Outside of Modo, I work for a consulting company as a Hydrogeologist. It can be very fast paced with very long days that turn into long weeks and long months. I am learning new things every day, and it continues to push my boundaries. I absolutely love it, but I know I need to complement this with something to avoid burn out, especially since this is something I want to continue to do for a very long time!
Enter Modo. Modo grounds me. When things in my life are wild and crazy and I feel like I am being pulled in a million directions (ahem, my “9-5”), when I step on my mat, all of that is silenced. It slows me down and pulls me back to the here and now. For 60 minutes, I am on my mat to connect with breath and connect back to me. Emails, planning, buying equipment – it all falls away. My practice changes depending on what I need that day, but I always leave class feeling more at peace and more clear to take on what is waiting for me. It is so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle, and then you blink and months have flown by. Modo is what keeps me grounded and teaches me to be present through everything. My practice fills me up, so that I can continue to pour myself into what lights my soul on fire. This community, and my yoga practice, are always there – never to judge, always to support.
Because I know first hand how magic this stuff is, sharing it with others in the hopes that it brings some lightness or relief or safety or peace or acceptance into their lives is what I strive for. I want to hold space for people to have the class that they need that day. The class that they can either push themselves in, take a step back, have a release of emotion, or just get out of their heads and move through the motions. I want people to leave my class feeling lighter than when they walked in. And I want them to bring that lightness into the world, because everything we do impacts people in ways we don’t even know.
Hope to see you on your mat soon, either practicing beside you or guiding you through!
Haley
This is more the story around my first challenge. I was starting from scratch, brand new to yoga let alone hot yoga. The first few classes were more stressful than relaxing overall and I’ll never forget my sister plopping my mat right beside the teacher and I hated her for that😉. I remember trying SO hard and being really self conscious, totally distracted and completely sure everyone in the room was secretly shaking their heads at my lack of coordination and balance. My complete lack of yoga-ness. All of the gentle guidance to make this a breath centred and internally focused experience bounced off of me like a ping pong ball or maybe better said bounced IN my brain like that hollow sound that felt like everyone around could hear too. I had never experienced this kind of feeling and the triggers that would pop up seemingly out of nowhere. It seemed as though every button was being pushed and holding those poses HOLY HELL. My reflex was to try to escape that feeling of running away.
I am the abundantly proud mother of three (2 and one almost) teenagers. Life has changed around our house significantly since these creatures started to stumble towards adulthood. We have had many, many ups and downs as the five of us, parents and kids, are equally challenged in learning how to deal with raging hormones, roller-coasters of emotions and many rites of passage.
Last August, Modo featured me in a blog post for Social Worker Awareness Month. I spoke about how yoga helped me manage my stress at work. What I failed to mention in that blog was that I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I am convinced my yoga practice literally saved my life.
When you are called into a meeting and told that the world needs you, that you must prepare for battle, become Dragonborn and save the world from an onslaught of dragons, you would imagine that about a million thoughts go racing through your head. Me? I had only one: I need to step up my yoga game. Allow me to explain.
I’ll admit, I’m an introvert by nature. I’m happy to show up, do my thing, and then go home. Social situations like the end of challenge potluck we had that year are overwhelming for me sometimes. So as we got into October 2016 and the buzz began about November’s challenge, I had firmly decided that I wouldn’t be participating.
I started practicing yoga during a pretty hectic time in my life. I was juggling full-time grad school, a T.A. position, a part-time job working reception at a doctor’s office and working as a flight attendant on weekends. It was pretty intense living but incredibly enough I managed to keep grounded, primarily because I would start each day with a 90 minute hot yoga practice. That was almost 20 years ago. Wow, how time flies and lots has changed but my morning yoga practice remains.
Neanette has worked for the same organization for 17 years, she started 2-weeks after graduating with a degree in developmental psychology and honestly had no idea upon graduating what she wanted to do with her degree. There was one thing Neanette did know, and that was she wanted to work in a helping profession. Her role has evolved over the years from supervising a group home to working as a behavior therapist to her current role as Quality Assurance Supervisor.
On Friday April 24, 2014, I smashed my 2009 Volkswagen Passat into a concrete pole. All by myself. On a deserted city street.