Self-worth is a topic that almost always comes up in conversation with my clients. It makes sense because when we are healing our relationships to food, body and movement, we often find that somewhere along the line, we were given the message that our worthiness depends on body size and/or our food (or, if not one of those, perhaps relationship status or income). But as human beings, our self-worth is inherent and is not on that metal thing (the scale), our clothing label (a

Ever since I knew I was going to become a registered dietitian (RD), I dreamt of merging my yoga background with my nutrition expertise – a fusion of Eastern (yoga) and Western (clinical nutrition) philosophies. This year, I have slowly started to integrate yoga and mindfulness tools into my nutrition counseling work — and I truly feel like it makes a difference for any client who is open to letting me guide them. Whether it’s a few yoga poses, meditation, guided imagery, bod

This is a time of year when I feel like it is really easy to disconnect from our bodies. Whether it’s trying to tie up lose ends at work, trying to jam in extra social events or dealing with grief, it is a time that can be really taxing on all parts of us. Don’t get me wrong — I generally enjoy everything that comes with the holidays — good food and drink, extra time with friends and family, making my dog wear a red snowflake sweater, etc. But I think that the busier our live

Recently, two women and co-workers (who I admire very much) asked me to be a guest on their new podcast “Southern Fried Girlfriends”, to talk about yoga & meditation! This was definitely a first for me and I was very excited/nervous to talk about my own journey, the benefits of having a yoga & meditation practice and some tools to get you started (if you haven’t already). The main point I tried to get across is that YOGA AND MEDITATION IS FOR EVERYONE! This is two-fold, in my

My relationship to exercise has changed drastically over the past decade of my life, but most significantly in the last 3ish years. It wasn’t until I was in the beginning of grad school when I realized my dependence on exercise had become much like a drug addiction – something to help me cope with a lot of stress and numb unwanted feelings/emotions. But since we live in a culture that normalizes things like dieting, and disordered eating and related behaviors (i.e. excessive

It’s easy to think that yoga is only physical poses. It makes sense why we would think that, since our society tends to focus on the external. I’m not discounting the physical benefits of yoga — it strengthens the entire body and increases flexibility — and most importantly, it can help us to be more present and at home in our bodies. Yoga is in fact an embodied practice, meaning it is not mindless. It can help us really tune in and connect to our bodies, and feel, release an

This morning, I took my dog Harvie for a run/walk… beautiful day, awesome little jaunt. The sun was shining and surprisingly the Atlanta heat hadn’t gotten unbearable yet, even though it was past 8 am (that’s crazy for July). We ran to the park, said hello to many people and puppies along the way. We ended up walking a lot of the way home from the park and I noticed some beautiful flowers in the gardens of the homes around my neighborhood… it rained last night so there were s

You may be wondering what pranayama is. Put simply, it is breathing techniques — ways of controlling the breath. In the Yoga Sutras, it is defined as “The practice of controlling the vital force [or prana], usually through control of breath.” It is the fourth of the eight limbs, or principles, of yoga. Now, you may be wondering what prana is. It is energy, or the life force within. To me, the breath is this tool we are so lucky to be born with, that can really help us out if

I’ll never forget it — about 5 years ago, I got a facial for the first time. It was a wonderful experience until the very end. The aesthetician asked me what I do for a living. At the time, I was teaching yoga and writing for a local newspaper. This was her response: “Oh honey, you’re a yoga teacher. You can’t have those pimples on your chin.” I wish I could say that I said something back like, “Oh, it sounds like you think yoga teachers are perfect … well guess what [BIATCH]

Most of my inspiration for the themes I offer my yoga students come from a combination of two things — my studies of the Yoga Sutras (you could consider it the yoga bible) and my own life experiences. I am finding that the more I draw from my own struggles or joys, the more people connect with it. Naturally, the weekly digging for an intention to offer my students pushes me to sit with myself and take inventory of what’s going on. This week, I picked the intention of “Filling

sankalpa– Click for meditation. Please read the next several paragraphs before starting the short meditation. On New Year’s Day, I taught a New Year’s Day “detox” class. While I love the cleansing feeling of a strong sweat (especially from a yoga practice), I viewed this class from a much deeper perspective than “detoxing” the physical body. And I didn’t talk about resolutions (see below for my reasoning on this). My wish for this class was to create a safe space for my stude

I teach yoga every Sunday morning. I try to get up at least 2 hours before my class starts… to get my mind right, eat an energizing breakfast and to figure out what intention I would like to share with my students that day. Sometimes, the intention comes easy — I’ll use something I have been working on cultivating in my own life or I’ll start reading some of my poetry books (I love Danna Faulds) to get inspired and just go from there. But this morning, I was like, well– It’s

Audio: moon meditation (for use as a starting point) With the election last week and all of the chaos happening since, it seems almost ironic that we have been approaching a full moon tonight (November 14), and it’s not just any full moon. It’s a supermoon- the biggest and brightest one since 1948. And it will not be until 2034 that the moon gets this close to us again. That’s pretty powerful stuff. Anyways, I was lucky enough to attend a full-moon practice this past Saturday