A Love Note to My Journey... and yours!

Me... Dorothy... on a QUEST!

I wasn't born with any conscious plans to "be a yogi" (who is?!)... I was voraciously curious about human nature... Starting when I was 10 years old, my family endured some traumas and hardships and that fueled my interest in struggle and survival. I read a LOT of books - about slavery, civil rights, ancient Egypt, indigenous cultures and such. The traumas also fueled my tendency to feel concerned and responsible for the well-being of others. After a volunteer-work trip to central America in my teens, I was set! I was going to "make a difference" by helping those in need - women, children, and families who were suffering. I went to college with a focused spirit and was ultimately invited to a PhD program... to be paid to teach and do research... 

.... Except, something was nagging at me... 

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First trip to India... I was 24!

Because while I was busy getting straight A's and being an ambitious East Coast student, with a plight to help others... I started to be aware of a sense of "I can't be happy until the world looks fair".  I was looking outside, trying to help others and make things 'right'... and it was becoming apparent that this was an impossible feat.  As I was feeling dissatisfied with the limitations of sociology to satisfy my quest, Eastern Philosophy and meditation fell into my lap (in a college class!)... and I found yoga... Now I was contemplating deeper teachings about the human condition beyond the socio-economic or political factors that had answered these questions for me before. My exploration was reaching closer to the root of things... to the internal pain of the human heart. I started exploring yoga more and more - attending 1-2 yoga classes a day and doing more yoga at home (yes, too much yoga!). I was letting go of my perception that I had to fix the world in order to discover my own happiness...

....and I moved to California to study yoga... (yup I bailed on the PhD program)... 

'Cause that was where yoga was happening in the 1990's in America! And through a magical, strange, synchronistic series of events that included a bus-ride, the 'Autobiography of a Yogi', the biography of the Dalai Lama and someone's mother, I found a profoundly deep yoga teacher training. I went for it whole-heartedly - I started teaching in 2001, and continued advanced study in yoga therapy for 10 years! I was doing lot's o' yoga, and met my (now) husband, who was also a yogi and supported my desire to study, explore, retreat and be generally a weirdo... and had AMAZING transformative,  healing and 'a-ha" moments about myself, the world the Oneness of everything... and I was amazed at how consistently and effectively the particular style of yoga I was teaching was at resolving my clients' and students' internal blockages, including physical and emotional pain. 

.... but SOMETHING was still kind'a nagging at me... 

Because even though I was now (in theory) a "perfect" hatha yogi... I still wasn't quite totally happy & healthy (and I sure wasn't relaxed or secure!)... I believe I was actually using yoga to BYPASS some of my s@#*.  Because, in fact, my life was not in alignment with nature, my self-esteem was not in an ideal place, I didn't know how to say 'no' to people, and I was encountering some health struggles... I had nagging physical pain, I was constipated, I was anxious, I sure as heck did not sleep well, and my diet was getting narrower as I became progressively hyper-sensitive... imbalances that had been lurking were now revealed through yoga and meditation, and some imbalances I even created with what I THOUGHT (or was told) was a healthy lifestyle, but was actually TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE for ME... and I saw something similar in many students and clients... they came in with issues that yoga alone couldn't resolve - I knew teachers and students who were, like me, using yoga to go directly to a powerful inner bliss by bypassing their "stuff" momentarily, only to come off the floor and go back into their lives and relationships to see their physical and mental imbalances were right their waiting for them. 

.... and I found Ayurveda and Vedic Astrology... 

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Embracing Love!

Because while, yes, I am (as yoga teaches) the Oneness of existence, I am also a UNIQUE expression of that oneness with patterns and tendencies that need to be honored. And the things that I had read or been told were "healthy" may have been quite harmful for me as an individual! (Plus, it turns out that staying up until 3am drinking jasmine green tea is not good for ANYONE, no matter what your constitution!) So I delved into more study for myself, in how to recognize and work with different constitutions so that I learn to ADDRESS individual pit-falls and HONOR strengths to directly resolve the root causes of discomforts and road-blocks. And I discovered that I now had knowledge that could empower me in a yogified life... and that I could more quickly and easily help my students and clients get RIGHT TO THE ROOT of their body-mind 'stuff' (but in a sweet and comfortable way) and that I had a skill for SIMPLIFYING effective remedies that were tailored to the individual but utilized grand patterns in the universe. And wow... we were all delving in deeper and more quickly with knowledge that clarified and simplified the yogic lifestyle. 

...And then I had to be tested... 

I went through major disappointments in my relationships with a two teachers who had been amazing... but who were straying off the path of dharma and morality and I stood there with my partner taking a long pause to separate those particular teachers from the teachings, tease out what was authentic, and protect and deepen our love for yogic knowledge and practices (and for each other, because we got married during that pause!) and I uncovered in myself a student that was open... 

....to delve into the transformation for which everything else had been preparation.... 

Having already studied with many brilliant teachers - in Ayurveda, Yoga, Vedic Astrology, Sanskrit and Yoga Philosophy... I found myself in the presence of refined, moral teachers of Vedanta who finally helped me get to the ultimate teachings about the nature of the self, the nature of existence and the nature of the human condition. The thing I was always searching for, curious about, and running after, was right there all along... all making simple sense. My husband and I spent two months in an Ashram studying the Narada Bhakti Sūtras (a text about Supreme LOVE), and letting go of so much rigidity, striving and instability that all the yoga, vedic astrology and ayurveda still hadn't quite resolved. I discovered a newfound clarity and commitment to myself and yoga - one that was soft, resilient, and open. 

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The journey continues...

... And LIFE became YOGA... 

Like you, my journey has required curiosity, kismet, luck and a fair amount of deliberate effort...all so that I could finally STOP STRIVING and settle into a natural, spontaneous, and easy experience of myself... the kind of happiness I was looking for in the first place. And now a professional yoga therapy practice, a marriage and a child are in the picture and thank grace for all the growth, and lessons and the bringing it all together to the simple root knowledge. It's no longer so complicated. It's no longer such a struggle. There is no striving in it. It is a yogic life - not a perfect life, but inspired, aligned, simple life that is the way mine is supposed to be.  I can't imagine a different way of being in and seeing the world for myself and my family. And on the occasions when things do get rough (as they inevitably will) ... I have yoga, ayurveda and vedanta to take me home to myself, where it all always makes sense, just as it is.  
.... And now... 


I LOVE to delve in deeply with people who have had their own journey of "been there, done that" in healing, yoga, meditation, food fads, self-inquiry and various therapies... they've reached a certain place of improvement but are kind of frustrated and ready to get some real answers, learn to RELAX and uncomplicate! I am so honored that I get to be a part of such amazing yogi's journeys... getting down in the trenches with them to peel back the layers of gunk to FINALLY resolve and recognize the experience they have been looking for all along....their own true Self!

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