All Levels Yoga with Tehroma

Summer of 2014 offered an opportunity to practice teach with close friends and family. The following winter included Yoga Teacher Training on the other side of the peninsula. I began officially teaching yoga on my 40th birthday, with a clear intention: share an embodied practice that has supported me, one that may serve and support others. Notice my students, learn from how they move and breathe, listen intently as we share each session. Offer readings that I feel deeply connected to and have either come across recently or come back to time and time again. Trust that a simple grounding practice offers a strong foundation to build from continuously. One day at a time. 

Half moon supported with a block in our back yard.

A constant to settle in at the beginning of each session has has been a three part deep breathing exercise: focusing on the lower belly, lower rib cage and upper chest. Gut, lungs and heart. Places of instinct. Places we feel when we breathe deeply. Awakening instincts and connection to the vital energy of life and its internal messages. Silence in breathing. A chance to listen within in a world that can be so noisy without.

My offerings to date are based on simplicity, grounding and slowing down. We live in a time of internet rapidness. Miliseconds of waiting for a person to reply sometimes inspires a question repeated. Or a walk away. I have been on both sides of this scenario. Impatient for a reply. Feeling pressured when a reply is not quickly available to offer. People are not machines. Machines even get overwhelmed. They freeze when we push too many of their buttons at once. A time of immediacy. Urgency. For what? Everything we rush to finish ends. How often do we pause between ending and beginning? How often do we sprint from one door closing before the handle closes. Grabbing the next door handle and running through. How often do we pause while walking through a threshold.

Traveling to Ireland required opening and closing many doors. Going through customs. Leaving as Mexicans. Entering the States as visitors and citizens. Two separate lines. One family. Entering England just to transit through. Entering Ireland to land, ground, walk, eat. Feel at ease. Quench the soul and ignite the spirit. The return home was more gentle as we stayed together as visitors at every threshold except for residents landing at home in Mexico.

Kinsale, Ireland - morning view from the B&B

In south east Ireland, toward the end of our stay, I noticed the depth and fluidity of my natural breathing. A moment to notice and remember the numerous times I have heard myself say in a yoga class: notice your breathing. And then with a smile, notice you are breathing. 

Recently I saw a photo of several lovely ladies after a yoga class. A time slot I stepped away from at this time for a summer breather from teaching. A time to reflect. I felt a pang through the heart when I remembered I was not sharing a practice I love to share. I mentioned this to my husband and recounted a few reasons why:

As I wrote above, my intention has been to share a practice to date embodied and lived. Heart, body, mind and soul. My practice and offerings have grown slowly in line with the offerings and shared practice within the studio. Shared learning, solo learning. Asanas and readings have reflected both my own continuous personal journey, as well as, my students. Inspired by their comments, requests as much as through my observations of those who attend. Individually or as a whole. Themes materialize organically. The showing up, giving and receiving has felt fluid and fun. A sense of ease felt within and throughout the studio.

After leading the Tuesday and Friday morning classes, I would tidy up the space for whoever came in after. Load up my landcruiser with books, class notes and music. Next stop only a few minutes drive to our office. Letting myself through the back door. Change hats and start the other work day with my husband who has been my business partner for almost twenty years. 

On more than one occasion during last high season, I noticed sharp and biting words come out of my mouth, directed toward the kind hearted, hard working and ever present man I fell in love with after working side by side for five years. I saw pain in his face. The reason for biting words aside, I remembered how I felt in class offering a practice that has supported me for nearly ten years. I noticed: Who and how I was in the studio was not consistent with who and I was outside. That didn't feel balanced or fair. Even if he said it was okay, I knew it wasn't.

Kinsale, Ireland - walking into town 

As a yoga teacher, I feel open with clear boundaries, grounded and gentle yet strong. How I am as a yoga teacher is how I want to be in the other roles I carry through life. As wife, mother, daughter, friend, architect, boss, acqaintance, member of our community. As traveler! That one feels natural.

All Levels Yoga with Tehroma will start again November 1st. Bi-lingual offering will be from 5:00pm to 6:00pm. One hour, once a week. I understand that how we are in different roles may be as different as those roles are in themselves. But the core of how I operate in each one needs to aline. I am not intending on perfection as I've done that before and this intention feels different. Simply the same level of human kindness offered at each door I open, be it our home, office, a client or friend or family member's home, or any other old or new door I walk through over time.

How can I continuously offer students the reminder to slow down, unless I slow down to the degree that I know is needed for my own wellbeing. Kindness towards self equals kindness towards others. Deep natural breathing keeps gut instinct in check, expands the lungs and fills the heart. Soothes the soul. 

Fill the individual heart. Nurture the family heart. Allow the circle to organically grow, slowly and sustainably from home....

In Celtic Spirituality, first you bless yourself and fill your own inner well. From that well, you then have a place to draw from when offering blessing or any offering to another. Much like the concept of placing an oxygen mask on yourself before assisting another. 

One World

May you leave this place with the wisdom you hold clear.

May you remember your expression and sharing of love in this world,
May you have the courage to stay true to the work that inspires that kind of creation,
trusting the undulating nature of the work places you have chosen.

May you save grace for your own darker moments as well as lighter moments 
and all of those that breathe in between.

May you remember your gift, shelted near and dear within your own heart, 
yet sharing graciously because it feeds your soul and purpose to offer and share.

May you remember always the man who shows up for you everyday, 
who would do anything for you, travel to the other side of the world with you.
May you honor, remember and hold space with grace, love and gratitude 
for a love that kind to have blessed your life.

May you remember the jewel of land that you love and call home,
and how you are now as much a part of the land as the land is a part of you.

May you remember the ease that is always near and dear, 
nestled safely within the boundless contours of your own heart.