**PUBLIC NOTICE**

Please ignore all that 'get fit for summer bikini body' nonsense that's floating around designed to sell you things you don't need and feelings you can do without.
It's tempting to get fixated on the ephemeral stuff, I know, but it will be a waste of your sweet and precious time.

Instead BE KIND to yourself by:

Finding ways to move that you love. LOVE LIBERATES. It will keep you coming back.

Finding ways to move that challenge your nerve, curiosity and natural urge to play.

Finding ways to move intelligently to cultivate self trust, self knowledge and self love. The more clearly you understand yourself and you motivations the better chance you have of acting well in the world.

Finding teachers that help drop you into your body and encourage you to be honest with yourself and about what you feel so you can change from working/feeling/responding from your own history to creating new, more helpful patterns, which ultimately gives you choice, health and freedom.

I could go on, but it will keep you from moving so be gone!

thought

What one thing do you do for yourself each day, just because it makes you feel good?

I take time before leaving the house.  I'm not naturally a morning person and I really don't like being rushed. Ever. So on a daily basis that means waking up with enough time to stretch a little, shower (mostly ; ),  prepare a proper breakfast, drink coffee,  put on an outfit (rather than “any old thing,”) put on jewelry and perfume.  Even on the days I teach at silly'o'clock.
It's important to me and it means I greet the world ready.

be kind to yourself, you're wonderful. 

--Margaret Atwood

(Found here)

You are a woman. Skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat. You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies, not excuses.

-- Sarah Kay, excerpt from “The Type”
 (Source: larmoyante)

Recommended Read: Beauty Redifined

Something to  read... physically-photoshopping-ourselves-out-of-reality

"Here’s an outrageous idea: What would happen if confident, happy, beautiful women decided to forego painful and expensive anti-aging procedures, breast lifts and enhancements, liposuction, all over hair removal or tanning regimens? How could that change the way their daughters, students, friends, nieces and coworkers perceived themselves and their own “flawed,” lined, real faces? Their own varied-looking and perfectly functional breasts, behinds, thighs, arms and abs? How could simply owning and (treating kindly and speaking nicely about) our so-called “imperfect” bodies affect not only our own lives, but those over whom we have influence? Is it possible to slowly but deliberately change the perception of these “flaws” as something to shame, hide and fix at any cost to something acceptable and embraceable in all their human, womanly real-ness? We say yes."

why yoga?

I yoga because...
It helps me feel at home in my body as it is and as I am.

That is ALWAYS enough to keep me coming back. Simple. 

"Meaningful things do not need to be complicated, forceful, or difficult. There is much beauty to be found in softness, subtleness, simplicity and clarity"
 - Rebecca Ketchum

Found here

Yoga For Self-Acceptance

Carolyn Gregoire Offers 5 ways the practice can heal body images issues in The Huffington Post. 

Something I am very passionate about! Worth a read...

Body image anxiety -- whether it's a fixation on a facial flaw, an obsession with calorie-counting and exercise, or general negative feelings about your appearance -- can be all-consuming, and they can take a serious toll on your well-being and self-esteem. When it comes to dealing with body insecurities and negative self-talk, sometimes the best thing can be to get out of your own head. Yoga, which is now being offered in some schools as a stress-relieving practice, can also be an effective way for young women to develop a positive self-image.

"Yoga allows us to start to slow down the self-critic, and start to observe that this voices in our heads isn't necessarily the reality," Vyda Bielkus, co-founder of Health Yoga Life studio in Boston, tells the Huffington Post. "To slow down and get into the body and say 'OK, when these thoughts are coming up, there's something actually behind the thoughts that we're observing' -- that connects us more to our true self versus the dialogue that may be running us."

Beginning a yoga program during your high school years can help you to start listening to the wisdom of your own inner voice, and to realize that your voice matters, Bielkus says. Whether it's peer pressure from your girlfriends or pressure you put on yourself, yoga can help you to find comfort and resilience by looking within and finding your own path. 

Here are five ways that a regular yoga practice can help heal body image issues and promote positive self-esteem....

Click here to read on!