In my first class with Meryl Arnett at Sacred Chill {West}, she focused on heart openers. It was in that class that I found what I was looking for: a pause, a way to inhabit my body, a way to face what felt like an overwhelming brokenness with courage and curiosity. Although that was not my first yoga class, it was the beginning of my commitment to yoga as a practice and a way of being. It wasn’t love at first practice. That 60 minutes class felt like it went on forever! But I was curious, so I kept going.

Six months later, I found myself doing some soul searching in Puerto Rico. Every day for a month, I woke up at 5:40am, dressed quickly, and walked five minutes to practice Ashtanga with Jesús at Ashtanga Yoga Puerto Rico. Perhaps it was saluting the sun as it rose, or the pride I felt in the growth of my physical practice, or the fact that I looked forward to those first breaths,, or maybe the realization that the practice I had started at home in Atlanta was one that meant enough to carry with me to Puerto Rico, I don’t know. But that summer I declared out loud that I would train to be a yoga teacher. Four months later, when my teacher Octavia casually asked, have you ever considered yoga teacher training, I fumbled for an answer, almost embarrassed to boldly declare that I wanted to become a teacher. But when Sacred Chill {West} announced a 200hr training, I knew it was my time.

So now I am a 200hr-RYT. I completed my training at Sacred Chill {West} in Atlanta, GA under the guidance of the two teachers who gave me the gift of helping me make this practice my own, Meryl Arnett and Octavia Raheem. If you take classes with me, you’ll notice I enjoy crafting sequences that play with (and disrupt) dualities: stillness and movement; loud and quiet; strength and softness. No matter the style— vinyasa, yin, or restorative— you can expect eclectic playlists, inspiration from my favorite books and artists (especially Black women authors), and at least one laugh.

While I love my personal home practice, I am passionate about building community around yoga and meditation. There was no way that I could have known that between that first class with Meryl and the end of my 200hr training, I would experience the deaths of three people I loved, lose friendships that meant a great deal to me, or choose to pick up my life and move to another city. What I do know for sure is that yoga and meditation sustained me. My teachers and yoga community held me. The space that yoga and meditation cleared made room for courage and a different vision for my life. In yoga and meditation, I find truth in Alice Walker’s words: “That though the heart is breaking, happiness can exist in a moment, also. And because the moment in which we live is all the time there really is, we can keep going.”

Flow, rest, or meditate with me. Through stillness, movement, and the wonder of the breath we will feel our way toward re/inhabiting our bodies in this world in this moment.