Part of the reason I moved my newsletter to Substack was to build community. I love nothing more than reading your email responses to my newsletters and I’ve been truly floored when you’ve written encouraging notes and shared stories of your own practice and teaching from France, Australia, the UK, Canada, and all over the US.
Today I want to introduce you to a new kind of post on Substack called the Thread. This post takes the spotlight off of me and hands it over to you. I’m embracing it as a way to embody non-hierarchical teaching. Your words and stories are just as important as mine. I am not, and never will be, a guru. Every single one of you holds just as much wisdom as me. One of the best parts of a yoga teacher training or workshop is hearing from one another. So let’s get to know each other!
Step 1: In the comments below, please introduce yourself and let me know what season of life you’re in right now (guidance below). What are you working with and through in your life and how is yoga helping you?
Step 2: Please respond to someone else and say hi! Look for commonalities or offer words of encouragement.
Here’s a recap of the seasons and lifecycles of womanhood to guide your responses. I’ll also start with the first comment so you can get a sense for what to share.
Spring:This season’s energies are associated with the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, young adulthood, and a general building up toward something. It can feel like a very up-and-down, all-over-the-place, vulnerable, anticipatory, even confusing time or energizing.
Summer:This season’s energies are associated with ovulation and the working years of adulthood. It can feel exciting, overwhelming, stressful, like you’re being pulled/called outward, generous, abundant, or even excessive.
Fall: This season’s energies are associated with the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, perimenopause and menopause, and a harvesting of your life’s work. It can feel stressful, steady, like contentment and acceptance has arrived, challenging, worrying, frightening, maddening, but also exciting and liberating.
Winter:This season’s energies are associated with the bleed and post-menopause. It can feel relaxing, creative, fruitful, inspiring, powerful, liberating, or unresolved.
The circumstances in your own life may present to you different seasonal energies. You may not feel the energies of the current season in nature or in your life. Recognizing your season is not about being right or wrong, it’s simply about noticing how you feel, expressing it, and recognizing how yoga is or is not helping you in this moment in your life.
Please share in the comments below who you are, where you are, how you’re feeling, and how yoga is working (or not) for you these days. Let’s get to know one another!
Hello! I'm Ashley and I'm feeling the ups and downs of spring right now as we transition into the summer season. I find springtime for me personally is very much a rollercoaster with quickly changing moods and emotions. I just returned from a two-week vacation and am working on resettling back into a schedule. I'm also still trying to find my flow between my ambitions for how I show up with work and how I show up for and with my family as mom. I am beginning to accept that there will never be an "ideal" and it will always change day-to-day. The part of me that craves structure and routine fears constant movement and change but the part of me that understands yogic wisdom also realizes that the work is to embrace that constant change as the routine.
Yoga has been helping me immensely as I reclaim and reaquaint myself with my feminine energy. This is helping me more clearly articulate for myself what I need and want and feel more confident each day as I show up for me, my family, and my work. The practice for me is working with observation, breath work, mudra, meditation, and some gentle asana. I've also really enjoyed getting back into Yoga Nidra practice.
I click with that slow acceptance that there will never be an "ideal" and that change is constant. Sometimes I have a hard time acknowledging changes and making adjustments to accomodate them, like when the seasons change (and our needs therefore shift a bit) or when the kiddos grow and change, which is really all they ever do!
Yes! We're right in the middle of that seasonal shift which is why I think I'm extra all-over-the-place right now :) Everything is constantly evolving!
Hi I’m Emma. I am torn on how to answer what season I am in, as the transition into summer is looming I feel it and in my personal cycle, I am about to bleed, so I feel more wintery. I tend to start my day with yoga and it helps me set the tone and pace for my day. It helps me embrace the slower pace of life I crave instead of walking around feeling my head is detached from my body.
Thanks for being here Emma! I think it's so important that we honor our personal seasons even when they don't match nature's seasons. I so get that "head detached from body" feeling. I live so up in my head all the time that yoga asana is a great reminder to be in my body.
Hello! I'm feeling that up and down, back and forth of springtime, but I am also in the 'summer' of my life: raising two small children and slowly finding my path back to work after staying home with them. It all feels super overwhelming at times and also very full of love and excitement at other times - it's just generally full and busy!
I sometimes miss the 'springtime' of my younger years when I could be more spontaneous (and more comfortably get into more yoga poses), but then I also sometimes look forward to the 'autumn' of my life when the kids will be older and I'll have more quiet time (hopefully). Yoga and this awareness of seasonal shift and feminine life stages is slowly teaching me to clearly see where I'm at, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Previously, I would just power through things, thinking of how strong I must be to be able to do that, but I've learned (am still learning) the value of rest, that lovely lesson that winter offers. Becoming a mom has radically transformed my yoga practice, but it has brought along with it this more nuanced way of approaching it, knowing that I don't always need an intense yoga asana practice, and that yoga nidra is a lovely practice for when I'm tired or menstruating. Seasonal awareness has linked me to a more feminine approach, for sure:)
So much wisdom here. Thank you for sharing. I love your characterization of the seasons of motherhood. That abundance in motherhood is something that I think we sometimes take for granted or forget about, especially in the hard moments, haha.
Hello I’m Lauren… I’m in my inner winter cyclically, day 2 of my bleed and I’m feeling all the inward vibes… in my bigger picture life seasons I’m teetering on the edge of winter/spring as early Motherhood is very much pulling me to slow and deepen my self connection and stay in my cocoon in many ways but I have that tentative emerging energy like new shoots. Lovely thread to begin thank you so much! Xxx
Hi Lauren! It's so affirming to know that early motherhood, as a season, is also experienced by others as a wintry, cocoon-like time. Those spring shoots of energy are so exciting when they arrive and, as nature teaches us, they will indeed arrive again even when we think the time will never come!
Hello! I'm Ashley and I'm feeling the ups and downs of spring right now as we transition into the summer season. I find springtime for me personally is very much a rollercoaster with quickly changing moods and emotions. I just returned from a two-week vacation and am working on resettling back into a schedule. I'm also still trying to find my flow between my ambitions for how I show up with work and how I show up for and with my family as mom. I am beginning to accept that there will never be an "ideal" and it will always change day-to-day. The part of me that craves structure and routine fears constant movement and change but the part of me that understands yogic wisdom also realizes that the work is to embrace that constant change as the routine.
Yoga has been helping me immensely as I reclaim and reaquaint myself with my feminine energy. This is helping me more clearly articulate for myself what I need and want and feel more confident each day as I show up for me, my family, and my work. The practice for me is working with observation, breath work, mudra, meditation, and some gentle asana. I've also really enjoyed getting back into Yoga Nidra practice.
I click with that slow acceptance that there will never be an "ideal" and that change is constant. Sometimes I have a hard time acknowledging changes and making adjustments to accomodate them, like when the seasons change (and our needs therefore shift a bit) or when the kiddos grow and change, which is really all they ever do!
Yes! We're right in the middle of that seasonal shift which is why I think I'm extra all-over-the-place right now :) Everything is constantly evolving!
Hi I’m Emma. I am torn on how to answer what season I am in, as the transition into summer is looming I feel it and in my personal cycle, I am about to bleed, so I feel more wintery. I tend to start my day with yoga and it helps me set the tone and pace for my day. It helps me embrace the slower pace of life I crave instead of walking around feeling my head is detached from my body.
Thanks for being here Emma! I think it's so important that we honor our personal seasons even when they don't match nature's seasons. I so get that "head detached from body" feeling. I live so up in my head all the time that yoga asana is a great reminder to be in my body.
Hello! I'm feeling that up and down, back and forth of springtime, but I am also in the 'summer' of my life: raising two small children and slowly finding my path back to work after staying home with them. It all feels super overwhelming at times and also very full of love and excitement at other times - it's just generally full and busy!
I sometimes miss the 'springtime' of my younger years when I could be more spontaneous (and more comfortably get into more yoga poses), but then I also sometimes look forward to the 'autumn' of my life when the kids will be older and I'll have more quiet time (hopefully). Yoga and this awareness of seasonal shift and feminine life stages is slowly teaching me to clearly see where I'm at, mentally, physically, and emotionally. Previously, I would just power through things, thinking of how strong I must be to be able to do that, but I've learned (am still learning) the value of rest, that lovely lesson that winter offers. Becoming a mom has radically transformed my yoga practice, but it has brought along with it this more nuanced way of approaching it, knowing that I don't always need an intense yoga asana practice, and that yoga nidra is a lovely practice for when I'm tired or menstruating. Seasonal awareness has linked me to a more feminine approach, for sure:)
So much wisdom here. Thank you for sharing. I love your characterization of the seasons of motherhood. That abundance in motherhood is something that I think we sometimes take for granted or forget about, especially in the hard moments, haha.
Hello I’m Lauren… I’m in my inner winter cyclically, day 2 of my bleed and I’m feeling all the inward vibes… in my bigger picture life seasons I’m teetering on the edge of winter/spring as early Motherhood is very much pulling me to slow and deepen my self connection and stay in my cocoon in many ways but I have that tentative emerging energy like new shoots. Lovely thread to begin thank you so much! Xxx
Hi Lauren! It's so affirming to know that early motherhood, as a season, is also experienced by others as a wintry, cocoon-like time. Those spring shoots of energy are so exciting when they arrive and, as nature teaches us, they will indeed arrive again even when we think the time will never come!