Yoga Mom
My mom was about my age now (Mid forties) when she began to get deep into all things spiritual. It was the late eighties and I was a young teen girl, being the youngest of 4 older brothers, mom and I were close, meaning she dragged me on all her new adventures. Some of these adventures meant meditating in a small room of strangers, for what felt like hours, watching videos of Osho and Shirley Maclean teach us how to clean our chakras I hardly understood what was meant on the surface, let allow the depth of spiritually she was diving into, for awhile I was just happy to be included into what felt like a secret sacred society with my mom.
When she took her Yoga Teacher Training it was taught at the local junior college by a lovely woman who would candidly smoke a cigarette after each session. I will never forget my first yoga pose …. Setu bandha sarvangasana aka shoulderstand, I now have great respect for the subtleties and nuance of such a powerful inversion. Back then I reveled in the fact that my mother faced the physical challenged in this doable for most but very complex asana, especially for the neck, whereas for myself and my lean, limber prepubescent body it was a piece of cake, and dare I say felt good, but yoga to me was nothing more then poses and breath for the body
Mainly bodies like my mothers ….older??
My teen years were like most teenage years, full of everything except yoga and other spiritual practices. When I look back at it now it was my greatest spiritual awakening, unknown to myself at the time.
In my 20's I became a bartender, and began living, I don’t want to say wrong because I had a lot of fun… but moved quickly to a not so healthy lifestyle. I don’t know if I found yoga again or if yoga found me (reintroduced by a free week of yoga by a boyfriend, he felt I needed It). but this time was very different. I was ready, well almost. Now in a parted out 20 year old body, I understood my moms yoga from years prior, I was tight (being an athlete) no joke I was told that this class was not for my “yet” and asked to leave… Well that's another tale.
Maybe it was the teacher’s comment “you’re not ready for this” that pushed me into action. The next 4 years I would take 3 Teacher Trainings, travel to Thailand to study Ayurveda and begin the career and journey I live to this day.
Years later, while having a yoga career, I gave birth to 2 amazing children, not at the same time, 3 years apart! Early on I had dreams of being an amazing “Yoga mom”, whom the kids would look up to and aspire to be the healing entities of planet earth, as well as the next generations of yogis and healers.
Unlike me as a child, these kids were born in a Yoga studio, Sebastian literally, through their youth I not only taught yoga but owned a studio, from Prenatal to Mom and Me classes to “you have to assist mommy in the kids yoga class and do a video with me”. My kids were bathed in yoga philosophy, they could not escape me in our small home with giant post it notes, laying out hours upon hours of Teacher training notes and sequences, not that they wanted to but they learned stick figure yoga poses before they could write. In time they began to become their own little beings and a lot of time that had nothing to do with yoga.
It's not like I dreamt of them becoming the next Shiva Raye, or Eric Schifmann, and I’m sure my mom never expected me to take her midlife hobby and build a career out of it for myself as well as grow into someone I know she is proud of. I love the conversations about spiritually my mom and I have now, she comes to me as a confidant and still loves me like a daughter. An obvious gift that starts at birth, but we get to chat about how we have lived many lives, before and both take a moment together to put our legs up the wall and breath, laugh about a dream and be amazed together when it kinda comes true.
Mothers day and Yoga is for the long haul, it is more than a moment, more than a day it is a gift, a gift you always come back to in one way or another. We were all born of our mothers and our bodies will one day return back to Mother Earth.
As for my kids, they do yoga everyday when they are not afraid to feel deep in their heart and show it, when they cry and scream and live in a fully free expression of the moment, the deep breaths they take to find themselves out of that moment, children are little gurus.
So in my class I discuss.. These days, my job is only to create a safe place for the students to explore themselves, body and mind, this is the practice that will lead us to the soul, the soul knows your dharma, your purpose, your one of a kind beautiful purpose. With purpose we can ride the light and shadow moments and live fully. Before children I was a child of this earth, now you don’t need to be an actual mother to be a mother and that is amazing …. Your don’t have to be a Yogi to practice yoga!
As a mother this is all I want for my children. Live from the center, and you will always be free but in one form or another ...Mother will always be there.
My mom always said “ I can’t remember me before I had children”, it took me having kids to understand that statement, which at the time sounded crazy.
Being a Mother is something like yoga, a gift if you ready to receive.
May you all birth something of deep love and passion, The child does not make mother the actions does.
Happy Mothers Day.
