It seems many people have opinions on other peoples business model, and the two most common statements I get as it relates to my yoga business is 1) I’d never drive that far for a class or student, and 2) I would never teach a class for that little of a rate (usually followed by a laundry list of all the trainings and education they have).
Here’s the thing. I’m not in it for the money, but the money is always there. I’m not in it for the fame although I am booked solid week after week and literally have no room in my schedule for more. I’m not in it for the ego, yet I know that I make an incredible difference in the lives of many.
Why do I drive hundreds of miles a day only to find my student still in bed because staff didn’t bother to wake him up? Because I said I would and because when he did decide to get up, together we created a beautiful session that included him doing something he hasn’t done in decades. This incredibly special student was injured at age 25 and his college roommate continues to write him a letter every single week and they are now in their mid 50’s. My student actually wrote him a letter back! Remember, yoga is defined as union and it doesn’t have to include pretzel shapes with our bodies.
I do it because it is service—which to me is defined as doing something without an attachment to personal gain. I do it because it is my gift. It is purpose. I do it because this is the manifesto my business and life is structured around.
The minute I start calculating how much money I am going to make, I have stepped out of service.
And do you want to know what? The money is always there.
I’d much rather show up within the foundation of my manifesto than seek out fame and fortune. That isn’t what I am about. I am about service and becoming the best version of myself through those I humbly serve.
It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; it’s the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time. ~ David Allen Coe
This time of year is ideal for getting back into ourselves after a summer season of play, vacations, kids home, and way less structure. This is the time where we reclaim our sense of self and rediscover the aspects of ourselves that support us in our everyday life.
You may know if you stop here often that I believe in the power of aroma to shift our chemical response in our brain. We can influence our state of arousal and our emotional state simply by smelling something. How cool is that?
As you experience a more predictable schedule and life begins to resume some sort of normalcy, take a few minutes to consider the four walls, or four main roots of a tree, that represent your foundation. This is the scaffolding which supports all the other parts of our home, or tree, during times of turbulence.
Here are some ideas; faith, service, accountability, kindness, diligence, love, fulfillment, action, compassion, etc.
Not sure where to start? Grab one of these blends, take 4-5 deep breaths, apply it to your spine and under your nose and then listen. You already know…you just need to listen.
By the way, check out the emotional benefits of these oils:
Douglas Fir.This one invites you to invoke your high wisdom and learn from the past experiences and people who may have crossed your path. This essential oil is perfect for turning inward in the season of more introspection.
Frankincense.Frankincense asks you to welcome in feelings of protection, wisdom, discernment, and a spiritual awakening. This sacred essential oil invites individuals to shed the lower vibration feelings that are often negative and draining. This truly brings our your own magnificence.
Ho Wood. This peaceful oil brings out a sense of calm and helps to quiet the mind. By clearing the mind of anxious thoughts or simply clutter, we can fine tune into the deepest parts of who we are. This helps us to live in alignment with our principles and aspects of our foundation.
Blue Tansy. This one is a powerful aroma that helps to bring out inspiration and the committed response of tacking action. This helps to be more purposeful and responsible, which is such a beautiful aspect to a solid constitution. Blue tansy welcomes in a sense of freedom and sense of walking towards your deepest dreams and desires.
Blue Chamomile.This sweet and delicate flower is commonly known as German chamomile and offers a beautiful blue hue to the oil. Like its counter part Roman Chamomile, this flower oil is the perfect choice for bringing out a peaceful and serene mental state. This brings out emotional harmony and illuminates the wisdom with your soul.
Spruce.This stable, grounded aroma brings out an enduring balanced outlook to life while also giving strength through your wisdom. When we soak in this aroma we are reminded of the rhythms and ancient wisdom the earth offers.
Cassia.This bold oil which a friend of cinnamon is warm and earthy as it invites you to feel courageous, strong, self-assured and confident in your authentic self. This brings an embracing warmth to the confident and meaningful connections in our life.
Petrified Wood Chips. It helps to create balance and offers a foundation from which to launch new goals or undertake a different path. This grounding stone helps to calm scattered energies and look closely at the essence of what guides our decisions.
These beautiful oils and solid gemstones will be a constant as your dive into the fall season of a slower pace, a calmer mind, and as you seek out the principles in which your life is sustained by. To learn more about the principles I have chosen for myself, check out this blog post.
You can purchase this blend here and it will soon arrive in your mailbox with lots of grounding love.
If I were a flower… I would be a sunflower. To always follow the sun. Turn my back to darkness, stand proud, tall and straight even with my head full of seeds.
Sunflowers are by far my favorite flower. I anxiously await this time of year when they open into all their glory. I find their patience to grow tall and magnificent to be a great lesson for me. Nature amazes me over and over.
Lessons from a sunflower-
1) DREAMS START SMALL. I held a sunflower seed in my hand and felt the beauty inside wanting to come out. I want to believe this is true of most people — that there is a beauty inside that wants to come out.
2) FACE THE SUN. I know that the best way to grow is with light and love. I reminded myself that facing the sun, or the light, is a good way to ensure I’m taking actions that are aligned with my higher purpose.
3) GROW BIG. The way a sunflower grows is this: She grows from the stalk — her neck. The only way a sunflower gets big is by literally sticking her neck out again and again and again.
4) LET MYSELF BE BEAUTIFUL. I’ve never heard a sunflower complain about a bent stem, petals too long, or a center too fat. I asked myself to let myself shine, shine, shine!
5) CENTER MYSELF EVERY DAY. A sunflower grows on one side of her stalk and then on the other side of her stalk. Often at the end of a day, one side of her stem is longer than the other. This is why a sunflower can be bent to one side. For me, I take this to mean making time to breathe, sleep, eat good food and be still.
Oh boy! This was a huge one for me! I suffered from major adrenal fatigue for many years and still am on supplements to support this! With my busy schedule, chronic pain and a ton of responsibilities it’s no wonder my adrenals get weak.
I’ve learned a lot since I got healthy and literally woke up and decided to live my best life. Between eating well, exercise, mindfulness, activities that bring me joy, the right supplements and oils and getting enough sleep I have found what works best for me.
If your adrenals may be in need of support if you have general fatigue, body aches, head tension, low blood pressure, and just generally feeling run down and overtaxed. Feeling tired even after a good nights sleep!
The Adrenal Glands produce hormones that support our metabolism, regulate blood pressure, and respond to stress. Our adrenal medulla produces a hormone called adrenaline and cortisol (our fight or flight response). This is a much-needed hormone for extremely stressful situations.
This can lead to:
Feeling tired all-day Staying awake all night Craving junk food Poor sleep quality
What can we do to support our overtaxed Adrenal Glands?
Eat fatty fish high in magnesium Eat avocados, dark leafy greens, and legumes (all of which are high in magnesium) (This may be painful for some) Lower your caffeine intake Take an Epsom Salt bath (with Essential Oils) Meditate and relax (use your oils to support this!)
What oils do you use to support your body when you are stressed? My faves are trees like Douglas fir, Siberian fir, Frankincense and all the florals. Rose is one of my most used oils for stress and keeping me calm.
By the way, adrenal fatigue doesn’t just go away with a few good nights sleep… it often takes quite a bit of time and healing for your adrenals to bounce back. Be patient and stay consistent!
With over fourteen years experience, Stacie Wyatt is a E-500 hour Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance, Certified Brain Injury Specialist, Life Wellness Coach, Senior YogaFit Instructor, Mind/Body Personal trainer, Stress Reduction and Meditation Instructor, Pilates Instructor, and Barre Instructor. Stacie is also certified in Integrative Movement Therapy™and is also a believer in the power and application of essential oils for health and wellness and proudly shares doTERRA essential oils.
Every morning each of us is faced with a choice—focus on the things that are challenging or focus on life.
I choose LIFE. I choose to notice the colors I see. I choose to listen to the birds that fly in and out of the yard. I choose to feel the aliveness in my body—even if that aliveness is pain. I choose to get up and live LIFE.
I choose to embrace all aspects of my experience each day and not to dwell on the parts of being human that are tough.
Pain sucks.
But I am alive, determined, magnificent, and so amazingly grateful for this life.
Do you garden? When I first started growing veggies I didn’t have any confidence in my abilities so I started super small. I mostly grew things in pots and it was easy and fun. Each year since then I have expanded into more and more and now have a full size garden that grows many, many things.
There is truly something magical about growing your own food! Today I am going to freeze some beans, make pesto, pickle cucumbers and make salsa! How fun is that?
It is also in gardening that I feel so so connected and relaxed. After a long day of work there is just something so good about getting my hands in my plants, even if it’s just to check the progress. I also have found that still have a tendency to think in terms of scarcity and “not enough” mentality, so I over plant and thinking things won’t grow and end up with a crowded overly abundant garden. In some ways the garden reminds me that that I can continue to work on my thinking and personal development. Also, this year the raccoons have been enjoying digging things up which has been a little frustrating but the bounty is still coming in.
If you have not ever gardened, I say give it a try! A simple google search for you area or a handy book from your local library can get you started!
I have found that not only does spending time with my plants help my stress it also has an array of other benefits.
Planting flowers and vegetables can reap bountiful bouquets and delicious harvests for your dining table. But did you know gardening also can do wonders for your well-being? Here are eight surprising health benefits of gardening. Check this out:
1. Gardening can build self-esteem.
Maybe you don’t think you were born with a green thumb, but after tilling, planting, nurturing and harvesting plants, you might see a slightly different person in the mirror: a person who can grow things and is a little more in tune with the earth.
It always feels good to accomplish new tasks, and if you can grow a garden, what can’t you do?
2. Gardening is good for your heart.
All that digging, planting and weeding burns calories and strengthens your heart.
“There are physical benefits from doing the manual labor of gardening,” says UNC Health internal medicine physician Robert Hutchins, MD, MPH. “It’s hard work to garden, and it provides some cardiovascular benefit.”
3. Gardening reduces stress.
Gardening can help reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.
“Gardening gives you a chance to focus on something and put your mind to work with a goal and a task in mind,” Dr. Hutchins says, “which is helpful especially now with so much illness and death and talk of death, just to see things growing and things thriving.”
4. Gardening can make you happy.
Getting dirt under your nails while digging in the ground can make you pretty happy. In fact, inhaling M. vaccae, a healthy bacteria that lives in soil, can increase levels of serotonin and reduce anxiety.
5. Gardening can improve your hand strength.
All that digging, planting and pulling does more than produce plants. Gardening also will increase your hand strength. What a great way to keep your hands and fingers as strong as possible for as long as possible.
6. Gardening is good for the whole family.
Gardening can be a solo activity or an opportunity for bonding with your family and friends. The happiness and stress relief that gardening provides is a great thing to share with loved ones. Also, gardening has special benefits for kids. Early exposure to dirt has been linked to numerous health benefits, from reducing allergies to autoimmune diseases. Plus, when they pull a carrot from the ground for the first time you will see pure happiness and awe.
7. Gardening can give you a boost of vitamin D.
A healthy dose of vitamin D increases your calcium levels, which benefits your bones and immune system. Exposure to sunlight helped older adults achieve adequate amounts of vitamin D. Just don’t forget your sunscreen.
8. Growing your own food can help you eat healthier.
If you have a vegetable or herb or fruit garden, you’re getting fresh produce that you know hasn’t been treated with pesticides.
“It’s essentially as farm-to-table as it gets,” Dr. Hutchins says, “if you’re eating what you’re growing.”
Are you ready to start planning next seasons garden?
I know if you are anything like me, nutrition can be put on the back burner especially when we are always so busy.
Today, the standard diet is not what it used to be. There are many factors in play when it comes to food’s depletion of nutrients in the soil to the increase in consumption of highly processed foods.
Proper nutrition supports your body’s natural hormones and keeps them balanced. We are in luck because d?TERRA has us covered with their supplements, the Lifelong Vitality Pack.
LLV, the foundation to your health and wellness, consists of Alpha CRS®+, Microplex VMz®, and xEO Mega®. The ingredients in these 3 products are designed to ensure you are supporting your cells, getting the vitamins and minerals your body needs as well as supplying the fatty acids and other nutrients that are necessary to look and feel your best.
? Sleep better ???? Have more energy ?? Feel more balanced
It is no wonder this is one of d?TERRA’s most popular products! Hormone and total body support at its finest.
By the way, a good friend who lost a good amount of weight, grew back her healthy hair and is feeling better than ever after a divorce last year, said one of her biggest changes was splitting her LLV and taking her morning and afternoon doses separately! I’m starting that tip RIGHT AWAY!
?Do you take LLV every day? Ready to? Did I mention it has a 30 day moneyback guarantee? It’s on day 29 or 30 you don’t feel amazingly better, you can simply return them and get your money back. I’m pretty sure you’re going to love how you feel though. Also, I would like to gift you with a free wellness consultation just for getting started.
According to the Cambridge dictionary, abundance is defined as an amount that is more than enough.
Have any of you noticed how much nature reminds us of that same bounty that is available? The constantly changing and growing plants tell me that the same extraordinary potential exists within me. I see how the animals gather and forage what they need and this reminds me that everything I need is right here. I am grateful for the rain and the amazing colors that surround me. My garden is a perfect example to me of “more than enough”– the green beans and cucumbers this year may just feed the neighborhood! Oh, and I made my first ever batch of chokecherry jelly and it is amazing.
For years I have focused on creating a more abundant life and the ways in which that has all happened marvels me on a daily basis. Some may think of abundance as simply financial bounty, but I have come to see it as so much more.
For me abundance shows up in the random acts of kindness I receive, the support I consistently have for my classes, my friendships, the magnitude of joy in my life, colors everywhere, laughter that fills a room, a belly full of food, and enough money for me to live happily and generously.
As we come into the long, and usually hot month of August, I encourage you to look for the bounty in your own life that exist all around you….Simple things like lemonade, lazy afternoons in the hammock, delicious ice cream, sunflowers, sweet watermelon, a basket of veggies, the feel of a breeze against our cheek, the laughter of children chasing the ice cream truck and much more.
When we recognize all that truly IS, we can shed the notion that there is not enough.
This morning’s schedule change allowed me to have a long walk along a tree lined creek. I am certainly most grateful on these unexpected days where I have time to connect and be with myself and nature. Days like today are just one of the many benefits of being self employed. There certainly are some downsides to being your own boss, but time to get outside is a huge bonus! As I spent time watching hawks fly and bunnies hop, I found myself reciting this favorite poem of mine. Trees and time to commune with them often is something that is a must for me. I feel more connected, more energized and way more alive.
When I Am Among the Trees
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
“The confinement that I feel is only what I ALLOW myself to feel.”
I often say that I am putting all of the amazing nuggets of wisdom that come from my students with brain injuries into my future book. Who knows, maybe someday a future Ted Talk. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Year after year I am humbled at the insights that come from people living with brain injuries. I feel so strongly that they can teach the world so many things about truly living. Over the years I have kept a little notebook with some of the teachings that they bring to my life. It is common that I often pull inspiration from that notebook and share with others.
This one is a keeper.
I have been teaching from the theme of freedom this month. According to Webster’s dictionary,freedom is defined as having the ability to think, speak and act without hindrance or restraint. As we broke down each of those areas and shared the hinderances in our lives it is easy to see that everyone has certain hinderances or restraints that keep them from living fully free. For some, it is living without the ability to move their legs, or for others it is not being able to drive or work. Although I can drive and work, I have certain physical limitations and responsibilities that keep me from being fully free in my actions.
We then moved onto our ability to speak without hinderance or restraint and it was evident that while the idea of free speech exists, there is a limitation to what we can all say and not get into a little hot water, whether that it within our own home or in the community.
We finished our discussion with the realization that the only true place we have freedom is in our thoughts. It was decided that we are all free to think what we think. No matter what our challenges or our struggles are, it is ultimately what do with it through our mindset.
Here is the moment of ah-ha that has stayed in my heart for weeks. As we were closing up our discussion on living freedom, this was spoken:
“The confinement that I feel is only what I ALLOW myself to feel.”
Read that again.
The woman who said this is a student who lives in assisted living and occasionally comes down for yoga. Her body is riddled with pain so her practice is breathing and sharing. She is brave and wise.
She also lost her independence, her family, her ability to work and drive, and do things that feed her soul. And yet, she has the insight to see that despite all of her lack of freedoms, she can escape the cage with her thoughts. She is one of the most insightful and grateful people I have ever met.
To think that I am called the teacher. I disagree.
The truth is, I am a conduit for their wisdom. I get to be the messenger.
Freedom is defined as the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
We have all heard of the metaphors of feeling stuck in a cage and not able to be free to fly, or the imprisoning walls that have been built around us. Sadly, it seems that the brick and mortar is often what we place around ourselves that create our own version of prison. This can include negativity, questions of worthiness, regrets of the past and worries of the future. Similarly the key to the cage that we so often feel trapped in resides in our own hands. It is our choice to stay in the cage or take the key and unlock it. No matter what circumstance we are in, we ultimately have choice in what we do with it.
There are a million examples of how we can feel stuck, trapped, locked in, or caged. Whether it is a relationship, a job, a location or a belief you have about yourself, freedom truly means that WE have the power to act, speak and think without restraint and hindrance.
We are in control of what we do with our circumstances. Certainly opening the cage door or tearing down the walls that give us a false sense of safety takes incredible courage and sometimes can be the scariest thing we ever do, but the payoff is much better than feeling closed in and stuck.
I hope through a practice of mindfulness and yoga, I can help others to see the freedom that is available through the spaciousness of our hearts and minds. This month we are going to chisel away the beliefs and fear that build a wall around ourselves. We are going to slip the key into the lock and learn to fly. We are going to feel free. Just as the little finch sits on a branch that perhaps has no insects or is not protective enough, she has the freedom to find a branch that is and we too can jump from a negative thought to a positive thought.
Consider what it would be to take a look at some hard questions and then prepare to take flight.
Do you feel imprisoned? Are you the one laying the bricks down and filling them with mortar? Do you hold the key in your hand and refuse to unlock the door?
