Peak Perspective Yoga

06/23/2022

SUMMER SCHEDULE CHANGE ALERT:

Friends, in honor of the long summer days that now tempt us to stay out in the fields (so to speak) as long as possible each evening, I’m putting a pause on Thursday evening’s pop-up yoga class beginning in July.

This means you have TWO more June Thursdays to come and practice with me.

Tomorrow evening we will be flowing like water and finding expansion in our hips.

6:30 pm, above

I’ll see you on the mat.✨

05/27/2022

I worked as a trial attorney for 14 years.

(Don’t worry, you’ll get that full story another time.)

For most of those 14 years, I kept a post-it note on my office computer monitor that said, simply, “Show, Don’t Tell.” It lived right in my line of vision every day that I worked. Each time the glue on one post-it note gave way and let the yellow square flutter down to my desk, I rewrote the phrase on another one and replaced it immediately.

When I began this habit, the phrase meant two things to me:

* Don’t TELL a trial jury about what happened to the victim in my case, SHOW them through evidence.

* Don’t TELL anyone how competent/dedicated/effective I am at my job, let my work SHOW it.

Over time, though, I found this straightforward instruction applies in so many scenarios:

* It’s more important to live my values than to announce them.

* I can tell my people I love them, but how much more meaningful if I demonstrate it?

* Don’t get too invested in the early promises of new friendships and relationships, let trust build through action and shared experiences

* To quote The King, “A little less conversation, a little more action.”

These days, I use my tagline to succinctly describe the way I allow Mother Nature and my yoga mat to teach my cognitive brain new habits and possibilities.

I’m blessed and cursed with a brain that is wired to expect the worst, and to expect that the worst is going to happen because I’m deficient or I’m going to mess everything up. I lived years with the feeling of extreme relief every time I succeeded, rather than respect for the grace and hard work that got me there.

It takes work to rewrite internal scripts like that, and I still do the hard work of interrupting and replacing the words in my head. But that’s just the TELLING, and it’s not the whole story.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s walk-and-talk (it’s just going to be a thing) for the way we can use our yoga practice to SHOW ourselves that those old scripts aren’t so true.

05/05/2022

Class tonight, 6:30pm above Red Bean Harvest Coffee Roaster in Downtown Jasper.

I’ve had a focus on spinal extension/heart opening planned for over a week, but it turned out to be perfect timing for the energy of this moment.

It has been a week of shocking, heartbreaking, painful news for so many of us who live in this country and inhabit it in our bodies. You may not personally be feeling pain, and that’s ok, but I want to make sure to speak to those who are.

Brene Brown has said that when she feels wobbly, fearful, uncertain, she repeats these words to that remind her how she wants to move through it:

- Strong back
- Soft front
- Wild heart

What is a focus on heart opening asanas but an embodiment of this sentiment?

Is this just one way we can support ourselves, and each other, to meet this moment without collapsing in on ourselves?

Big love to you all, I’ll see you tonight on the mat.💜

04/27/2022

These words of Mary Oliver’s speak to me and my yoga practice for so many more reasons than the fact that the color scheme fits right in with my page (I will never not be obsessed with ballerina pinks, sorry not sorry).

I think of the ways I held onto caution my whole life. I think of the ways that that caution (in my case, in the form of perfection and achievement at all costs) kept me safe when I didn’t know it was possible to feel safety from within my own body.

I hear Stevie Nicks’ voice in my head:
“…but time makes you bolder, children get older, and I’m getting older, too.”

It’s true that I have become infinitely bolder, infinitely less cautious as I’ve aged and matured. Miraculously, exuberantly so. But it didn’t happen in a vacuum where time was the only variable at play.

My caution decreased in direct proportion to the increase in my experience of safety and trust and companionship with my body. My boldness grew with every ounce of value I recognized in this body as a cherished friend. A friend that is worthy of care and nourishing, not because it is a vehicle for achieving, producing, or gratifying any outside person or system, but simply because it exists.

My yoga practice is where this felt sense of worthiness has been cultivated.

My mat was the space where I first recognized this simple and miraculous fact:

Even when I do nothing, achieve nothing, produce nothing, my body breathes.

Even when I do nothing, achieve nothing, produce nothing, the earth beneath me holds my body up.

That embodied sense of safety, support, and trust is the foundation that allows me to be bold, to throw Mary Oliver’s dreaded caution to the wind in search of the truth of myself. And if I may be allowed to mix my poetic metaphors for a second…that has made all the difference.

with
・・・
🫀

Mary Oliver
“Moments”
Felicity

04/20/2022

This small town yoga community grows every week, with a room full of the most beautiful, courageous hearts and bodies.

Come and grow with us anytime.🌻

04/04/2022

It’s not all joy, all the time. It’s not supposed to be. We can’t feel the fullness of joy without a little shadow.

The beauty is that my yoga mat welcomes me just the same, no matter how I show up.

Which really teaches me that *I* can welcome myself with the same unconditional love. No matter how I show up.

By the end, all I feel is gratitude for the sun on my face and this view.

(You can join me for this view every Saturday at 9am)

04/01/2022

Spring has sprung in these North Georgia mountains!

Join me for an energizing, OUTDOOR Saturday morning yoga flow practice tomorrow on the deck of the Woodbridge Inn!

9:00am-10:45am

Please pre-register on the Woodbridge Inn page, or arrive 10 minutes early.

$20 per student

03/30/2022

Jasper locals - does your week need a little more peace, a little more YOU time?

Two opportunities to join me for a juicy yoga flow class this week:

Thursday (tomorrow!) night at 6:30pm at One South Main above Red Bean Coffee

Saturday morning at 9:00am on the deck (outside!) at the Woodbridge Inn

DM me for any questions✨

03/23/2022

Sure, my muscles get stronger when I practice yoga. When I’m on my mat regularly, I can stretch further, turn myself upside down, and do other physical activities, like running and hiking, with much more ease.

But really, it’s the non-physical benefits of yoga that have kept me coming back to my mat for the last two decades.

One of my favorite yoga teachers once said during an outdoor class in the Costa Rican jungle:

“Listen to the birds chirping, look at the flowers blooming, feel the air. We practice yoga so we can enjoy those little things in life again.”

Isn’t that more than enough?

Swipe left to see a list of benefits associated with a regular yoga practice.

If you’re in North Georgia and convinced or curious, join me for weekly classes in Jasper starting March 31st.

More Info in stories.✨

03/23/2022

03/21/2022

Welcome to Peak Perspective Yoga!

I’m Carrie, and these shots pretty much sum up the way I feel about my yoga practice.

Follow along with me for class information, authentic musings, and whole lot of joy as we grow through this thing called life.