Every Worthwhile Journey Begins with an Open Mind

As adults, sometimes we think we know everything. Most of the time we know we don’t but are not necessarily open to learning an alternative. New can be scary. It can rock the foundation of what we thought we knew. There might be a fear of looking stupid or realizing that we don’t know everything we “should.”

When you open your mind to a different point of view, that’s when change happens and your new journey begins.

I used to hate change. I was what I affectionately called a “rut rat.” I liked things as they were, my routines, my ways of doing things, they worked for me. Until they didn’t. Shutting myself down to change kept me small and stuck. Opening myself up to change widened my world view and actually created more ease in my body. It also opened me up to the possibilities of what could be. Things beyond what I had imagined in my small way of thinking.

Fixed vs Growth Mindset

When my kids were in elementary school, they learned a concept called Fixed vs Growth Mindset. Fixed mindset is when you are unwilling to change your mind or see a different point of view. Growth Mindset is where you are open to learning new information that may affect how you exist and operate in the world.

Yoga, both on and off the mat, promotes a growth mindset. It encourages you to notice a different point of view from what you think is happening. We all have history that colors how we see things. You might be optimistic or pessimistic based on your history. You might have certain ideas of how things are based on how they were when you were a child. These stories may or may not be true, but you hold them as true based on what you and your nervous system learned along the way.

Yoga teaches you to be open to other points of view. Maybe that person isn’t a snob and ignoring you, but is incredibly shy and struggles to speak up. What if you aren’t stupid but simply learn differently? Perhaps you don’t need to be perfect because you are loveable just as you are.

When you apply this mindset to your life, you will see things differently. You might take chances that you wouldn’t otherwise that lead to improvements in your well being. This mindset started me on my journey of writing.

Writing about yoga

I felt that I had something to say that might help people. It began with my acupuncture blog in 2010. I felt like I had a knack for explaining different Chinese medical theories in ways that made sense to the Western mind.

When I started writing about yoga, it was an opportunity to go deeper with certain concepts than I can in a hour class. My yoga students heard my words in class, but class time is limited. There is only so much I can say during that time and they are there for their physical practice. Writing like this gives me the opportunity to explore concepts in a deeper, thoughtful way to hopefully impact how you feel on the mat.

In December 2024 I published my first book, Living Yoga: One Yoga Teacher’s Journey to Surrender. Through self-reflection, humor, and stories about my life, I explore the Yamas and Niyamas. These 10 principles make up the backbone of practicing yoga. Concepts such as Non-Harming, Contentment, Self-Study and more help the yoga student take their yoga practice off the mat and into their life. You learn to live your yoga practice, feeling grounded and peaceful even when not practicing Downward Facing Dog pose.

That book inspired me to write my second book, which I published in May 2025. Intentional Eating: Finding Peace and Balance with Your Relationship with Food is all about your relationship with food and yourself. How you approach eating says a lot about how you feel about yourself. Do you deserve to eat healthy foods and feel good in your skin? Are there certain foods that cause you shame because you aren’t “strong enough” to stop yourself?

The stories that we tell ourselves color everything we do or think. You might think you aren’t good enough, strong enough, disciplined enough to deserve X. What is enough? Enough for whom? When you change your stories, you change how you feel. Maybe you are enough just as you are. Maybe you do deserve X without having to fix or change anything but your mind. You just have to believe it.

Through the lens of yoga and brain science, I discuss different ways of approaching your diet so that you feel the best that you can. You’ll learn which foods tank your energy and which make you feel strong. You will see how “black and white” thinking only sends you down a shame spiral, and how being kinder to yourself will help you make better choices. Discipline and shame keep you stuck. Softness and kindness allow you room to grow, make mistakes, and learn without judgment.

The journey to control over yourself

I have been on a lifelong journey with food, and I suspect you may have as well. Food is something we all need to survive, but is also something that can become a problematic crutch. You might eat too much when you feel stressed or anxious, or you might not eat at all. Neither of these behaviors serve your health, but you may feel like you’ve tried everything to change them. Your behavior doesn’t need to change. Your mindset does.

Anyone can change their food choices, but those changes may not last. If you’ve ever been on a diet, you’ll know this is true. You stay on it for awhile, but then your willpower wanes and everything falls apart. That’s because willpower is a limited commodity. However, when you change how you speak to yourself and how you make food choices, lasting and sustainable change is possible.

I finally got control over my eating habits when I was able to feel my feelings and not judge myself. I let go of perfectionism, released myself from relationships that no longer served me, and took control over things that I could control. I accepted myself just as I am without shame. With this as a starting place, everything else happened naturally.

When you allow yourself to feel your feelings, you aren’t driven to numb yourself with food or anything else. I wasn’t trying to control things out of my control so I felt less anxious. I fed myself food that fueled my body with energy that allowed me to do everything I wanted to in a day. When I needed rest and sleep, I let myself have it.

I changed how I related to myself and my behavior changed. This is what I write about in my book Intentional Eating. I offer journal prompts for you to explore your problematic stories so that you can let them go. I offer different ways for you to think about food so that you can make different choices. I don’t tell you what to eat, as we are all different and have different needs based on genetics, history, and activity levels. I offer suggestions on how you can change your relationship with food and feel better about yourself.

Click the button below to check out my books! If you’ve already read them, I would be so grateful for a positive review to help others find them too. Thanks for reading! 💜