feet To The Fire!

Hey World!  I miss you!!!

I haven’t had the energy to put myself out on the internet lately.  The closing of the studio, the shift into pandemic life, the role of homeschool mom, the pressure of making every moment count, the breakdown, the pick back up, and then moment of realization that you’re not actually starting from square one all over again…but you do have to visit it again and clean it up.  

I’m not in the situation of several of my colleagues and close friends whose financial resources have dried up and they are in a position of having to support themselves and their family while surfing the financial standstill.  Subscribe to their channels, keep up your yoga, exercise, meditation practices.  Check out with Beth Zagurski with Body Archeology Method, Alicia Willemet, Mollie Wisner, Becky Barton, JoAnn Ray, Trish Little, Denise Jarreau, Chloe Amburgy, Noura Skakri, who are all teachers you have studied with at Yoga Path. There are 3 free videos of me teaching on the website. You can get there by clicking here .

For this girl, it has come to that point where I am bored with all my tried and true self-sabotaging tricks.  I’m tired of hearing myself think, say, the same excuses and and then do the same things. Its much easier and I'd much prefer to luxuriate a little longer is discussing the why I’m stuck, and continuing to acting like I’m still trying to figure it out.  This pandemic, like every other monumental challenge out there, reveals character; its strength, its integrity, and its intelligence.  

So, for me the pandemic party time is over…it wasn’t much of a party, just an annoying long transition to getting my big girl pants on.  It is time for tapas.  As translated by TKV Desikachar from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, “tapas is a means by which we can keep ourselves healthy and cleanse ourselves inwardly.  When we have a practice of asana and pranayama we have a practice that influences the whole system.”

What’s Upcoming for Yoga Path???

• Teacher Training 200 YTT 2021 in the new Yoga Path home base…the garden shed for now…it will be a real room by 2021.

• A mini-online series for Building A Personal Practice.  More info on this next week!  

I miss everyone so much. Looking forward to when we can be together again. And remember…

Don’t be that person who stands too close, doesn’t wear an facemark in public, and throws plastic gloves on the ground.  WASH YOUR HANDS!

Love,

Kate

Mixing Bowl of Emotions

Within a week, I muscled the courage to announce the closing of the studio at the end of April.  The next day came an email, my son’s school was closing at the end of the school year.  Only a couple days later, the city shuts down.  When people ask me how I’m doing I honestly answer, “I don’t know.” 

I spent the first two weeks of the stay-at-home order closing the studio.  It was heartbreaking packing up the studio without having the opportunity to give it a ceremonial goodbye.  It was painful.  I would drive to the studio and cry through the packing.  There is much grief for the loss of the daily community our studio housed as we witnessed each other grow and fail, and grow again.  It was a necessary shedding of grief and being free of the commitments of the studio excites me to no end. When I asked myself, “you still want to do this?”, I couldn’t have packed up fast enough.  So, needless to say, it was a mixing bowl of emotions. 

All accounts for the studio were closed mid-March.  Yoga Path will continue as a yoga school offering a 500 hour program out of the new yoga room to be.  Right now it is a garden shed. When life returns to its new normal, I will be able to expand my time into the area of private lessons and semi-private classes.  We will continue to work with senior citizens and student athletes.  I am chomping at the bit to get back into the classroom with my own teachers and advance my own training.  I’m looking forward to being able to share more about my own journey and the things I’ve learned about yoga along the way.  

I’ll begin to post more classes on our site that will be free for you to practice.  There will soon be workshops online taught by me that will offer a lecture and practice.  These workshops will include topics such as the psoas, working with low back injuries, improving upper body mobility and strength,  learning movement patterns that help alleviate chronic pain, a gentle introduction to creating a personal practice, and specific workshops geared towards yoga instructors for their continuing education hours.  If you have suggestions of something you’d like to learn from me, shoot me an email.  You can reach me at kate@yogapathllc.com or (225) 931-9166

We are giving the website a facelift, so please excuse our progress….

Love,

Kate

WHAT A RIDE THIS HAS BEEN!!

Dear Yoga Peeps,

The past few weeks have been explosive with creativity, opportunities, and the realization that certain callings will no longer be ignored. Yoga Path is now a certified Woman Owned Small Business, giving us access to populations we couldn’t reach through the studio presence alone.  We are moving full steam ahead in our continuing work with the senior citizen communities, after-school programs, and our work with school athletic teams. I’m also in conversation about collaborative work with a local physical therapy clinic whose focus is with performance athletes.  Being able to write this paragraph is the result of a ton of kick-ass work, and not mine alone!  (If you’ve had a conversation with me about my intentions and where I’d like to see Yoga Path grow, reading that first paragraph, you can only guess how exciting this is for me.  I mean…Y’ALL!!!!!) 

My yoga path began as a newbie asana student, good lord!, thirty years ago?!!!!!!  Its introduction into my lifestyle began when I moved here and studied, (like all Baton Rouge yogis and yoginis who have been taking yoga as long and longer than I), with Nancy Clark.  This studio is now One Heart Yoga owned by Terri Hunter.  Its the perfect passing of the torch.  Xoxoxoxo

After Nancy retired and moved away, it was the sound advice of Cary Saurage and Lynn Raineck, that led me to teacher training at Kripalu. It was this month-long immersion that opened my eyes to compassion, forever changing the way I practiced and studied yoga.    It is from there I could begin a path of forgiveness.  I’m still on that one.  Driving in traffic keeps it real for me.  

The next few years saw me balancing motherhood, marriage, teaching, and studying for my 500HR yoga teacher certification. In 2008 Yoga Path, the school for teachers, began. After renting space with Red Shoes who graciously let us move from room to room as their programs allowed, we settled in to our first brick and mortar on Acadian Avenue.   I’ve always said the school is my heart of Yoga Path, and as a studio grew, I struggled with my role as a studio owner. 

No matter how many ways I try to rearrange the pieces, I’ve never found the heart for the job; however, I’ve never found the heart to give it up either.  I enjoy our community.  I lean into it.  I grew up in it.   Even looking back through all the crap that goes with owning a studio, I was meant to be on this road so I could learn what I needed to learn. Because of being a yoga studio owner, I grew leaps and bounds in finding my voice and speaking my truth.

All that stuff in the first paragraph is very important to me and I am determined to give it my all.  And while a lot has been changing for me over the past few years, never as accelerated as the past two.  So, here’s the catch…

What I’ve learned and where it is taking me is different from the role of studio owner.  My heart started making more room for studying and working with special populations.  My wreck and the recovery that still has me in physical therapy three times a week almost two years later…that’s a huge calling for me as a yoga teacher. 

I’m ready, no, desperate, to dive down the rabbit hole of special populations.  I’m ready to focus on individual clients, small classes, special populations, women’s health, knees, hips, shoulders, and that’s just me getting started! I am passionate about being a yoga teacher and seeing how many ways to address the practice to benefit the person right in front of me.  People like me, with all our unique and completely shared quirks, insecurities, injuries, and beautiful hearts…oh, and spines…I got a thing or two to share about the spine.   

Making time this year to study with my teachers fires me up to come back and offer a more in-depth and versatile teacher training school. The school, our methodology, our approach to the practice is a one-of-a-kind training experience.  You leave not only with a clearer connection to your heart, but with the knowledge and applicable skills you need to teach a kick-ass yoga class that is safe for everyBODY.  (Psst…A 500 hour program will soon develop from this digging in and getting into the nitty-gritty.) 

What all of this means is, yes, I am retiring Yoga Path’s studio and my life as a studio teacher.    The rumor mill that stole my story out from under me, (like I said, still working on that forgiveness path),  may have hit your ears before this hits your eyes.  It took me, personally, as Kate,  a lot of hard work, mentally, physically, personally, emotionally, to get to the point where I could let the studio go and be at peace with that decision. If I want Yoga Path to continue down Kate Suchanek’s path, then it is time to say goodbye to the studio.  Our doors will close April 30th, 2020.  

This gives you time to use up the rest of your class passes.  Most students on auto-draft do not get charged until mid or late month for the upcoming month. Sarah, our Accounts Manager, and I are going through all auto-draft accounts to ensure you will not be charged for classes past 4/30/20.  I will still hold a workshop on the 28th, YTT will still graduate on April 5th, we will still be hosting a couple of upcoming community events…stay tuned for more info, coming soon.  

Come to class, talk with your teachers, learn where else they teach and how to stay in touch with them.  I will still be offering individual lessons and semi-private classes without a break in schedule, as is the same for our outreach programs.  I’ll be offering workshops and trainings again in the fall.

This was never going to be an easy decision and it is a decision I feel is as honest as I can be.  Thank you for watching me grow and loving me through my mistakes and my failings.  Thank you for forcing me to acknowledge I have a great smile, not because of how crooked it now is, but because its one of the great ways I like to “reach out and touch someone”.  Thank for holding me up when I literally broke down.  Thank you for never letting me get too full of myself.  Thank you for never letting me get too empty.   Thank you for every test and challenge you sent my way.  Thank you for keeping me accountable.  Thank you for your resilience, your light, your compassion.  I love you.  

Love,

Kate

Owner, Yoga Path LLC   

Gift of Guts

Its that time of the year when our graduates step into the teacher seat and offer a free class at the studio as their audition to the universe.  We had an intimate class of three and it has been one of my favorite sessions so far.  I think Beth and I  have been through enough personal crap that we are very clear on how to hold space for transformation.  

This also means it is the time of year when we are reaching out to this same universe for those students who need us and who we need to fill our January 2020 teacher training.  I’m always so excited to give our new teachers their gentle shove out of the nest.  I’m also excited about who the next group will be and how we will tweak the program from what we’ve learned this go ‘round.  

Interest in the program comes in waves and when it is silent, I entertain the fear, “what if no one signs up?!”.  Then there is the fear response, “well then that will just confirm that you suck.”  However, I’m relieved to say there is also a louder voice that says, “well, then you do whatever is next, and it is your choice how much you suffer over that.”  I just sent out a newsletter that talked about the Pathways of Gravity and how this anatomical principle is one we dive deep into in our program.  Off the mat, it is understanding our place on this earth as a series of relationships, and the structure we build for ourselves within those relationships.  

I’m in the process of shedding a very long friendship.  I know there was a time it was as real as I believed it to be.  I can name when it went off track in my story’s history.  There are times when I am so self-righteous and want to lay it all out so I can show what I victim I was.  However, again, there is something stronger that I’m following. Its the first time I’m looking back into a relationship and pulling the pieces of me I gave away back into myself.  It wasn’t until I was out from under it, that I realized just how much of my energy I had given up.  It took less than 24 hours to feel the rush of this energy come back and I was euphoric.  

The euphoria wore off and what was left was me realizing just how much compassion I had for the Kate that couldn’t stand up for herself.  As unhealthy a role as I played in this relationship, I needed it because I believed in the person that felt she could always do better, be better, shoulda known better.  I was ignoring the anxiety that continued to grow, while instead I fed an enmeshment that ate away at my sense of worth.  

A lot of women my age talk of coming to terms with lifelong patterns that no longer serve them, and they talk of the struggle they have in trudging through this work.  We do it  to get to a sense of freedom.  The past couple of years I have been trudging through some heavy work and one of the many gifts its given is the realization that I now believe in me in a loving way that supports the way I’m growing, and nurtures this voice I’ve been afraid to speak.  I had a relationship that was, at its most harmful, a mirror image of the voice in my head that said it wasn’t okay to be me if being me didn’t fully support the friendship.   I skipped the part where I grow for me.  It took hearing my voice come out of someone else’s mouth to hear the punches that came flying through the words.  I was so blown away but what I was realizing, it was like I was watching it happen more than actually being a participant in it.  

I’ve had to have some lessons come crashing down around me before I would even listen.  I can find myself reeling at how much time I have spent denying the way I am called to connect with the people around me.  I also know, that if I needed such an intimate relationship to evolve into this type of lesson, than that’s just the way it is.  And as much as I want to point the finger and throw the blame, I’m really just continuing on the path of forgiveness.  I’m forgiving myself for not knowing then what I know now.  I’m angry at myself for ignoring my heart, the red flags my body would give off, the parts of me I thought weren’t good enough. 

So, what does this have to do with teacher training?  I love it so much that I’m scared if it doesn’t do well than it means I’m a failure and I will be embarrassed to even show my face.  

Wow!  Thats pretty dramatic, Kate!  Teacher training is stepping way out of the box of comfort and trying to take all this new whirlwind of information and bring it into a concise and clear language that fits into a one hour class.  Teacher training is throwing open the doors to new ways of thinking and new ways of living comfortably in your own skin.  However, it brings up the discomfort and then asks you to get in front of the class for all to see.  

Every single student teacher that has put themselves in this hot seat has finished that first audition to the universe and they literally glow.  Sometimes they cry in relief, sometimes they feel so giddy they can’t wait to teach again.  Sometimes they finish and say they are so grateful for the journey, their own practice has come leaps and bounds, and thank you, but no thank you on the teaching.  (Truth be told, they almost always teach again too.)

Right now you can catch the Early Bird rate for our yoga teacher training.  This rate saves you $200.  Once you are registered for our program,  you will have

• Unlimited class access to Yoga Path studio classes ($108/month - $432 value!)

• Course content includes heavy teaching methodology and anatomy

• Access to Leslie Kamanoff’s anatomy website for a full year. (Access to study guides, anatomy, philosophy, and class structure.)

• Additional training in business of yoga and marketing, history, chanting meditation philosophy and ayurveda.

• Past guest teachers have included Becky Barton, Camille Coates, Bill Downs, John Eeds, Heidi Gill, Denise Jarreau, Brittany Kriger, Amanda Mays, DeeDee Poullard-Jones, Charlynn White, Rahul Sharma, and Stewart Sommers.

Thank you for being you.

The light within me bows and honors the light with you.

Kate

Possilibities...

I’ve written and re-written this post several times trying to find the words that are speaking my truth, not my stories.  I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of books lately that are helping me clear my head and sit with my feelings.  Sitting with and not resisting those feelings has been the focus of my meditation and it has been offering up some pretty amazing gifts.  

As a child I remember feeling my heart soar with the possibilities of a new day.   I don’t know when I stopped leaning into joy.  I don’t know when the vicious dance of depression and anxiety took over.  But today I see how much of my life I handed over to others. I made so many decisions unaware of how I felt that I did so based on other’s stories and fears.  Practicing just being okay with life as is, I started getting these moments of peace.   I felt a joy I haven’t felt since I was a kid.  And everyday I can tap into it, even if just for a minute or two,  and its been quite fun.    

When recently asked the question, “what are my top three feelings I feel the most during my day”, I couldn’t answer.  So, I started paying attention.  All I could say was “tense” for the first day.  By the second day I had tense and curious. That lasted a couple days. After a few days I realized I wasn’t feeling as tense, and a few weeks later I am a lot more relaxed and its awesome!!! 

Then I started noticing I was excited at the possibilities that come with giving myself permission to be okay NOW instead of down the road when this and that happens.  Life started showing up in ways that sometimes made me stop and say “Come! On! This shit really works?!” The thoughts of “What if I fail?  What if I hurt?  What if I cause hurt?  What if I screw up?”, are starting to loosen their grip.  Have I ever saved myself any amount of pain seeking the answers to these questions?  The more I tap into being still instead of plowing forward, backward, and inside out, the more I feel.  The more I feel, the more capacity I have to feel good in my own skin.    

The past three years, I spent a lot of energy learning how to forgive myself, the harsh critic in my head, and then directed that energy into learning how to do failure and disappointment differently.  A short time ago I heard the same critic coming out of someone else’s mouth.  It took hearing it to realize it wasn’t my story any longer.  It wasn’t my truth. I realized I was more okay with who I am than I have ever been…since maybe when I was that girl ready to burst into a new day.  

Recently, a friend sent me an article that talked about how the healing from trauma is completely our own personal responsibility.  The healing bears the person up not as who they used to be, but closer to who they are, who they REALLY are.  That feels true for me.  I have not been loyal to myself.  I gave up a lot of ownership and it wasn’t until I took it back that I was blown away at how much energy this gave me.  Something in me has been waking up and shining a light on the choices I’m making…good ones and not so good ones.  

Leaning into joy feels better in my bones.  It makes for a better version of me and I am grateful for the experiences I’ve had, because they couldn’t have happened any other way.   

Confession of a Co-dependent

I was watching a documentary on Hank Williams last night, and one of the commentators said that when an artist aligns with their own truth, everyone around them is better for it.  

These past few months I re-entered Yoga Path acknowledging that this business was not only something I signed up for, (literally signed on the dotted line), but it is a way to align with my truth.  With the help of so many honest, strong, wise, and beautiful students, teachers, friends, family…and yes, especially the ones who really challenged me, it was up to me to honor that responsibility.  

Getting to this point has at times felt like I was clawing my way up a painfully slippery sIope of doubt and endless mistakes. I created more conflict and chaos by looking for answers everywhere but inside of me.  Ask this FINALLY conscious, co-dependent and I will say; nothing angered me more than being told I did something wrong.  I would immediately go to, ”but don’t you know how much of myself I have sacrificed just to keep you happy?!  And you dare to not be?!”  Ugh.  Blek!  

I have an Irish temper, (or maybe just my dad’s), and I will react in a heartbeat.  I do not always carry myself the way I would like.  My very private and personal, internal, and eventually external chaos came from my firmly held belief that apologies and forgiveness weren’t enough.  I also was supposed to let the energy of a person and situation back into my life in an attempt to “keep the peace”.  And guess what?  I EXPECTED that in return!  There is no one in that relationship who can move forward in peace.  

I couldn’t give myself permission to forgive myself.  Mistakes, pain, they meant I failed when they really just meant I was human and I was trying.  I couldn’t sit with the pain I caused or was done to me. If I couldn’t sit with it, I couldn’t learn from it either.  I ignored my own healing.   I needed to keep whoever upset me, or I them, close by so there could be reassurance that “we” were okay.  When you live for external validation there is no “I”,  just a big goopy mess of “we”.  Ugh.  Blek!  

I was missing all that “good” stuff that really feels terrible and really feeds our growth.  Its taken a long time to see that sitting with the pain of the situation and letting it be a painful situation was my work. And to be very clear, there are definitely relationships I have fought for, and have been rewarded by years of intimacy through the surviving of good times and bad.  There are definitely times to stick it out because there are relationships that are monumental in accepting ourselves for all of our parts and pieces.  Discernment and forgiveness have guided me to wise and nurturing relationships and began to fill the toxic way I approached heartache.  There has been a lot of time just floating in the space between letting go of habitual responses and not knowing what the new response is. 

Yoga Path has been a place that holds many relationships for me that are extremely challenging because I am exposed to interactions and confrontations that I can avoid from the safety of my close network of intimate friendships.  Yoga Path holds people like Beth.  She helps me protect myself and others from my sharp tongue and quick reactions. It holds people like Becky, who is unrelenting in her teachings of breathing into that pause we are gifted with BEFORE or even INSTEAD OF reacting.   

I have made decisions that really angered some people, that created a nest of gossip, that caused uneasiness and triggered that familiar fear of “now what?!”  I’ve been given more two cents than I ever asked for, and unasked for two cents can tie my belly into a million knots.  Discernment, forgiveness, hasn’t taken away the gut wrenching I feel in conflict. It pulls me out of it.  

So, Yoga Path has been one of those relationships I have fought for.  It has been very validating for me to have stuck with it through the good and bad times.  Every time I take a step with Yoga Path in a direction that aligns with what I’m supposed to be doing on this earth, I can feel the shift of energy.  It gives me the strength to deal with the fall out.  My decisions are made to help define my direction, and not to take away from someone else's.  As I become more defined, it opens the door for others to see that maybe they need something else, and maybe they are the one to provide it in their own unique way.  

I can’t yet spell out what this purpose is because it is ever evolving.  What I am doing is trusting the stillness that comes when I step into my truth.  It has opened me to a storehouse of inner strength, that even when I’m shaking to my bones in the face of conflict, I can still own my truth.  I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this before.  

No one is good at conflict.  No one likes it.  No one I know, that is. But I know I’m growing because it no longer overwhelms me when I walk in the door of Yoga Path.  I’m no longer carrying the weight of the junk that wasn’t mine to carry.  I’m finding a strength within myself as I see that I can accomplish certain roles in running this business that I never thought I was capable of handling.  I’ve stopped giving up on myself.  I’ve stopped handing over my responsibilities to others because I lacked the faith in myself to put one foot in front of the other.

A yogic lifestyle absolutely honors the duties and responsibilities of running a business, paying your bills, honoring the space you are holding for others through your work.  Yes, you can still get in my face and make me shake to my core.  But what I have stopped giving permission to, is allowing it to change me to fit another’s view of me.  Yes, I check in with people when I know I’m not staying in my own lane.  Yes, when I get “hit” I reach out for help, and yes, if I’m screwing up I will eat my humble pie.   

It’s about time I gave myself permission to be ok, to make mistakes, to learn, to do well, and to let others be who they are too.  Pretty sure this is a ride for a lifetime.  

Keeping It Simple

Dear Students,

I WON'T COME BACK TEACHING SUPER-DUPER HARD like I always have!!!   

I PROMISE!!!!!!!!!  

Love, Kate

Y'all!  I am so ready to get back to the studio and around all my peeps!  Wednesday at 1pm I head to the doctor and get my cast. 

Anyone who knows me, knows that it is definitely best I have a good hard cast on this leg before I'm set free in the studio with my new 4-wheeling scooter (thank you to my aunt, "Marry Kate").  Having already tried the no-hands, one-legged soar across the room, (picture sunbird pose but on only one leg and wheels). I didn't pull it off.  It needs some practice.  I’m pretty sure that last sentence is where I seem to steer off track.  (Maybe I should just get dropped off at the studio with crutches sans scooter.) 

I am looking forward to teaching my classes again and seeing my peeps. I am looking forward to diving back into the teacher training 

( *YTT PLUG: Fall session starts 9/15, pay your $200 deposit to begin your free unlimited yoga membership)  

I say I'm coming back to teach this Thursday.  Of course, especially with the 5:30p class, its been a pattern of “I’m back…oops, not really,…..I’m back…..well, maybe not yet,…..I’m back).  However, my mental and physical stamina are back.  I feel strong inside and out.  My body, for all of its injuries is stronger than ever.  HOWEVER…

Out of respect for Beth and my husband ("my decider-ers”), I'm learning to trust them and do as I'm told..as much as I can. These are two peeps in my life who have borne the brunt of my duties and responsibilities for almost an entire year now.

And here’s the thing…

When I’m gone from teaching for awhile, say even a week for vacation, I am a little nervous that first class back.  Since my wreck, coming back to teaching…it scared me. I wasn’t ready, physically or mentally.  But I push, and I push, because I have to wear that badge of honor that says, look at how strong I am!  Well, that now feels like a dunce hat because I see that when I come back after begin away from my classes, I fall on what’s rote. 

I teach how I was taught when I worked with my two main teachers.  These teachers were tough, strict, demanding, trained by the best of the best, and held very high expectations of their students.  I sought out this type of teacher and I am honored to have had the chance to study with both of these women.  I am grateful for the experiences of those trainings as they have been monumental in my moving forward.  

AND,  my body was also much younger when I was studying under them. It’s time I lean more into the compassionate side of my training.  Thank you Kripalu.  I have GOT to learn to stop pushing so hard all the time.  That is the lesson screaming at me from all sides. It hasn’t been the only one; I’m just ready to look at it.   Seeing it from a different perspective, I see I have some work to do.

My work has a theme no matter the layer of the onion. Simplifying; letting go to create the space to literally breathe comfortably.  I consistently make choices that result in making things more complicated than they need to be.  I’m learning to follow some of the best advice I’ve never listened to until recently.  My friend Camie always says, “Girl, you gotta stay in your own lane.”

Sutra Sundays, (*another plug….Sundays at 10:30a taught by Beth and I), have been focusing on the yama brahmacharya and we are practicing noticing areas of excess and non-excess in our poses, in our breathing, in all areas of our lives.  The areas that are full of excess, we can choose to clear out.  I remind my student-teachers in YTT to teach from personal experience.  My therapist reminds me we practice what we most need to learn ourselves.  I’m listening.  

I’m listening.