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...

 Another school year has begun here in Austin. Whether you are tethered to the schedule of a young person, you work in the school system, or neither of these things, you can likely feel the electricity in the air as students, teachers, staff, and administrators head back into the classroom for a fresh start and a new beginning. 

Right now in Online Yoga Membership, we are doing a series called “In One Word.” In this series, the whole supporting theme is one word. Often I use stories, affirmations, quotes, or text as the inspiration for our heart theme, but this is much more concise. It’s one word. How does each word reveal itself through repetition? How does it feel to embody that word? What are the layers of the word as we delve deeper into it through breath, movement, contemplation, and sound? 

The first word was ONE. 

The second word was GRACE.

Tuesday’s word was BEGIN.

It has been a really profound experience to distill full ideas and inspiration down to one word. And...

It’s finally arrived! The time to take our first born off to college. Needless to say, this has put quite a load on this week’s to-do list. But I didn’t want this week to go by without giving you a yoga to-do list. Not all tasks need to be drudgery!

First,

✅ This week’s podcast episode is the culmination of our “season of delight” on Jess on the Mountain, and the message is essential to your health and wellness. In it, I explore how an open and blooming sahasrara, the crown chakra, involves being part of a community, how as yoga therapists we’re trained to make sure our clients are connected to one, and why it makes such a difference to our overall well being, and a life that is healthy and delightful.

“Sahasrara is where we open to that deep sense of connection to a greater power–whether that’s god, humanity, consciousness, whatever. I’m saying that in many ways, it’s the combination of those present that creates that greater power. And when the spark of one divine indwelling meets...