Badass Spirituality
Welcome to Badass Spirituality 101, where we’ll be discussing various methods of self-care and taking care of others. To practice this, we’ll need to dive deep into ourselves and discuss everything from body types to religion to Mother Nature. My daughter, Kendra, will also be a guest speaker and give you an awesome intro to yoga and how you can use it to better your life.
Okay, so I have something I call badass spirituality. What do I mean by that? Well, I say take up for yourself and advocate for yourself. If someone needs you, you then advocate for them. So it’s not being passive. Spirituality is our connection to the universe, or however you want to see it. I mean, personally, I am not an organized religion person. For me, Mother Nature is my religion. The way I phrase it to people is, how could I be so arrogant to think that I could imagine what created all of this wonder and awesomeness? So, we like to talk about that and investigate it a bit — feel free to join the conversation.
We’d like to hear your thoughts on it, but we believe yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation play into this because yoga is very old. Most people in America don’t really realize that this it’s a 5,000-year-old practice and derived from Ayurveda. We’re gonna talk more about that and the doshas and you’re going to be able to take a quiz and see what kind of body type you are, what kind of dosha you are, and then from there what should you eat, what kind of activities are great for you, etc.
Everything depends on your constitution, and on occasion I’m going to bring experts in to help teach you about things. And so for yoga, Ayurveda meditation, I’m going to send you to my daughter, Kendra. So let’s meet Kendra and so you can hear her perspective about it.
Hi, my name is Kendra Woods and I’m a yoga teacher. When a lot of us, in the US specifically, think of yoga, we think of girls in their Lululemon leggings and going to a yoga class workout on a Sunday morning. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying the physical benefits that come from yoga, my favorite thing about yoga is the fact that it is not just something you clock in and clock out of.
Yoga is a very fulfilling way of being and moving through your life. It offers you the opportunity to come home to yourself again and again and again. And we do this through a lot of different modalities and a lot of different tools and practices. We’re able to take these ancient teachings and apply them to the modern, messy materialistic world that we live in, that certainly was not the same world thousands of years ago when these beautiful offerings and teachings were created.
Yoga came to be in ancient India. It is really remarkable how they still ring true. Starting my own personal yoga practice several years ago was a pivotal moment in my life, personally. And I’ve seen this mirrored in both the lives of my own clients that I worked with and my own students, and also my own teachers and guides that I have worked with over the years.
So, taking these ancient practices and teachings and really being able to apply them to each individual on your unique journey, whatever it is, wherever you are, whoever you are, whatever you’ve lived through, whatever you aspire to be — know that these tools and practices are an amazing way to really just come back to the peace of your own inner knowing, your own inner wisdom, to tune out the noise of the external and the material, and to really see what is true for you. I really love that about yoga. I think it saves a lot of lives, and if I’m being honest, probably mine included. To be able to offer this kind of safe space backed up by these ancient teachings and practices that I have familiarized and done myself and engaged with myself and worked with myself over the past several years is really the greatest honor and my utmost pleasure.
The community that we have built around this and the support that it offers for so many of us in a world where we are so lacking in support is just really beautiful and it’s an honor for me to be a part of it. Meditation and mindfulness is a way to calm down, right? It’s a way to take high energy people and learn how to settle ourselves and let the silt settle every so often and clear. Clear our minds, if you will. And then mindfulness is really learning how to pay attention. We’ll get into that a little bit more when we talk about martial arts and self-defense and things like that, because the best thing for that is to keep yourself out of situations.
Live in the moment. Don’t dwell in the past. Don’t project the future so much unless you’re taking action. These are all just the little tiny things. We’re all going to add up into one big category of coolness, I think. And so I hope you guys have some great input for me as well.
