You & Me

My aunt observed a t-shirt I was wearing from pictures I had on during my yoga photo shoot. The t-shirt is white and says “You&Me.” She told me she liked it and wanted one. I said, “sure, no problem.”

Every time a picture of me was posted on Facebook wearing the You&Me t-shirt, she would remind me that she was still waiting for her t-shirt to arrive. I admit, I procrastinated and didn’t go look to see if the store I purchased the shirt from still had any in stock. A month or so passed.

Still pictures of me in the You&Me t-shirt doing various yoga poses are continually being circulated through my social media feeds. My aunt inquires even more about the t-shirt. I say, “Okay, I will go look for the t-shirt. If I don’t find it, I will send you mine.”

Of course, the t-shirt was no longer to be found. I am a woman of my word and sincerely work to honor all commitments. But I liked my t-shirt! I really wasn’t ready to part with it just yet! I just got it!

It was a great statement when teaching my yoga classes, You&Me.

I packed up the t-shirt and mailed it off. Bye, bye t-shirt! It was fun while it lasted!

You&Me have a responsibility to one another.  I recognize that we are the same - Namaste. That’s what the shirt represented to me.

My aunt made me hold true to the very personal meaning of this t-shirt to me.  As she has, does and will do anything for me and the rest of our family. She married a man that understood that and brought the same quality to our family.

You & Me, my aunt and I are a lot alike. We are both Aries. We have both experienced Ulcerative Colitis. And we both love to have fun with our family & friends, valuing them very.  I guess it was fitting for her to have the t-shirt, the representation of You&Me.

Would you give someone the shirt off your back, out your closet or from your drawer to take care of them? Or even simply to make them happy because it isn’t always a need. Can you give away something that you want to keep?

Liv your truth!

Am I What I Eat?

We are told time and time again that you are what you eat!  So if I eat a potato chip, I’m a potato chip?  If I eat a carrot, then I’m a carrot?

There are so many theories about what a healthy diet is, it can be confusing.  

Per our various sources of “expert” information, a healthy diet is:

•      Animal based with fruits and vegetables
•         Vegetarian (you can eat everything under the sun except animal meat, and fish is “sometimes” and “sometimes” not in that category)
•         Vegan (absolutely no animals, sometimes animals or animal byproducts, like butter)
•         Raw Vegetarian (Strictly and only live fruits & vegetables, that means no cooked fruits & vegetables and no pasta – for people who are vegetarians)

So confusing it’s no wonder why people have a hard time managing their weight.

In my 39 years of existence, I have been an animal eater, vegetarian, vegan and raw vegetarian at various points of my life.  My food consumption has varied based off of a health challenge (Ulcerative Colitis/Crohn’s Disease), weight loss or healthier eating habits I was managing.   Needless to say, they may have all served a purpose at some given time, but were not beneficially sustaining for me.

When I was a vegetarian and vegan, my GI doctor’s said I needed to eat meat because I was anemic.  When I was a raw vegetarian, the Chinese herbalist said I needed to eat chicken and cooked vegetables to improve anemia and get heat back into my body.  But when I eat meat all the time, I don’t digest it well and I personally don’t feel well.

There are foods that are recommended for people to eat based off of Doshas (Auryvedic Science), Chinese Herbal Medicine, Blood Type, etc.  Again, many schools of expertise to determine what’s a good food consumption plan for you.

What’s a girl like me to do?

Well through my experience, I have gained a very clear understanding regarding food and it’s connections with weight management, using it as a tool for healing, and sustaining healthy living.  My expert information this:

• Learn your body and understand what makes it tick.  Write in a food journal to see what makes you feel good/bad.  This will help you find out what foods are helpful to you.
• Listen to your bodies cravings.  And not the chocolate cravings, your body doesn’t NEED this all the time.  But become very in tuned with your body because the more aware you are, the better you can identify a real food craving which is your body is sending you signals to tell you it needs, because sometimes it is chocolate.
• Monitor your food intake.  Portion control is important.  And balancing your food choices, be a potato every now and again, but make sure you’re a carrot too.

Liv Your Truth! 

Creative Management

Your creative juices have begun to flow.  Watch out because a flood of thoughts and ideas are rushing through your brain.  You may have started a project and needed ideas to help you along the way to see that project through. 

Then another great idea comes along that may not look like it has any relatedness to the project you are trying to complete.  But your creative juices have been so slow to flow for so long that you feel the need to take on another project.  Ideas are flowing for that project.  You are and overflowing source of creative lava. 

Project number 2 is now getting all of your creative attention.  You begin to neglect project 1.  You recognize the neglect and decide you can manage both.  Just then, creative thought produces ideas for your best project yet! 

Project number 3 is born.  Because it is your best thought ever, you become solely consumed.  You are experiencing creativity begetting creativity begetting creativity. 

This can be a wonderful time as your creative juices are on fire.  You are inspired!  You are highly productive.

Completing all your creative endeavors may become challenging in the mist of it all.   They each have a place in your heart and in this world where you feel will be beneficial.  They are all important.

Take a step back and breathe!

Managing your creativity is a process that will allow you to utilize your creative abundance experience in a manner that will work for you.  You need to begin with the following steps:

·         Organize your current projects.  Identify the need base for the project.  Categorize and place your efforts to the one that will bring the most benefit of service.

·         Write down other ideas that come to mind.  Jot down notes as other ideas for those projects come to mind.  This will assist you in capturing the idea and its creative path without overloading yourself with more projects you can handle at the present time.

·         Overlap each project.  Identify where you can use the simultaneously in conjunction with one another.  For example: I teach yoga and I have new interest in expressing myself through painting, my first pictures are of yoga poses.

There’s no reason why creativity should go to waste.  We just need ways to manage our creativity to produce the results we want.  Liv Your Truth!

Flexible Mind, Flexible Body

Yoga is synonymously affiliated with being flexible.  Practicing yogis and naturally flexible people are able to contour their body into various poses that seem to be impossible for the average person.  But in reality, we all can get our bodies into most of the asanas (poses).  With practice!

Asanas being merely one aspect of yoga, allows one to see what can be done in the physical can also be done in the mental.  However, it’s in the mental where we can first see what we can do.  And what we cannot do!

You’re as flexible as your mind allows you to be.  When a person who has never practiced or new to yoga states that they are not flexible, they have just revealed something about themselves.  And it’s not the mere statement of their body’s limits, but the perceived limits they have for their mental body, extending into other areas of their lives.

Thoughts of our flexibility in our body only reflect the way we are flexible in our life. The state of flexibility in our mind allows us the ability to maneuver and adjust to the many events that life brings.  We see how adaptable we are to the changes that occur and our recovery time to stabilize. 

A feeling of inflexibility is a good reason to incorporate a yoga practice into your daily routine.  It will assist in the discovery of your flexible body, but more important your flexible mind limits.  We need to be pliable and fluid to remain centered and balance to any of our life altering events.  A yoga practice will assist in giving your confidence in your flexibility in your body and in all the other areas of your life.

Liv Your Truth!

I’ll Change on Monday

Is there ever a good time for change? Oh yeah, every Monday, next month and the beginning of the year.


When people point out stuff you need to change, is it their issue with you, or a true assessment of what everyone is seeing of you? It’s really hard to judge because most times, it’s someone you could point out a few needed changes to that is telling you about your stuff…really. Dr. Wayne Dryer suggest our teachers maybe disguised as petty tyrants, so there’s a lesson to learn even from those we don’t think can teach us.

The hardest thing to change about one’s self is when you don’t see anything wrong. But the discomfort in your relationships, your finances and your career may state otherwise. However, for whatever reason, we are blind to the discomfort and don’t see or believe that we may have anything to do with it.

What if we simply believed whatever error that was pointed out to us is really something about ourselves we really need fixing? And not only did we believe it needed to be changed; we actually started on Monday to change it to make ourselves better. Along with a side of, don’t retort with what they need to change, just focus on you.

Thank your enemy for the kind lesson for improvement. Meet the change with an open heart and an open mind. Don’t spend your time trying to make someone else better, spend your time trying to make you better!

Liv your truth!

Treat Your Feet

I love my pedicure and foot massage outings. Your feet may get a pedi or massage maybe weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or annually.  For some or maybe most – NEVER!

Our feet are important! They are our body’s standing foundation. They walk us, run us, and support us.  We repay them by saying they’re ugly, they stink and we don’t like them. 

As a yoga instructor, I have the great opportunity to work barefoot, allowing my feet to breathe, be grounded and tone muscles.  These are all greatly beneficial in maintaining healthy feet. But, I also get to come home with dirty feet.    

I don’t walk around my house with shoes I’ve worn outside.  And I definitely don’t want to walk around with “outside” dirty feet.  So when I come home, the same place I take off my shoes, is the same place I take the time to treat my feet to a foot wash.

Foot Wash:  Leave a bowl or small bucket filled with water, along with a wash towel and soap, out by the door before you leave out for the day.  I prefer to use Dr. Bonner castile liquid soaps, as they come different wonderful essential oil scents of lavender, peppermint, and citrus orange to name a few.  Washing your feet with an essential oil scent gives you an aromatherapy experience that can calm, balance or rejuvenate you depending on what you need when you come home.

In your foyer, drop your bags, take off your coat, remove your shoes and have a seat.  If you don’t have a foyer, create a nice seating area where you can come in the door to relax and prepare for your foot wash.  It doesn’t have to be super fancy; leaving a fold out chair by the door can do just fine.

The water in the bowl will be room temperature.  Soak the towel, get it wet and add your soap.  The coolness of the towel and your scent of choice will quickly begin to relax and restore you. 

This is also a great way to simply make space in your day to attend to your health and can be a meditative act.

No matter your work or workout routine, instead of coming home dropping your coat and bags to move on to the next part of your day, take 5-10 minutes to treat your feet.

Liv your truth!

Were You Missed Today?

Daily there are 4 things I look forward to, a “Good morning” text from a friend, Seth Godin’s blog feed, John F. Groom’s positive quote and words of inspiration from a friend recovering from being paralyzed.

The funny thing is that only one of them is personal to me, I think (the “Good morning” text). Even if they aren’t personal to me, my day isn’t the same when I haven’t received this content. And I bet they don’t even know how much it all means to me that I am thought of enough to be included in their outreach even if two of the content feeds I subscribe to (lol).

So yesterday I didn’t receive my daily words of inspiration from my friend. My first thought was did I overlook it. Once I saw that I didn’t, I thought about how I needed my content from her. Then it hit me, what if she was having a bad recovery day. I reached out to her and she was fine, but I wasn’t until then because I missed her presence as part of my day.

After my world was back to normal, I started thinking about how caught up we can become in our own experiences and don’t even realize that we affect other people when we don’t send out that “Good morning,” that positive quote (sometimes John F. Groom forgets), that blog (Seth Godin sends his faithfully) or daily inspiration. And what is it that each of us give out daily that if someone didn’t get it from us would be missed? Is it a smile, a hello, a coffee, a joke, a conversation, or an I love you.

Experience your day, however it may come, but don’t forget in the middle of it all to give someone that little something something that would be missed of you if they didn’t receive it.

Liv your truth!