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mummabearsmusings · 4 years

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ALL MY OTHER POSTS AND A BIG UPDATE.

My ex got residency three years ago and I got contact supervised by my family, or a few named agreed friends.

This was due to ongoing concerns from.my ex and members of his family, concerns they echoed for months, but never shared them with me, or my doctor, just with the nursery my cub was at.

These allegations, I still don't know what they were, but they were serious enough for social services to visit, once and decided that I had made mistakes because I was unwell, and that whatever those were they were completely unintentional (absent minded human errors, nothing serious, but got reported as safeguarding concerns)

Supervision lasted for 18 months, because it was up to him to decide when my time increased and my supervision decreased. That meant my mum had to sleep on my sofa almost every weekend for a year, my mum who has diabetes type 2, fibromyalgia and asthma which he knew about and when she didn’t my sister did. My sister who has two children of her own, both with additional needs, which he also knew about but we weren't allowed there..we weren't allowed to stay out anywhere besides my dads unless he gave permission, said so on the order. Wasn't allowed to take him on a playdate without it either, because there was four people named additionally on our order that were allowed to "supervise" me. It wasn't fun but I didn’t have a choice because his barrister had worded the court order so beautifully for the resident parent. I reapplied to court after 13 months of that order being in place, requesting supervision is gone and we have shared care and that the judge will give me permission to take him abroad and give me access to his passport that I applied and paid for..but they could only send to resident parent unless they had something from them in writing it could he sent to another address. He initially said he was too young, he may panic, he may get lost, someone may knock me over/out and snatch him, he may get sick, it might hurt his ears. He remembered and put in his statements that on our last holiday abroad that my nieces and little cousins got up to dance and no adult followed.I was 30 weeks pregnant.. so our child wasn't even born yet. I offered once he confirmed i could be unsupervised and finally have him over midweek sometimes meaning I could finally take him to school on my own that I would be happy to have him all three late shifts he worked each week but he had it covered almost always because of the fact he moved back to the family home and his mums a childminder so he had childcare sorted when he was working and it wasn’t my time. I originally got him one afternoon a week until 6, three weekends out of four Friday from 3 til sunday at 6 and half of all hols. That one afternoon was up to him because I wasn't working and he worked shifts on a rota so flexibility was key. But meant it wasn’t often the same afternoon each week to begin with..then it mostly became thursdays which meant football training 6 til 7, so again I offered and asked if he could just stay here after and instead I was to drop him off after training (usually about half 7) After he confirmed I could be unsupervised and have alternate contact on his weekends he also allowed 6 to be extended to 7. Before he confirmed I could have him alternate time, every month for over a year it meant I had no contact with him for up to 9 days at a time Last year due to the way his annual leave went I didn't see him from last week of summer hols until his first morning back at school. That was 12 days of no contact. It took another 13 months to get a first hearing. In that time I chose to do three parenting courses, a first aid refresher, two Surrey adult learning courses and a second round of CBT. In that time I also volunteered as a parent helper at his school and joined the PTA and was heavily involved. I began training (studying/volunteering in another primary school as a teaching assistant) and I qualified last year. I am not back volunteering at either school because no non paid members of staff can be on the premises. I fought back.I will always fight back I will always fight for what I think is right..and fair..and i will fight to be that boys mum. My mh was no concern to any medical professionals. Never had been but never got to exhibit that to the judge the first time. This time I did,plus added all my course certificates etc. In March I was given 50/50 joint residency, so every week since (bar the last four weeks of summer) I have had him from thursday to sunday. Some weeks I will have him weds to saturday. It’s his dad’s weekend off, normally he is working because the weekend he books off is our sons birthday, for the first time since he moved out he has also had his own birthday off work Our son is now 8. Despite all our clashes etc we have spent every birthday with him, just us three, the previous two years we even managed to throw birthday parties together..and we have spent every Christmas morning together too, because it makes the kid happy and both of us don't want to miss out, so we choose to share..he then gets family time still..we're not a family anymore but we're his. He pointed that out to me when he was 5 and it's always stuck in my mind All I want is the kid to be happy so if spending time with my ex makes him happy then crack on. Our son hero worships him and he is a brilliant attentive loving dad. They adore each other. Just like our son loves me loads as well. He's such a great kid Smart. Kind. Funny. Sassy. Very loving. His happiness will always come first..when he's older no doubt his wishes and feelings will change..but for now if the kid wants us both birthday and Christmas morning he's got us both. Here. I have to just deal with the current situation by letting him "win" But the reason I am doing the Freedom Programme again is because I need to learn how to have boundaries, set them and stick to them. I am very much the fawn response. I need help with the boundary thing. As I mentioned above we have always shared our son’s birthday, plus christmas eve and morning, this time he didnt even ask if he could stay at mine He’s just invited himself round. It was the status quo before because the first year I still had to be supervised and that night it could only have been by him. I have 0 issue with him coming here first thing nor coming over christmas morning til half12 if that's what our son wants to keep happening. I would rather we share than either of us miss out but he didn’t even ask me if he was okay to stay, I'm more than happy for our son to see us both on his birthday and to have him here for a while but I don't want him staying here anymore. It sets my anxiety rocketing but I'm never going to let either of them know that or you know it's going to go against me My family don't think he should set foot in here at night time ever saying I can't trust him not to go through my stuff, to start taking pics, to take or hide other stuff, or to try and pull something else to mess with my head. I'm well aware he doesn't love me. I'm not in love with him any more. I'm not ready to meet anyone or hook up with anyone else yet it’s having a boundary knowing it can backfire I dont want to miss any of his birthday either. But if he had his own place I'd have happily gone over in the morning, hell I'd have even bought bloody bacon sandwiches over ykno I've done fp twice prior to the 50/50 I want it because I need to figure out how to set those boundaries. Grey rock isn’t an option for me. Because my respectful amicable texts are what the solicitor said are like my trump card when I applied to vary. Done three parenting courses. My problem is I will fake it for our son’s sake, there has been nothing I haven't agreed to if it makes him happy. I can have my own life and make my own choices when he is bigger but now that smile is worth all the discomfort and to be honest with you when its just the three of us it's so easy going and it feels real. I see a genuine smile when our son and I are playing.. or a genuine one from me when they are. Like true co-parenting. There isn't a former. I met him when he was 21. I am the only person he ever bought home. The first and only girlfriend. I just feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't but I will do anything for that boy regardless of other people's opinions, including my own So do I just need to suck it up? Am I wrong? People say to me you meet someone they won't tolerate you spending time with your ex..well I'm sorry but if our son wants to spend some time with his mum and dad then I will do it for him and if the person I meet doesn’t understand that then they don’t understand me, or how much I love my child. I feel awful sometimes for complaining because he has never raised his hand to me. I feel like I am not worthy. But I totally know emotional and psychological abuse is just as horrendous and that my experience is as valid as everyone else's if you get what I mean. I actually have a few good friends now and a few weekends ago my son was invited to a friends to play out, their mums were all having a laugh and including me and even shared some Prosecco with me. I still feel like I'm being spied on. And I actually don't think I am any more. I need to stop panicking and just enjoy being a mum without second guessing myself. I have voiced my concerns about the status quo remaining and as per all of my feelings are invalidated by him I am trying to put a boundary in and set it down but he is refusing to acknowledge my opinion. Same thing, different day. Will it ever end? I have fought to be the best mum I can be, the best role model to my cub. I have a more structured schedule to establish a real routine with him and it means I can now make plans, try and have a life. I spent all that time grieving a living loss, all my time and energy were on fighting this, now I have I want to grieve my relationship that ended almost four years ago, by granny. I want to move on with my life, I want to like myself and eventually love myself again, I want to establish an identity again as opposed to a label. I want to move on, to try and be happy in myself, in my life. I want to be me again. I want to heal, I want to stop feeling like a sufferer and realise I am a survivor. I want to be confident, I want to go out, trust people again, I want to stop feeling like I am under a microscope and I always will be. I have made some wonderful new friends, reconnected with old ones. I want to stop being controlled. I am not a remote. I am a person. I am a mother and a bloody brilliant one. I am a great auntie, friend, daughter, granddaughter and sister and I just want to be acknowledged as a good person. I don't want him in trouble I want to give a clean slate and draw a line in the sand. I don't want any of the bad anymore. I just want to focus purely on the good now. Why am I still not allowed to do that? Why is it not okay for me to just be me?

#MummaBearMusings

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espanadiarywriter · 4 years

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The great, unstoppable, heroic American individual. Or not.

I’m going to try to explain why I’m not a horrible person even though I don’t like the 7:00 pm clapping every night for health care workers. It’s not because I think health care workers do not deserve our admiration and are not going through hell in many parts of the country. (Or maybe in all parts of the country because even in the areas not yet hit by a COVID surge, health care delivery is being completely upended.) And I do love the community aspect of coming together with neighbors from a safe distance to cheer something important. So why has the 7:00pm clapping been bothering me? I was really trying to figure it out for a while and then it hit me.

It gives me a sense of powerlessness and futility. The American health care system is arguably one of, if not the, most broken, inefficient, and unequal health care systems among modern, industrialized (wealthy) nations. And coronavirus exposed the rampant disparities and profit-focused, everyone-for-themselves system for what it was. And what are we doing about it? Clapping into the wind, on our front porches, from balconies. This is our answer? Once again, we are asking for individual heroics to solve a systemic problem.

Health care workers are always one of the most at-risk during a pandemic—in the SARS outbreak, for example, one-fifth of the victims worldwide were health care workers. We should have a system that gets them protective gear. Always. We should have a system that tracked and took seriously the pandemic when there were intelligence briefings about it at high levels in January. We should have health care coverage not based solely on employment and where you live (because only some States considered it important to expand health care access).

Quite frankly, it pisses me off. I don’t want to applaud individuals on the front lines because I don’t want to JUST applaud individuals on front lines. I want to make it so the front lines are safer. I want to acknowledge that a nurse working 12-hour shifts is limited in what she or he can do (and even limited in whether she can speak up when she has inadequate PPE or sees safety risks). She or he shouldn’t have to be heroic to do their day job.

We shouldn’t have African Americans and Navaho nations succumbing to a disease at X times the rates of White Americans because they have been systematically denied quality health care for their whole lives, and for generations before today. Hell, I’ve read articles about even at a hospital level, some hospitals have huge high-profile donations in Manhattan, while others in the Bronx are barely gasping for air. Your hospital shouldn’t need a celebrity PPE drive to be able to protect your employees.

Arguably nurses and doctors and medical staff in ICUs, hospitals, care facilities are heroic every day because they have been on the front lines of this broken, inadequate system their whole careers. Nurses and doctors deserve more than clapping into thin air. They deserve action, policies, and justice.

Besides the intractable complicated systemic challenges, everyone one of us can practice personal responsibility. Our front line workers deserve Americans being responsible for other people’s health instead of only caring about their own damn selves. This myth of individual freedom being greater than all communal good is FATAL. Last week, there were Covid-parties to spread the disease among young people. I’m going to say that again. Authorities in Washington State broke up a party specifically held to expose people to someone with Covid. Those people hadn’t even considered passing the disease along to someone more vulnerable—they just wanted immunity for themselves. What rock are you living under? WHY do you think governments across the world are tanking the economy? For fun? NEWS FLASH: It’s to save the lives of the most vulnerable among us in society.

So yeah, I guess I don’t really feel like clapping these days. Even for the heroes. Health care workers still serve people who might vote against better health care, stand in grocery stores without a mask because it’s too inconvenient to wear one, or have a Covid party. Those health care providers are still going to treat you when you come in and need a ventilator. Because maybe you were one of the people who lives in a food desert and must travel far to get healthy food. Or can barely make rent and has to keep stocking grocery shelves. I do not want to imply that everyone who gets sick is irresponsible! That feeds the exact same self-defeating myth of the great, AMERICAN INDIVIDUAL who can surpass all the inequitable systems, systematic racism, and structural problems.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know why all these pandemic problems aren’t solved yet. I have clearly solved them during all my thinking between 3 and 5 am every night. Also, I have devised a way to keep all the puzzle pieces on the too-small puzzle table and remembered I need to clip the cat’s claws. I am very productive in the middle of the night these days. But I digress. One of the reasons we returned from Spain was to make a difference here rather than avoiding the US (and also because our kid was sad, but that’s not relevant to this blog).

So, what to do? Here are 7 things to DO after you clap. If you want to suggest other great organizations working on these issues, please put them in my Tumblr or Facebook comments. Or DM them to me.

1. Tell congress to increase protective equipment for nurses, now. According to the American Nurses Association, some nurses are being forced to reuse masks or other PPE in their facilities – creating unsafe conditions for both nurses and their patients. Call or write your Representatives and Senators and demand they #ProtectNurses.

2. Feed the nurses! Call a local nurses unit to arrange for a take-out delivery. This will require research and coordination—be sure to work directly with a medical office or nursing unit manager to arrange this. Or if you are in an area that is not hit very hard, check out this organization that is feeding nurses in New York City: https://www.feedthefrontlinesnyc.org/ or Google other organizations across the country doing this.

3. Feed other vulnerable communities. You can help #chefsforamerica safely distribute individual packaged meals to vulnerable communities affected by the Covid-19 shut down. The World Central Kitchen is providing needed work for restaurants while feeding people in need across the United States: https://wck.org/chefsforamerica

4. Tell the health care systems, hospitals, organizations and nursing homes in your area that you care about the safety of medical workers and patient caregivers. Send one of the following articles to your local large health care systems with a letter that you care about them helping their employees. They even argue my point “Organizations need not and should not outsource gratitude entirely to the public. This process starts with leadership”: 1. https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/caring-our-caregivers-during-covid-19 2. https://www.contagionlive.com/news/how-organizations-can-support-health-care-workers-during-coronavirus

5. Make sure your local police responses to social distancing laws and opening the States are EQUITABLE. See this NY Times article about the NYC enforcement for example: Scrutiny of Social-Distance Policing as 35 of 40 Arrested Are Black Hold your local police office accountable.

6. Volunteer with a Get out the Vote campaign for the national elections. This can be a small amount of your time. If you are an extrovert, volunteer to text or call people to remind them to vote. If you are in introvert (like me) find a post card or letter writing campaign (https://www.mobilize.us/swingleft/ or https://postcardstovoters.org/volunteer/) . Or look at the list of candidates in Flippable and donate to some key races for Senate. Even small amounts make a difference.

7. Check in with your friends. Especially your friends who are teaching, or have small children, or anxious kids, or are older and isolated. Ask if they need a delivery of food, help with childcare (if you are able and they are comfortable), a coffee break shared from 6-feet away. We need these things too.

#protectessentialworkers protectnurses flippable chefsforamerica voteblue

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yogaposesfortwo · 4 years

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Meet the Next Generation of Yoga Changemakers

These young yogis—representing Gen Z—are changing the planet through peace, love, and compassion. Many are quick to tsk-tsk “kids these days” for nonstop smartphoning and a self-centered attitude. But this most-diverse generation, with nontraditional views on everything from identity to power structures, is more conscientious than you would possibly think—and that’s very true for these five up-and-coming yoga teachers (most of whom started practicing before they hit double digits). prepare to be inspired.

Tabay Atkins: Showing us the way to follow your dharma, because the country's youngest yoga teacher

By Meghan Rabbitt

Tabay Atkins Age: 14 Lives in Maui, Hawaii My yoga model is my mom, because she beat cancer. My biggest accomplishment thus far is graduating highschool at age 14. My favorite teaching moment was once I led a yoga class with Tao Porchon-Lynch, the oldest living yoga teacher. She told me, “Keep doing what you’re doing, and stay faithful you.” In the year 2030, I’ll be teaching, traveling the planet , and sharing my love of yoga and veganism with as many of us as I can. Yoga is for everybody . Yoga isn’t about stepping into the “best” pose. I wish more yogis would realize the amazing benefits of a plant-based diet. The promise I make to myself a day is to be the simplest version of myself that I are often . It was a complete fluke that six-year-old Tabay Atkins found himself with a stack of coloring books within the corner of a San Clemente, California yoga studio. His mom, Sahel Anvarinejad, had just finished treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and showed up there for what she thought was a tea date with Carolyn Long, a lover of a lover who’d sent countless texts and emails with supportive and galvanizing messages during her cancer treatment. Long had asked Anvarinejad to satisfy her at her studio without exactly clarifying that they’d be doing quite having tea. “I had only been cancer-free for 2 weeks, and once I walked into the studio that night, i used to be so skeptical of yoga,” says Anvarinejad. “I wanted to run out. But something told me to remain .” Long had a plan—albeit a rather sneaky one. What were the probabilities that Anvarinejad would suggest meeting on the precise day and time that her studio’s yoga teacher training was starting? Didn’t that mean she was meant to hitch the training—to find out how yoga could be a neighborhood of her post-cancer healing journey? Anvarinejad felt resistant. She’d never even done yoga before, and now she was getting to join an educator training? But Long was persistent. So, Anvarinejad signed up—if a touch reluctantly. Before the second class, she tried to bail because she didn’t have childcare for her young son. “Bring him!” Long told her emphatically. Which is how Atkins ended up in yoga class thereupon stack of coloring books. Except Atkins did more watching than coloring that day. The next, serving as a prop helper for the trainees, he delivered bolsters and blocks to their mats as required . Then, Atkins started trying a number of the postures from the sidelines, too. “A few days every week , i might practice with my mom,” says Atkins, now 14. “She’d inquire from me to remind her the way to do the poses, and that i would show her. a tremendous transition happened from the start to the top of my mom’s training—there was this super-change in her. Before yoga, she’d been sad and scared then low on energy and mobility due to the intensive chemo. After the yoga training, she was happy again—back to her old self, but better.” While most second graders might simply be psyched to possess their mom back to normal, Atkins wanted more: He wanted to urge certified to show , too. “I wanted to assist people the way yoga helped my mom,” he says. “There were numerous people within the single bed next to her who didn’t even realize yoga. i assumed if I could share this amazing practice, others could find an equivalent quite healing and happiness, too.” A Teacher is Born During her training, Anvarinejad often considered how grateful she was that her son was being introduced to yoga—and what proportion she could’ve used the practice when she was a toddler . due to all of the strain kids face at college , with friends, and reception , she decided that the right thanks to get her teaching legs under her would be to volunteer at her son’s school. She taught during gym classes and after school, and shortly parents started posing for private lessons and summer yoga camps for his or her children. Within a year, Anvarinejad opened the primary kids’ yoga studio in Orange County—and Atkins was right by her side, a self-proclaimed “helper” at age eight. “My mom started getting various certificates to concentrate on kids’ yoga—like the way to teach kids on the spectrum, teaching tweens and teenagers , and even restorative yoga—and I joined her for all of these ,” Atkins says. He was seven when he got his first yoga certificate, to show autistic kids, and a couple of years later, he found himself helping his mom lead a category at a faculty for autistic children in San Francisco . The principal warned Atkins that the youngsters he was close to teach were susceptible to violence and shouldn’t make physical contact with him or each other . But when Atkins started chatting with his peers, they were calm and captivated. When he led the scholars through a partner exercise—and they happily leaned on one another as they held Tree Pose—the principal and therefore the teachers within the room started crying. “They couldn’t believe what was happening,” Atkins says. “But I did. I thought, This just goes to point out you all how capable they really are.” After that experience, Atkins was officially sold on teaching yoga; it had been another pivotal moment that propelled him forward on his teaching journey. When he was 10, he completed a 16-day, 200-hour yoga teacher training and officially became the youngest yoga teacher in America. During Atkins’s training, it had been Anvarinejad’s address sit within the corner of the studio and fetch props and snacks for the scholars . “It was amazing to observe Tabay undergo the teacher training experience himself, then much fun watching him surprise everyone—including his teacher!—with his knowledge of the practice and true interest in learning more,” she says. Immediately after he graduated, Atkins started teaching at the studio his mom owned, and offering donation-based classes, with all proceeds getting to organizations that support kids with cancer. How to accept No Regrets Every morning, Atkins wakes up and does a brief flow together with his mom—typically some Sun Salutations and a couple of favorite poses, like Tree Pose and Crow Pose. They each name what they’re grateful for, too—a practice Atkins credits with reminding him of the transformative power of yoga and therefore the honor in sharing its benefits with others. “It’s so amazing to ascertain students walk into my classes looking exhausted and leave feeling energized and more alive,” he says. “But what I’ve realized is that it’s one thing to share the practice and another to measure it.” Enter his commitment to eating vegan—a concrete way he says he puts the principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) into practice. It’s a method Atkins says he lives his favorite mantra: Think good thoughts, speak kind words, feel love, be love, and provides love. “In this world immediately , we all got to do more of this,” he says. “There’s not enough love going around.” But if you recognize where to seem for love—and stay hospitable the moments when it'd spontaneously appear—you’ll find it, Atkins says. To wit: the kismet that was his mom—and him—finding yoga. Atkins says he often cares how life may need unfolded differently had his mom not suggested she meet Long just when yoga teacher training was starting. He considers how different her path post-cancer may need looked and the way the course of his childhood likely would have taken very different turns. “It’s all proof that everything happens—or doesn’t happen—for a reason,” Atkins says. “By living with this mindset, I won’t regret anything.” That’s to not say Atkins is watching life unfold because it will; he’s pursuing opportunities to spread the facility of yoga far and wide. “I think the longer term is so bright for my generation,” he says. “We’re educating ourselves and our parents. We’re walking our own paths and doing things differently. We’re trying to shake things up by coming together to speak about things like how our choices affect our surroundings .” “I see yoga helping us still do that in even bigger and better ways—and I’m so grateful to be a neighborhood of it.”

Ashley Domingo: Using Technology to Create Yoga Experiences for Gamers

By Bria Tavakoli

Ashley Domingo Age: 23 Lives in Portland, Oregon My yoga model is my teacher Rosie Acosta. She is that the most real person i do know , but at an equivalent time, the foremost mystical. My biggest accomplishment thus far is completing my 500-hour training and teaching within the space where I first started my journey. My favorite teaching moment was when an in depth friend told me she experienced an emotional release in one among the primary classes I taught. In the year 2030, I’ll be creatively fulfilled and ready to help my loved ones with whatever they have . Yoga is being here, now. Yoga isn’t only about embodying love and light; it's the acceptance of the opposites also . I wish more yogis would realize you don’t need to be the entire shebang—vegan, wearing Alo leggings on Instagram, drinking a smoothie for breakfast every morning—to be a “yogi.” If you've got a body and you'll breathe, you'll be a yogi. The promise I make to myself a day is what I call No Zero Days: a day I do something to maneuver toward being the person i would like to be. Some days I’ll move a mile, some days I’ll move an in. . Some days I’ll have time to try to to a 90-minute practice; some days i'd just roll in the hay my legs up the wall for a couple of minutes as my asana practice for the day. It doesn’t matter how big the move—as long as it’s not a zero. Ashley Domingo skipped college in favor of yoga teacher training and real-world job experience. Today, she’s creating a virtual yoga program for gamers that suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression. Growing up, Ashley Domingo was an honest student and an ingenious free agent with a love of crystals and tarot cards. As an adolescent weary of the criticism she was receiving from her hip-hop dance teachers, she started exploring yoga on her own through YouTube and other apps. That was the straightforward part. The not-so-easy part was choosing to forgo college, despite good grades and sky-high family expectations. “My mom was salutatorian of her highschool and went back to the Philippines to offer an interview about the importance of education,” says Domingo, who teaches yoga at her office and informally to friends. So embarking on yoga teacher training rather than attending a university was certainly off brand for her family, with whom her relationship was tumultuous. She felt sort of a disappointment to her parents, she says, who didn’t understand what she wanted to try to to together with her life. Five years later, she credits yoga with helping create a shift in perspectives—both hers and her family’s. Love initially Savasana At 19, Domingo took a full-time job working in insurance, where she started taking weekly beginner yoga classes at her office. “After that first Savasana, i used to be hooked,” she says. So she began to seek out a studio where she could explore her curiosity and deepen her practice. One teacher, she recalls, read poetry aloud at the top of her class. “It felt so safe and open,” says Domingo. “It was so different from the fear and judgment I faced in dance class.” it had been that warm feeling of acceptance that nudged her to become an educator . “I wanted to make that environment, because I knew what proportion it had been helping me with courage and clearing self-doubt.” She went on to try to to just that. After completing her 200-hour training in 2018, she began teaching the exact same class where she’d once found such comfort and relief from workday stress. Top of Her Game Last year, news of a high-profile player’s suicide rocked the web video-gaming community, during which Domingo had been a participant since 2010. (A 2017 review of fifty observational studies published within the Journal of Health Psychology found that depression and anxiety were particularly prominent among gamers.) Domingo recognized that her online peers needed “the tools to recollect their self-worth and value outside of the persona they show online,” she says. In response, she’s creating a month-long virtual yoga and meditation program for gamers, complete with meditations, asana, and instructional videos on topics starting from the importance of rest to how yoga can improve focus. She hopes to launch the series, dubbed “Bringing Peace to the Keyboard Warrior,” this year. “I know tons of my friends are very hard on themselves, and that i can give them more tools—and guide them through some exercises which will help. patiently ,” she adds, “You can do belongings you didn’t know you'll .” And she’s speaking from experience. At last, she says, “I desire I’m within the right place, and that i trust that.”

Maris Degener: Setting an example for how to work through anxiety, depression, and eating disorders

As told to Meghan Rabbitt

Maris Degener Age: 21 Lives in Santa Cruz, California My yoga model is Susanna Barkataki, for her commitment to using yoga’s teachings as a vessel for social change. My biggest accomplishment thus far is saying “yes” to recovering from my disorder . My favorite teaching moment is whenever I desire I’ve created a secure container for college kids to be their own teachers. In the year 2030, I’ll be doing the simplest I can with what I’ve learned so far . Yoga is unity. Yoga isn’t a contest . I wish more people would realize that this practice may be a thanks to hook up with healing and compassion, to not “fix” you or cause you to feel unworthy. My Favorite Mantra I can do hard things. Words of wisdom I live by “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” —Dr. Luther King, Jr. The promise I make to myself a day Try your best and roll in the hay pityingly . I’d been out of the hospital for just a couple of days, on bed rest reception , but still skeptical of why I’d needed to be hospitalized within the first place. i used to be 13 years old, and albeit the doctors and nurses showed me my weak vitals on the machines surrounding my bed during my three-week stay, I still couldn’t grasp how sick I was—how much damage I’d done to my body by not eating. So, after I’d been discharged, despite my strict bed-rest orders, i made a decision to try to to a pushup. I wanted to prove i used to be strong. I climbed out of my bed and came to my knees on the carpet beside my night table. How hard could this be? i assumed . I slowly placed my hands on the bottom beneath my shoulders and inched my feet back to urge into Plank Pose. I dropped to my knees, immediately realizing I couldn’t support my very own weight in Plank, including lower myself to the bottom then lift myself copy . therein moment, it clicked: mental disease isn’t an attention-seeking game; it’s a matter of life and death. I knew I had hurt myself, and it had been time on behalf of me to heal. Hello, Yoga? It’s Me, Maris When I was within the hospital, the doctors and nurses told me how important it might be on behalf of me to urge my strength back without strenuous exercise. Yoga was a logical choice, and once I noticed a replacement studio had opened near my hometown—and they were hosting free classes on Sunday mornings—I asked my mom if I could provides it a try. I got there embarrassingly early and ended up lecture Jenni Wendell, the studio owner and therefore the teacher that morning, before class. I’ll always remember how seen I felt by Jenni, which definitely took the sting off how absolutely overwhelmed I felt before and through that first-class . i used to be getting back in-tuned with my body and learning what it had been wish to be present. There was tons happening , like trying to maneuver into the varied postures and learn the various Sanskrit words. i used to be lost within the chaos of it all, except for the primary time in my life, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by that fact. Yoga gave me permission to not have it all found out . And Jenni met me exactly where i used to be . There was such a lot to find out and no finishing line . There was no competition or prompt for comparison. I realize now how lucky i used to be to fall under a studio where these beautiful tenets of yoga were emphasized. After that first-class , Jenni gifted me a yoga mat. it had been her way of creating sure I knew that my presence really mattered. Jenni cared if I came back—and not just during a business sense but during a way that felt to me like this person genuinely cared that I showed up. What i do know now's that when you’re handling depression and anxiety—and I grappled with both, starting at such a young age—you don’t believe that folks care if you’re around. the very fact that Jenni, a stranger, was caring on behalf of me felt revolutionary. Let the Healing Begin I desire my hospitalization and first chapter of my anorexia recovery were focused on the physical, which mostly involved ensuring i used to be eating enough calories and getting back to a healthy weight. once I found yoga, I wasn’t during a precarious place with my health. Still, that first yoga class was really challenging. In some ways , yoga felt sort of a clean slate , which was so nice after what I’d been through. I became a faithful student, getting to multiple classes every week , and after a couple of months, I got employment at the studio’s front desk. One day, Jenni told me she was performing on producing the studio’s yoga teacher training, and she or he offered me a scholarship to hitch . i used to be in awe of the practice and my teachers, but i assumed Jenni was crazy—I thought there was no way someone my age could teach yoga. Jenni described that she was designing the training to be more sort of a study group, where we’d study the philosophy of yoga and the way to integrate it into our lives, additionally to the way to teach. Now, I see that Jenni wanted me to hitch the training to assist me integrate yoga into my life beyond the 75 minutes i used to be thereon mat she’d given me. When I taught my first-class therein training, Jenni said she’d never seen me look so joyful. Something changed in me; all I wanted to try to to was expire what had been given to me. My teachers emphasized that the work of the yoga teacher is to expire what you’re learning, which suggests the simplest teachers are the simplest students. This gave me permission to be a vessel for the practice to return through; the way my teachers instilled that sort of humility in me cleared the way for my voice to emerge. I reflected on the teachers who’d had the foremost impact on my journey. The common thread? Their willingness to be vulnerable with me. They were human—always willing to return to my level and say something like, “Oh, I’ve experienced that, too.” They held space on behalf of me and didn’t attempt to “fix” me. And in being their authentic, beautiful selves, they inspired me to try to to an equivalent . My Story—on the large Screen When a filmmaker from my hometown who knew about my struggle with anorexia approached me about being during a documentary she wanted to form about eating disorders, all I saw were red flags. I’ve seen numerous films about eating disorders and are disappointed and unnecessarily triggered by them. Most of the documentaries romanticize skinny bodies. Some would go away me feeling like there was no hope for full recovery. Worse, many actually served as a guidebook to fuel my disease. (That woman ate only X amount of calories? I should eat less.) “Yoga Helped Me Remember Who I Am—and Dream about Who i would like to Be” I shared all of this with the filmmaker, and she or he really listened to my points and promised me that we’d create something different. I told her I didn’t want to speak about my weight or diet or show any pictures from the time i used to be sick. I wanted to urge to something deeper—with attention on my catalyst for healing, which was finding my practice. i assumed of my yoga teachers’ vulnerability—and the strength that shone through because of it—and I aimed to point out up with an equivalent quite truth they’ve always showed me. In i'm Maris, we mention my journey, yes. But what we actually tried to try to to is urge people to seek out their thing—the thing that speaks to their version of healing. When I hear from people who’ve watched the film, what seems to possess resonated the foremost is that the power of vulnerability. I feel closest to people when they’re vulnerable with me first. In making this documentary, I need to be that friend—the one who exposes in order that others can, too. And if I even have given even one person permission to share their story or reflect on their own experience, I desire the gift is mine. You never know what your journey—or even just your presence—might mean to someone.

Maryam Abdul: Teaching yoga and being a doula has helped her heal her community

Maryam Abdul Age: 23 Lives in l. a. , California My yoga model is @Yogi_Goddess Phyllicia Bonanno on Instagram. She’s an unapologetically black yogi who shows that there's representation within the community for black women doing this practice. My biggest accomplishment thus far is preparing and launching private yoga and birth doula businesses. My favorite teaching moment is when my students or friends say they feel better, more open, and calmer from the yoga. In the year 2030, I’ll be hosting yoga retreats, opening a yoga and wellness studio and a birth center within the Watts/South Central LA community—plus a juice bar. i would like such things to be accessible to members of my community. Yoga is your own journey together with your body and mind. Yoga isn’t alleged to only be this super-beautiful, on-the-beach, Handstands-and-splits practice. I wish more yogis would realize we've the liberty to be as creative with our yoga as we would like to be, and that we can explore more parts of ourselves. Be very gentle with yourself therein exploration. We don’t got to be hard on ourselves. Just a couple of years ago, Maryam Abdul was a sophomore in college, feeling disconnected, depressed, and anxious. “I had no sense of purpose. I felt lost and confused. Like I didn’t belong,” she says. What led her to become a significant yoga student was the motivation to reclaim her body after a sexual assault: “I lost myself— i used to be a shadow. I didn’t have anything to rest on , because I had let everything that was good on behalf of me go.” That included elements of her Islamic faith, which she says paved the way for her to eventually find yoga. Almost four years after the assault that rocked her foundation, Abdul is rooted during a solid, clear sense of purpose and mission: to help underserved communities, specifically the South Central l. a. neighborhood of Watts where she grew up— an area she calls a food desert with few outlets for yoga and wellness activities. Last year, at age 23, Abdul began training to become a yoga teacher and a doula almost simultaneously. almost like midwives, doulas provide mental, physical, and emotional support to mothers during pregnancy, delivery, and even miscarriages, and help their clients navigate a health care system that disproportionately fails black women. Abdul’s passion and curiosity had led her to review the medical industry’s early-20th-century effort to regulate , pathologize, and institutionalize black midwives—which has negatively affected birth complications among black mothers. Armed with this information, she enrolled during a local doula educational program . “We see an enormous disparity in black maternal death and infant deathrate ,” she says. “Meanwhile, stress is literally killing black mothers. i exploit yoga and meditation with my doula clients to cultivate peace and calm—with an intention to combat the statistics. i would like my people to measure , and live well. And that’s why I do what I do.” —BT

Natalie Asatryan: Bringing yoga to kids so she can change the world

Age: 15 Lives in l. a. , California My yoga model is 101-year-old Tao Porchon-Lynch, who proves yoga are often practiced at any age. My biggest accomplishment thus far is raising money for charities by teaching donation-based yoga classes. My favorite teaching moment was once I led my high school’s eleven through a yoga class. -In the year 2030, I’ll be a yoga teacher, student of yoga, and doing whatever I can to form the planet a far better place. Yoga is that the unity of the mind, body, and soul. It’s an indoor and external experience at an equivalent time. Yoga isn’t about striving to be perfect. I wish more people would realize how important it's to share yoga with the younger generation, because it might make humanity better. My favorite mantra is Om, because the buzzing of the “m” is that the eternal sound of God that lives within you in every breath. How cool is that? Words of wisdom I live by Be kind—but also courageous. The promise I make to myself a day I’m getting to do my best with what I’m given today, and whatever else happens, happens. Natalie Asatryan was five years old when she learned the way to really breathe. She was in her first yoga class—at an area studio crammed with other kindergarteners—and the teacher told them to imagine that they were hot-air balloons and had to light a fireplace in their hearts and breathe deeply so as to fly. “Then, when we’d lay in Savasana, the teacher would tell us to be as loose as noodles, and if our muscles weren’t tense when she picked up our legs and gave them a wiggle, we’d get a sticker,” says Asatryan, now 15. “My Generation goes to Run the planet Soon. The More folks Who Do Yoga, the Better” At age 12, Asatryan would continue to become the youngest girl to become a 200-hour certified yoga teacher. How did that happen? We asked her to offer us the backstory. Author: Yoga Journal Staff Source: https://www.yogajournal.com/teach/meet-the-next-generation-of-yoga-changemakers Discover more info about Yoga Poses for Two People here: Yoga Poses for Two Read the full article

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mariahsimone-service-blog · 7 years

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Week 6

I have been getting sick lately so I had to take some time away from my every week volunteering which was actually pretty sad because the workers texted me and were telling me how much they and the kids missed me. However, when I finally got back into volunteering it was as if I never left. This week one of the teachers told me how much fun it was having me around and how the babies seem to be so comfortable and happy around me. I really feel how rewarding a job in childcare can be and volunteering here has definitely inspired me to keep doing volunteer work through the summer and hopefully throughout next school year as well. I really have seen how volunteering helps you understand and relate to others in the community who you might not have otherwise interacted with. It teaches you how to understand other people, which I think it so beneficial in society today. So many problems and hate comes from not understanding or being open to people who are different from yourself. This class has further taught me to appreciate differences but to also find similarities with every human being. I have found so many connections with the staff and the children at my service site, that I would have never experienced had I not put in the time to become a part of their world, which is now my world as well.

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brudenellgrooveleeds-blog · 7 years

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Brudenell Groove meets... Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network.

Despite the social progress of recent decades, xenophobic, jingoistic and racist sentiments are still prevalent within large sections of our society. Over the last few years, the international conflict fuelled European migrant ‘crisis’ has stirred and exacerbated these residual tensions immensely. The influence of largely, though not exclusively, right wing propaganda has been significant in creating an atmosphere where suspicion is normalised, and under a government that so often treats social issues with calculated apathy, the work of grassroots organisations in protecting and supporting minority groups is indispensable.

One such organisation is Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network (LASSN), whose efforts here in Yorkshire have helped hundreds of refugees to adjust to life in the UK and overcome some of the various obstacles they face every day. As one of the charities that we’re supporting with our next party, we felt it important to find out a little more about the organisation by reaching out to Jon Beech, the charity’s Director.

“What we need”, Jon argues, is to “make people realise that asylum seekers are just people who are scared witless of going home”. Whilst Western media so often echoes the dangerous and divisive rhetoric of Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations, LASSN operate on the principle that difficulties in achieving integration are never insurmountable. “A lot of the time we’re no different, we’re just from different parts of the world.”

Sensationalist cries from the more venomous sections of the media often dehumanise refugees, reducing them to statistics or, even worse, presenting them as threats to British life or values. “Whilst people remain an abstract – figments of people’s imaginations – the most helpful thing that we can do is to offer friendship, and to be open”, Jon suggests, emphasising the importance of looking within communities when tackling the sense of ‘otherness’ that xenophobic discourse promotes. “Wherever you are active in your community, wherever you have influence, you just need to think about what you can do to show solidarity and support… it’s a small thing but it’s also an enormous thing,” he says, suggesting that sometimes the first step towards helping someone feel at home can be as simple as “smiling at a bus stop”.

LASSN’s primary roles are twofold: to help asylum seekers find somewhere to stay, and to help them learn English. Beyond these basic aims, the team at LASSN work to break down boundaries between local and migrant communities, creating connections in order to establish the support networks that refugees need to adjust to life in a new country. Where possible, these connections will be made around shared interests, whilst English lessons are generally focused on practical tasks, tailored towards the needs of each individual.

“If they need to go to the doctor, we’ll base our lessons entirely on preparing to do that, the same if it’s about understanding a school report that a kid has brought home”, Jon tells me. “Because they’re doing what they’re interested in, they learn faster, they’re committed to it and we achieve for free what colleges manage to achieve at pretty much the same speed.”

Lessons are conducted in their own homes, and are provided to people who are not able to get places on English courses at colleges in Leeds, either because of oversubscription – the number of places has dropped by 40% over the last five years – or because of childcare responsibilities or transport issues.

“It isn’t just about workers; it isn’t just about staff and professionals. It’s about ordinary people going ‘What can we do?’”, Jon asserts, explaining that a large part of LASSN’s work rests on helping their beneficiaries connect with the community around them, for instance by mobilising local residents “to help them find a way of providing support to people who are often really frightened and really isolated”. Whilst their team of professionals is extensive, much of LASSN’s work is conducted by volunteers. “You don’t have to be an expert in order to be able to teach English and help somebody to learn, you just need a bit of patience”, he insists. “You don’t need to be a professional housing adviser to offer someone a free room for a few nights until they’ve got themselves together; everyone in Leeds has got something that they can offer to someone quite a long way away. That’s what we stand for.”

This idea of opening up their work to encourage the wider community to partake encapsulates much of what I love about Leeds at the moment, with a wealth of altruistic organisations demonstrating Jon’s belief that “the practical ways” of making a difference within society “are all things that are in most people’s reach”. The proof of this is in the results that LASSN have achieved with these methods; last year they directly helped 288 individuals, a number that swells to around the 650 mark if you include their families and dependants. Since April 2016 they have provided 3500 nights of accommodation, 1700 hours of English lessons and a comparable number of ‘befriending hours’, which focus on helping asylum seekers integrate with their new community through interaction with local people and volunteers.

This is what City of Sanctuary, a like-minded and collaborative organisation, terms “creating a cultural welcome”: something that we can contribute to on a daily basis without even breaking from our usual routines. “What that means is being kind. It sounds really small and really trite in some respects, but being friendly; being tolerant of people who don’t speak English particularly well; smiling. It is being the very opposite of the hate that shouts out of the newspapers every other day.”

Fighting the intolerance, ignorance and prejudice that many refugees face is an everyday battle, and one in which we can and must play our part. For anyone wanting to go a step further, the website http://helpinleeds.com/ was set up by LASSN to compile volunteering opportunities with other organisations that help refugees and asylum seekers in Leeds. The website allows you to find opportunities that match with your interests. Whether you have a room to offer for a night, or an hour of your week to teach English, chat or go for a kick about, there are plenty of organisations that can help set you up, and nearly all of them can be found on the Help In Leeds website.

“Thankfully we’re not on our own in Leeds; we’re part of a network of people who care about this stuff. I see it as part of our role to be supportive of those initiatives too”, Jon says, echoing the community-minded ethos that we try to foster with Brudenell Groove.

Whilst we hope that we can raise a fair bit of money for LASSN and Maggie’s Centres with our Italo Disco party this Saturday, it is my hope that our support for causes like these can extend beyond one off donations, and in the coming months we’ll be exploring ways that we can work closely with LASSN in the future, with the hope of at some point cooperating to organise some community-oriented music workshops, talks or listening sessions.

“There’s definitely a gap in the market for some pre-revolutionary Iranian soul jazz”, Jon laughs. We think he might be onto something.

For more information on how you can help asylum seekers and refugees head to http://lassn.org.uk/

Written by Andrew Kemp.

Photos courtesy of LASSN.

#LAASN #Brudenell Groove #Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network

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amyddaniels · 4 years

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Meet the Next Generation of Yoga Changemakers

These young yogis—representing Gen Z—are changing the world through peace, love, and compassion.

Meet the rising yoga stars of Generation Z

Many are quick to tsk-tsk “kids these days” for nonstop smartphoning and a self-centered attitude. But this most-diverse generation, with nontraditional views on everything from gender identity to power structures, is more conscientious than you might think—and that’s especially true for these five up-and-coming yoga teachers (most of whom started practicing before they hit double digits). Get ready to be inspired.

Tabay Atkins: Showing us how to follow your dharma, as the country's youngest yoga teacher

By Meghan Rabbitt

Tabay Atkins

Age: 14

Lives in Maui, Hawaii

My yoga role model is my mom, because she beat cancer.

My biggest accomplishment so far is graduating high school at age 14.

My favorite teaching moment was when I led a yoga class with Tao Porchon-Lynch, the oldest living yoga teacher. She told me, “Keep doing what you’re doing, and stay true to you.”

In the year 2030, I’ll be teaching, traveling the world, and sharing my love of yoga and veganism with as many people as I can.

Yoga is for everyone.

Yoga isn’t about getting into the “best” pose.

I wish more yogis would realize the amazing benefits of a plant-based diet.

The promise I make to myself every day is to be the best version of myself that I can be.

It was a total fluke that six-year-old Tabay Atkins found himself with a stack of coloring books in the corner of a San Clemente, California yoga studio. His mom, Sahel Anvarinejad, had just finished treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and showed up there for what she thought was a tea date with Carolyn Long, a friend of a friend who’d sent countless texts and emails with supportive and inspiring messages during her cancer treatment. Long had asked Anvarinejad to meet her at her studio without exactly clarifying that they’d be doing more than having tea.

“I had only been cancer-free for two weeks, and when I walked into the studio that night, I was so skeptical of yoga,” says Anvarinejad. “I wanted to run out. But something told me to stay.”

See also Building a Strong Foundation for Cancer Healing

Long had a plan—albeit a slightly sneaky one. What were the chances that Anvarinejad would suggest meeting on the exact day and time that her studio’s yoga teacher training was starting? Didn’t that mean she was meant to join the training—to learn how yoga might be a part of her post-cancer healing journey?

Anvarinejad felt resistant. She’d never even done yoga before, and now she was going to join a teacher training? But Long was persistent. So, Anvarinejad signed up—if a little reluctantly. Before the second class, she tried to bail because she didn’t have childcare for her young son. “Bring him!” Long told her emphatically. Which is how Atkins ended up in yoga class with that stack of coloring books.

Except Atkins did more watching than coloring that day. The next, serving as a prop helper for the trainees, he delivered bolsters and blocks to their mats as needed. Then, Atkins started trying some of the postures from the sidelines, too.

See also Is Yoga Teacher Training For You?

“A few days a week, I would practice with my mom,” says Atkins, now 14. “She’d ask me to remind her how to do the poses, and I would show her. An amazing transition happened from the beginning to the end of my mom’s training—there was this super-change in her. Before yoga, she’d been sad and scared and so low on energy and mobility because of the intensive chemo. After the yoga training, she was happy again—back to her old self, but better.”

“You Can Find Your Dharma at Any Age”

While most second graders might simply be psyched to have their mom back to normal, Atkins wanted more: He wanted to get certified to teach, too.

“I wanted to help other people the way yoga helped my mom,” he says. “There were so many people in the hospital bed next to her who didn’t even know about yoga. I thought if I could share this amazing practice, others could find the same kind of healing and happiness, too.”

See also Is Teaching Yoga Your Path? 8 Qualities of Excellent Teachers

A Teacher is Born

During her training, Anvarinejad often thought about how grateful she was that her son was being introduced to yoga—and how much she could’ve used the practice when she was a child. Because of all of the stress kids face at school, with friends, and at home, she decided that the perfect way to get her teaching legs under her would be to volunteer at her son’s school.

She taught during gym classes and after school, and soon parents started asking for private lessons and summer yoga camps for their children. Within a year, Anvarinejad opened the first kids’ yoga studio in Orange County—and Atkins was right by her side, a self-proclaimed “helper” at age eight.

“My mom started getting various certificates to specialize in kids’ yoga—like how to teach kids on the spectrum, teaching tweens and teens, and even restorative yoga—and I joined her for all of those,” Atkins says. He was seven when he got his first yoga certificate, to teach autistic kids, and a few years later, he found himself helping his mom lead a class at a school for autistic children in San Francisco.

Watch Introduction to Yoga for Kids with Autism

The principal warned Atkins that the kids he was about to teach were prone to violence and shouldn’t make physical contact with him or one another. But when Atkins started speaking to his peers, they were calm and captivated. When he led the students through a partner exercise—and they happily leaned on each other as they held Tree Pose—the principal and the teachers in the room started crying. “They couldn’t believe what was happening,” Atkins says. “But I did. I thought, This just goes to show you all how capable they really are.”

See also Yoga for Autism

After that experience, Atkins was officially sold on teaching yoga; it was another pivotal moment that propelled him forward on his teaching journey. When he was 10, he completed a 16-day, 200-hour yoga teacher training and officially became the youngest yoga teacher in America.

During Atkins’s training, it was Anvarinejad’s turn to sit in the corner of the studio and fetch props and snacks for the students. “It was amazing to watch Tabay go through the teacher training experience himself, and so much fun watching him surprise everyone—including his teacher!—with his knowledge of the practice and true interest in learning more,” she says. Immediately after he graduated, Atkins started teaching at the studio his mom owned, and offering donation-based classes, with all proceeds going to organizations that support kids with cancer.

See also How Yoga Is Helping Kids with Cancer

How to Live With No Regrets

Every morning, Atkins wakes up and does a short flow with his mom—typically some Sun Salutations and a few favorite poses, like Tree Pose and Crow Pose. They each name what they’re grateful for, too—a practice Atkins credits with reminding him of the transformative power of yoga and the honor in sharing its benefits with others.

“It’s so amazing to see students walk into my classes looking exhausted and leave feeling energized and more alive,” he says. “But what I’ve realized is that it’s one thing to share the practice and another to live it.” Enter his commitment to eating vegan—a concrete way he says he puts the principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) into practice. It’s one way Atkins says he lives his favorite mantra: Think good thoughts, speak kind words, feel love, be love, and give love.

“In this world right now, we all need to do more of this,” he says. “There’s not enough love going around.”

See also Why You Should Try a Vegetarian or Vegan Diet

But if you know where to look for love—and stay open to the moments when it might spontaneously appear—you’ll find it, Atkins says. To wit: the kismet that was his mom—and him—finding yoga.

Atkins says he often thinks about how life might have unfolded differently had his mom not suggested she meet Long just when yoga teacher training was starting. He considers how different her path post-cancer might have looked and how the course of his childhood likely would have taken very different turns. “It’s all proof that everything happens—or doesn’t happen—for a reason,” Atkins says. “By living with this mindset, I won’t regret anything.”

That’s not to say Atkins is watching life unfold as it will; he’s pursuing opportunities to spread the power of yoga far and wide. “I think the future is so bright for my generation,” he says. “We’re educating ourselves and our parents. We’re walking our own paths and doing things differently. We’re trying to shake things up by coming together to talk about things like how our choices affect our environment.”

“I see yoga helping us continue to do this in even bigger and better ways—and I’m so grateful to be a part of it.”

See also Are You Ready for Yoga Teacher Training?

Ashley Domingo: Using Technology to Create Yoga Experiences for Gamers

By Bria Tavakoli

Ashley Domingo

Age: 23

Lives in Portland, Oregon

My yoga role model is my teacher Rosie Acosta. She is the most real person I know, but at the same time, the most mystical.

My biggest accomplishment so far is completing my 500-hour training and teaching in the space where I first started my journey.

My favorite teaching moment was when a close friend told me she experienced an emotional release in one of the first classes I taught.

In the year 2030, I’ll be creatively fulfilled and able to help my loved ones with whatever they need.

Yoga is being here, now.

Yoga isn’t only about embodying love and light; it is the acceptance of the opposites as well.

I wish more yogis would realize you don’t have to be the whole shebang—vegan, wearing Alo leggings on Instagram, drinking a smoothie for breakfast every morning—to be a “yogi.” If you have a body and you can breathe, you can be a yogi.

The promise I make to myself every day is what I call No Zero Days: Every day I do something to move toward being the person I want to be. Some days I’ll move a mile, some days I’ll move an inch. Some days I’ll have time to do a 90-minute practice; some days I might just lie with my legs up the wall for a few minutes as my asana practice for the day. It doesn’t matter how big the move—as long as it’s not a zero.

Ashley Domingo skipped college in favor of yoga teacher training and real-world job experience. Today, she’s creating a virtual yoga program for gamers who suffer from stress, anxiety, and depression.

Growing up, Ashley Domingo was a good student and a creative free spirit with a love of crystals and tarot cards. As a teenager weary of the criticism she was receiving from her hip-hop dance teachers, she started exploring yoga on her own through YouTube and other apps. That was the easy part. The not-so-easy part was choosing to forgo college, despite good grades and sky-high family expectations.

“My mom was salutatorian of her high school and went back to the Philippines to give a talk about the importance of education,” says Domingo, who teaches yoga at her office and informally to friends. So embarking on yoga teacher training instead of attending a university was certainly off brand for her family, with whom her relationship was tumultuous. She felt like a disappointment to her parents, she says, who didn’t understand what she wanted to do with her life. Five years later, she credits yoga with helping create a shift in perspectives—both hers and her family’s.

See also 6 Ways to Lead With Your Heart—Both On and Off Your Mat

Love at First Savasana

At 19, Domingo took a full-time job working in insurance, where she started taking weekly beginner yoga classes at her office.

“After that first Savasana, I was hooked,” she says. So she set out to find a studio where she could explore her curiosity and deepen her practice. One teacher, she recalls, read poetry out loud at the end of her class. “It felt so safe and open,” says Domingo. “It was so different from the fear and judgment I faced in dance class.” It was that warm feeling of acceptance that nudged her to become a teacher. “I wanted to create that environment, because I knew how much it was helping me with courage and clearing self-doubt.”

She went on to do just that. After completing her 200-hour training in 2018, she began teaching the very same class where she’d once found such comfort and relief from workday stress.

See also So You Graduated Yoga Teacher Training—Now What?

Top of Her Game

Last year, news of a high-profile player’s suicide rocked the online video-gaming community, in which Domingo had been a participant since 2010. (A 2017 review of 50 observational studies published in the Journal of Health Psychology found that depression and anxiety were particularly prominent among gamers.) Domingo recognized that her online peers needed “the tools to remember their self-worth and value outside of the persona they show online,” she says. In response, she’s creating a month-long virtual yoga and meditation program for gamers, complete with meditations, asana, and instructional videos on topics ranging from the importance of rest to how yoga can improve focus. She hopes to launch the series, dubbed “Bringing Peace to the Keyboard Warrior,” this year.

“I know a lot of my friends are very hard on themselves, and I can give them more tools—and guide them through some exercises that can help. With patience,” she adds, “You can do things you didn’t know you could.” And she’s speaking from experience. At last, she says, “I feel like I’m in the right place, and I trust that.”

See also 4 Ways to Tell If You Should Get a Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Certification

Maris Degener: Setting an example for how to work through anxiety, depression, and eating disorders

As told to Meghan Rabbitt

Maris Degener

Age: 21

Lives in Santa Cruz, California

My yoga role model is Susanna Barkataki, for her commitment to using yoga’s teachings as a vessel for social change.

My biggest accomplishment so far is saying “yes” to recovering from my eating disorder.

My favorite teaching moment is whenever I feel like I’ve created a safe container for students to be their own teachers.

In the year 2030, I’ll be doing the best I can with what I’ve learned thus far.

Yoga is unity.

Yoga isn’t a competition.

I wish more people would realize that this practice is a way to connect to healing and compassion, not to “fix” you or make you feel unworthy.

My Favorite Mantra I can do hard things.

Words of wisdom I live by “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The promise I make to myself every day Try your best and do it with compassion.

I’d been out of the hospital for just a few days, on bed rest at home, but still skeptical of why I’d needed to be hospitalized in the first place. I was 13 years old, and even though the doctors and nurses showed me my weak vitals on the machines surrounding my bed during my three-week stay, I still couldn’t grasp how sick I was—how much damage I’d done to my body by not eating. So, after I’d been discharged, despite my strict bed-rest orders, I decided to do a pushup. I wanted to prove I was strong.

I climbed out of my bed and came to my knees on the carpet beside my night table. How hard could this be? I thought. I slowly placed my hands on the ground beneath my shoulders and inched my feet back to get into Plank Pose. I dropped to my knees, immediately realizing I couldn’t support my own body weight in Plank, let alone lower myself to the ground and then lift myself back up. In that moment, it clicked: Mental illness isn’t an attention-seeking game; it’s a matter of life and death. I knew I had hurt myself, and it was time for me to heal.

See also The Truth About Yoga and Eating Disorders

Hello, Yoga? It’s Me, Maris

When I was in the hospital, the doctors and nurses told me how important it would be for me to get my strength back without strenuous exercise. Yoga was a logical choice, and when I noticed a new studio had opened near my hometown—and they were hosting free classes on Sunday mornings—I asked my mom if I could give it a try.

I got there embarrassingly early and ended up talking to Jenni Wendell, the studio owner and the teacher that morning, before class. I’ll never forget how seen I felt by Jenni, which definitely took the edge off how absolutely overwhelmed I felt before and during that first class. I was getting back in touch with my body and learning what it was like to be present. There was a lot going on, like trying to move into the various postures and learn the different Sanskrit words. I was lost in the chaos of it all, but for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel overwhelmed by that fact. Yoga gave me permission to not have it all figured out. And Jenni met me exactly where I was.

There was so much to learn and no finish line. There was no competition or prompt for comparison. I realize now how lucky I was to fall into a studio where these beautiful tenets of yoga were emphasized.

After that first class, Jenni gifted me a yoga mat. It was her way of making sure I knew that my presence really mattered. Jenni cared if I came back—and not just in a business sense but in a way that felt to me like this person genuinely cared that I showed up. What I know now is that when you’re dealing with depression and anxiety—and I grappled with both, starting at such a young age—you don’t believe that people care if you’re around. The fact that Jenni, a stranger, was caring for me felt revolutionary.

See also 7 Truths About Eating Disorders Every Yoga Teacher Needs to Know

Let the Healing Begin

I feel like my hospitalization and first chapter of my anorexia recovery were focused on the physical, which mostly involved making sure I was eating enough calories and getting back to a healthy weight. When I found yoga, I wasn’t in a precarious place with my health. Still, that first yoga class was really challenging.

In many ways, yoga felt like a fresh start, which was so nice after what I’d been through. I became a devoted student, going to multiple classes a week, and after a few months, I got a job at the studio’s front desk. One day, Jenni told me she was working on putting together the studio’s yoga teacher training, and she offered me a scholarship to join. I was in awe of the practice and my teachers, but I thought Jenni was crazy—I thought there was no way someone my age could teach yoga. Jenni described that she was designing the training to be more like a study group, where we’d learn about the philosophy of yoga and how to integrate it into our lives, in addition to how to teach. Now, I see that Jenni wanted me to join the training to help me integrate yoga into my life beyond the 75 minutes I was on that mat she’d given me.

See also 4 Ways to Tell If You Should Get a Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Certification

When I taught my first class in that training, Jenni said she’d never seen me look so joyful. Something changed in me; all I wanted to do was pass on what had been given to me.

My teachers emphasized that the job of the yoga teacher is to pass on what you’re learning, which means the best teachers are the best students. This gave me permission to be a vessel for the practice to come through; the way my teachers instilled that kind of humility in me cleared the way for my voice to emerge.

I reflected on the teachers who’d had the most impact on my journey. The common thread? Their willingness to be vulnerable with me. They were human—always willing to come to my level and say something like, “Oh, I’ve experienced that, too.” They held space for me and didn’t try to “fix” me. And in being their authentic, beautiful selves, they inspired me to do the same.

See also How Yoga Teacher Training Helped Me Find Healing Courage When I Needed it Most

My Story—on the Big Screen

When a filmmaker from my hometown who knew about my struggle with anorexia approached me about being in a documentary she wanted to make about eating disorders, all I saw were red flags. I’ve seen so many films about eating disorders and have been disappointed and unnecessarily triggered by them. Most of the documentaries romanticize skinny bodies. Some would leave me feeling like there was no hope for full recovery. Worse, many actually served as a guidebook to fuel my disease. (That woman ate only X amount of calories? I should eat less.)

“Yoga Helped Me Remember Who I Am—and Dream about Who I Want to Be”

I shared all of this with the filmmaker, and she really listened to my points and promised me that we’d create something different. I told her I didn’t want to talk about my weight or diet or show any pictures from the time I was sick. I wanted to get to something deeper—with a focus on my catalyst for healing, which was finding my practice. I thought of my yoga teachers’ vulnerability—and the strength that shone through thanks to it—and I aimed to show up with the same kind of truth they’ve always showed me. In I Am Maris, we talk about my journey, yes. But what we really tried to do is urge people to find their thing—the thing that speaks to their version of healing.

When I hear from people who’ve watched the film, what seems to have resonated the most is the power of vulnerability. I feel closest to people when they’re vulnerable with me first. In making this documentary, I got to be that friend—the one who opens up so that others can, too. And if I have given even one person permission to share their story or reflect on their own experience, I feel like the gift is mine. You never know what your journey—or even just your presence—might mean to someone.

See also Yoga Transformed Me After Chronic Illness

Maryam Abdul: Teaching yoga and being a doula has helped her heal her community

Maryam Abdul

Age: 23

Lives in Los Angeles, California

My yoga role model is @Yogi_Goddess Phyllicia Bonanno on Instagram. She’s an unapologetically black yogi who shows that there is representation in the community for black women doing this practice.

My biggest accomplishment so far is preparing and launching private yoga and birth doula businesses.

My favorite teaching moment is when my students or friends say they feel better, more open, and calmer from the yoga.

In the year 2030, I’ll be hosting yoga retreats, opening a yoga and wellness studio and a birth center in the Watts/South Central LA community—plus a juice bar. I want such things to be accessible to members of my community.

Yoga is your own journey with your body and mind.

Yoga isn’t supposed to only be this super-beautiful, on-the-beach, Handstands-and-splits practice.

I wish more yogis would realize we have the freedom to be as creative with our yoga as we want to be, and we can explore more parts of ourselves. Be very gentle with yourself in that exploration. We don’t need to be hard on ourselves.

Just a few years ago, Maryam Abdul was a sophomore in college, feeling disconnected, depressed, and anxious. “I had no sense of purpose. I felt lost and confused. Like I didn’t belong,” she says. What led her to become a serious yoga student was the motivation to reclaim her body after a sexual assault: “I lost myself— I was a shadow. I didn’t have anything to lean on, because I had let everything that was good for me go.” That included elements of her Islamic faith, which she says paved the way for her to eventually find yoga.

Almost four years after the assault that rocked her foundation, Abdul is rooted in a solid, clear sense of purpose and mission: to assist underserved communities, specifically the South Central Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts where she grew up— a place she calls a food desert with few outlets for yoga and wellness activities.

See also Yoga Transformed Me After Trauma and Sexual Assault

Last year, at age 23, Abdul began training to become a yoga teacher and a doula almost simultaneously. Similar to midwives, doulas provide mental, physical, and emotional support to mothers during pregnancy, delivery, and even miscarriages, and help their clients navigate a health care system that disproportionately fails black women. Abdul’s passion and curiosity had led her to study the medical industry’s early-20th-century effort to control, pathologize, and institutionalize black midwives—which has negatively affected birth complications among black mothers. Armed with this information, she enrolled in a local doula training program.

“We see a huge disparity in black maternal death and infant mortality,” she says. “Meanwhile, stress is literally killing black mothers. I use yoga and meditation with my doula clients to cultivate peace and calm—with an intention to combat the statistics. I want my people to live, and live well. And that’s why I do what I do.” —BT

See also Healing Life's Traumas with Yoga

Natalie Asatryan: Bringing yoga to kids so she can change the world

Age: 15

Lives in Los Angeles, California

My yoga role model is 101-year-old Tao Porchon-Lynch, who proves yoga can be practiced at any age.

My biggest accomplishment so far is raising money for charities by teaching donation-based yoga classes.

My favorite teaching moment was when I led my high school’s football team through a yoga class. -In the year 2030, I’ll be a yoga teacher, student of yoga, and doing whatever I can to make the world a better place.

Yoga is the unity of the mind, body, and soul. It’s an internal and external experience at the same time.

Yoga isn’t about striving to be perfect.

I wish more people would realize how important it is to share yoga with the younger generation, because it would make humanity better.

My favorite mantra is Om, because the buzzing of the “m” is the eternal sound of God that lives within you in every breath. How cool is that?

Words of wisdom I live by Be kind—but also courageous.

The promise I make to myself every day I’m going to do my best with what I’m given today, and whatever else happens, happens.

Natalie Asatryan was five years old when she learned how to really breathe. She was in her first yoga class—at a local studio filled with other kindergarteners—and the teacher told them to imagine that they were hot-air balloons and had to light a fire in their hearts and breathe deeply in order to fly. “Then, when we’d lay in Savasana, the teacher would tell us to be as loose as noodles, and if our muscles weren’t tense when she picked up our legs and gave them a wiggle, we’d get a sticker,” says Asatryan, now 15.

“My Generation Is Going to Run the World Soon. The More of Us Who Do Yoga, the Better”

At age 12, Asatryan would go on to become the youngest girl to become a 200-hour certified yoga teacher. How did that happen? We asked her to give us the backstory.

See also 5 Ways to Be Taken Seriously as a Young Yoga Teacher

Yoga Journal: OK, so when did you get the idea that you wanted to become a yoga teacher?

Natalie Asatryan: When I was seven, I started going to a new school and most of my friends didn’t know what yoga was. The ones who did were like, “Isn’t that for old people?” At that time, I was going to yoga classes with my mom— but I wanted my friends to love it and think it was cool. I thought, If I become a yoga teacher, I can teach them yoga and show them it’s cool. I told my mom I wanted to be a teacher, and she was like, “You can be anything you want to be!” And I said, “No, you don’t understand; I want to teach now.”

YJ: But you waited three years to go through a yoga teacher training?

NA: Not quite. My mom looked for yoga teacher trainings I could join, but most studios said I had to be 18. Every time she’d tell me another studio said no, I’d say, “You just haven’t talked to the right person.” This went on for three years. When I was 12, my mom talked to Shana Meyerson at YOGAthletica, who was willing to meet. We met at a café, and right there, she decided I was ready.

YJ: What was your training like?

NA: It was so much harder than I ever imagined. It was very condensed—14 days, 12-hour days—and the second-youngest trainee was 26 years old. During training, I realized how much more there is to yoga beyond asana. Actually, the philosophy turned out to be my favorite part.

See also Survive Yoga Teacher Training: How to Prepare

YJ: Have you ever gotten any attitude or side-eyes from students when they see how young you are?

NA: I’ve been teaching for over two years now, and most people have been so accepting. Sure, they may say, “Wow, you’re only 15!” And I’ve definitely taught people who seemed skeptical of my abilities—at least at first. But overall, everyone’s been really great. And I really love teaching other young people, too. Kids are instantly accepting when I’m teaching.

YJ: It seems like yoga is something more kids could really use. Being a kid these days is tough, isn’t it?

NA: You know, I always say that grownups underestimate the power of kids. People say, “Oh, they’re kids, they don’t know.” But we’re going to be running the world in just a few years—and if we’re going to do that, we need some encouragement. We’re human beings who experience stress! I’m not saying yoga gets rid of it, but it helps you learn to take a minute, breathe deeply, and remember that whatever you’re stressed about probably happened in the past and that the best thing you can do is learn from it and move on.

See also Inside YJ's YTT: 4 Fears We Had Before Yoga Teacher Training

YJ: It sounds like you have some personal experience with this.

NA: Yes! Take today, for example. I wasn’t ready for a test and I was so frustrated. I could’ve sat there at my desk freaking that I didn’t know all of the answers. But here’s what I did: I took a deep breath and silently told myself that I’d try to do the best I could with what I could remember. If I hadn’t been practicing yoga since I was five, I probably would’ve reacted differently, repeating something like “I’m gonna fail!” instead of “It’s OK—this is what it is, and it’s fine!”

I also rely on my yoga training before auditions. I’m a huge theater nerd and perform in a lot of plays. Right before almost every audition, I freak out. Then, I remind myself that whatever happens will happen—and if I don’t get into a show, I must not have been meant to be in that show. It helps me breathe through my nerves.

YJ: Do you think your generation gets a bad rap?

NA: You know, we are the first generation born with the Internet and social media being ubiquitous, and many people throw that in our faces. Yes, too much social media is no good. But I think a lot of my peers are using social media for so much good. And we care about our world, which is on fire. At my school, if someone is caught using a plastic straw, everyone is like, “OMG what are you doing?!” I think my generation is working hard to save the world we live in. We all have our eyes wide open, and we are trying to do something about the injustices we see. When you realize what’s happening in the world, you want to help. —MR

It’s easy to forget how stressful being a kid can be because, well, #adulting. Natalie Asatryan is here to remind you that kids go through stuff, too—which is why she’s on a mission to share yoga with as many young people as possible.

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These young yogis—representing Gen Z—are changing the world through peace, love, and compassion.

Meet the rising yoga stars of Generation Z

Tabay Atkins: Showing us how to follow your dharma, as the country's youngest yoga teacher

By Meghan Rabbitt

Tabay Atkins

Age: 14

Lives in Maui, Hawaii

My yoga role model is my mom, because she beat cancer.

My biggest accomplishment so far is graduating high school at age 14.

My favorite teaching moment was when I led a yoga class with Tao Porchon-Lynch, the oldest living yoga teacher. She told me, “Keep doing what you’re doing, and stay true to you.”

In the year 2030, I’ll be teaching, traveling the world, and sharing my love of yoga and veganism with as many people as I can.

Yoga is for everyone.

Yoga isn’t about getting into the “best” pose.

I wish more yogis would realize the amazing benefits of a plant-based diet.

The promise I make to myself every day is to be the best version of myself that I can be.

“I had only been cancer-free for two weeks, and when I walked into the studio that night, I was so skeptical of yoga,” says Anvarinejad. “I wanted to run out. But something told me to stay.”

See also Building a Strong Foundation for Cancer Healing

See also Is Yoga Teacher Training For You?

“You Can Find Your Dharma at Any Age”

While most second graders might simply be psyched to have their mom back to normal, Atkins wanted more: He wanted to get certified to teach, too.

See also Is Teaching Yoga Your Path? 8 Qualities of Excellent Teachers

A Teacher is Born

Watch Introduction to Yoga for Kids with Autism