What Paige has to say…
Query: In case your yoga journey have been a e book, what would the title of the primary chapter be—and why?
- Reply: “In My Day, we needed to Stroll Miles in Deep Snow to Get to Faculty” – ha! Significantly, I’ve been working towards yoga because the days when (particularly should you lived within the Midwest, which I did) there weren’t fairly studios or branded props or fancy garments. My yoga journey started in a giant, drafty ballroom at my school. All of us wore sweats and introduced blankets to make use of as mats and did a number of respiration and delicate motion with out a playlist – and I used to be hooked!
I like to rejoice my birthdays by going the other way up. This yr I made a decision to do an inversion day by day – I’ve been sticking to it since February.
Query: Your courses are filled with sound. What’s one sound that at all times brings you again to your self?
- Reply: The windchimes on my again deck – which I can hear year-round, even from inside. They remind me of what Thich Nhat Hanh teaches as a response to a meditation bell: “Hear, pay attention. This glorious sound brings me again to my true dwelling.”
Query: You’ve taught in every single place from quiet studios to prisons. What’s one second in your educating life that cracked your coronary heart large open?
- Reply: As soon as I used to be main a weekend yoga retreat that targeted on encouraging everybody to hearken to their very own our bodies and their inner compass. Whereas providing a sluggish, flowing follow the ultimate morning, I regarded round, and each single individual was transferring at a unique tempo and modifying the sequence in another way to satisfy their physique and intention, and I actually choked up. I noticed how revolutionary it felt for everybody to be respiration and supporting one another as a gaggle and on the identical time being true to themselves.
“Connection Creates Resilience” is the motto of Gentle a Path (based by our personal Sierra Hollister!). It’s the group via which I’ve been sharing yoga in prisons and jails for over a decade.
Query: What’s one Zen educating or meditation second that absolutely modified how you progress via the world?
- Reply: At a sesshin (Zen meditation retreat) early in my follow, one of many monks main the week supplied a educating that sounds so easy and but modified how I see every part – and nonetheless does each time I bear in mind to recollect it! He mentioned: “Each second could be nirvana or not, it’s as much as you.” I even wrote a poem not too long ago, incorporating his phrase as a type of mantra.
Query: What’s one thing surprising your college students have taught you these days?
- Reply: I’m continuously studying sensible classes from the folks I follow with. Can I give two solutions? The great regulars in my weekly courses are so type to one another and so welcoming to newcomers and drop-ins, introducing themselves, serving to them get settled with props, and so forth. Their real friendliness jogs my memory repeatedly that constructing neighborhood and connection is among the most necessary issues we do collectively. Additionally, I’m so impressed by the individuals within the 200-hr Educating from the Coronary heart program, who educate me time and again how significant (and in addition weak!) it may be to dive into one thing new as an grownup (if you’re already alleged to be an skilled at issues). A lot in order that I’ve invested in my first two crystal bowls and am studying to play them (with the assistance of AYC’s personal Grace Izzo) – search for sound bathing in my courses quickly!
So enjoyable to check out yoga studios in different places. Right here I’m with my daughter, Ivy, at River Move Yoga, alongside the Cannon River within the candy city of Northfield, MN, the place Ivy goes to varsity.
Query: For those who have been to advocate a single episode of your podcast, which one wouldn’t it be and why?
- Reply:
One of the crucial in style episodes is named Morning Movemement & Meditation. It’s a brief, 13-minute follow that invitations you to maneuver and breath via a easy ritual that units the tone in your day and helps you ease into it with intention. I’d love for people to test it out both via my Embodied Meditation podcast archives or on the Perception Timer meditation app, the place I’ve dozens of free practices
Query: Your Autumn Equinox retreat is arising in September. What’s the magic of this seasonal pause—and why does this specific day matter to you?
- Reply:
The Autumn Equinox marks our tip towards the quieter, extra introspective half of the yr and has a candy nostalgia about it, making it the proper time to mirror on what we’re harvesting, what we’re storing for the season forward, and what we’re able to launch. In a world that may really feel loud, fragmented, and unsure, taking time to collect with others—to pause, floor ourselves, and reconnect with pure rhythms—feels extra necessary than ever.
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