Transitions

A time has come in my life that I need to make a transition. Transitions are often scary, exciting and calming all at the same time. The time has come for me to take a step back from owning a yoga studio and focus on family. For the past three years, I have enjoyed teaching, fallen in love with you (my students) and with yoga more than I could ever imagine, and I thank you for that. Soul Shine has been my source of peace, a refuge during the stormiest times and an injection of strength when I did not think I could take another step. The beautiful space is just the icing on the cake of the love, support and laughter I have received from the amazing souls that have come through the door. Thanks to you, I have not lost hope. I have seen more compassion and love poured out in the past three years than I ever thought possible. Kindness from nurses during the hundreds of  hospital visits, the focus and strength of hospice staff, hugs from random strangers and of course, you.  You have given me more than I could ever teach you in a yoga class. I am forever grateful.

This being said, Soul Shine Yoga and Wellness in Hoschton will have to close for now. I want to be the best mom, wife and me I can be. In order for me to be the best person I can be, it means I have to let go of something I love dearly. Yoga teaches us non-attachment. I have unattached myself from furniture, clothes, houses and really cute shoes, but this is my first real test voluntarily letting go of something I truly love for my own good. Letting go of the space in Hoschton is also for your good. I can not be the best teacher I can be if I am stressed and burning the candle at both ends.

During this transition, I am looking into alternative ways I can teach yoga. I am considering teaching private and semi-private lessons at your location next year.  Online classes and meditations are a 99% probability. Also, I am seriously considering converting my garage into a fabulous yoga and art studio, so I will be able to teach semi-private lessons with all the comforts of home. This will open us up to have a deeper experience with yoga, food, art and spirit because teaching at home will allow me to have laser sharp focus on what is really important. I will finally be able to let go of the administrative side of the business that drains me, plus will also have the availability of a kitchen for cooking classes, a big back yard for a community garden and possibly a babysitter. 

YOU are Soul Shine. The online community and at home community will continue to grow and spread like light though a cloud. 

Subscribe to the blog to stay in touch and to keep up with my next transition. 

Namaste my friends

Heather 

A better teacher

You learn more from other's examples than by their words. When you watch another's actions that has much greater impact than the words that come out of their mouth. I want you to be happy, healthy, and whole. For is to have super shiny souls we need rest.
The last year of my life has left me dried up, tired, and messy. Like my mom explained to me yesterday "this is like sucking syrup through a straw." A long, arduous process. So, for my own clarity and sanity I am taking a one week sabbatical. I do not know where I am going, I just know I need to go and rest.

Light and Shaddow

Light and Shaddow by heatherswint featuring feather hair accessories

Scoop neck tee
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Wolford nylon pantyhose
$30 - journelle.com

Christian Louboutin strappy high heels
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Alexander McQueen skull scarve
£325 - liberty.co.uk

With Love From CA feather hair accessory
$6.50 - pacsun.com

Rosie Fox flower hair accessory
£6.99 - mylabel.co.uk

Let the Sun Shine Wall Art - 20x24 - Red Multi - One Size
$59 - urbanoutfitters.com

1STDIBS.COM - FS Henemader Antiques Inc. - Pair of Custom Wrought Iron...
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Fluffy

Recently I got a lot of pictures from my mom. Most of them were older, when Hailey and I were kids. Looking through these pics, I found one and I said - out loud, mind you - "hey, in this one I don't look like a fat girl" I am 8 years old in the picture. I have always told myself, and others, that I have always struggled with my weight. Looking at these pictures of me as a kid, I came to the profound realization that I have not always struggled with my weight, I have always struggled with my body image. I have also struggled to have a healthy relationship with food.
Comfort.
Food.
If you go to the doctor, you get a milkshake.
If you did not do well in a pageant, eat salad.
I was called "fluffy" by a dance teacher around 9 years old.
I can blame my parents, dance teachers, the media, blah blah blah... for the size of my butt, but I am now 36 years old and I need to take a realistic, healthy look in the mirror - and not just at my "thunder thighs."
My weight since I have been an adult has fluctuated over 60 pounds, up and down, up and down. At my most emotionally uncontrollable, I was either at my lowest weight or my highest.
I have realized that my weight, a number on a scale, has more to do with my mindset than a diet.
I am at a higher number on the scale now and it is driving me nuts, but, am I at an insane juncture in my life? Yup. Am I eating healthy food? Yup. More green smoothies than french fries? Yup.
So, what's a girl to do? Lie around all day eating berries, drinking water and foregoing stress for an opulent life... c'est la vie?
Hardly! I don't think that is in the cards. I don't want that to be in the cards. I have shit to do! Places to go, people to see and a family to tend to.
So - the balance between your emotional state and food???....???...
Is this just the way life is? Sad = too fat or too skinny, happy = healthy weight or happy and fat??? I will let you know how it goes.
Love, honesty and eat a friggin' cookie if you want to,
Heather

Longing

I really, really miss my sister
I knew I would miss her...and I would get to see her through her daughter - which is a gift that I will never be able to comprehend - but oh God, I miss her so much that my body aches, my mind races and my nose runs.
I am not sure where her wedding rings are. During the craziness of planning for her final rest, I don't know what we decided to to with her rings. I looked in her dresser and I did not find the rings, but I did find other things in every drawer that bonded us together more. In the top drawer were her pajama pants, each pair brought up fresh memories of her lounging around the house. The Valentine's Day PJ pants that we bought at Target the last time she had a major scare were hard, but worse were the cute white ones with pink stars...I don't know why, but she did wear them a lot. The next drawer down held something special for me. The CDs from the Tibetan Freedom Concerts. Um...ouch. This is a searing pain from my gut to my throat, numbing my fingers and my toes. She saved these in a special place because that trip was special. We got to go to DC together for the first Tibetan Freedom Fest shows. We stayed in a hotel room and partied together, just the two of us... it was such a great time. I drove down the wrong way down a one way street and we survived! We took her Jeep... that is a great memory and she kept it in the bottom of her t-shirt drawer. Next I arrived at a t-shirt that took me by surprise because I have never seen it before, it was a Thundercats Tee! She LOVED the Thundercats! Thundercats HOOOOO! She would yell and run around the house with an imaginary sword. All those curls bouncing around and all that Hailey energy bounding through the house would shut everything else down. We loved watching the Thundercats with her because she loved it so much, she got so fired up that she got the whole house fired up... that is Hailey. Ha.
IS IS IS
I have a hard time with WAS... that WAS Hailey... she still IS to me
IS IS IS
she still IS somewhere... I just cant see it or hear it - I really wish I could, but I am not a part of that party.
There were more shirts... GA tees, Phish tees, Panic tees... she has more tees than me! dang! All of them are soft like she was. Her skin was so soft. When she left her body, her skin did not feel the same, I knew that she was not there... SHE made her outer shell soft, even when she was so rough - she was truly soft. I hope everyone can hear that, feel that, see that - she may have been crazy, rough and loud - but what she really wanted to show was that she was soft
That's her true self, sweet and soft.

Doshas and Chakras

Tonight's yoga class lead to some interesting discussions about Doshas and Chakras. One of our regular students went on an amazing trip to a spa/yoga resort and had Ayurveda treatments plus tons of Yoga. Ayurveda is the sister science of Yoga.  Ayurveda is a form of alternative medicine that puts your body, mind and spirit into a category called a Dosha. Ayurveda is an old (very old! 5000 years or so) system of natural healing that has its roots in the Vedic culture of India. Most of us are dominate in one dosha, but we have elements of all three. Deepak Chopra has a great selection of products and tons of info on Ayurveda and your dosha.

Click here for a quiz to find out what your prominant dosha is and you can find some products to help balance your doshas. 

Then we talked about chakras. Another regular student has started to meditate and keeps seeing colors, and felt a covering or protection over her head while meditating and thought that this may be a little, um, off. When you live for 30 years and never experienced a feeling like this, it can freak you out. However, getting in touch with our energetic body is totally natural and better than OK, its amazing!  Our chakras are energy centers in our bodies that correlate to major organs and our nervous system. Our fabulous ancestors pretty much figured out our nervous system before modern science, x-rays, or MRI machines. Chakras are easy to feel, you know the feeling of being "all choked up" having "butterflies in your stomach" or having "brain fog" - these all relate back to our chakras, or energy centers. In my research tonight I found a neato torpedo web site that has a chakra quiz and tips on how to balance the chakras using mudras and mantras.
Click here for a great chakra quiz - see where you are in balance and where you are out of whack.

Till next time...
Love, Light and Mantras

Donna...the Transformational Life Coach - and what the heck is reunion energy healing anyway?

Hola!
Here I go again, pouring my heart out on the computer screen.

I have had 3 energy healing sessions with Donna and its always amazing, right on the money and very peaceful. If you are wondering what this is all about here is a summary of my last session with Donna using reunion energy healing.

My issue: a permanent lump in my throat, it has been there for years and it drives me nuts, its stuck qi (or energy) and I want it OUT

Here is what Donna discovered through the healing... the stuff in italics is my 2 cents. 

• Dimension: where my issue is located is in my 3rd Chakra, the throat and that "Love as a presence, your trust in the Divine is a supporting radiance in every situation" - basically I am not trusting God to get me through all of this crap I am going through.
• This is "affecting my Charisma as an unwitting loss of gratitude and joy, this loss of joy has been graying your charismatic presence in the world." - Ugh...grey charisma, that is not pretty, loss of joy and gratitude...sounds about right even though I am fighting to hang on to the light.
• Kundalini: (interesting that my healing went to a yogic term...the universe knows my language) I am in a boxed in place that has confused my ability to nourish, fulfill and feed myself. TRUE DAT! At this point in the healing Donna started to feel a boxed in feeling in her throat, which is exactly what I feel all the time. This may sound woo woo crazy, but the way I look at it is energy is energy, it can not be destroyed so as I am trying to get rid of it I transfered some of it to her. Another way of looking at it is "releasing the flies" as my massage therapist friend calls it, just like in The Green Mile when John Coffey heals somebody then coughs up flies. 
• Nourishment: I need to be supported by my inner resource (aka GOD)
• Resource: my inner strength and the urge for a grander and more potent life has been leaking away :( 
• Territory: losing faith, losing instinctive understanding...yes, that too as much as I hate to admit it, but the darkness I am in is blinding
• Implant: on my tongue (makes sense since this is manifesting in my throat), this denies me the heart energies that enable me to manifest in the material world. At this point we do some visualization exercises that help me release some of the pressure in my throat
• Reunion: A failure of heart and profound sense of struggle is trying to resolve, but its being jammed in some way.
• Complete resolution requires the courage to awaken from this implanted trance that hoods my existence. (hoods is a nice way to put it, some days I feel trapped under a house a la Wizard of Oz)
• Trance: feeling wrong, limited, sad, condemned, manipulated or distracted by others - shielded from the WONDER of LIFES INFINITE POSSIBILITIES - I can not tell you how true this is in my life. I KNOW there is more, but I feel stuck. So how the heck to I get out of this "trance" ???
• Now for the good part... Abilities & Blessing: Being in the flow, restating your true purpose and happily gliding toward their accomplishments. As your higher self, be aware that you are opening your heart to your loving and courageous artistry. So the way I get out of this trance of grey, trapped, boxed in limited thinking and doing is to rest in the Divine flow of the Universe and opening my heart to the possibilities of an amazing life.

So, is the lump in my throat gone? No. It was for about a day and then it came back. The work is up to me. I need to trust that God will get me through all of this, open my heart and get in the flow. Its time for me to get off the bank of the river of life and jump in. I am aware this is going to take time. Three years of fear, sadness and helplessness has beaten me up. Now my sister is gone and it sucks. I don't have to worry about her dying anymore, that part is over. I miss her and I just want her back. I need to have the courage to jump in the flow of life without her.  I don't want to. So this work is up to me and God will be my guide... listening to my heart and having the courage to follow it.