Highly Sensitive

Ong Namo: How I started decolonizing my non-religious yoga practice

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Yoga has absolutely changed my life, but not solely from the mat based asana practice. However, when I was first introduced to yoga that’s all I knew it to be! Yoga was where you went to feel calm, stretch and maybe get stronger depending on the class that you signed up for. Only after completing my yoga teacher training and teaching for a while did I encounter the complexities of Westernized yoga, which led me to question my role in perpetuating cultural appropriation. As my beloved practice crashed down around me, I was left to navigate the intersection of spirituality as an atheist, privilege as a disabled white woman, and authenticity in my desire to honor the true essence of yoga. This is a story of evolution, reflection, and the pursuit of truth.

Three Little Birds: The power of changing anxiety what if’s to even if’s

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I’m a few weeks into the Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) for my OCD, which I’ve talked about in the last few posts, so if you’re curious what that’s all about check it out here and here. Basically it’s a way to lean into the anxiety, rather than do something to try and calm it or make it go away.
Turns out this is especially helpful with OCD because my obsessive thoughts only get more and more intense (and creative) the more I try and make the anxiety go away.
It’s been a really interesting learning experience for me for how I manage all of my anxiety, not just the OCD related anxiety, and it really came to a whole new level of clarity for me last week.

Dealing with Uncertainty – what it’s like living with OCD

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I came to a realization recently that I thought might be helpful to share because it highlighted one of the sneaky ways we can sabotage ourselves. It’s so sneaky because it feels like we’re really just trusting our own intuition and experience – but really it’s just trying to keep everything the same because, to our nervous system, “the same” is safe. But as I’m learning, living with OCD adds a whole other layer of complexity to everything.