When I moved to Los Angeles from Ireland, I found that I was missing friends, floundering in my life and having no real direction, and in short, I was depressed.
They say you find your teacher at just the right time, and I stumbled upon a donation studio and started going to the 7:00 am yoga class three times a week, with the most wonderful teacher. I realized I was not alone, I had community, and that my ‘thoughts’ were not to be taken so seriously. Overall yoga helped me become more awake to myself.
Eventually I did my 200-hr Teacher Training and started teaching yoga. I had first come to yoga in the late 90’s in NYC, and it intrigued me, but it didn’t give me that ‘aha’ moment you hear people talk about, and I guess I longed for that.
As much as I have loved the physical yoga postures, meditation practice has been such a challenge over the years. Even when I had the opportunity to be in India, and found myself sitting by the banks of the Ganga, I still had a really hard time calming my mind.
Then I found yoga nidra! It has been such a beautiful gateway into meditation and stillness. I feel so at ease with myself and the world around me when I practice. Along came Jennifer into my life with her incredible Divine Sleep® Yoga Nidra Teacher Training. I am so happy that I took the time to do her training. I feel so much more confident in my ability to bring deep rest into my classrooms both in-person and online. Now I have so many more tools to share with my community.
The main focus in my teaching and continuing yoga education has been on restorative forms of yoga. I’ve been lucky to have some incredible teachers, and yet I still felt like there was more I that I wanted within my own practice, as well as more depth that I wanted to offer my students. I am so happy that I found Jennifer and Divine Sleep® Yoga Nidra.
It has already been such a gift to share yoga nidra with my students, community, and family. And what feels even more important is how it has expanded my meditation practice. Yoga nidra also has helped me in my daily life, off of the mat too. For example, when I can’t sleep, I guide myself in the body scan, and it helps to calm me, and often put me to sleep. And if I have an argument with my partner, I can feel how the body scan helps me to stay grounded and embodied.
I am so lucky to live in Ireland where I swim outdoors in streams a few times a week, in every season, including winter. We have incredible hikes right outside our door, and yet my yoga nidra practice has enlivened my senses, making me feel even more awake and alive when I’m in nature, and my life. Now I feel like my whole life is my ‘aha’ moment: moment to moment as I live it.
