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.

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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 ...

I'm home now from a 10-day Pilgrimage/adventure/getaway with Nick to Chartres and Paris, France. (Gratitude and shout out to Natalie for her beautiful blog last week, Embrace Your Journey to Inner Light.) This trip had everything! It was a culmination of a year of planning and preparing, so I was a bit surprised when I arrived and wondered, "What am I doing here?"

My vision for this trip was to arrive at Chartres Cathedral where one of the world's largest, oldest, and most renowned labyrinths lies, be completely inspired and filled with joy, and knowing EXACTLY why I was there. But guess what...

I was a mess.

I was so tired. It was cold and rainy and there was construction and I couldn't walk around the space and I didn't know how to get in or where to get in and the door was weird and I don't speak French and it just looked like every other cathedral I've been in and WHAT AM I DOING HERE?

I almost felt panicked! My heart and my throat burned like they were breaking open and I just...

This is Natalie from Team Jess! I’m excited to step in as your guest writer for the newsletter this week, while Jess and Nick explore the beautiful and spiritual mysteries of Chartres in France. I can’t wait to hear how this journey inspires Jess and, in turn, how she inspires all of us.

There’s truly nothing quite like a journey to bring us back home to ourselves. Whether it takes us to faraway lands or a nearby sanctuary, every journey has the potential to ignite a spark within us. 

When we take a break from our routines and familiar surroundings, we open ourselves to fresh experiences that can shift our perspectives. Each journey, no matter how short, introduces us to new ideas and landscapes, helping us see the world (and ourselves!) in a vibrant new light. These experiences can awaken creativity and inspire us in unexpected ways.

Journeys offer us countless gifts: moments of reflection, spaces to dream, and opportunities to reconnect with our innermost selves. Movement...

I was recently interviewed on the Listen for LIFE Aphasia Podcast (Apple, Spotify) by the brilliant and caring Genevieve Richardson, because she felt like the blog post I wrote about 20 second yoga would be super helpful to her busy, caretaking audience. It was such an honor and delight to share with her and her people how little yoga it takes to feel better.

So I have another one for ya: Ujaii pranayama.

Many or most of you are probably familiar with this ocean-sounding breath. We use it during yoga practice to heat up, slow the exhale, and tone the inner body. But it can also be done as a little brain break whenever you like.

Hold on...I'm doing it now 😌

Ujaii pranayama (which means "triumphant uprising") is done by toning the back of the throat while you breathe. Usually, we do this on the exhale, although there are times toning on the inhale can be useful as well. When you need to rest your mind for a moment, take a break for peace and quiet, or just reset between activities...

The baby would not, could not, stop crying. She was a sweet little thing of only two weeks old, and her tummy just wasn't having a good flight. Neither was her poor mother, who had only had the job for two weeks.

Boy, do I remember those days...

We were on the flight home from a weekend in Iowa City, Iowa, where Havia (my high school senior) was checking out the University of Iowa. (She, and we, LOVED it, and she's already been accepted to the pre-nursing program there, so go Hawkeyes! We're in!)

Anyway, after listening to the new mom try her best to calm her baby, I just couldn't resist helping out a bit. I could tell it was gas, and I knew she couldn't. How could she? She's new at this! After introducing myself, commiserating a bit, and telling her how well she's doing with the toughest job ever, I suggested she try baby face down with some back rubs. She was grateful, and it worked...for a while. Thankfully, once baby had ramped back up to the ear-piercing kind of scream...

I'm so happy to say that the Tuesday blog is back! I know I've been posting with some irregularity, and I realized I much prefer regularity and consistency than sporadic communication and haphazard scheduling. Which actually brings me to the theme of this blog, which is yoga tools for navigating change. (You’re going to want to save this one–it’s packed with helpful info.)

The Northern Hemisphere is now in a transition to Fall, and with that comes a change of season in Ayurveda (the sister science of yoga which means "the science of life.") as well. We move into vata season, which has the qualities of cold, dry, windy, and change. This means dry skin, cold wind, and fluctuations in many aspects of life.

The fluctuations and agitations of vata can bring with it changes in digestion, sleep disruptions, and increased anxiety. But thankfully, there are things you can do to mediate these issues! For each of these areas, I'm going to offer you a yoga tool and a lifestyle suggestion to help...