invitations…

Come practice yoga with me. Come welcome the seasons with me. Come join my newsletter list to be the first to know what is happening over here. Come retreat and work with me one-to-one on this beautiful little island (or online) where we can help you find the life you were meant to be living… Take a course to find out what a massive impact the practice of journaling can have on your life…

yoga

live events


restorative/yin yoga & meditation

This gentle practice is suitable for everyone, including total beginners. We end with a restorative Yoga Nidra guided meditation. Yoga Nidra has been shown to help with insomnia and anxiety. These experiences are designed to help us regulate our nervous system, access our calm, and release unhealthy patterns or beliefs.


Dates & Time
Mondays at 12:00pm and Tuesdays at 5:00pm throughout January


Location
Denman Arts Centre - Denman Island Village
1016 Northwest Road
British Columbia V0R 1T0

plank me later classes

These classes will be a series of standing, balance, and strength-building sequences that build heat and stamina in the body. These classes emphasize alignment, core stability, strength, and breathwork.

You will leave feeling stretched out and strong. Bring your mat and water to drink. Dress in layers.

Dates & Time

Mondays at 5:00pm and Tuesdays at 12:00pm throughout January


Location
Denman Arts Centre - Denman Island Village
1016 Northwest Road
British Columbia V0R 1T0

Listen to my podcast

Seasonal Gatherings
to Celebrate the Turning
of the Wheel

live events


Connecting to the Nature by pausing to notice mirror the energy of the seasons as our ancestors used to do provides away for deep healing and rest. Four times each year on the solstices and equinoxes, I gather a group together to do just that. We are wise to take Mother Nature’s lead and ebb and flow with her. Each gathering is slightly unique and co-created with the needs of the group but typically will include some gentle movement to honour our bodies, a guided Yoga Nidra meditation which has been specifically created to welcome and dance with the season, journal prompts, tea, and beautiful seasonal objects from nature will inspire us to live in deep connection with the natural world.

The next gathering is in December:

Spring Equinox Celebration

Time and place TBD.

Yoga Nidra meditation, ritual, and tea to celebrate the blooming of Spring.

Let's gather to connect with ourselves, each other, and nature.

coming soon:
online classes

What is Yoga Nidra

the art of art journaling

Private Classes

1:1 work & group


Private offerings can be a one-to-one experience for those rehabbing an injury or for those who prefer not to practice yoga in a large group.

I create private classes for special occasions, including birthday celebrations, wedding party gatherings, girlfriend getaway weekends, full/new moons, and seasonally themed classes - the sky is the limit!

For up-to-date information, announcements, and requests, shoot me a message. Let's work together!

the selkie story

1:1 work


I love story. I love listening to stories, telling stories, and locating myself within our collective stories. That is the gift they bring: they help us make sense of the world and our place in it. They help us understand on a cellular level that we are not alone. Humans have faced similar struggles since the beginning of time. 

The stories we tell about ourselves and our world determine what kind of life we live. There are many stories to choose from. We have stories from before the written word in myth form, folk tales, media, culture, religion, and society, to name just a few sources. 

If we do not learn to tell our story from a place of agency and power, we might find ourselves living a life - or a story - that is not our own. 

The Selkie story is an ancient tale from the lands of my ancestors that woke me up instantly when I read it. Like many women, I immediately identified with it. 

the selkie story

A long time ago, a very lonely fisherman lived on an island surrounded by the mighty sea. He had not married as he had not found anyone that he might love in his village. As was his habit, he would walk the shores where he fished under the light of the stars in the evening to soothe his loneliness. 

One night under the light of the full moon he spotted a group of beautiful women swimming and dancing on the rocks in the bay. He crept up for a closer look and immediately he knew that they must be Selkies, magical seals that for one night each  month could shed their skins and become human in physical form. He was entranced as he watched the beings dance, laugh, and sing with complete wildness and abandon. He then spotted the place where they had left their skins and he stole one without them seeing. 

As the night drew to a close, the Selkies one by one began to put their skins on and return to the water. Of course, the last Selkie could not find hers and was searching frantically as her sisters waited for her to join them in the bay. Eventually, light began to break, and the fisherman approached the Selkie and told her he had stolen her skin. He convinced her to marry him and stay on the land for seven years and then he would return her skin. She agreed mostly because she had no other choice and looked back at her sisters longingly as she followed him home

The fisherman and the Selkie had a daughter together. But with each year that passed the Selkie became less vibrant and vital. The light in her eyes, once so bright, began to dim. Her body ached. Her energy waned. She become sadder and sadder. At the seven year mark, she requested her skin back from her husband who flatly refused her. She took to her bed after that. 

Her daughter saw her mother fading before her eyes and had overheard the request and refusal that took place between her parents and decided to look for the skin for her mother. She searched the land high and low and finally in a crevice between the rocks near the place her father had first spotted the Selkies dancing seven years prior, there was her mother’s skin. 

She immediately returned it to her mother even though she knew that it would mean her mother would be leaving. Her mother had told her the stories of where she came from and sang her the songs from her home. She breathed her air into her daughter’s lungs which allowed her daughter to travel down to her home under the water should she wish to. And with that, her mother donned her skin and felt a familiar sense of comfort within it. With one long look at her daughter, she dove beneath the waters and found her way back to her true home. 

The fisherman and his daughter grieved her deeply. Her daughter would often walk down to that shore looking for her mother. Often there was one lonely seal there looking back at her with those soulful eyes. On the one year anniversary of her mother’s reunion with her skin, on the night of the full moon, the daughter found herself down at that shore once again and there was her mother waiting to dance and sing and visit with her. Each month under the light of the full moon, mother and daughter would come together in a joyful way. Her mother’s vibrance and vitality were breathtaking to behold. She sparkled. She laughed. She loved. She was so very comfortable in her own skin…

Reflections

There are many tellings of this particular story and the above telling is a summarized version. I love this story deeply. I think this story is one of the reasons that in this season of my life I find myself contentedly living on an island surrounded by the sea. I am finding my way back to my own skin. 

Women lose their skin for many reasons. Some hide them to make living with their family of origin easier. Some never knew they had their own skin. Some had their skin stolen by another. Some gave them away, not knowing their immeasurable value. 

This is the work I love to do with others: helping to locate our skins. Figuring out how to discard the stories that no longer serve us or were never ours to begin with and then crafting and creating the story that is uniquely ours to live in the world. 

What does losing our skin look like and feel like?

In life (speaking from my own experience), it can look like this:

  • Working at a job that is taking more than it is giving and knowing you want to be doing something else

  • Relationships that are no longer working or even causing harm

  • Health is not vibrant, feeling dull, and the motivation to do something about it is nowhere to be found

  • Fear of aging (and ultimately death) - feeling like it is all over for you now

  • Finances - cannot seem to make the money or keep the money or use it with skill to optimize for your happiness

  • Caring for others and having no time, energy, or will to care for yourself

  • Unhealthy coping habits to meet stress and overwhelm (wine, weed, shopping, scrolling to name just a few…)

  • The feeling of apathy, what’s the point or why bother?

  • Anxious thinking that wakes you up at 3 am and steals your peace and rest

Losing our skin costs us a lot. It can affect our relationships, careers, finances, sense of well-being, and, ultimately, our health. I can help you find your skin so that you feel comfortable and powerful in it. 

Together, we transmute stress, overwhelm, and chaos into awareness, action, and desired results. We can recover our true selves and create and live the life we were born to live. 

I am not saying I do not occasionally lose my skin these days. Of course, I absolutely do. The difference is that now, I know what to do. I even feel grateful when I do, as there is so much information about where I would rather be. I can get myself from Point A (current obstacle or stressor) to Point B (heart-felt desire) and have helped many others do the same. 

Before I arrived at this place of knowing what to do, I searched and read books and took courses and certifications and listened to podcasts and did therapy, and got (and still receive) coaching. I have invested in a LOT of training, including a master's in education, yoga therapy certification, and many other excellent courses and certifications (this does NOT include the books in my library I have purchased and read) learning over the past decade to find the answers I needed to live the beautiful life I live now. 

There was much searching and seeking so that I could find my skin and become comfortable in it. I used to be a “shapeshifter.” Who do you need me to be and I will become that sacrificing my own truth to make you happy. I no longer engage that way, and this has freed me. 

I know from experience that I can help you move forward to the beautiful life you long to live. 

Here is the thing. I LOVE this stuff. I love to do the reading and to take the courses and get the certifications and listen to the podcasts and learn from the thought leaders of our times. I would do this anyway, for free. On any given day, my favourite genre of books to read - and I am a ferocious reader - are all on the topic of human development and evolution. 

My sweet spot is distilling this information into an individualized, custom plan of action so that you don’t have to read all the things, take all the courses, listen to all the podcasts, and get all the certifications. This work is where I feel I contribute the most to those around me. 

I know that feeling of wanting to create a beautiful and vibrantly healthy life and not knowing how to even start or if it is even possible. 

My training as an educator required me to meet each learner exactly where they were and help us both understand what next steps were required to get them where they needed to go. This experience has been invaluable as I guide adults. 

The work we can do together will provide clarity, and action unique to you and your situation. We will get you moving toward your unique life and your obstacles will show us the way. And the best part: you will know how to do this for yourself when you find yourself losing your way. The tools will be yours. Forever.

Together, we can find our way home. 

Send me an email here and let’s start a conversation…

end of life doula work

1:1 work


I was present during my dear Nana's passing, and it profoundly impacted me. I thought it would be terrifying and sad, but it was so much richer than what my fear had me believe. It was beautiful and sad but in the best possible way. To experience death up close like this opened my heart up to it.

When I took my Yoga Teacher Training, our instructors had us imagine what we might need to say to those closest to us if we knew we had only a year to live. It is based on a book of the same title written by Stephen Levine. The book asks readers to live as though that were true. What might we begin doing? What might we cease doing? What conversations would we have? What conversations would we stop having? To apply this lens to our one wild and precious life is to add crystal clear clarity. And at the most basic level, don't we all desire more clarity? This is a way to find that.

After my yoga teacher training and my dear Nana's passing, I decided to take my end-of-life Doula training through Douglas College. My respect for death and its power to create clarity deepened. We gain agency and autonomy when we learn not to shrink from or resist all conversation around it. Death and our contemplation of it is our most powerful tool for living our truest lives.

An End of Life Doula is someone who supports a person faced with an illness or terminal diagnosis. The End of Life Doula can educate, advocate for, and empower clients by starting the conversation about death and embracing the dying process early. By aligning the clients' needs with their expectations and wishes, the End of Life Doula can significantly improve the quality and dignity of the end of life journey.

Some of their tasks and skills may include:

  • Advocate for the best possible experience for the client

  • Understand the physiology of death and the complexity of emotions that go along with the diagnosis of a terminal illness

  • Assist clients in creating and carrying out their health care treatment decisions

  • Are knowledgeable about legalities, options, and tools in Canada

  • Provide emotional, physical comfort measures and an objective viewpoint

  • Providing information needed to make informed care decisions

  • Facilitate communication between client, family and other care providers

  • Protect the client's dignity and the family's memory during the death experience

  • Allow the family to participate at their own comfort level

We are never too young or too healthy to begin contemplating our death. I know that for many, this sounds incredibly morbid. Do not miss the golden opportunity to meet your fear and use it to refine how you spend your days.

I love to weave some of the end-of-life doula practices with teaching and coaching. It gets us to the heart of the matter with authority. It also helps us develop a friendliness toward this great equalizer for humanity and for life. Everything ultimately dies. If we can find a way to honour that, learn from that, and lean into that, we can find our way to deep wisdom.

We usually do not get to choose how or when we exit our lives, but if we have made a plan, we have a lot of agency around how we meet it and how we are remembered. This kind of work ensures minimal regret at the end of life. Knowing and remembering that life is finite helps us get the very most out of it and not be lulled into resisting its reality through fear. Death does not bring misery, but fear of it certainly does.

I use my end-of-life Doula training in the traditional sense of helping prepare us for the dying process. I also use it to help me clarify what really matters to me. Either way, it is powerful.

I invite you to talk with me to find out how I can walk with you as you contemplate this important event and what it means for you now and at the end of your days.

come wander with me for a while…