What do you do when you’re not teaching yoga?
When I’m not teaching yoga, I love snowboarding, being outside, dancing, drinking coffee and reading. I work full time planning and offering programming for international students studying English at Lakehead and am working part time with an organization called Canadian Roots Exchange to plan a March Break camp for Indigenous youth in Thunder Bay. Lately, I feel really inspired by the students at a local addictions and recovery centre where I teach yoga once a week. I feel full of passions and curiosities and am forever learning to strike a balance between working, learning, playing and just being.
Tell us about your yoga journey so far.
I started practicing yoga regularly about 10 years ago when I began university in Vancouver. Admittedly, what initially got me practicing consistently was an attraction to pretzel-like postures and arm balances, but overtime, I developed curiosities about the roots and true essence of these practices that were bringing new qualities of bliss and presence into my life. As a practitioner, I felt it was my responsibility to inquire more deeply into what yoga was, where it came from, and how to approach it with authenticity, beyond what I was learning in hour-long asana and pranayama-based classes.
By happenstance, I found myself at Anuttara Ashram in the Spring of 2016. Anuttara is an off-grid, intentional and immersive yogic community located in the Nass Valley on Nisga’a territories. I’ve spent about a year at Anuttara since my first visit- this includes that first Spring of Karma Yoga when I dove deeper into hridaya and mantra meditation, Summer 2017 when I took part in Anuttara’s first ever 200 hour YTT, and Winter of 2019 when I spent nearly 3 months alone, predominantly in silence, caretaking the property while my teachers were in India.
When I wasn’t at Anuttara (or surfing, snowboarding, or tree planting), I also helped run the UBC Yoga Club, a non-profit that offers $2 yoga classes everyday in Vancouver. Only a month after taking a YTT, it was the Yoga Club that granted me my first opportunity to teach alongside many teachers I revered and continued to learn from.
Months later, I was hit hard with chronic panic attacks and depression brought on by the stress of school (and climate change, the pace and demands of city life, childhood trauma, and the realities of an unjust world). At this time, I would find peace on the mat. Off the mat, knowing how to breathe helped me through panic attacks, but it wasn’t enough. I’d witness and breathe through my body’s experiences, but I often became consumed by my pain and stress and I’d disassociate from the experience. My practice wasn’t enough to guide me through the challenges and I needed to call on extra support from friends, family, and mental health professionals. I became more interested and invested in how yoga helps to regulate our nervous systems, trauma-informed yoga, and how practices like yoga nidra can help us process and heal trauma.
As I write this, I’m gaining clarity on how my practice has transformed from a very physical dancey-flowy vinyasa, to a practice in moving inward and witnessing our bodies, breath, and Being with presence, love and intention. But, it’d be a lie to say this journey has been linear. Today, I am hyper and wiggly, yet calm and still. I can be the loudest and the quietest person in a room. The most wise, and the most clueless. Yoga helps to bring balance. There are many things I’ve learned in theory that I’m still working to embody, while loving myself all the way through.
I offer my reverence and respect to all the teachers I’ve had, including those I’ve never met whose knowledge has been passed to me through stories and traditional lineages. I also offer my reverence to the Ojibwe people whose lands and waters I occupy and am nourished by. Lastly, I thank the Divine, in all its forms (and formlessness). Yoga has brought me closer.
It feels exciting to trust that this journey will continue to unfold and support my growth…
Why did you join the Modo community?
I’m grateful to Deb who welcomed me in this Fall when I told her how much I loved sharing yoga. I’ve found some great role models at Modo and I’m curious to learn more about how they’ve grown comfortable with their inner fires, created balance in their lives, and maintained ongoing dedication towards their practices.
What advice do you have for our yoga community?
Practice stillness, gratitude, reverence and compassion, while continually developing a strengthened sense of discernment. Familiarize yourself with yogic texts, such as the yoga sutras, and contemplate their meaning in relation to your practice and life. Welcome the quiet.
On the other hand- showing up is enough. You are enough.
What is your favourite yoga pose?
Savasana- a practice in integration and total relaxation. Peace and ease show up more in our lives when we practice these qualities intentionally.