Welcome

Hello! My name is Valerie and I am a yoga teacher and registered massage therapist practicing in Canada.

The inspiration for this blog was the realization that my mind is not very compatible with the common social media platforms out there (believe me, I have tried), so I was looking for a way to stay connected and share information with my massage clients and yoga students and anyone who stumbles by.

Before Covid, I taught a variety of yoga classes at Empower ME Yoga here in Ottawa and worked with some amazing yoga teachers to deepen my own practice. I had just started dipping my toes into teaching those who aspired to be teachers themselves as part of the faculty for a 200 hour YTT course, running the anatomy lab and an advanced yoga anatomy workshop.

Since Covid I have been fortunate enough to continue teaching a couple of virtual classes a week, which has kept me sane and kept a sense of connection to the community of yogis of whom I have grown fond.

The teachings of yoga are so valuable to me as a massage therapist (and vice versa) and I find myself bringing more and more of the wisdom of yoga into my massage practice, from client self-care, to allowing clients to just be in stillness on the table as they come into their bodies. I do my best to integrate the whole being into each treatment; even when I am working on a specific area I am thinking about the whole.
​
This human life is a journey that unfolds differently for each of us, but what we all share is the ability to become a bit more aware of who we really are, with all our complex contradictions and our capacity for love and generosity. I don’t know if I have any answers but I am enjoying the journey. Maybe my questions and experiences will shed some light on your experience, or maybe it will just be a reminder that you are not alone and that we are all doing the best we can with what we have in this moment.