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Day 14 – Expand Meditation We decided that last Oc

Day 14 - Expand Meditation
We decided that last October I would record meditations. I was so excited to use my bluetooth earphones, as there would be no wire and I’d have a bit more freedom to be in the moment. Annnnd after we shot this class we realized you can’t link an external mic into the video app.
🤦🏻‍♀️
I studied film in university and almost every time I was editing video - something would happen to the sound. The lab technicians used to joke that my energy was affecting the video or computers.
The “sound” thing still happens to me today — for those of you who have been taking the live classes, my sound has cut out a few times.
🤷🏻‍♀️
I love this meditation. It’s cool to start with the awareness at the heart and then expand to the room you’re in, then the house, neighborhood and city. It makes me feel I’m watching/creating my own movie.
What I love about film is that you can break reality rules — you can be inside in one shot and outside in the next. Situations that couldn’t happen in “real” life can be created in film.
That’s also one of the cool things about our imaginations, we can create anything. During some meditation practices, I just watch my thoughts as if they were movie clips or trailers. It’s fascinating how many different places my mind can go in the span of a few minutes. Whoa.
🌀
Lastly, the part of our minds where our imagination lives is also the place where we cultivate empathy - thank you Steph for the reminder!
So visualization helps us develop more empathy - which helps us connect to those around us.
So cool!
🪶
This morning as I sat and did this practice, I imagined I was a bird flying over our neighborhood. And as the meditation asked us to come back to ourselves, I felt lighter from the expansion of my mind outwards.

Day 13 – Space Through Strength 🧩 I am very fle

Day 13 - Space Through Strength
🧩
I am very flexible.
I was born very flexible.
I am very good at “stretching”.
For a long time I enjoyed being very good at yoga asana (poses). Until one day I hurt all over. I went to my friend @theangrybuddha, who is a PT and asked why do I get so many injuries??
He said, you stretch but don’t strengthen.
Wha?? I do yoga, it makes me strong.
Oh no, yoga just has you moving in one particular way. You need to move in many ways to keep your body healthy.
💡
The band work you find in this class is inspired by the many HIT classes I’ve taken over the past 4 years.
🧩
I have never felt better in my body.
Thank you @theangrybuddha for inspiring me to incorporate strength training into my life. I also try to swim, bike and walk lots.
🧩
The moral of the story, there are many paths — keep exploring.
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What different kinds of movement are getting you excited these days??

Day 11 – Stay Low I shot this video 2 months after

Day 11 - Stay Low
I shot this video 2 months after Karmen was born. We had just rented our office and this was the first class I shot there. All I remember is how tired I was. I also remember how good I felt after the class.
Yoga works!
🤣
@alejandroarceg and I did this class tonight. Such a simple sequence to open up the muscles around the pelvis. It was puuuuurfect...and now off to bed.
🥱
Shoutout to @woodlot!
🕯🕯
Love their candles!
We’re giving away a few of their Glow bundles at the end of the challenge!
🕯🕯

Day 10 – Chill Pill 😴 I shot this about 5 years

Day 10 - Chill Pill
😴
I shot this about 5 years ago. This was the first yin-ish video I shot for the site. I was having one of those days where I didn’t feel like doing much but I did feel like being in my body. I was still knee deep in grief and was having a hard time doing much of anything.
😴
I was not into the slower moving practices at this point. I’ve always been a mover - moving because it felt good, moving so I didn’t have to stop and feel, moving because new scenery is always exciting - just moving. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to lie around in yoga - and then…
Grief slowed me the f**k down.
This is when I started to understand and appreciate restorative and yin.
Create a shape, get still and breath. For me these practices are for the rest quality - giving myself permission to just be without having to do or fix anything. Sometimes it’s to change the way energy is flowing through my body. Change the energy, change the mood, change the brain and heart waves.
😴
We did this practice just before bed last night, after watching the 10 most expensive apartments in the world. I looked around our 650 square foot apartment and couldn’t help wondering what the narrator would say about our house. I wondered who has 430 million dollars to spend on an apartment? Then I was like, oh yeah, I’m doing yoga.
😴
Sometimes the practice is just a reminder that you could be doing yoga if you paid attention.
🤦🏻‍♀️

Day 9 – Dancing Shiva I am happy even before I hav

Day 9 - Dancing Shiva
I am happy even before I have a reason.
I am filled with light even before the sky greets the sun or the moon.
Dear companions, we have been in love with the Divine for so very very long,
What can we now do but forever dance,
Forever dance in our bodies
with our breath
and each other.
~ Hafiz
I had come to today’s LIVE class with the plan to read Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s poem Prelude to Dance. BUT after the second flow, I started reciting this poem by Hafiz. It’s one of my favorites. I’ve been sharing it in classes for over a decade. I have it memorized.
I love Hafiz’s poems because they’re fun, funny, playful and reverent.
That’s how I felt today as I moved through today’s practice.
It’s crazy to be doing yoga in my living room and knowing there’s 100 people out there doing it with me.
To all those who came, it was a pleasure to dance with you.
See you next Saturday!

Day 7 – Ganesha Mantra 🐘 Mantra has been medici

Day 7 - Ganesha Mantra
🐘
Mantra has been medicine for my mind and heart for 22 years. One of my first teachers, Uma Saraswati, has the voice of an angel. She always started each class with Kirtan (call and response). Every time she sang, I could feel my heart open a little more. There were a few classes where I shed a tears of joy - listening to her.
🐘
Good art does that for me - it opens me a little more, in either my mind, body or heart.
🐘
I don’t have the voice of an angel but I do have a deep love for mantras. I didn’t offer mantra in my classes for years because I was shy of my voice. When I moved to Vancouver, I missed doing mantra as no one was really offering it in class at the time. So I put on my big girl pants and began offering it. I offered it from my heart, chanting with what I’ll call an honest voice, and found a community that loved chanting as much as I did!
🐘
Fast forward to this recording. You’re hearing my husband, my father and his partner sitting in a circle chanting our little hearts out.
🐘
I chanted this last night quietly as our baby slept and Alejandro worked. This mantra, Aum Gam Ganapataye Namaha, is one of my favorites. I love the rhythm, how deep the vibration goes into my pelvis and how uplifted I feel after it.
🐘
May the obstacles that are hindering our path be taken away so that we move forward.
🐘
There’s still time to join the challenge!
Join us for FREE. Offer ends Monday.
Click on the link in my bio.
🐘
Shout out to our partner, @supportedsoul!
🎉We’ll be giving away one of their awesome mats to a lucky winner at the end of the challenge 🎉

Day 6 – Grace You Move Me I shot this prenatal cla

Day 6 - Grace You Move Me
I shot this prenatal class in my second trimester. The second trimester is when it’s suppose to get better for many women. Not me. I had a hard time having my head below my heart without feeling waves of nausea roll through. The month I found out I was pregnant was the month we launched Practice With Clara. I was growing two babies.
👶🏻👶🏻
I am blessed with having quite a bit of energy and a strong work ethic so I’m not afraid of work - HOWEVER growing a baby inside and on the internet was taking it’s toll on me.
🤢
By the time I was able to see my acupuncturist healer friend, I was running on fumes. She recommended that I go on bed rest and NOT DO ANYTHING.
ANYTHING?
🤷🏻‍♀️
She shared that our children can be our greatest teachers and my little one was teaching me to SLOW DOWN. She scared me enough that I took the next two weeks off and just slept.
😴
And now here we are, just kidding, sort of.
I am so grateful that I had the pregnancy I had — I learned so much about myself and how different pregnancies can be baby to baby, woman to woman.
I also learned that I can’t power through everything.
🕊
Oh grace.
🕊

Day 5 – Heart Wide Open Wow, I haven’t done this

Day 5 - Heart Wide Open
Wow, I haven’t done this class in ages. I shot this class in Maui 9 months after my mother passed away. That was six years ago! I hadn’t really moved my body in a few months - I hadn’t done much of anything except watch sappy movies and cry my little heart out. I went to Maui to get some vitamin D and change the scenery. I remember the day I shot this, I was staying on that property in a watershed that had been converted into a studio apartment. That exact spot overlooks the ocean. I think a rainbow even appeared.
Kinda how I felt on the first day of this challenge, as I began this practice, I felt my body relax into the movements. I have taken “breaks” from my asana practice over the years — which I think is important — and this practice in particular gave me a sense of arriving home, yet the house had been remodeled and not in a good way. My body felt weak and heavy with grief.
Fast forward to this morning - the imagery I offered at the beginning of the practice was a blossoming flower in our own hearts. I have and seem to always think of a giant red poppy unfurling as I breathe deep move.
I love thinking of my heart as a plant, growing and evolving.

Day 4 – Tethered to the Earth When I did the VO (v

Day 4 - Tethered to the Earth
When I did the VO (voice over) for this class back in October, I had no idea I was going to talk about kites for the meditation at the beginning. A lot of my themes in the past few years are unplanned. I close my eyes and tap into where I am - tap into the bhavana (feeling) I want to cultivate for the practice - and I let spirit/intuition/goddess whisper the theme to me.
🪁
For this class, since it was created to pacify Vata (air/ether dosha in Ayurveda) - I thought of how I try to pacify Vata in my own body and mind. I have A LOT of Vata in me. Anxiety, fear of stillness, having a hard time focusing plague me when I’m stressed.
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One of my meditation teachers, Paul Ortega, speaks about how instead of trying to calm/still the thoughts - choose to focus on something else. Your thoughts can’t be stilled - if they do, you’re dead. Your mind is meant to think. His suggestion is to use mantra. Chant internally or out loud and let your mind do its thing.
My therapist agrees - she suggests taking your awareness into your body - breathe and be with sensation instead of getting caught up in the story (those are your thoughts).
🪁
So that’s how I got to tethering our awareness to our body - specifically our pelvis and legs. Get as close to the earth as possible with your awareness. Let your thoughts fly in the wind. Instead of looking up at them, just for a bit, look and touch the ground. It’ll ground the Vata to create focus, reduce stress and calm the nervous system.
🪁
Doing the class today felt perfect for me. There’s been a lot on my mind and I needed to take a mini vacation from thinking about all the things. The practice doesn’t change ALL the things but it changes how I want to approach/deal/work with them.
🪁
Thank you husband 💕for looking after Karmen so I could take a breath and go inside.

Day 3 – We are energy 💥 Sometimes my practice i

Day 3 - We are energy
💥
Sometimes my practice is focused, insightful and inspiring.
Other days, I just get a few moments of peace from the monkey mind.
And sometimes, it’s just an opportunity to observe how fast my mind moves, how quickly I want to get to the next thing, how uncomfortable I can be in stillness.
🦧
Subtle practices did not come easily to me when I first embarked on this journey. It was harder for me to be quiet. There was too much noise inside.
That hasn’t changed much, but what has changed is I am able to step back and watch the circus instead of being front and center in it. Don’t get me wrong - there are still quite a few times I run away with the circus.
🌪
I started this practice today with Alejandro and mid way through Karmen woke up and joined us.
Usually I would stop my practice and come back to it, if I remembered.
Today we had her join us -
The practice changed but was still potent.
It was a reminder that I don’t need to create a specific space/time to go inside. I can do it anytime -
Somewhere in my mind, I know this.
And reminders are important.
My center/divinity/Self is always there.
I just gotta choose to seek it.
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There’s still time to join the challenge - Free Access for all!
For all the info on how, click the link in my bio.
✨

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