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Since my earliest memories, I have connected to the world around me, especially other sentient beings through feeling. This doesn’t come quite the same way as perception through the senses, though on some occasions I will notice goosebumps, chills, smells, visuals, or sounds. It is difficult for me to describe as I cannot remember ever not being this way. I can’t tell you why I am as I am, or exactly where it comes from. I didn’t realize that my way of experiencing the world was anything unique until I was an older adolescent. I thought everyone operated this way. Many do, but it seems to be less common than I had realized as a young person. I chose early on to not talk about this “thing” I seemed to carry because, simply put, people think you’re “full of it.” As I got older, I began to understand that my experience was what would be called extra sensory perception. I believe all humans have these abilities, but because cultural/societal norms don’t encourage it, we under utilize them until they go dormant. Some of us are born with a higher propensity to rely upon and develop these skills, while others are connected to them through intense life experiences. For me, I think it was a bit of both. I was also brought up in a home where things of the supernatural or paranormal were discussed as being as real as you and I. Both of my grandmothers held these beliefs, and passed them on to us. Much of my life, I have only privately used this extra sensory perception or intuition for myself. At times, I have dabbled with using it in service to others, however, I always stopped because of my strong desire to be a person who is taken seriously and feelings of imposter syndrome. I do not believe we each carry our unique traits accidentally, however, and it has been my experience that people sense in me the ability to hold space for their deepest stories, and to understand their personal experience whether or not I’ve experienced anything similar. People find me and share their story, ultimately moving on after they have had my witness. My particular extra sensory abilities come in the form of claircognizance and clairsentience. You are probably familiar with the term clairvoyant which is often used interchangeably with the word “psychic.” Clairvoyance simply means “clear seeing.” People who are clairvoyant experience visions or daydreams which some feel help them know past, present, or future events. I am not psychic. I do not feel any of my knowing is predictive of the future or even anything definitive about the past or present. My abilities are simply a tool I use to better my understanding of myself, others, situations, and experiences. I cannot assume any sort of predictive accuracy, but I can use the information that comes through to ask better questions of myself and others. It also happens often that I will receive validation of my knowing through various synchronicities that occur around the same time. Claircognizance means “clear knowing.” This is something I experience as just knowing something before I have any actual, tangible confirmation. It’s beyond being an assumption or thinking something might be possible. As others do, I will often refer to these knowings as downloads. Clairsentience means “clear feeling.” I imagine this being the most common extra sensory perception and I equate it closely with the aspect of our intuition we call “gut feeling.” For me, I believe this to be heightened sensitivity to energy. It allows you to feel residual and current energies in places and around objects, but also the particular energies involved in situations. On the individual level, I can sense the various energies a person carries. It’s very hard to put this experience into words as it is very sensory. These types of perceptions combined, if I purposely focus with intention, allows me to receive channeled insights into the whys of a person’s energy dynamics. These insights come from The All that is in all as the all is in The All. I am merely sensing what is possible based upon the energies that have already been put into motion. Energy can be adjusted or manipulated at any time. I find myself able to readily read the energies of the people who are around me, and especially so if they are interacting with me. However, I have also realized that I can tune into the energies of people from a distance. All I need is a name, the person’s request to be read, and a location is helpful, but not necessary. Aside from using this perception to assist myself in navigating the world, situations, and interactions, I do not pay attention to it. I don’t randomly intrude upon the energies of individuals without permission beyond what I utilize to better communicate and understand others. It is more like the application of instinct. When I began a committed yoga practice, and even more so when I began learning Kundalini Yoga in the early 2000s, I developed a deeper understanding of the energies I was perceiving in others by studying the chakra system. Through the practice of yoga, I explored how to work effectively with these energy centers in my body. This provided a scaffolding for me to organize the insights I was receiving and the sensations I was feeling, and then apply them to my life. I found I was better able to process my past and work through the present. I studied the chakra system in a variety of contexts, including classes with Anodea Judith who wrote one of the first widely read modern comprehensive texts on the chakras called, Wheels of Life. I studied in other areas of interest like education, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, alternative spirituality, occult, art, literature, etc… I saw correlations with many other organizational structures of the human experience and process of spiritual growth. A few examples are Rudolph Steiner’s philosophy of The Stages of Life, and The Tree of Life in the esoteric practices of Jewish mysticism - Qabbalah. There are many more across spiritual, philosophical, and religious schools of thought throughout the world. In my opinion, this makes chakra energy an innate human understanding that surpasses language and cultures. When I was studying in my 200 hour yoga teacher training program, we were shown how to use a pendulum to read the energies present in each of the bodily locations of the chakras. For the first time, I was seeing a sort of physical confirmation of what I could sense through my feelings. Later that same year, I received my Level 1 Reiki attunements, and began to use my focus to direct energy in a more purposeful way. From there, I developed a system for using these skills to do readings for others. They are similar to the types of readings you receive from those who practice various forms of divination in that they can give insight into past and current states of affairs in your personal life, and at times act as a validation of things you might be feeling, but struggling to put into words or understand in depth. It can be like an ah-ha moment for many as suddenly their own intuition that they have been shrugging off has a witness. Sometimes having a layer of separation by another person or tool like a reading will allow us to acknowledge insights we’ve had for ourselves all along. This can aid us when we feel we are stuck or need encouragement in our personal growth process. It can also help us better communicate with therapists, counselors, and spiritual teachers. One very important way that my system of reading chakras is different from divination is that it isn’t going to be any kind of future prediction. It also is not going to tell you about the energy of anyone else aside from how you are currently receiving and interacting with the energies around you. It is crucial to remember that the energy of our chakra system is always in flux and can be influenced from something as commonplace as going outside. So, even gaining awareness that energy isn’t moving well through a particular chakra can be enough to open to better flow. Given this state of constant flow, we must also understand that the experiences of our lives bring us into certain patterns of holding back and pushing through the energy of the chakras. To change these patterns requires the same type of diligence and repetition that established them in the first place. This revealing of our patterns, in my opinion, is the most helpful aspect of having a chakra reading or having them on a regular basis.
Once (and often before) I read the flow of energy through the chakra using the pendulum, I typically will receive channeled statements of insight around why the individual’s energy is not optimally moving, or words of encouragement or things to ponder. I believe these messages to come from the energies that flow through all created things. It is the energy we share. You can say that it is coming from my subconscious if you feel that is more accurate. That is not something I will dispute. For me, it doesn’t matter. All I know is that it is there, and I bring it out. I feel that is the same thing as it coming from The All. I always give the option of someone not receiving these messages as part of their reading. They can sometimes be intense and blunt. I write these insights into a special notebook by hand for remote readings. I speak them directly in person as I go.
This service has been one that has taken me a long time to ground into something that I am no longer self conscious about performing and receiving payment for. There are particular associations with the word “chakra” and even “divination,” or “readings” that I don’t desire a connection with at all. I am not looking to establish myself as any of the New Age identities that I feel harbor so much toxicity within our current alternative spiritual communities. I believe we all have gifts we were put here to share. This is one of mine. My intention is to simply share a process that has been helpful to me and to give back a little of what I have received. To receive a reading from me, check out this link.
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I couldn't breathe. I wanted the 60-something gray haired men sitting across from me in the waiting room to shut up. I wanted the women with them to stop shaking their heads. I wanted the one woman who spoke to get her head out of the sand, stop agreeing, and to speak to what I knew she knows. "She should've said something then," one of the men said. "If she were my daughter, she'd have spoken up about that then, if it really happened. That's just teenage behavior." At that point, I wanted to get out of my seat, throw furniture at him, and bash his head in the wall behind him. I wanted to show him what it feels like to hold in a secret for decades because of people like him and their opinions on what young people should do when sexually assaulted. Their opinion of what should be tolerated, thought as normal. and what is "just asking for it." I wanted him to know what it felt like to not express and be ashamed of your sexuality for the whole of your life memory because of people like him. I was in the cardiologist waiting room. It was the day that the brave Christine Blassey Ford testified in front of congress about the experience she had with then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Fortunately, my name was called and my panic attack was caught on EKG and the whole thing helped my doctor get me on the right medication for my heart condition. Things have a way of working out. I had a nervous breakdown that day, holding in my emotion, and it took me a few months to recover.
This is what I wear when I practice because I don't keep my house super cool in the summer. I sweat when I practice. I worried about people wondering about my intentions with posting because of the way my clothes fit. I wanted to share my practice because I am immensely grateful for it. I'm grateful for my body supporting my practice even with my health struggles. I feel like sharing my practice could encourage others to begin or keep going with their movement practice because I too am inspired by others that way. I don't think twice about what people are wearing or not wearing when I scroll and see yoga practices shared on social media. I am amazed by the human body and the way it works. I see it a beautiful creation in its variety of form and expression. It is art to me. I was a bit disturbed that I paused and worried before sharing my pictures.
Sexual repression is not the only possible or base cause for sexual violence, misogyny, or the objectification of women. We can also include in this the "traditional" presumptions of how each gender should conduct themselves in our society. Ideas of: Who has and should be in control? Who can "handle" power? Who cries and who punches things? Who talks about feelings and who holds them in, and their association with being of weak mind? What does it mean to be a "real" man or a "real" woman? Boys will be boys. Who is a "loose" woman? We can all tell a story of making a decision to hide an aspect of ourselves because it didn't fit in to these boxes built by our culture about who we should be and how we should behave. As someone who has experienced deep shame for it simply being possible that someone could find me attractive and that becoming uncomfortable for anyone else - them, me, or other to the point that I didn't try to express myself physically in appearance or through movement, growing beyond this in a culture that still blames and shames everyone involved has been a struggle. It does take deciding not to care about where someone might be on this path in regards to their own comfort with the human form and our instinctual biological responses to it. There is such an imbalance in this being shown as a problem only for male identifying genders that's it's ridiculous and has resulted in very dramatic and stifling rules for the way female identifying people must be in their bodies in this world. It's as if a woman cannot have a visceral response to seeing a man's bare chest or rump in his swimsuit just as much as a man can to seeing a woman. Funny how that can be seen as sweet, complimentary, or humorous, and it not be for a man to have the same reaction. Acting as if that biological reaction is something to be ashamed of causes feelings of guilt or rebellion, neither of which are good for our society. The most appalling result of this Puritanical response to physicality and sexuality is the toll it is taking on our children. I don't and have not publicly spoken about my personal experience as a young girl who was a survivor of such things (not at the hand of family or anyone close to the family). I sometimes find the courage to mention it vaguely (as now), but never have directly. I don't know if I ever will, or that the details matter. There are so many people quick to comment as if they know anything about what that experience was for you. It is so atrocious that I think people have to find a way to explain it and those explanations fall way short of the reality, and at worst, exacerbate our problems. Thinking is difficult. That's why most people judge. In a culture filled with physical repression and shame, we create the environment where the Jeffrey Epstein's of the world can operate and spill their illness over onto others who are ill or suffering their own shame and violate the innocence of children while being looked over by those who are supposed to protect us. The issues at the border. The many issues in our communities that are not discussed. It's all a byproduct of this demonized way of looking at ourselves and our bodies, along with the marriage to obtaining or keeping power. It's dangerous.  I realize that some may take offense at this meme. I, personally, find it funny, and relevant to many things - not just religion. Any ideology that you operate under in order to find your way in this world is right for you when you decide that it is - politics, faith, eating habits, etc. Doesn't mean it is right for me, will always be right for you, or that anyone else should be forced to live under it. When we repress our basic expression we enliven scenarios where people are sending pictures of their genitalia to people on social media before they even get a name or a face. It becomes slippery to approach anyone with compliments on their physical beauty or to even ask for a date in such a charged climate. I feel for people trying to navigate it. It is ok for someone to respectfully find you attractive physically and to express this out loud. I've seen women bite a man's head off because he told her she was a walking goddess. People are walking on edge. It causes people to get their penis out and wave it in everyone's face. In my pictures, I am not showing anymore than anyone wearing a swimsuit shows. I'm showing my real life and my personal yoga practice. I show it out of gratitude for what it does for me and that it may encourage someone else. I have gained some strength and stability in my backside and that is a great thing too. My SI joint was in terrible shape and causing me a lot of pain. Yesterday, I decided to recommit to not being ashamed of my body and the way it appears. Honestly, I'm all for normalizing the body in the birthday suit. We are walking, breathing, living wonders. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; I love this verse. Part of my commitment to finding and growing into myself as an individual is celebrating the reality of this verse and holding space for others to do the same. Today, see your own beauty in just how you are, and compliment someone else's in a sincere way. Let's make it normal for our bodies and their primal functions to be ok. Let's heal this.
When was the last time you asked your body how you were feeling? I don't mean doing a physical scan to notice aches and pains or other maladies, though that is good information. I mean asking your body how you are feeling. Feelings, those things that precede emotions and become emotions if they are not felt in totality. Would you know your body's answer if you asked? Do you still speak your body's language?
Some holding patterns become do deeply ingrained that you are no longer conscious of them. It takes intense focus to notice they are there. Sometimes it takes someone else's touch or eyes to see them and guide you to feel them again. I noticed that I was holding a very heightened energy around my heart center. A tight and anxious energy. When I deepened my breath and I asked it to relax, I experienced the feeling of fear. My ego did not want to feel the feeling of that release. This told me it was a protective mechanism. My body was storing a wound there and to release it would create a vulnerability. Since injuring my SI joint and having to take a new approach to my yoga practice, I have been learning how most of us, including myself, walk around outside of our bodies as if we are a big giant brain. Even those of us with physical practices do it. Our bodies become a side note to our goals, an afterthought to our obligations, or at worst, that thing in our way. This relationship to our bodies is reinforced by our western culture. Yes, people are praised for having a certain type of physique, but are we really allowed to celebrate any body? Are we really allowed to experience the body as art? If I wanted to make a video of me spiraling my hips and ribs to my favorite song while standing in goddess pose, could you celebrate movement with me? Could I let go enough to make such a video? Our bodies often times are either shamed, characterized, made into a commodity (in regards to athleticism or physical disciplines), or over sexualized. You're not this or that enough, therefore you must be ___. "Ooooh, I saw some side boob. Damn, she might want some." (I'm not saying that having a biological physical response to someone's body is a bad thing if that person is an adult. I could write a whole post on this topic alone, and I may someday. It's how you process those sensations that matters.) These aspects of our culture leave most of us unsure of how to safely inhabit our bodies. Then, the microaggressions we meet on the day to day in regards to our bodies can cause us to begin to disassociate so that we are not so sensitive and raw all the time. That person didn't mean anything by that after all. (ex. "Gosh, you're so skinny.") Add to that the acute experiences of trauma that some of us will experience, and there is a whole other level of needing to leave our bodies to survive.
This pattern allowed me to continue to be functional despite a lot of daily physical pain. It was useful in that sense. Yet, when I began to place certain types of aspirations over the effects it was having on my body, I entered dangerous territory. It resulted in my injury. We often wonder things about our bodies like - Why doesn't sex feel as good to me as everyone else acts like it is? Why do I want to eat the whole box of Little Debbie cakes and not just one? Why in the world does my back hurt like this? Why do I feel overwhelmed every time I am out in public? Most of the time, we can't answer these questions. Even our doctors, often, cannot answer them. But, our bodies can, if we can learn to trust them again and listen. As I laid there in savasana, I kept trying to get that stuck feeling energy to move out of my heart space. I could feel it engulfing the entire area. The tightness crept into my neck and shoulders. My abdomen felt fluttery. Every time I told myself it was ok to let go and I felt an inkling of release, my ego jumped in and said - NO! When I asked myself why I couldn't let it go, ego told me that I didn't want to feel lonely. What would my identity be if I actually allowed myself to experience the loneliness my body feels? Could I continue along this beautiful path of discovery I am on undaunted? Could I continue my work? Or, would I be paralyzed with the emotion of it? It was that I do not want to be interrupted by whatever it would mean to feel that feeling. I will be doing the work around this topic in my life on my mat and through my means of sharing. It is more uncomfortable and difficult to process the dis-ease that develops in our bodies when we ignore their cues.
In July, I will have completed a certification program in Embodied Healing as credits for my Yoga Alliance certification. I am continuously fascinated by what I am learning and that it was an injury that began to close the door on the body abuse I was inflicting upon myself and provided me with the tools, through what appeared to be a lost practice, to find a depth of practice I had never experienced. My plans are to write, develop workshops, and possibly to begin podcasting and doing videos. If you are interested in seeing some of these things from me, I'd love to know as I am feeling things out.
Blessed be! ~Sat Nam~ Do you trust yourself to take your own hand and find the light in the darkness? I didn't. For the better part of the last two years, I was the last person who's judgement I trusted. I looked here and there for advice and methods to get me through the discomfort and self loathing that consumed me. I was so closed off that I wasn't even conscious of the extreme self loathing, and it came forth in behaviors that I couldn't explain. I felt if the tools I possessed worked, I wouldn't find myself in such a place as I was in - mentally, emotionally, and physically. It seemed if I could find a tried, step by step concrete way, I could do the thing and have the power, as Emerson said. At the very least, I could fake it until I make it. I faked the shit out of it while my soul screeched to be heard.
From these two states, two things will happen. I will become open to the lesson. The lesson I need to move into the next immediate layer of my personal development. Or, I will reach my goal. I will succeed.  If I go by what Mandela says, I've been learning these last few years. For a bit, I was sad about wasted time and energy. My negative self talk overtook dealing with the realization that I had been filling holes with elements that were not my own in avoidance of accepting that I already possessed what I needed. This avoidance created the necessity of the lesson that scrambling for answers provided. I felt empty and scared, looking for validation. To acknowledge that I had the answers was a huge responsibility. First, it was the fact that it was time to apply what I know and to do so with a different sort of discipline than I was using to keep digging. Then, there was my identity. My entire egoic identity has been aligned to needing to pursue healing and truth. Who am I when I start applying it and it works? What do I become then? Our egos, always in search of homeostasis, hate the unknown. It can be a scary place. Will I even like that version of myself?
I did not believe in my ability to be my own best teacher. It felt like if I was, I'd have already drawn the conclusions I needed to be in a better state of being. My self worth has been so low that I based every accomplishment upon whether or not someone else authenticated it for me. What I felt about it was pushed aside until someone could say "good job". I didn't matter to myself. It was only what I could prove myself to be to others. And, the part of this acknowledgment that remains a current struggle is, what does it matter how good I feel I've done, am, or worthy of receiving, if I am experiencing it alone? Obviously, the seeds for understanding the concept have been planted. I haven't found the Miracle Grow. Right now, all the being with myself is feeling boring because I have experienced loneliness my entire life. The thing is... being lonely, being alone, and being with yourself are three different things. They can exist separately. I have never been comfortable being with myself. I am feeling able to release the guilt I have felt letting go of these prescriptive methods/practices that did not flow for me, and at times felt negating to the truths that were intimate with me. I have not failed. I am learning a more meaningful way to view spiritual practice. I am discovering and honoring the processes that have worked for me for a long time. I am giving credence to the fact that instead of labeling my practice as "not enough," I need to be willing to take my practice deeper, especially if it has supported me. I should trust my knowingness to be the proof that I need. My connection and true passion for a practice is all I need. I don't require a more financially secure and public person's backing to prove to me that their way is the way, unless I want to duplicate them. To be them. We've all heard it said that there is nothing new under the sun. If truth is truth, then this statement without a doubt is true. In that sense, no understanding of truth is original understanding. None of us are unique in the ability to comprehend and obtain truth. Our individuality comes in our expression of our understanding of truth.
explore these truths to the highest levels possible for them in this life. As memes have made certain ideas cliche, I point out yet another that is meaningful. You can only lead another as far as you have led yourself.
As someone on a spiritual or yogic path, don't glue yourself to one teacher even if your goal is to master a certain branch of yoga, or type of spiritual practice. Be present with multiple teachers so that ultimately, the exploration is your own unclouded by dogma and strong opinions. You are your best teacher. Anyone, any text, or any experience contributing to your learning them becomes a resource. The only way to true understanding is the journey through yourself. Otherwise, you're repeating a script and keeping your contribution to truth small if not hidden all together -- from yourself and the world. I am not small. You are not small. We are manifestations of supreme energy with the free will to be the conductors of it. Our ability to tap into truth comes with trusting ourselves to know it without external validation. We must see our own capacities and accept responsibility for ourselves. I am not chasing any more programs that box me in to rote expression. The only practices I need are tools that help me access my own creativity and capability to live and share truth as I understand it. There are many teachers. There is only one set of truths, simple and Divine. This post is difficult to share. My yoga practice and healthcare journey are a significant part of my heart and soul. As much as I hear that my yoga/physical/dietary/spiritual practice is an inspiration and motivation for others (for which I am immensely grateful), I hear comments in the negative. I am often told I am too skinny. That I need to be more lenient with my diet. That I go too hard or do too much. Those comments wouldn't bother me if it didn't give me pause to consider if there is truth there. However, the fact that I will question myself and re-examine my approach to these things doesn't mean that the path I am on is the wrong one and that the comments about my body or my discipline are warranted without there being compassion attached to them. And, honestly, unless you want to confront me about my weight because you're concerned I am not healthy and you want to offer me help or hear me out, you have no business commenting on the size of my body. Unless you are willing to hear about why I am so disciplined and what I see in my patterns in regards to my physical practice, including the risks I'm willing to take to achieve certain goals (including why those are goals I want to reach), there's no need for you to comment there either. So, I do welcome compassionate observation, relaying of experiences, advice, and research sharing in regards to this post. However, comments about my body or practice without compassion and only judgment are not necessary. My current and slower, more deliberate practice. I'm finally feeling stronger again. I am working on not repeating old patterns in different ways. I was going all out. I was going to push to the point of dripping sweat, shaking muscles, the feeling of my entire body turning to jello. That, in and of itself can be a great workout goal, but for me, it was a way to punish the anxiety beast. It didn't matter that I was already tired. I hadn't slept well for days. Waking up nightly with adrenaline rushes was common. It didn't matter that my body ached or that I was sore from my Buti Yoga practice the day before. Chronic polyarthropathy means my body always hurts to some degree. To find my capacity for strength and endurance in middle age would obviously be to do the work regardless. I had even asked about fatigue and working with shaking muscles and was advised that both were goals to achieve when strength building from both yoga teachers, trainers, and online yoga groups. They weren't wrong. Pushing was not giving in or up. It was refusing to let my rebellious body get beyond my ability to control. I rolled out my mat. I was already out of breath. My heart was pounding. I had the cliche overwhelming sense of dread that those of us who live with anxiety either choose to give in to or actively ignore. I was practicing a familiar sequence. I was practicing in my living room. What the hell was wrong with me? I was having a panic attack. It felt like I was turning inside out. I didn't understand. Yoga is my passion. It saves my life. I tell my yoga clients all the time that if they are not with the breath that they are not doing yoga. It was hard to breathe. I ignored my own advice and went on with it anyway. Yoga couldn't be the trigger. Yoga was the tool. I decided that what I was feeling was related to something I wasn't conscious of and I just needed to move. I completed the practice. My legs didn't want to lift, but I made them go. Every time I felt I was about to reach my limit, I pushed harder. Mind over matter. If I didn't land a movement on beat or my balance was off on one side, I fought the urge to go back and repeat. I tell my yoga classes that our bodies are different every time we get on our mats. I took this advice, working on meeting myself there. Except was I?
but it didn't burn off the fog in my brain (another symptom I have grown accustomed to with Hashimoto's). My muscles ached more and I couldn't initiate movements without wincing and stiffness. Normal aging? I had been told. I looked forward to bedtime. I was glad to know I had worked hard. If you follow me on social media, I've recently posted about being injured and having to come to terms with changing my practice from high intensity intervals mixed with yoga to a more "traditional" vinyasa practice that is little to no impact. My injury was with my SI joint and piriformis, but has been nagging as many muscles around them began to spasm to compensate for moving through the pain without pause. I don't know if I'll be able to return to the strenuous schedule of training I kept before, or if I will desire it. With functional strength movement, pelvic floor and core training, and bodyweight movements, I am adding the slower is stronger approach to my practice. Floating and flying. What I am doing now is equally as challenging, but in a different and more grounded way. I've learned a lot since the original injury this past August about the ungrounded and unconscious patterns that brought me to injury. About a month ago, I realized that those panic attacks I had started having before my sacred practice was my body's way of resisting the abuse I was inflicting upon it. I have been angry at my body. I sometimes still am. Self love is not known to me. As glorious, cherished, and sacred as my yoga practice is, I had begun to use it as a way to work against my body instead of with it. I was a bully. A dictator. I had allowed self loathing to masquerade as self care. I gave in to fears that I conjured to sidestep the real work that I needed to be doing which was embodiment and learning to love myself. I had begun to fear gaining weight because I had developed an association between that and my thyroid hormones being sup par. I was angry that I can't sleep at night without pain, so I sleep propped on a loveseat where my cats and street lights keep me awake. I was/am scared that one day I'll wake up and this body that I currently have... this strong and useful body... will be gone and I'll once again feel like I inhabit an alien body that looks nothing like the me inside of it. I've worked hard to bring my body to represent the temple in its physical expression. Always more work to do. I have vowed to be as healthy as I can. This, I often feel is akin to holding water in cupped hands. In this fear, I held myself to standards that were not sustainable. Rest has become lazy and unproductive. I used the fact that I had a lower income to criticize myself for all the things I've failed to accomplish because of this mission I've had to heal myself and help anyone who asks. I let fear of rejection keep me small. The unknown controlled by my experiences of lack. I hated chronic illness. I hated my self sabotage. I am ashamed. I am embarrassed. As long as I could "succeed" at reaching my yoga goals, I could feel ok about something. There was no compassion in this scenario - only loathing. I have trained myself to override intuition and bodily cues in favor of a prescribed plan that I didn't develop for myself, but adopted from another's idea of fitness and health. A rigid formula, an overly analyzed schematic. I took literally the instructor's cues to "push, push," "dig deep," and "keep up." I had become a slave to the idea that I cannot trust myself or my body. That where I am is not enough. In ignoring my body's signals and in my own self disgust, I have gained another opportunity to learn. I'm not a quitter when I am passionate. I want to break these harmful cycles/patterns. I want true healing, or at least contentment rather than an identity as someone on the healing path. I am being diligent to opening my eyes to the shadow side of me, and to use it to transform to truth. To acknowledge that I created this scenario for myself in order that I remove my own blinders. My basketball coach always said, "You have to make Hansel mad to get her to play ball." Do I step forward in freedom? I am stepping back to yoga. 
It's a marked and steady decline from my youth. It would take me an entire essay to explain to outsiders how living here is so unlike the urban American experience that it is as if you're from an entirely different country. Cultural norms, stereotypes, and etiquette are difficult to translate. It's a place that the developed world over still finds it politically correct to publicly and openly insult without most people thinking less of you for doing so. I've experienced it often firsthand, even from people I thought respected me. It may be worse from within our own state where whole swaths say, "We're not THAT Kentucky," when referring to the eastern part of the state. This place, more so the landscape, is my home. It is the substance of my blood. It's a place you should experience with a guide. Not just any guide. Not a romanticized reframing narrative of how its quaint, enduring beauty has been falsely portrayed. Not the resiliency narrative of a people perpetually oppressed and misunderstood as if they were the butt crack of society. The scapegoats. While both hold merit and are important pieces of the story, they are glorifying oversimplifications. It's far more complicated and nuanced. In not taking the time to convey or discern the big picture, many efforts of revival here shoot off their own toes, spin wheels, and self sabotage.
As much as this place is a part of me and what I want to keep in my life, there is a significant aspect of me that feels stifled, put down, and silenced. Working on my own groundedness, I have realized that the place I call home has never fit outside of a few mossy rocks and rolling mountain streams. That part of me wants to go. I imagine some sort of balance where my permanent dwelling is here or another part of Appalachia and I travel for my work. I have both worlds in that scenario. I have my landscape. The microcosm that created my body and foundations, while at the same time finding a wider interpersonal community where I can contribute through sharing embodiment workshops, yoga, and my writing. I can share with people who are interested in my perspective and experience, while I learn from them and their offerings. I have some beautiful opportunities to share some aspects of who I am here. Those chances keep me from feeling devastated. Yet, overall, I often feel a waste. I feel as if I am an odd peg with a chipped corner and one side swollen from getting wet. I belong to the set, but I don't fit well in the hole. The only time I don't feel awkward here is when I am teaching a yoga class. As soon as I end with "Sat Nam," the awkwardness floods back in. I have stopped being in public here aside from errands, school events for my children, teaching yoga, and wherever I can escape into the woods. There are ghosts here to dodge. Eyes that have shared with you behind a screen like a confessional, but won't look at you in the grocery store. Ducking behind displays on aisle end-caps to avoid small talk that is only cordial. Empty store fronts of inaccessible, unsustainable opportunity. A community you love so much it breaks your heart, but has only so many tiny spaces where you can squeeze in for a moment if you can behave not pushing too many wrong buttons. I've pushed those buttons, and like a mouse in a scientific experiment, received the electric jolt to associate with the behavior. I use the word "afraid" a lot. I'm adverse to small town drama because it is no longer worth the consequences. I'm happy to risk when my heart is passionately led. Other than my personal work in my little room and teaching yoga privately and at my local library, I haven't felt passion in a very long time. I have not felt the space for it. I have not had what I need to add fuel to what burns in me. The burning turns to sadness unexpressed and dies there uncomfortable to breathe.
I don't know my answer. I want to trust that the opportunity comes where I find that balanced place I mentioned before to feed my soul. I know that it is becoming harder for me to accept as when I visit away from here, even conversation in the checkout lines feels so much warmer and genuine. There are more spaces for me than I have the ability to fill. Here, I find myself more insular and reclusive than is healthy for me, and I don't have much impetus to change that in the current configuration of home.
Maybe... just maybe... I haven't been home yet. It’s the things we spend our lives pushing into the periphery as far as we can push (as if we have no peripheral vision) that are ultimately the things we have to face head on to be truly free. Life doesn’t leave anyone without keys no matter how complicated the locks. Experience is the way we learn. It’s the impetus for change. It’s the marker on the tree that lets us know we’ve been on this path before, and asks us if we want to go there again. Bringing these experiences into focus, is the only way to transform them into the keys we need to unlock the parts of our truth that will allow us full and fulfilled expression that is uniquely our own. The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University states in a report titled “The Foundations of Lifelong Health Are Built in Early Childhood”: “Experiences are built into our bodies and significant adversity early in life can produce biological “memories” that lead to lifelong impairments in both physical and mental health.” This truth we cannot change. We can, however, decide how these “biological memories” affect our lives. 1. The way we experience the present (and through our choices made in the present – the future), is directly influenced by imprints left in our brain by past events. A simple Google search on the topic of the developing brain will show you that much of the way we live our lives is written into our being by our early childhood experiences. We come into an understanding of the way the world works in that manner. Add too that the trials and triumphs of adolescence and the lessons of the earlier experiences are either amended or reinforced. Even before we were born, as shown by the field of epigenetics, our very DNA has been written with genetic predispositions for certain physical and mental behaviors based upon these same types of experiences had by our ancestors. Yes, the physical and emotional abuse your grandmother experienced before becoming pregnant with your mother could be the cause of your natural propensity toward anxiety as much as the constant bullying by your classmates in school makes you second guess your relevance in your career and creative pursuits.  The author at age 5. 2. These imprints create our body’s experience of homeostasis and what we don’t unpack, explore, and grow to understand will be destined to be relived as we attempt to create stability and balance in our lives. Imagine yourself an infant. You give your mother subtle cues that you’re hungry. You squirm, wrinkle your nose, and wave your arms, kicking your chubby legs. If your mother is close by, she instinctively notices these cues and offers you her breast or a bottle. But, if she’s busy in the other room, and the subtle cues go unnoticed, you resort to crying. In a situation of neglect, you may cry until you are physically wiped out and become quiet, yet still hungry. You grow despondent. Each time any of these scenarios play out, your baby brain takes note of the result of your efforts so that you can more effectively communicate your needs in the future. If the neglect situation continues, you will eventually stop providing any cues and become what the medical community blanketly terms “failure to thrive”. This type of trial and error learning is the basic blueprint of how our bodies over eons of time created in us survival mechanisms that allow us to adjust and adapt to some of the harshest situations. Whether we like it or not, these patterns become our body’s calibration of normal and we’ll seek out and attract experiences and situations that give us the sensations of normalcy. Yes, that emotionally abusive stepmother is still cutting you down with her words as you look for everyone you meet to manipulate your emotions for their gain, and you find those who will so you can react. It’s homeostasis rather than stepping out in a complete unknown territory.  (c) J. Arvid Anderson 2018 3. Our past contains our earliest and most basic perception of the world. Are you a natural pessimist or an optimist? Our past experiences (and, yes, our genetic predisposition) set us up to believe that the world is either for or against us. Logically, we know that the entire collective world cannot be designed to work against us. Everyone has experiences that can be labeled both good and bad. Sometimes there’s a predominance of one type over the other, but every day we can experience things that can be placed under either of these labels. However, certain types of events experienced in our past create patterns of response in us that can lend themselves to certain behaviors that really mess with the way we experience the world. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affect our brain development and directly impact both mental and physical health. This in turn influences our social-emotional wellbeing, creating an experience of life that feels almost adversarial. Common ACEs include: bullying, death of a loved one, accidents, chaotic home life, sexual abuse, poverty, illnesses, emotional/physical abuse, separation from a primary caregiver, parental incarceration, and more. Unfortunately, many of these experiences are not as rare as we’d like to think. Our ability to “look on the bright side” is hindered. 4. Our ability to define our own truth is correlated with our ability to transform our narrative of the past. When the Pharisees asked Jesus when they’d see the Kingdom of God, Jesus answered: “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo there! For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.” So many depictions of heaven seem kind of cheesy to me. It’s because heaven is a very individualized state of being. You are Divine and that Higher Kingdom is one you must build for yourself. Only you know what’s best for you. First, you must become intimate with how and where it all went wrong. We cannot change the past. The past is not now. There is no need to fear it, or try to fix it. Sure, it might bring up some uncomfortable, even sickening vibes. How can we release the charge of those vibes without being willing to face them head on? What if you could rewrite your story? Not erasing painful things, but finding your personal truth among the memories? 5. A house is only as sturdy as it’s foundation. In working with the imbalances life has created and, honestly, will continue to create in our basic framework (housed energetically in our bodies in our lower triangle of chakras - focused energy centers in our subtle body: 1-2-3), we shore up our foundation. Our root chakra is associated with our feelings of belonging in a body and on this earth, sense of place, tribe, and/or family. The sacral chakra takes it a step further into interpersonal relationships with friends, kin, and lovers. It’s our beginnings of self-expression and creativity. Then, our solar plexus brings us to the “I”. We become individuals based on the support we found or did not find when coming into being through our first two chakras. Blocks and imbalances anywhere in the lower triangle comes into our manifestation of reality impacting our presentation and effectiveness in life and our spirituality/wellbeing. So, just as this filthy, dark past created our experience of the present, dealing with its creation in the now, acknowledging what it left within us, and rewriting the story of what we will allow it to manifest in our future are the keys to becoming free of it. Need to Dig Through the Dusty Corners Causing Your Dark Night of the Soul? Meet A Shadow Guide9/14/2018
I cannot positively think away my trauma, the events that make me lie awake at night with guilt… the inner complaints that threaten to make me a whiner. No. I can only make the decision to put it to work for or against my well-being. I decide the narrative it creates in my life. It’s still there in all its glory, but I am the one in charge of the story. So, when I sit down on my yoga mat, write/journal, bring out my oracle cards, conduct a ritual, or assess my chakras, I’m guiding myself through those dark spaces that if left unconscious will direct my life with their own agenda every damn day. Utter chaos. No amount of affirmation, positive meme scrolling, gratitude, or loving your neighbor will process the energy of these places. It’s hard to love the neighbor who sexually abused you, the school mates who relentlessly called you names, or yourself after acting in unconscious and hurtful ways, and to be grateful for the lesson when it keeps interrupting your ability to focus on life now. When it reaches out to you through expressions like night terrors, PTSD, anxiety, social phobias, and more, you can try to forgive and forget all you want. Those dark places will keep surprising you by coming back up. These events literally wired your brain. It is through loving and accepting all of yourself that you can choose the gift that your darkness brings. Sometimes, darkness is so scary or alien an idea that we’re confused as to how to go there without getting lost in the despair. That’s when we may need a guide. Someone who has been there before with themselves and others. They aren’t a therapist, or a psychiatrist. They are a peer, and can share tools to help light the way and dig through the rock to the coal seam. That’s the work I do with clients. The realest of real. If you’ve ever been totally put off by the “happy hippie” aesthetic, the under explained law of positivity, or even counting your blessings, it could be time to face your shadow. If you don’t want to go alone, find someone who’s gone before to guide you there. Can you trust anyone who has never gone on the shaded path, but instead chose to “change their mindset” when the shit hits the fan? How will they react to heavy emotion and events? Where did their dark side go? All this time, I had been avoiding my comfort in the shadows because I didn’t want to be constantly explaining myself to the #blessed crowd. I made myself palatable as often as I could, and reigned myself in when I wanted to take a conversation into the realm of what is seen as negative talk only because it makes people feel uncomfortable with me and their selves. I didn’t want to be the person people avoid because she’s always talking about the bits that they want to push back into the dusty corners. Yet, part of facing my own truth is to accept that life has wired me for this work, people need a hand to hold, and I am rather content to offer mine. It doesn’t look like rainbows, pumpkin spice lattes, and tropical paradise, but it is damn beautiful all the same. Meet Kelli Hansel – The Shadow Guide.  “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Jesuit Priest, philosopher, and paleontologist)  Image courtesy of spacedrone808 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Our culture is all about changing, subduing, or avoiding our physical bodies. Extreme diets, pharmaceuticals, plastic surgery, consumer culture, social media, obsessions, and even our spiritual practices contribute. What would happen though if we focused on radically being in our body instead of changing, subduing, or avoiding them? What would it mean to live the language of our body? There are signs all over the place that a great many people aren’t truly inhabiting this human form we’ve been given. Unconscious behavior runs rampant. The abuse of food, drugs, alcohol, sex, and one another both emotionally and physically are just some of the ways this is true. It’s true on the level of faith too. In spiritual communities all over the globe, there’s a lot of encouragement to “transcend the body,” as it is imagined the Buddha and Jesus Christ did, either through meditation, other spiritual practices, or self-sacrifice. Escapism is not the answer to the human struggle. It is the cause. We find ourselves in the midst of struggle and instead of addressing it on the tangible, human level we choose to escape. At different times of our lives we all are guilty of trying to experience something outside of our human form in various degrees. Sometimes, this trying is a conscious effort. Other times, it is completely unconscious. It isn’t always a bad thing. Everyone needs a vacation from time to time. However, considering death is the only real way to escape the human form, if we don’t allow ourselves to consciously inhabit our bodies we are spending our entire lives avoiding living.
Whether we’re experiencing this active escapism as a result of mental, emotional, or physical trauma doesn’t matter. What matters is that we make ourselves conscious to it so that we can address it. Are you really letting yourself be in your body? Are you opening yourself up to a fully impactful human experience? Here’s some signs you might be in avoidance mode. 1. You don’t recognize yourself when you look in the mirror. Every time you look in the mirror you feel like shit. Even when you try to be positive about your physical appearance, you find yourself smoothing wrinkles in your shirt over your midsection. So, you’ve started avoiding mirrors. Now, if you happen to catch a glimpse of yourself you’re shocked that what you see is you. It doesn’t look like you. It doesn’t look like what you imagine when you’re feeling good about who you are and what you’re doing in life. Our reflection in the looking glass and our reaction to it is a good gauge for whether or not we’re allowing our body to be our home. Feeling alienated by your own body is not conducive to experiencing your personal power, focus, and will – your magick. We gotta own these bodies. Try some self-care to learn to connect with your body on a deeper level. Ask your body some simple questions and trust the answers that your gut gives you:
2. You overthink everything. You find it hard to trust your gut. What is intuition anyway? Isn’t part of being human our ability to approach things through logic, problem solving, and complex forms of expression? What if that gut feeling is wrong? Part of becoming disconnected from the body is that we lose the trust of the feedback it gives us. We unlearn the language it uses to speak to us. As babies and young children, we are very good at communicating with our bodies. Our bodies are how we learn to get around in the world and to obtain all that we need for survival. Add to those basic instincts the ability to reason and discern, and we’re pure force! Our bodies communicate in the form of sensations. From emotions, to experiencing hot or cold our bodies provide us with endless data to inform our action. What if we began with this feedback, then applied logic, and then assessed whether or not that fits with what we “thought” was true at first – intuition? This is a step by step utilized Break Method, also developed by Bizzie Gold. Using our body and mind for decision making is a game changer. It can save all kinds of anxiety and time second guessing yourself.  Image courtesy of nenetus at FreeDigitalPhotos.net 3. You ignore physical sensation or overindulge in sensation making activity to feel alive. You’ve found yourself saying – I feel dead inside. Everything is dull, mundane… unexciting. Even down to knowing when you’re hungry or not. You look up from your computer screen and it’s two hours passed lunchtime and you suddenly realize your ravenous. You couldn’t cry at your grandmother’s funeral even though you were very close. During sex, you find yourself checking out and making to-do lists for the next day, or debating whether or not the giants mentioned in the Old Testament bible were actually aliens. Orgasm is overrated. In this case, you’ve disconnected so completely from your body, if you don’t recover the connection, it will be a life altering event that finally provides you the impetus to get back in there... if it doesn’t kill you. Your body can make life exciting. What’s in there that you are avoiding? How might you address those things in order to find your way back in? Or, perhaps you feel alive by being the life of the party. You take all the risks. Excess is your middle name. Indulging makes you feel alive. The hangover after is what feels like death. Moderation feels too boring. Day to day living is not enough to make you feel alive, and it’s only by taking your body to extremes that you get enough sensation to feel present in life. Otherwise, there’s a numbness to it all. A feeling of waiting that is nearly unbearable. You too are disconnected from the body. Even in exploring the limits of the body you are disconnected and ignoring it. There’s not a balance. It is not sustainable. Therefore, you aren’t getting the totality of experience. You are not present for life, but constantly trying to alter it. How can you impact something for the positive if you aren’t aware of all that it currently is? What too are you avoiding? How might you address those things in order to find your way back in?
5. Your spiritual practice focuses on transcending the body. Has escapism become a dogma for you under a spiritual guise? Flesh as weakness. Every major religion and most traditional spiritual practices have some form of this thought when taken out of context or to the extreme. Is all your chakra work in the upper triangle? Is your biggest struggle in meditation to ignore the physical sensations in your body? Do you spend hours praying your way out of struggles? Are you honing astral projection, but ignoring the stomach pains after you eat? The truth is, looking at the chakra system and other psychological schools of thought, that most of our inner work should be around our connection to home/tribe, interpersonal relationships, and our expression of ourselves as an individual. The lower triangle of chakras, if you are familiar with that system. The things that illustrate our human experience. Without roots a tree cannot reach the heavens. Without the ability to ground into our bodies, how do we even know what we are transcending? Maybe the lesson is to – be here now.  (c) Tessa Colley @colleyportraitandart on Instagram
The same three episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations played repeatedly at least three times that night. One, he was somewhere in Spain eating in a local's home. I thought of how Mimi always was the one cooking for us when we all lived together. How would Bourdain feel about her food? I had been watching Anthony Bourdain for years. I was relieved that at least those three episodes was something of a distraction as opposed to infomercials and other random television bullshit that plays in the wee hours of the morning. Through Bourdain, I saw parts of the world that this working class mountain girl will never get to see with her own eyes. I would watch him have experiences as I would want to have them. Ask the questions I was curious about. See the parts of life that aren't just for show. His jokes felt like they were coming from a friend who got my brand of humor. Watching him felt real. There was empathy in his eyes. A knowing from somewhere deep. I lost my Mimi not long after that night. She had played the biggest role in raising the woman I am today. Having watched her suffer, I stopped fearing death. When I understood that miraculous healing is not what we are owed and that this life is but a blip in the whole scheme of things, I realized that death means freedom. It's real freedom. And, that when she passed on, she would no longer hurt, suffer, be cold, feel bodily pain, worry, fear, or anything like that. She'd be transmuted. I experienced the death of my grandfather, aunt, and uncle during that same period of time. And, each time, while I was sad and wished they didn't have to go, I started feeling relieved for them. They each had to suffer so much before death. Sure, you may think it morbid. Heartless even. But, freedom is boundlessness. I only want freedom and boundless nature for my loved ones. It was within this time frame that I began to not want to exist. I wanted that boundlessness too. I was done having to be at the doctor all the time, having entire days lost to physical pain and listlessness. Done wondering if I was a good enough mother. Done trying to juggle finances and being poor despite busting tail. Done waiting to live because everything was consumed by timelines and priorities I didn't create. There was nothing to make me want to stay aside from the pain that it would cause my daughters to know that I couldn't stay for them. That was the only thing that kept me living. You cannot judge someone for feeling this way. Sure, you can say, look at all they have going for them. Look at the life they have that I wish I had. You can call them ungrateful, negative, thoughtless, selfish... but, unless you can understand the loss of emotional attachment to living coupled with a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion associated with going about the day in and out... in and out, then you cannot know how not wanting to exist feels. You cannot judge what you cannot comprehend. It isn't that a person does not value or see their blessed life. It isn't that they are negative or have stopped seeing beauty. And, other than putting a higher priority on their own suffering than that of their loved ones, you can't even say it is selfish. We make other similar life choices all the time. Accepting or declining medical care, smoking cigarettes, walking a tightrope, doing drugs, eating crappy food, driving the car too fast, climbing Mt. Everest... things that we deem worth the risk despite the pain it might cause to us or others in the future. In a way, that's actually living. The thing to realize is that the people who decide they don't want to exist are too exhausted to keep trying. They made the pros and cons list. They did the risk vs. benefit analysis maybe 1,000 times. And, in the moment they end it, the finality of not existing felt like freedom. Boundlessness. All else would go on. Life, for all of us is a series of struggles as much as it is blessings. We cannot save our loved ones from that experience because they are alive. I understand how "out there" this sounds. Unless you've felt it, it's a hard thing to intellectually grasp. We are born with the instinct to survive. A newborn baby has the ability to wiggle, smell, root, and find it's mother's breast with no help when placed on her abdomen. I watched my grandmother fight for her life even after she knew it was over. We fear the unknown, naturally. Until, through experiences and chemical configurations in the brain, loneliness, and lethargy from whatever cause, the unknown becomes more appealing than the experience we are having. Suicide is NOT normal. It is NOT an answer. It's an avoidance of the problem all together. What we have to do though is make "suicide" a word we use. We need to ask our friends about it in conversation. We need to check on the friend that seems so very strong and courageous as often as the one who is having obvious struggles. That doesn't mean a text (though that is good), it also means visits. It means getting up in their business even if it gets on their nerves. It means meeting them where they are - even when they decline invitations, finding something that they can say yes to and doing that. It's about really seeing a person. Not just a social media account. It's about eye to eye conversations. It's about belly laughs. It's talking about the tough stuff. "As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt." ~Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown In a culture that puts so much value on "manifesting" and "postivity," we cannot neglect the experiences that allow us to understand what a "happy life" means. We cannot stop giving space to our pain and hurt. We cannot underappreciate sadness. Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. ~Susan David Stop avoiding your the topic of your friend's suffering. Stop ignoring that funny look in their eyes that you kind of wanted to ask about, but didn't want to intrude or make things uncomfortable. Be willing to get uncomfortable dammit! It won't KILL you! This past week, despite all the great things in my life, the feelings of not wanting to exist would well up from time to time. It happens when I haven't had a break and get really tired. Now, that I understand those feelings, I think I will always face them when things are especially tiring, hard, or the right combination of this or that brings them up. I have attempted suicide twice in my younger years, before I truly grasped what it was I wanted to do in attempting such a thing. Now, being a mother will keep me from attempting, because I know that I don't want to be a source of any suffering for my girls. Yoga will give me reprieve. I will be open about the thoughts and tell people that if I quit talking about it, that's when they need to pay attention most. Being unmedicated now, I know I must diligently use my new coping tools. I will teach yoga, and I will give myself and my gifts as a resource to humanity. Anyone who wants to sit with me, I will, with honor, listen and I will share if you want to know. Don't discredit me or the things I share with you because I have these feelings. Don't label me negative. Yet, I will still be ok with the thought of not waking up. I have lost my attachment to living even in all its beauty and glory. Time is only now and a long, happy life is never a guarantee. No reason to be attached. Then, today, while wishing I had more energy to face my day, I saw that Anthony Bourdain had made the choice to end his time here on earth. I cried. I've cried multiple times. I feel like I have lost a good friend. I've openly talked about him as my favorite of favorites. His work opened the world up to me. I'm devastated especially for his daughter, whom it was obvious he loved dearly. I hope she has a good network surrounding her. I hope Anthony is free. Boundless. He, if any of us, knew the beauty this world offers as well as the bad, and understood it twice as good.   |
AuthorKelli Hansel Haywood is the mother of three daughters living in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. She is a writer, weightlifter, yoga and movement instructor, chakra reader, and Reiki practitioner. Categories
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