Finding self acceptance and kindness through yoga

The earliest memory of doing yoga I have was watching Ali McGraw’s yoga video and trying to copy it while sitting on a folded up quilt in my living room when I was around 12 years old. 

Since then yoga has come and gone in my life reappearing to help me when my body and mind needed it. Whether it was to strengthen my body relax my tense muscles or calm my racing mind with meditation. In the last couple years especially I cannot imagine my life without a yoga practice and meditation. 

During the pandemic (A very tense time for us all) making the switch from working in an office to working from home my yoga practice moved to my lunch hours helping to curb the stress of the day as well as finding clarity to solve problems I was having during my day. 

I’m excited to continue my journey and deepen my practice with the YCW Teacher training after starting 8 years ago! While returning to it was always something I wanted to do I needed that time to be kind to myself. To understand that I don’t have to be perfect at every aspect of yoga that I just have to do my best and accept support both mentally and physically (hurray for bolsters). 

Here’s to more knowledge, kindness and triangle pose! 
Kate K

Yoga in My Life

I’ve always loved to move and stretch with breath and it feels as though Yoga has always been a part of my life even though I didn’t always know or call it Yoga.

I was a dancer and an aerobics instructor when I took my first formal yoga class way back in the late 1980s at the Winnipeg Yoga Centre. Although I didn’t become a regular student of yoga back then, it always had a presence in my life and in my heart. Over the years I participated in meditation retreat days, pre and post partum yoga, spring Sadhanas and I dropped into yoga classes whenever I traveled to soothe and stretch my aching muscles. I’ve marked many of my milestone birthdays with the gift of a yoga class to myself. Yoga has always had a strong pull for me.

I wanted formal yoga training for many years but finding the time and space wasn’t easy as a busy mom and running my own Physiotherapy practice. Finally by the start of my 5th decade, I was able to begin my yoga education and formal study. I made it my goal to acquire teacher accreditation in order to expand my physiotherapeutic skills and follow my hearts longing to study yoga. I truly gave myself a gift and I am

deeply grateful it all aligned at the right time in my life. What started out as a mission to help physiotherapy clients with gaining therapeutic yoga teacher training clearly became therapy for me as well. Yoga teacher training led me down the path of having a strong personal practice and a deeper connection to myself with expanded knowledge and awareness that has enriched my life spiritually, physically and emotionally.

Connection to Breath, Movement and Stillness are like a natural medicine I believe in wholeheartedly. When I reflect on my life so far, yoga has carried me through some difficult times. Restorative Yoga helped ease stress for my fertility issues and grief after pregnancy loss. Meditation, breath and asana have helped me through many injuries and difficult emotional events. I can truly look back and see yoga throughout my whole life as a friend and as an anchor.

I’m proud and happy that over the last several years and during the pandemic I have acquired 600 hours of yoga teacher training. I’ve cultivated a steady home practice and I’ve applied a therapeutic yoga approach in my physio practice that enables me to share the gifts of yoga with others in a clinical setting. The Yoga centre has been integral to my learning and personal yoga path and I am deeply grateful to all my teachers who have touched my life and my heart with their knowledge and wisdom of yoga. Thank You, Thank You, Thank You.

I am grateful for yoga in my life.