Ashtanga Yoga Orlando

I am energetic. I am unorthodox. I am lovable. I am deep. I am unpredictable. I am tender hearted. I am compassionate. I am moody. I am complex. I am opinionated. I am loud. I am realistic. I am spicy. I am passionate. I am earthy. I am airy. I am flexible. I am strong. I am funny. I am emotional. I am dorky. I am understanding. I am nimble. I am quick. I am soft. I am warm. I am quirky. I am mystical. I am light. I am love. I AM!

My whole life I have felt like I don’t belong, like an outsider… A black sheep. The odd ball. The loner. I even imagined as a little girl that I was adopted but I couldn’t overlook the fact that I look exactly like my family so that was out of the question. I remember even thinking I was abducted by aliens at one point lol I just knew I was different, and because of this, I suffered.

I did not start Yoga because I was looking for the physical aspect of it. I wanted to deepen my spirituality, and because of that, Yoga found me. I was at a very dark stage in my life when I was introduced to Yoga. I was going through a divorce, numbing my worries away in prescription drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and f*ckboys. I was at a place in my life where I couldn’t fall asleep at night because of my monkey mind. My soul was so desperate to reveal itself. All I kept hearing Spirit say was “go to Yoga.” Everywhere I looked, Yoga. It was like I was receiving all this information about something I had no idea existed but all of a sudden it did. I will never forget my first Yoga class. It was Ashtanga Led Primary and I remember getting to Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana and mentally visualizing myself saying “screw this” and walking out, but my internal warrior voice said “you got this” with such confidence. I remember being able to bind on Marichyasana D on my first try and how invigorating that felt. When I left that day, I knew Yoga was going to become my new passion. Three months later I was enrolled in a Yoga Teacher Training that would change the course of my life forever.

Once I started my Yoga training, my life began to change. I began to spiral downward. I was beginning to rip off a mask that I didn’t even know I was wearing. The only thing that kept me grounded was Yoga and the Holy Spirit. My karma started coming up like wildfire and I was being scorched left and right by questions of who I was. Deeply buried memories started to arise. The “not so pretty”  memories. I started to uncover deep childhood wounds that I realized I had been suppressing for years. Yoga opened the floodgates, no more holding back. I began the journey of healing myself. But first, I had to destroy the old “me.” Everything I thought I knew about myself began to fall apart. All those aspects of Ego forming walls that were built by me but created in the likeness of others, came crashing down. I started recognizing all the aspects of myself that didn’t belong to me. Ways of being I had picked up from others. Experiences that molded patterns in my mind that do nothing but hurt me. I started to see my own matrix except it wasn’t mine anymore. It was what society, what everyone else wanted me to be. I saw what I had created and realized I had to change. And thus began the journey to my true self. Ripping one mask off at a time.  Awakening the Divine within.

The journey to the self within is not an easy one, but it is very rewarding. You will uncover darkness, wounds, scars, and truths untold but you will also find compassion, joy, and peace within. I am living walking proof of change through self-realization. There is no “bad” or “good” there is only God, and God wouldn’t make anything that is not perfect. The path inward is through forgiveness. The only way to know love, is to be love. The only way to know God, is to know yourself.  To know God is to live a life of love. There is only one path. There is only love.