Today I live on an island where, in addition to teaching yoga and doing a bit of writing, most of my days are spent surfing, meditating and focusing on my spiritual practice. There is more space in my life now than ever before– but it wasn’t always like this; and it didn’t happen overnight.

Prior to moving to South Asia, I lived in Los Angeles where I was glued to a 9 to 5 job, preoccupied with thoughts about finances, and obsessed with ideas about the future and how I was going to make my life mean something— mostly, I was miserable. I was living everywhere but the “now.” I knew my life could be different, I just didn’t quite know how.

That all changed in 2016 when I attended my first 200 hour Hatha/Vinyasa yoga teacher training– the catalyst for many major changes that would unfold for me over the next few years, ones that have ultimately led me to lead a more harmonious and fulfilling life.

Leaving LA behind I traveled to Crete, Greece to spend a month with 20 other yogis in training with Tanya Popovich of Shri Gaia Institute. In addition to gaining the foundational knowledge necessary to safely teach yoga, pranayama and meditation, deepening my understanding of alignment and assists, and expanding my grasp of yogic philosophy tenfold– that month in Greece showed me something arguably more important– that it was possible to live differently.

As students coming from all over the world, we each left behind the lives we knew and came together as a community, one that still feels like family today. For one month we were allowed to forget about cultural expectations, day to day responsibilities, and many of the external things (such as other people’s beliefs and expectations of us) that reinforced our identities– identities which often prevented us from expressing the fullness of our being. Inside the safe space of this particular intensive yoga teacher training, we shed layers of our identity and explored what it means to be human in all of its messy magnificence.

Moving through the training together with these other yogis changed the way I relate and hold space for other people, and it allowed me to experience what it truly meant to have space held for me. The hours of learning each day were long and exhausting, but they were equally exciting, as each lesson offered a dynamic way of seeing and experiencing the world, or at least added a new layer.

In this space, disconnecting from the go-go-go life I was living before, I was invited to look deeper into the connection between my thoughts, emotions and the physical state of my body– and given the tools, and the space, to create greater alignment.

This was the beginning of realizing that my days didn’t have to be filled with a 9 to 5, and the understanding that there is no great goal that I needed to achieve in order to be whole, because I already am. I learned that I could manifest the life I wanted by using many of the principles I discovered in yogic philosophy; and through the physical asana, pranayama and meditation practices, I could take a more active role in creating the way I want to feel. I simply had to listen and pay attention.

The foundation of the Shri Gaia Institute training is rooted in the ancient traditions of yoga, but it is all about bringing those classical systems into the modern age and making them accessible to people in today’s busy world. This merging of the past and the present is one aspect of the school that I found to be incredibly valuable in my journey to becoming a teacher. Today, as a Shri Gaia Institute teacher myself, I am grateful that I am able to hold space for future YTT students in the way that space was held for me.

We all deserve to be happy and peaceful, and to live the lives our hearts’ desire; and while there are many ways to get there, yoga was the path that brought it all together for me, and my first YTT was the spark that lit the candle.

Shri Gaia Institute will be holding several 200hr and 300hr YTTs in Greece in the coming months with the first 200hr YTT taking place from Oct. 9 – Oct. 30, the second 200hr taking place Oct. 30 – Nov. 20, and the 300hr taking place from Oct. 30 – Nov. 26. If you have any questions head on over to www.shrigaiainstitute.com or feel free to reach out to me.