Woo-hoo! it was a beautiful weekend in Austin. (If you're in a colder climate, I feel you, and I'm sending you the warmth of the Texas sun...). If you're in my neck of the woods, I hope you got out and enjoyed some sunshine! I think I got a dose of a Spring cleaning urge, because now my front yard is cleaned up, my car is washed, and my windows...well, you can see through them again. :) 

The Texas weather this weekend reminds me how close we are to enjoying the sun on our skin and the wildflowers emerging all around us. This is why we've timed our next Women's Retreat: EMERGE, for Saturday, March 1! I imagine we have a little winter weather left in our season, but we know that inevitably the season will shift and we'll be in Spring high gear. Let's joyfully move into wildflower season together! 

And speaking of emerging, how do your emotions emerge when you are in times of stress or trying to navigate change? Do you explode, implode, freeze up, overflow, or lose all sense of he...

I’m talking to friends, family, and students these days, and the theme of rapid change keeps coming up. To some it’s exciting; to others a bit terrifying. Either way, energy is shifting and nervous systems are up! Everyone responds to change differently, and in my podcast these days we’re looking into the many facets of change and some of the typical responses people have to change. Whether change is positive or negative, it can be a pretty big source of stress. 

If, during times of stress and change, you find yourself shifting into fear—worrying about money and resources or experiencing generalized anxiety about safety and security—you may be operating from the shadow energy of the first chakra. Chakra one’s main shadow is fear, which often centers on foundational aspects like money, resources, safety, and family.

So, what do we do when faced with a shadow? We turn on a light.

Just as light counters darkness, we apply the opposite of our experience to create change and...

Happy New Year!

I hope you’re off to a great start. I’m taking it slowly. The space between Thanksgiving and Christmas felt so short, I’m giving myself some room to recover! I’m starting the year with the idea of a slow transition. I’m bit by bit picking up my routine and rituals that fell to the wayside when life got so busy. If there’s anything I love more than shaking things up a bit, it’s settling back down to a normal schedule. 

This doesn’t mean it’s all going back to the way it was in 2024! There’s a lot in store this year, and I’m excited to say that it’s already started. 

You can now listen and subscribe to the next evolution in my podcasting, which is finally out now! It’s called Chakra Savvy™ with Jessica Goulding, and it feels like finally landing at home. 

As I’ve pondered the direction I want to take my teaching, I realize that what lights me up the most is Chakra Savvy, and what that can entail. It’s not just a course I created in 2020, it’s a way of liv...

I am still riding high from my retreat experience at the Wildflower Center for Return to Your Light Women's Retreat. Although we had hoped for sunshine, the cloudy day did not deter us from enjoying some dance moves, slow walks, and yoga practices.

As I was walking our dog through the neighborhood last evening and enjoying all the lights wrapping around tree trunks and dangling from branches, it occurred me even more how appropriate the poem we pondered at the retreat was so seasonally appropriate. So, of course, I want to share it with you!

Our theme was Return to Your Light, and since we were using nature as part of our experience, I turned to the poet Mary Oliver and her artistry in words and images:

May You Go Easy, To Be Filled with Light, and To Shine

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant ...

I see you.

I see you out there stringing lights and standing in lines.

I see you in traffic, slowly progressing to your next errand or appointment.

I see you shopping, wrapping, writing, cooking, calling, planning, emailing, and list making.

I see you missing your loved one this year.

I see you wondering how it will all get done.

It will.

Or it won’t.

This blog usually takes about five minutes to read. That means you have four more minutes of allotted time. Use it to breathe.

Set a timer—-really. Four minutes.

Close your eyes.

Move your attention to your heart space.

Breathe.

Let go. 

I’ll wait.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Repeat often.

With much love and holiday support,

Jessica

PS New on YouTube: Yoga to Reduce Holiday Stress

'Tis the season for time crunches and end-of-year pressures. But not for us! We have the key. The yoga key! This practice is designed to downshift your nervous system, foster presence, and help you feel more at ease duri...

It’s time to talk about it again: digestion.

Here we are in the treats, sweets, and overindulging season of the year. That’s ok! I’m all about it. And thankfully, there are some great Ayurveda (the science of life and longevity) and yoga techniques to support your gut health and get you through the season feeling good. 

Here’s the three I’m practicing this season:

☝️Walk 100 steps after you eat. 

This is an old Ayurvedic trick to help your digestion process after a meal, reducing bloating, gas, and indigestion.  It’s a helpful guideline–you don’t have to count the steps–but do take a leisurely stroll. Stroll with a soft gaze at the nature around you (if possible) and you get dopamine-boosting bonus points. 

✌️Eat probiotics every day–three if you can!

This has been a game-changer for me. Just adding sauerkraut to my morning eggs has me feeling all sparkly inside from the get-go. A few sips of kombucha at lunch and a ½ cup of plain yogurt for a midday snack, and there’s three! You...

I had a great coffee date with my new friend Dara of Soulfully Creative yesterday. (If you check it out and like what you see, be sure and get on the wait list for Emerge, because she'll be there to take us through a watercolor meditation!) We talked a lot about the energy of the atmosphere these days, and the word that kept coming up was dense. Things feel dense.

Do you feel that? Whether it's uncertainty, fear, fluster, frustration, or simply unsure of what to expect from what's to come, there's a sense of hunkering down out there. I feel it too!

But when we hunker down, we lose connection to each other and nature. When we hunker down, our energy becomes stagnant, dense, and tired. A metaphoric cloud rolls in and the lights get dim. And as like attracts like, the more dense we feel, the more dense we become.

But it doesn't have to be like this.

Believe it or not, when our system gets out of whack in one direction, the best thing you can do is increase the opposite energy. So if you ...

A strange thing has happened since my pilgrimage to Chartres Cathedral in France: the name Jess just doesn’t fit anymore. Since you likely know me as Jess, or Jess G, I thought I’d tell the origin story of that name and give a little glimpse into what’s happening now. (My mom is going to love this.)

Twenty years ago I got my first yoga teaching job at a big, beautiful studio here in Austin called Yoga Yoga. Mehtab was the beloved owner, along with his wife and a business partner, and he was the one who hired me. But before I signed the dotted line, there was one more thing, and I remember his words so clearly: 

“We already have a Jessica M on the schedule. Can you be Jess G?”

Yep! Sure! Sounds good!  And just like that, Jess G became my teaching name. And for fifteen years I taught at Yoga Yoga, my classes grew, and people came to really know me as Jess, or Jess G. My coworkers, friends, people at church and at the grocery store all called me Jess. The name spread out into ...