“Remember, it doesn’t matter how deep into a yoga posture you go - what does matter is who you are when you get there.” ~ Max Strom

I first learned about yoga from my Grandma Margie when I was about 5 years old. She practiced yoga with a PBS show. (I think I found it!) Mostly, I remember leotards and shoulder stands. I didn’t really understand much about it, but I thought of it as “exercise.” It appealed to me, at least in part, because I had a special relationship with Grandma (whose 101st birthday would have been today), and I always wanted to be like her. So, I would follow along with her and the PBS yogini when I spent the night at her house, and sometimes I would try to emulate what I learned on my own when I was at home.

At some point, I drifted away from yoga (but not Grandma) for several years, and then I picked it back up in my 20s, attending classes at gyms and even teaching yoga at a small gym for a short time when I was in my graduate program for Exercise Science. I knew that it made me feel good, and it helped me relax. But I didn’t really understand much else about it. Over time, I developed a semi-regular home practice, using DVDs and then finding random online teachers. During this phase, I stumbled onto Yoga with Kassandra, by Kassandra Reinhardt. She became a favorite teacher, and I practiced with her videos a couple times a week for several years. It felt good and still was mostly “exercise,” although I gradually grew to appreciate some more subtle benefits, too.

Yoga was a valuable part of my life in this way, but it became indispensable during April 2021. Life had become increasingly difficult over the previous year, and I was wearing out. I was confused and frightened and exhausted. Kassandra Reinhardt offered a Bedtime Yoga Series for April. I decided to commit to it. It changed my life, even if it didn’t solve all our problems.

I immediately noticed that I was better able to fall asleep and rest more peacefully after doing a short bedtime yoga practice. Mid-month, life got even tougher, when a traumatic incident with my son left me shaken and made me realize that I needed to pause the coaching practice, blog and the book I was writing at that time. Yoga became my nightly sanctuary, supplementing the refuge I found on my bike. I practiced every single night that April, and then, without a pause, I started the series over again. I did that month after month for nearly three years.

During that time, my practice deepened, and I realized that, while physical movement is part of yoga, yoga is much more than “exercise.” I toyed with the idea of becoming a yoga teacher but thought that I probably couldn’t do that because, compared to so many yoga teachers I have known in person and online, I look less graceful, and my body is less flexible. Plus, I’m afraid to lie flat or do some inversions or twist my head too much because I am worried about triggering Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). Yet, the idea didn’t go away. In November 2022, another particularly dark period in our family’s life, I gave myself permission to explore possibilities for yoga teacher training—for some time in a vague and distant future. To my surprise, I found a training that I could fit into my life and my budget. After considering it for a couple of weeks, I committed. That’s another decision that changed my life.

The more I studied the principles and practices of yoga, the more I grew. I knew that it was to become an integral part of my future. All the while, it was one of the tools that was helping me survive our family’s struggles with mental health and substance use.

Over time, the idea for PenPedalPose grew. I knew that I was called to combine yoga with my coaching certifications, educational background and my experience as a parent of someone who struggled.

I still use a cushion under my head when I lie on my back, and I can’t go as far into a pose as some of my yoga mentors or gracefully straighten all my body parts so that I flow beautifully from pose to pose, but I have grown to embrace that and to realize that my “imperfections” as a yogini make me a better yoga teacher and a better coach and a better human. I’ve become more accepting of myself and more compassionate to myself. I hope this makes me a more accessible role model of self-compassion and encourages others to try something that intrigues them, but feels a bit out of reach. I hope that it allows me to share this practice that I have grown to love and that I have given myself permission to adapt to my unique style with those who need it. I hope that it enables me to help parents and caregivers whose hopes, dreams and plans have been upended by a child’s mental health and substance use struggles to believe in themselves enough to take their lives off pause and start living with meaning and purpose now—even if there are things they wish they could control and change, but can’t.

Truly, it doesn’t matter how deep you go into a pose or how graceful you look doing it. What matters is how you let it affect you and help you to grow.

This is also true of the struggle itself.

Yoga teaches us to sit with sensation (not pain!), to come out of poses purposefully and to move into the next pose with full presence. We can carry what we learn on the mat into the bigger picture of our lives. My commitment to bedtime yoga was life-changing and, ultimately, helped guide me to my next calling in life. Although I create my own bedtime sequences these days, I continue to practice every single night.

We can model our movements through life, including the struggle, after our experiences in yoga. We can commit to live right now, because this moment is all that is guaranteed, even if this moment in time in no way resembles what we wanted or expected. We can stop waiting for the life we thought we would have and live the life we do have. Otherwise, it will pass us by.

Once we accept this moment as it is and sit with the reality of now, we can take action to grow and to produce good from it--to come out of this season of life as a better, stronger human, perhaps humbler, yet also more confident.

I’d love to use my experiences to guide you toward who you want to become from this moment in time. Click here to subscribe to my newsletter and receive a free bedtime yoga practice, and click here to take a look at my yoga and coaching offerings. I’m committed to serving everyone who needs it, so finances should not be a barrier.

Thanks for reading!