I have a confession, I share this with you to keep things real, and to also show you that I'm not always cool, calm and collected. That just because I preach yoga and calm does not always mean I always have my ducks in a row. 

Does anyone? Sometimes yes, I believe we all have our shit together; when we are feeling good, taking care of our needs, when things feel aligned and when we are in flow. I am guilty of getting comfy in those states of flow, the feel goods come in and fist pumps start flying. When things are good, I often find myself getting a little laxydaisy. 

Then, a bump in the road. These bumps are a beautiful reminder that life isn't always sunshine, rainbows or straight roads. 

These last 2 weeks of rescheduling and inconsistency speaks volumes of my bump in the road. 

There has been a lot of travel - which I love, but the inconsistency of ritual/routine (although fun) can leave me feeling disconnected. Mostly disconnected from my body because I get caught up in the external stimulation, all my senses are through the roof, and as a Taurus I love all things sensory. When my senses are overloaded, there is disconnection between my mind and body and I neglect/forget my basic needs. Which for me is, nutritious food, embodied and intuitive movement, water and at least 8 hours of sleep.

The lack of sleep, old habits, coping mechanisms return in those bumps in the road (overstimulation). While I have been aware of them returning, I've slowly been working towards taking care of myself. I have been a little too slow.

These last 2 weeks, especially this week have been some of the hardest moments in my parenting life. My eldest daughter has been experiencing, what I can only describe as high levels of anxiety. I won't go into too much detail as it has been distressing.

I will say; if you are a parent, that our child/ren are a reflection of us. Our children are our mirrors, our greatest teachers. It is up to us to look. 

The mirror can be a hard thing to look at, our reflection can be a hard thing to take in if you have ever suffered lack of belief, have low self-worth, low self-confidence. 

If you are a parent, your child/ren are a true reflection of your inner self, your inner child. If they are having a hard time, take look at yourself and ask yourself what is it that I am having a hard time with? I promise you that the answer will reveal itself; if you give yourself time to process.

When you allow yourself the time to process, you will be surprised at the amount of capacity that opens up for you. You will be better equiped to support your child through their own hard time. 

My heart broke this week. It’s felt heavy, like a giant spotlight is on me, I’ve felt like a failure. Failure for my child, failure in my business, failure to myself. Though, this spotlight also feels like a massive spotlight has turned ON for me. A “lightbulb” moment.

Its turned on the light to old ways of thinking, which would have me running, avoiding, to stay quiet in the corner and suppress, neglect my needs and please others. After what I have witnessed from my girl, the mirror she has held up for me to see, that old way of thinking is DONE! I am done with being quiet, I am done with the neglect, I am done with returning to old cycles. That old way of thinking/believing has served no purpose, and been no role model for my girls.

I’ve had years of therapy, worried about fucking up my kids. My own deep, generational conditioning, I grew up believing I was an awful person, a selfish person, not worthy of good things, believing I am less than others. I am not by any means blaming or pointing fingers because no one is at fault. Blaming other people is just another way of avoiding your own choices and taking no responsibility for your own actions. I, like many others are a product of deep seeded conditioning and old beliefs that haven’t been broken yet. This week is another layer of those old beliefs that have revealed themselves, so I can break them into fucking pieces.

This week my girl has held up the mirror and reflected my own inner child, the trauma she has experienced and what revealed itself as “good girl mentality”. The good girl who takes care of everyone else but herself. The good girl who does what she is told in order to please others even if it doesn’t feel right in her own body. The good girl who neglects her own needs and puts others before her. It was time to come face to face with this good girl mentality and say…

Fuck this good girl bullshit!

My daughter, God bless her. I witnessed, what I hope no mother ever has to witness, her own trauma that came out like an erupting volcano. My daughter is 7, almost 8 and has been conditioned – by me – to be a good girl. My mother was likely conditioned to be a good girl and her mother before her. My grandmother committed suicide when Mum was 16. I feel there is a long line of women in my ancestral line that had this same belief system – Be a good girl.

Before this all happened, a friend recently recommended this podcast – Pop culture parenting, Ep, 073: Developmental Trauma reflection. I don’t listen to podcasts, but something pulled me to listen and I found this episode. It was extremely triggering.

We’ve been told that from birth to the age of 7 is the most important years of a child’s development. That sentence has haunted me for the last 7 years. I’ve been carrying this weight with me that I’ve run out of time, I’ve not done a good job meeting my girls needs because I couldn’t even meet my own, nor did I prioritise my own because I had no belief that I was deserving. So I suffered, and so have my girls. I suffered depression, rage, intrusive thoughts and unhealthy coping strategies. 

This episode, although triggering lifted something off my shoulders. It shifted something inside. I learnt that majority of people/children will experience trauma, and that everyone can heal from it, if given the opportunity the space to feel safe and connected. How we connect after the event,  how we take action and create change and a safe place is how we can heal. It’s the actions of reconnection we take after the trauma that can be help us/them heal.

This new found awareness, this shift I felt from this episode, created space for me to see things a little differently. My daughter showed me her trauma this week, this generational trauma that I passed onto her. I am not feeling sorry for myself, nor am I blaming myself, I am taking ownership of my actions and acknowledging that I did not have the capacity to see and make changes, I did the best at the time. We all do.

This new found awareness has helped me to forgive myself for the choices I have made in the past. Forgiving ourselves for our own mistakes is hard, but you are worthy of your own love and forgiveness.

I can help my daughter heal, remembering that timing isn’t important. What is important is being aware of it and making real changes to help us both heal from the trauma we have both experienced.

During this time, there has been a lot on inconsistency in my class schedules, inconsistency in my work. I have felt like an absolutely failure. Failure for my children, failure to myself and failure in my business.

When I create a class, it comes from my heart. When I’m creating, I am inspired and want to be of service to my greater community. When these bumps in the road hit, I am still learning how to be of service to others, but also take care of my own needs.

There is a shortage of time in today’s world and deficit in energy – too much demands on expenditure and too little opportunity for replenishment.

Our world demands so much of us, our conditioning to always do more takes its toll.

I know I am not a failure. I acknowledge that I’ve been inconsistent. I’ve been navigating this new world of business, yoga, and balancing family. There will always be times where I get it wrong. I’ve been unsure of myself and how I want to teach, how I want to show up, what type of teacher I want to be, and where do I fit? Through this recent experience I have discovered, what I believe is my own teaching style, how I want to be of service and what that looks and feels like. I’m still getting to know this part of me, and teaching yoga is only 1 aspect of how I will show up in the world of “business”. There will always be failures, or mistakes made in life and business. It's how we pick ourselves back up and learn from those failures. That is true success. Success is in the learning, success is not only about how much money you make, the fancy clothes. True success is having the confidence and belief in yourself to keep going in every aspect of your life, regardless of the challenges that are placed in front of you. 

With that said, I am done being a good girl and bowing to the expectations of our society, and pleasing others.

We NEED time to replenish and recover when a bump hits on your road. Our world, the technology, the continuous stimulation our bodies are exposed too is overloading our brain capacity. It is physically impossible for us, as humans to keep up. The demands and expectations to continue to push through, do more, will do more harm than good. No wonder people feel disconnected, burnout, depressed, isolated and lonely. We live in a fast-paced world where everything is right at our fingertips. Always trying to process so much information that our bodies literally cannot keep up.

If we don’t allow ourselves time and space of rest, recovery and introspection, if you just keep going. Those bumps on the road will continue to make you feel disconnected from your own sense of self.  If you allow and prioritise space and time to process those bumps (some bumps will be quicker to process than others, key is to forgive yourself) You will open up space for more. More confidence, more awareness, more ideas, more creativity, more love and more happiness for yourself, and those around you.

There will always be a bump in the road, there is no such thing as a straight line in life. The bumps are there to teach us lessons, slow down, process and move through so when the next one hits, you are stronger, braver, confident and have more capacity and strategies to cope with what comes next.

Yoga is a journey of the self, through the self, to the self. Every new found awareness, every new thing I learn about myself and my behaviours is because I practice yoga in one way shape or form. I will be forever preaching yoga into our lives, because yoga is the union of our mind, body and spirit. Yoga is the gift that saved my life, and it continues to over and over again.

This week has fuelled something inside of me, a belief that I have never experienced before. 

Things are always revealed to us at the time we are meant too. Although these last couple of weeks have been hard, watching my girl suffer, I am so grateful for the lessons she’s taught me, the mirror she so gracefully placed in my hand.

We all have a choice to make changes in our lives, but you have to want change, and most importantly you have to believe you are deserving of change and good things.

And you my darling are WORTHY! You my darling MATTER!