"Yoga has helped decrease my osteoarthritis pain, helped me with sleep deprivation, anxiety & fatigue. Life’s many challenges – my spouse’s combat injuries in Iraq, losing friends & family, reconciling the impact of the loss of my mother, having perceived opportunities stripped from me – has made me stronger & more resilient, thanks to the contemplative practice of yoga. In fact, it is the exhaustion & the work I was doing to decrease it that led me to create my business Yoga2Sleep
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My name is Pamela @yoga2sleep
& this is my yoga story 💚
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The momentous shift that came after I started taking yoga seriously brought me to my knees
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Close to 20 years ago I began taking yoga classes at the local community center: my sister-in-law wanted to do something together & so we went to yoga. It was not an immediate falling in love or instant #yogasavedmylife kind of thing in actual fact. It was a subtle shift, & an allowing for re-aligning of my soul’s purpose. I knew that I felt better after class, and I knew that I wanted more – taking a 200 hour & 500 hour yoga teacher training, subsequent trauma-informed, veterans-specific, and therapeutic yoga training, & finally completing a Master’s in Yoga Therapy last year is the continual path to my ever-evolving growth & aligned “personal legend.”
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In the beginning of this journey, I had no idea I would become a yoga teacher or a yoga therapist. In fact, the original plan was to take YTT to inform my practice as an immersive experience. Little did I know that the yoga would decrease my OA pain, tap into my Self as a wounded warrior caregiver, & create synchronicities to work with veterans, military service members, and their families
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Yoga means so much to me. It means that I can be myself. It means that I can be stuck in traffic without getting my panties twisted. It means I can relate to family and friends better. It means I can lose something without losing anything. It means the Universe is much closer and more accessible to me. It means my spirit is lighter and open. It means my heart is expansive. It means I understand fear and anger better. It means I do my work. It means compassion 24/7 🙏
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