I’ve made a new friend with myself through yoga. We dance a beautiful, slow dance through postures and stretches.  When I close my eyes, I feel my breath in my body – in my nostrils, in my chest. I feel like the movements allow my energy to flow outward into the space around me. I imagine energy beaming out of my side bends and every time I move my arm my fingers, they flare forth like sparklers. Throwing off little sparks and when I move my arms in, the energy moves back to my center. It’s a time I close my eyes and experience my human experience.

Hatha Yoga training has provided me with movements through which I feel life energy flow. Over the years, my yoga practice has helped me hear what I was saying to myself. What I say to myself is how I treat myself, what I think of myself, How I love or not love myself. 

And although I was doing yoga and saying kind things to myself during practice, it was what I was saying off the mat that was real. Hearing myself talk revealed old patterns and beliefs that kept me ruminating in the same difficult experiences.  Yoga and the continued study of Michael Cavallaro’s Living Concepts have shifted my awareness of the human experience in a new direction. I am more mixed up than ever but more excited than ever to be living on this earth. As I learn to move forward with uncomfortable experiences, as I begin to talk more to my scared/sacred self and unloved/loved self, I am getting to know a whole different Ieva. There is a different experience of Ieva beyond beliefs, patterns, attitudes, thoughts, emotions and feelings. I want to go there.

Lauren Jones-Rabbitt is a long time student of Buddhist meditation and philosophy and graduate of Breathing Room Center’s 200hr YTT program. Lauren hopes to encourage in her students’ connection to, and exploration of the truths of their hearts. She sees her role in the
good work of teaching yoga as providing a safe space for her students to self-question, find necessary boundaries, awareness, acceptance and ultimate healing through their practice. She enjoys seeing beauty in people and nature, writing poetry, hanging out with her family, practicing loving kindness and extending her hand and heart to those who cross her path. Lauren has also been a doula (birth assistant) since 2003, helping many women and families in
the process of welcoming their babies and new selves. Recently she has added herbalism to her busy life and enjoys making healing remedies for her community Contact: lauren.jonesrabbitt@gmail.com and on Facebook and Instagram@MotherJonesHerbs

Meg Lyding, MFA, is a certified sound practitioner, composer, and visual artist with a Master’s Degree from Parsons School of Design and certification in Integrative Sound and Music through the Open Center in New York City. She is a multi-instrumentalist and her creative work is multi-disciplinary. As a sound practitioner, Meg has been working with the healing aspects of frequency and vibration and offering therapeutic sound events since 2013. In 2019, she created Make a Wave Productions as a way to integrate her creative and therapeutic endeavors, harnessing sound, music, and the creative arts as practices of self-care and personal transformation. www.makeawaveproductions.com