This is the story of my journey to yoga teaching and how practicing yoga has changed my life for the better. I hope by reading the following personal life/yoga journey you are inspired to move on and off your mat. Allow me to join you on your yoga journey.

If I were to pinpoint where in the timeline of my life that my journey with yoga began, I would look back to the early 2000s. At the age of 13, I lost my brother in a tragic car accident that shifted my thinking about life and how quickly it can pass. I experienced the power of grief for the first time. I learned the process of grief is not linear and can be viewed as a tool to build ourselves up after loss.

As I worked with various health professionals and psychotherapies through my late teens, I was diagnosed with skin cancer, I suffered from a concussion/major head injury in a car accident at age 19 and struggled in a battle of addiction to substances and alcohol through college. My early twenties were spent handling the aftermath of the facial reconstruction and neurological damaged caused by this accident and my struggle with addiction. I found myself at rock bottom at 24 when diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

Lost within my own skin and unsure who to trust after divorcing a man I thought was brought on my journey to help build me up. This is when I began to look into the true power of loving yourself and how to take care of myself through the daily struggles and life stresses. I finally chose to take the recommendation of incorporating mediation and yoga as an active part of my personal grieving recovery. I found the easiest way for me to keep up my yoga practice and connect with myself was to make my practice work with my daily schedule. I began slow working my body for 15-20 minutes at a time depending on how my fibromyalgia was effecting my body that day.

At first, I thought yoga was just about helping the body and the mind to connect and work as one moving meditation--focusing the mind on the breath and the body on the poses.

Seven years, a second marriage, two babies, numerous hours of practicing yoga, & personally experiencing the changes in confidence and mental focus-- I shifted my view on yoga from just being about the physical and mental health connection.

Yoga gives us the opportunity to slow down, shift our focus from what is happening around us and connect with what is happening within us. Yoga gave me tools of strength and flexibility to use in my stiff physical body, my "damaged" mind, and shifted energies within me that were stuck on the depressing effects of trauma, mental illness and grief.

In 2020, I began my 200 hr yoga teaching certification through Lift Yoga in Alpharetta, GA. Under the instruction of Kim Saunders and her brilliant team of yoga teachers, I built confidence in teaching and became comfortable with who I am as a yoga teacher. Now as a certified 200 hr yoga teacher, I still practice yoga daily and use meditation to slow the distractions around me and focus my days on building a better life for myself and my family. I am elated to present my services and yoga offerings to my community both in-studio and over the world wide web.

Please take a moment to connect with me on my Instagram and Facebook pages to learn more about my vlog, free yoga videos and early experiences with yoga. I look forward to connecting with you along your yoga journey.

Peace. Love. & Yoga.

Namaste,

Nic