MakeYourPracticeReal

Tips for your travel practice. Shout out to the Homewood Suites in Atlanta for their gear! 🧘‍♀️ Make time to do it. It’s easy to plop on the hotel bed after a long day or sleep in a little later in the morning but I promise you will feel so much better by getting a little movement done. 15 min, 20 min or 30 min - it doesn’t matter. No space in your room? If the weather is nice go outside or utilize the hotel gym. I’ve seen them improve so much in the last 15 years. ✨Be creative! I often just throw down a few bath towels to frame out what might be my “typical mat space” but every now and again I get lucky and find a yoga mat in the hotel gym (like this black one in the photo). 🪬No blocks? The small hotel trash bins are super sturdy when flipped upside down. We all travel with sanitizer now so a quick spritz around the outside gets this thing ready for use. Now they aren’t strong enough for bridge pose support but they definitely help bring the floor closer in folds, lunges and warrior 3 variations. 💻Stream your movement! Most hotels have free internet now that is strong enough to stream a video. I prefer my laptop over a cellphone but have been known to use both from time to time. 💦Drink plenty of water! Aside from the stress of travel and being off a regular routine, hotel air systems are often super dry. Compound that with air travel and eating out and my bet would be you need more water. Good hydration helps you sleep better, improves brain function and mood, helps regulate body temperature, prevents infections, keeps your joints loose and organs functioning. 🍎Many hotels even have fruit baskets in the main lobby areas which is another great way to get water into your body. #travelingyogi #corporateyogi #yogaanywhere #yogaeverywhere #makeyourpracticereal https://www.instagram.com/p/CppxZ8au10C/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

The 1st quarter of 2022 is coming to an end, spring is sprung and life continues to bob and weave all around me. Things happen within my control… things happen outside of my control and like many of you who read this post, I do the best I can to manage what I can manage, change what I can change. Every day. The best I can. Some days it’s countless things off the to do list and other days it’s a rally to do one thing. Irony of irony’s, I enjoy helping others rally. Which made me think - how can I help myself rally? Can we talk self care? Can we talk about being present in your own body? Can we talk about having the courage to do things, even just one thing, differently? The commitment to these things have made an unimaginable difference for me over the last several months. SECRET: these were NOT a New Years Resolution, they ARE a practice. I systematically worked them into my day after several days of feeling helpless, control-less and overall angry -legit filled with RAGE. Which is unsettling since I am ordinarily filled with sunshine, glitter and roses. My commitment to myself was to meditate for at least 5 minutes a day (I knew that wouldn’t be enough). So I also started a daily bedtime skin care routine & a journaling/ gratitude practice. Overall I changed my evening routine from binge watching TV (sorry Gilmore girls) to carving out at least 30 min for my new self care practice. Some days meditation happens during the workday (💗insight timer), some days parts of the journaling practice is skipped, sometimes I dedicate my meditation to others through a loving kindness metta. And that is all ok. I give myself the space to make those shifts. So why am I sharing this? Because these things, these intentional changes are working for me. Sure I still feel all the feels but this practice helps me understand them & myself better. They’re helping me rally for me. There’s no one size fits all self care, self motivating trick, so these things might not work for you. It takes listening, being present & fully aware in your own body. It takes doing at least one thing differently, most of all it takes practice. #makeyourpracticereal #selfcareisntselfish https://www.instagram.com/p/CbysHdwsfZc/?utm_medium=tumblr

There is a group of motivated young women at Penn State who want take charge of their health, discover new ways to move and support each other in the process. When they first reached out and asked me to guide a yoga class I had no idea what to expect. Our first experience was in a HUGE meeting room in the Hub student center on campus with 60+ in attendance. I was instantly impressed. Four classes and one retreat later I’ve been blessed to work with this ladies again and again. They motivate me to plan a better class, select funner music and shake up my shake down flow. We’ve meditated with essential oils, written personal mantras, learned the sun sal sequences and journaled along the way. After our first group last night one of the ladies came up to me and shared it would be her last event with me because she was graduating. She thanked me with a big hug and it took everything in me to hold back emotion. That is why I teach yoga, not to because I believe to have a great handstand or arm balance or crow or longest meditation, but to empower others to believe in themselves. Practice yoga practice dance practice martial arts practice meditation, whatever your practice may be #makeyourpracticereal #psuchaarg #pennstatechaarg

“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” -John Maxwell This weekend I had the privilege of traveling with a group of students who are juniors in Penn State Altoona's Sheetz Fellows Program. Frequent travelers know that life is unpredictable. A 6pm flight home turns into a blizzard delay or a 6 am flight turns into a maintenance nightmare. A cranky cashier makes buying a cup of coffee painful and amateur front desk agent makes check in a dueling task. Frequent travelers learn to go with the flow and be flexible. It's a gradual learning curve that happens sub conscientiously. So subconscious that you don't even know the change has occurred until you observe SOMEONE ELSE shouting at a gate agent because a flight is delayed. You stand there with poise, maturity and compassion and think to yourself WOW this person thinks it's all about them and nobody else matters. You learn to see the bigger picture. This weekend I had the honor of traveling with 12 students to a CEO conference in Florida and I may have learned more from them than they would ever know. They handled disrupted travel plans and unexpected events better than most "adults/ non students" I have encountered. Spending 20 hours in airports can test anyone's patience but not this group. As a class, they have grown together, bonded together and learned to go with the flow. If these are our future leaders we have nothing to worry about friends. Whether it's work, exercise, play, family or friends make your practice real. #makeyourpracticereal #futureleaders #futureceos #sheetzfellows #pennstatealtoona #psualtoona #proudpennstater