It is okay to feel a bit fragile right now. I do. Balancing vulnerability with strength and not automatically “armoring up” is a challenge. To keep listening and considering other perspectives feels like an actual job, it is the work. Listening does not mean agreement, it is not apathy or compliance, it just allows things to be heard. Standing up for what is good, decent and moral is also critical and we must continue. Applying that to your yoga practice carries the promise of moving that out into your thoughts, words and actions.
When I invite more perspectives I open to more considerations, which gives me a way of seeing that I may not have had before. On my mat, even in my own head and heart, I invite a more generous conversation of ways to move and breath. When I teach (and yay! new in studio classes) I use language that provides a deeply generous opportunity for you to move and breath. The days of more “forceful” or “power” language have run their course in my classes and those that I choose to attend. The force or power is already inside of me and you, and my connection to you in the classroom is to invite you to explore, attend to and be with all that arises. Less becomes more, subtlety fills the space of the gross commands and your nervous system regains its balance, it calms down. That calming, rebalancing, in fact allows you to reap untold benefits, extending beyond the sweat and grind. The depth of a long held stretch synched with breath, becomes a pulsating wave of energy that lasts. Your practice shifts from meeting some exterior demand to healing an interior need.
Soothing hormones and chemicals get released and the damaging ones are released with calming language. Seratonine, dopamine, and Prana refill the depleted cortisol and catecholamines to move your nervous system into rest and digest, Parasympathetic response. In meditation we notice that we stretch out time in our own mind and body and are able to consider a response instead of an impulsive emotional reaction. We build resilience with this very action of responding instead of reacting. Calm truly is healing.
Remember, when you step onto your mat, it is more than the asanas and breath, Yoga is a pure path to mending our own fragile and fragmented selves. There are many paths to lead us to this, for sure. For me, this work has proven out time and again, and I imagine for you too. This is why we keep coming to our mats, right? That is why we call it a practice, we keep practicing. We must keep listening to heal ourselves and others. When we invite, we create the opposite energy of resistance, and this alone gives us more actual energy to stay well, deeply well and nurtured. We invite to listen and stay centered within our energy.
Avebury Stone Circles, UK
Now more than ever, sensitivity and care are needed. We continue to awaken each day to a fresh batch of horror and we will prevail.
We have each other and we hold each other in our gathering spaces.
Together we grow stronger, our light grows stronger and we name this collective grief.
We hold the light for each other.
We name what we see, feel and know and we balance that with releasing and moving it through us.
Our collective rage must be balanced with restoration, of body, mind, heart and justice for it to make a difference.
Our hearts can heal, each vibration we send out is sensed.
Our humanity and sensitivity is our super power, it is and it will sustain and hold you.
Stay steady, keep coming to your mat, at home and in the classroom, we need each other now more than ever.
Calm provides a place for strategy and growth, allow for clarity.
In studio classes for July, all live streamed too!
Santa Cruz Yoga:
Tuesdays: (subbing for Corinne). Noon -1:15pm, Deep Slow Flow Vinyasa
Wednesdays: 7:15pm - 8:30 pm, Slow Warm up, Yin and Restorative Yoga with Gong Relaxation
Check schedule for other times of subbing
Previously Filmed Series available for YOU!
A Somatic Yin & Restorative
Practice for Resiliency and Therapeutic Recovery from Stress
Based on the 8 Limbed Path of Yoga
A Somatic Yin and Restorative Practice
for a complete exploration of the Chakra System
to empower and harmonize you.
Mar de Jade Yoga Retreat Center
Register Now!
And for your ultimate healing and rejuvenation,
join us for a 7 day retreat to the incomparable Mar de Jade for our
Rasayana Retreat.
All yoga, delicious organic meals and lux suites on a gorgeous beach, just north of Puerto Vallarta ready for you in January 2026!
Yes! I want to know all about this!
Sending you calm,
in light,
Denise
