Welcome to the Movement

This is an archive of my old blog and website.

Latest Blog Posts

• Acceptance is Key
  When we suffer….. We try to time travel back to how the suffering was initially created and waste a lot of energy trying to think ourselves out of the current situation. We are really just trying to relieve ourselves from actually feeling the suffering. Everything always works out in the end. If you truly believe that, you can go along for the ride that life offers you. It may be a rollercoaster and it may be rolling hills. The more you surrender, though, the more it’s just a winding country road.
• Being Seen
  Every question has an answerWe just have to let it rise. And rise, it will. From stolen glances to a piercing gaze,I allow you to look, but I want to be seen. I want to taste everything. Our dance is the meaning of life-In the space of silence, what do you hear?
• You know.
  Where to go and when? Follow the the thread of faith & the path will be yours. Just begin. You know. You don’t need to be perfect to be. Striving fades into ease.Forcing fades into flow.
• I am not the tide
  I am not the tide I am the ocean.
• Freedom & a Nighttime Drive
  I’ve always been a person who needs to feel free. I grew up in the country where I could roam all over the place and I remember the feeling when I bought my first 10-speed. It was red and it was glorious and it was my ticket to more freedom. When I was in 8th grade, I started to sneak out at night. I wasn’t rebelling against the rules; I was seeking something I couldn’t find in my room nor in the presence of anyone else. I wanted to feel independent. I wanted to feel empowered. I wanted to bathe […]
• Life as a Moment
  A moment is the expression of the movement of time. The more we can become fully embodied in experiencing any moment, the more we can weather the storms of life. I used to think after I started on my spiritual quest, there would come a day when I arrived to a state of peace. That state would mean I no longer felt depressed, anxious, sad, angry, hurt, nor afraid; I would have touched bliss and it would enrapture me from that moment on. However, once I experienced that part of my being that was pure and conscious, I realized there […]
• An Ode to Puzzles
  I want to know myself and since I’m constantly changing, this is a full time job! Quarantine helped me discovered a new tool for meditation: puzzles. It may sound odd but I believe anything can be turned into a meditative experience if we cultivate it. Next time you work on a puzzle, take a moment to watch your process. What steps do you take to complete it? Do you sort or do you hunt for pieces? Do you look at it close or from far away? How do you talk to yourself when things aren’t moving as quickly as you’d […]
• Coronayoga 2-6-21 Co-creation with the Divine
  Have you ever met someone and immediately felt their spirit and known they were being guided by something higher? Many people call these kinds of people enlightened. It can seem like enlightenment is unattainable but it’s actually available to all of us if we lighten up. The divine is that which we do not understand. It’s the magic of life. It’s being in the presence of awe. It’s the true beauty of being alive and IN LIFE. The divine is an energy. The divine is a feeling. What is creation? Is creation the opposite of destruction? I’d say creation is […]
• Country, My Country
  I have a unique relationship with country music. It ebbs and flows in and out of my life in a beautiful way. My grandpa (my hero) played the fiddle in a country music band. My mother loathed country music. My father was indifferent and it was only later in life that I discovered he loved Janis Joplin and saw Stevie Ray Vaughan perform live in a tiny club in Dallas before he was a name …. we can definitely blame my adoration of blues and live music on my poppa. Isn’t it interesting how our musical appetites shift based on […]
• Why Meditate?
  Meditation is a very simple process but the feedback I hear from most people is either: 1. “I’m not good at it.”Let us talk about why we say something like that. What makes one believe they aren’t good at something? It can either be that they are legitimately not cut out for whatever activity to which they are referring or it could be that their expectation is too high. When we set the bar too high – or in many cases, when we are chasing the wrong goal, we can quickly get discouraged and make up our minds that we […]
• Lettuce Meditate – 21 days of LIVE daily meditations
  We begin a 21-day commitment to a gentle daily meditation practice: Let Us Meditate. Join me for 5min meditations all week, then 10min meditations next week, and 15min meditations in the final week. 21 days for $21. You do not need to be present for every session to participate – come to as many as you can. Watch how your concentration and awareness improve as you cultivate a peaceful mind.
• Coronayoga 10-29-20 – Creating Your Life
  We are all artists, sculpting our lives. Within every moment, there is a choice about what to create. Many have fallen into creating their lives from dull inertia – just continuing to do the same things the same way. There’s a resignation that life is just the way it is and the spirit of the person has fallen quiet. Resignation is different from acceptance. Resignation is hopelessness. Acceptance is, “Okay, I see now.” When one is consciously sculpting their life, there are two approaches:CarvingAssembling Carving is shedding. Carving is letting go of what no longer works. Carving is saying goodbye […]
• The Value of Intention. I’m a Believer.
  I set an intention before every yoga practice. An intention is a seed and an embodied yoga practice is fertile ground in which to plant it. Sometimes I’m searching for answers. Sometimes I’m wanting to practice love. Sometimes I’m looking for help. Sometimes I’m looking for clarity. The systematic process of calming the mind by-way of the body waters the seed and usually gives me the fruit of insight. I uncover little nuggets of wisdom and understand myself a little better. We are constantly changing and I want to know myself so I have to spend the time connecting with […]
• Coronayoga 10-22-20 45min Hatha n Flow – Being Good Enough
  How much longer are you going to beat yourself up for not being perfect? Perfection is a concept that isn’t even real, much less attainable. We waste a lot of energy, and thereby our precious time, comparing ourselves to some pedestal/idealized version of ourselves (it’s even worse if we are comparing ourselves to someone else but that’s for another blog). Today’s practice is about shedding the idea of earning our own love. We will practice loving ourselves AS WE ARE… fully, and freely – with no bounds and no judgements. Here’s the playlist: We ended up in class also discussing […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga Wed 8-19-20 9am EST Morning Quickie – Life-Affirming Moments
  We sure have had to navigate some choppy waters recently, haven’t we? How have you handled it? I have to admit, I was really afraid at first and I am still lonely. It’s weird admitting that because I crave my time alone and love being in the space of only my own thoughts and energy most of the time. Life can be hard and our brains are wired to look for what’s wrong – legitimately – that’s what it is designed to do. The good news is that the neurons that wire together fire together, so we can change the […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga Tues 8-18-20 9am EST. Courage.
  Joseph Campbell teaches us that we have to let go of the life we had planned to live the life that’s waiting for us. Mary Oliver asks what you are going to do your one wild and precious life. My great teachers have always asked me to examine what I’m doing with my life and how I’m choosing to live it. I haven’t always made the best decisions to live into my life with courage. I spent a lot of time just enjoying pleasure… feeling into the belly of what I desire. I could spend my life my life ignoring […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga Mon 8-17-20 9am EST – Transforming Suffering to Gratitude
  Pain. It is something so sublimely human to experience pain. Pain is a baptism of sorts, if you will – it transforms us. Think back to the times you’ve experienced the most pain… it is likely because of how much you loved and it likely brought you the biggest lessons/gifts. The mind likes to seek pleasure and run away from pain but there’s a way of being beyond that construct that elevates us from the rollercoaster. Years ago, I was having drinks at a chill cocktail bar with some colleagues after a big campaign photoshoot with locations all over San […]
• Cloud Cover
  The clouds have descended upon New York City and covered my mind. The sadness that has enveloped me started with one thought about how someone hurt my feelings and now it’s building a little montage of all the ways my heart has been broken recently. It’s like death by paper cut. Sometimes I wish moments like this didn’t overcome me. Sure, it would be easier if my mind didn’t work this way, but I love the way I think. Sure, I wouldn’t get hurt if I didn’t live openly and vulnerable but I love showing my heart. She sure is […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga Wed 8-12-20 9am EST – A Better Version of Yourself
  There’s a very bad example of my public speaking skills out there from the time I gave a talk at a TEDxSMU event about using the senses to access the present moment. I wanted to convey this theory I have about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and how it relates to consciousness… but I became so nervous because all these eyeballs were looking AT me. I could feel their expectation. I could feel their judgement. I could FEEL all these energies coming into my system and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run. I guess the “flee” part […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga Tues 8-11-20 8am EST – Dharna – Real Dreams
  “…soft dreams under hard conditions are no good… in tough times we must have tough dreams, real dreams, those that if we work diligently… will come true.” -Clarissa Pinkola Estes When I got sick after college, I learned the power of the creative process to heal. A couple years later, after my mentor suddenly passed away, I became even more clear about how life can end too quickly and I decided I wasn’t going to waste any time. My grandpa taught me to keep adding tools to my toolbox and I thought an efficient use of my time was to […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 8-9-20 60min Hatha n Flow – Sunday Soul
  Coming soon…
• On-Demand Coronayoga 8-8-20 60min Hatha n Flow – Intention
  Coming soon…
• On-Demand Coronayoga 8-5-20 8am EST – Do Less, Be More.
  I woke up just before 5 and the nearly full moon was radiant in its pregnant display. How many of us have sat in awe, looking at the moon? The moon is so powerful – it moves the tides and controls the menstrual cycle, yet the only way we see it is because it is reflecting the light of the sun. The moon is just there, present. It doesn’t have to do anything to be seen except just be exactly who she is. In today’s practice, we are going to explore presence as acceptance. In order to do that, we […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 8-2-20 9am EST – Beauty & Play (Activating the Purusha)
  I’m so excited for this class – we have yogis from coast-to-coast practicing live together… this is going to be a special one, you guys! You are officially a part of our new community: The Love Warrior Collective. This hour-long practice is called Beauty & Play – Activating the Purusha. There is a part of each of us called the purusha, or the witness. This is the part of us that watches. It’s not a creepy, stalker kind of watching. It’s also not the Gladys Kravitz (if you don’t know who that is, you have been deprived of the beauty […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 8-1-20 9am EST – Divine Union & Elephants
  This morning, I woke up wanting to tell you the story of Ganesh – he’s the Hindu god with the head of an elephant and he’s responsible for removing obstacles on our paths – but in order to tell you about Ganesh, I have to tell you about his parents. Shiva is the original yogi and the God of Destruction, the Lord of the Dance. He represents what has to be done in order to create – the burning away of impurities in our bodies and minds. You can think of him as a volcano – when a volcano erupts, […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-31-20 Happy Half Hour Dance Party!
  Hi y’all! What a fun class this Happy Half Hour Yoga Dance Party was! It’s a Phun class so you need to have an existing practice in order to do this one. I had been taking myself soooooo seriously recently and I needed to let some stuff go and give myself a little attitude adjustment. Does a yoga dance party cure all the world’s problems? No, but it can make you smile and sometimes that’s all you need.
• Mental Real Estate Inventory
  Take a moment to think of all the thoughts you’ve had today. Wow, that’s a lot, huh? I think it’s important to take time from time to time to really examine the contents of our own minds. I call this a mental real estate inventory. What thoughts are occupying your time? If you could make a pie chart of your thoughts into categories, what kinds of thoughts are occupying the most space? What thoughts are no longer serving you? Do you procrastinate? Procrastination takes mental energy. You still hold space for the things you are avoiding doing. Think of procrastinating […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 6-8-20 Yoga for Grief
  Oh, good grief. It has taken me almost two months to edit this video of the special edition Coronayoga for Grief because seeing and hearing even parts of this class makes my heart cry. I made this class for you guys (though no one was practicing live with me on this day) as an offering – a live record of part of the process I used to grieve my own loss of one of my best friends. I was afraid share this publicly because I do break down several times in the class and I feel part of my responsibility […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-29-20 Stretchy McStretcherton – An Invitation
  I am “in” something that I have such a hard time articulating. It’s a feeling that lives within my body so I can only truly identify it through the experiencing of it. The interesting thing is my mind likes to poke around there and try to explain it… and then explain it away. Yesterday, I was in the middle of my practice and my mind had taken over – like a bad dance partner who can’t respond to the signals you’re sending out – and it had rationalized the feeling into a practical explanation. My mind likes to do that […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-28-20 8am EST 45-55min Hatha n Flow – Fine Tuning
  This morning’s practice will focus on fine tuning our poses. The deeper we go inside the body, the more we learn to direct our consciousness. This releases the ego’s hold on the mind and gets us closer to identify with who we truly are. When I moved to New York City, I came with only faith. As luck would have it, I found a job shortly after moving, working for the producer for a well-known photographer who created ad photography. I found myself producing large photoshoots for big brands and having such a fun time traveling around the country, working […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-27-20 – Opening The Senses
  Today’s practice was a 60-minute Hatha n Flow for intermediate practitioners. We opened the inner thighs, worked on binding, and talked about the senses. The senses are the way the human body receives information from the external world and evolutionary-wise, the senses sent information to the brain to help us perceive danger. As you practice more yoga, you are fine-tuning your instrument and as you begin to deepen your practice, your senses become more acute. The sixth sense is the sense that allows us to perceive energy. The more yoga you do, the more sensitive you become to energy. Think […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga SNS (Short n Sweet) Hips & Quads
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-24-20 45min Beginner Hatha n Flow – Expansion & Contraction
  We all want a calm mind and there are lots of ways to achieve this state. In yoga, there is a concept called “citta vrittis” these are the fluctuations of the mind… the way the mind moves from one thing to another. Some days you need to rock TF out and run out all your excess energy and some days you need stillness. We explored expansion and contraction… stillness and movement. This practice helped us explore what we need TODAY to create stillness in the mind.
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-14-20 30-40 min Beginner Hatha n Flow – The Warriors
  This practice was a 30 minute beginner Hatha n Flow with an optional additional 10 minute guided savasana and pranayama (those are just fancy terms for relaxation and breathing). We explored Warrior I, II, and III and focused on mindful alignment.
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-15-20 Beginner Hatha n Flow – Inner Thighs – Life Changing Moments
  This morning, I woke up with a VERY clear sentence in my head, “The pure potential of all things is in the seed.” Then I started to edit the Hatha n Flow class and post-class chat from 7-15-20 and saw that’s exactly what I was talking about that day. I guess this is up for me right now. This class is the first of a very special series featuring music from artists I’ve seen live – music that’s changed my life and moments that have shaped who I am. Every moment in life contains the potential to change your life. […]
• Waking Up
  I’ve been waking up with the sun. The stillness as we transition from darkness to light is something I now crave to feel as much as possible. I used to be a night owl. I used to love staying up late, drinking wine and bourbon, closing down the jazz club at 4am or dancing to music in my apartment til the wee hours of the morning. Something shifted in me in early February and I no longer wanted to drink my wine and cocktails. Then the pandemic.. now I REALLY didn’t want to drink – I wanted ALL my wits […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-8-20 Hatha n Flow 45-55min Ahimsa & Parenting Oneself
  The class from 7-8-20 is now available on-demand! This practice is appropriate for beginners and focussed on two concepts: Ahimsa and Parenting Oneself. Ahimsa is one of the ethical concepts from Classical Yoga and it means non-violence. It’s easy to understand how not to be violent toward another person, but something I think we could all use a little awareness around is how we can speak violently to ourselves. Part of what we do in yoga is try to become aware enough of our own tendencies and witness how we speak to ourselves. We spoke about the idea that the […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-21-20 9am Stretchy McStretcherton 30-40min – Breath
  This practice was centered on 2 principles: letting go and breath control. In Classical Yoga, one of the ways we get closer to our true selves is through a practice called Pranayama. We analyze every Sanskrit word by breaking down its meaning – Prana means energy/life-force/spirit and yama means restraint/control. In Sanskrit, if we add an “a” before any word, it turns the word to its opposite. So, ayama means expansion. Essentially, when we practice Pranayama, we are working with our energy. There are practices we can do that will make us feel like we had a shot of espresso […]
• Life Changing Moments
  When I experienced the power yoga had to bring people together and to bring out the best in them, I knew I had to dedicate my life to it. I made it my mission to share it with as many people as possible. The only problem with my approach is I started to develop an idea that yoga was THE answer… not a tool to seek the answers. I became yoga’s self-appointed ambassador (more like self-appointed missionary I would have to say) and learned about as many styles as possible so I could easily counsel anyone I met about the […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-13-20 9am Stretchy McStretcherton – Patience
  “Just what I needed after an afternoon of slaving in the kitchen.  The gentle yet supportive poses were a soothing balm to my achy back.  It also teaches a lesson that you need to listen to your body – just because you started a pose doesn’t mean you have to commit to it, if it not right for you.” — MS When we are impatient, we are basically arguing with time. Time is one of the biggest/greatest forces that exists and we can waste a lot of energy engaging with it to try to make it bend to our will. […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-12-20 Advanced PHUN 30 Min Morning Quickie – Hip Hop
  I woke up this morning feeling like I wanted a quick yoga fix with fun old school hip hop music.  When there is something I want but I can’t find it, that means it’s time to make it. Welcome to your first Morning Quickie – it’s a 30-minute fast-paced advanced PHUN practice with lots of dancing and playing.  This one is meant to wake you up and keep you on your toes – you have to tune in. We do a lot of unique transitions so pay particular attention and do not hurt yourself by pushing yourself or being careless. You […]
• The Chat – Being Gentle with Oneself featuring Tom Hall
  This edition of your post-class chat is from 5-24-20, after a private handstand lesson I gave to a student who went through my yoga teacher training, Tom Hall.  Fun fact: we share the same last name AND the same birthday.  Obviously, we were destined to be friends. What Tom addresses here is how he woke up to yoga as a practice of awareness and the need to be gentle with oneself. The story behind the flower:  we were doing a lab on side plank and Tom was the student I was working on to show the other teacher trainees ways […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga 7-11-20 Life’s a Dance
  When I typed the subject for this blog, I had a flashback to days at the public pool and Slurpees from 7-11. Oh man! But that’s not the purpose of this blog… I’m writing to tell you what today’s class is about: Life is a Dance. At the beginning of the pandemic, I noticed I had no energy to watch television or movies. I was trying to make my life as simple as possible and the more you do that, the more you realize the effect and affect what you consume has on you. I remember telling my friends how […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga SNS (Short n Sweet) Legs Up the Wall Pose
  Look, we all experience stress and sometimes stress can cause us to think we do not have time to deal with it. It’s interesting, though, the more we are stressed, the more we need to be doing our practices. Stress is a response. It’s the body reacting as if you are being chased by a tiger. This reaction is activating the sympathetic nervous system and causing all kinds of harm to you physically, mentally, and emotionally. This episode of Coronayoga SNS is Legs Up the Wall pose – it is the single most beneficial yoga pose you can do to […]
• Hide and Seek
  When you were little and played hide and seek, did you like hiding or seeking more? I always loved hiding. The excitement of finding a place to quietly snuggle into while my cousins would try to find me was thrilling. I remember always breathing quietly while I was hiding because I always thought they could hear me breathe. Remember playing hide and seek with a child much younger than you? I think all of us have done this: pretend that we can’t find the little one hiding, “Where did they go?” It’s this sweet tenderness knowing that the younger child […]
• On-Demand 60 Minute Advanced Hatha n Flow – Arm Balances
  What a fun class this was!  It’s 60 minutes of Hatha n Flow where we do some arm balances.  If you like to shift your perspective and turn your world upside down to get a new view, check it out! The playlist was created by turning on my “Now” playlist, which is all the recent songs I’ve fallen in love with, and adding the songs that came up, then putting them in order.  It was kinda magical the way it all fell into place because each song was exactly what I wanted to hear at that time.   I love to shift […]
• On-Demand The Chat – Emotional Releases in Yoga. Peloton.
  I’m from Texas and we raise strong women who don’t cry. As a result of me not allowing those “weak” emotions into my realm, I stored a lot of sadness and pain in my energetic body. According to yogic philosophy, energy travels through the system in a network of intersecting paths called nadis. If you don’t experience whatever emotion you’re going through at the time, you repress it – it travels and stores itself with other similar styles of energy in the system. Then one day while you’re minding your own fucking business on your yoga mat, the emotion is […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga LIVE with Trina. 7-7-20 9am Slowdown – Divine Timing.
  Look back at your life and notice when you grew the most as a person, when you learned the most about yourself, and when your life profoundly changed. These instances of growth for me always revolve around some difficult period. When I was going through these changes, they felt painful and they were fucking hard. Now look at the last time you got pissed off at someone or something. When we get pissed, most of the time, we are simply saying we don’t like reality. Reality is the one thing you need to pick your battles with. (I’m not talking […]
• On-Demand Coronayoga LIVE with Trina. The Chat. 7-6-20. Slowdown. Signs.
  “THANK YOU for this slowdown class – perfect for winding down at the end of the day.  I also like long savasanas!  Signs are all around us, sometimes right under our noses if we just cared to slow down and pay attention.” — MS Do you believe in signs? I believe the universe (or whatever you want to call it… source energy, God, paper clip, etc.) is constantly communicating with us and if we pay attention, we can be guided. It’s July and I’ve left my apartment maybe 5 times since March. Since April, I’ve had my groceries delivered to […]
• Coronayoga SNS (Short n Sweet) 17 min for Hip Flexors
  A friend of mine reached out and asked me for yoga poses to help stretch his hip flexors. He experiences low back pain. He said he and his trainer narrowed it down to his hip flexors. I preach about the psoas all the time in my classes because it shortens as part of the stress response. When we are stressed, we are activating the sympathetic nervous system, which can cause of whole freaking slew of issues, one of which is low back pain. Because of where psoas originates in the lower spine and attaches at the top of the thigh […]