Notes from a Reluctant Brand
Natarajasana (Dancer Pose), Mallorca
And a warm welcome to my blog
Can I use this image of Dancer Pose?
I’ve been told many times that I should avoid scaring potential clients or students away with poses that are too “impressive.” After all, my specialty is pelvic floor health—gentle and effective exercises, I say. And branding, if I want my business to actually grow, is important. I should be clear. Consistent. An expert of one thing.
So who am I as an offering? And who is my audience? (I’m always asked this—your target market?)
This question has made me uncomfortable for years.
Everyone?... Everyone who loves yoga? Everyone who has a pelvis??...
Am I the creator of a method, or the student of many, many generations of teachers?
When I transitioned from being a dancer to a yogi over 20 years ago, I felt I was supposed to tone it down. To hold back the giddiness that being graceful and moving wildly through space gave me. Yoga was serious business. A spiritual path.
Slowly, shape gave way to sensation. Stillness uncovered something sacred.
I learned to love observing prana dancing inside my body—and yet, sometimes when I am sick or sad or grieving, only visualizing the body dancing can give me comfort.
Today, I’m a yoga teacher specializing in pelvic health and trauma.
I also love Scorpio pose and Titibasana.
I’m studying to become a sexuality and relationship counsellor—and honestly, what could be more fun than talking more about sex?
How do I package all that into a “brand”? A colour palette...
I have friends who voted for Trump and friends who despise him.
I wish I liked pets, but I don’t.
I eat every vegetable on my plate, ferment my own cabbage, but also kind of hate cooking and love my whiskey (at 17, my dad and I drank an entire bottle together—a treasured memory).
My daughter calls me an almond mom, and a close friend just told me she doesn’t consider me spiritual at all (I’m pretty sure she meant it as a compliment).
I make morning coffee and herbal tea. Yes, simultaneously.
And I love many things at once.
Can I brand yoga teacher, sexologist, relationship coach, and author with my master’s in Religious Studies?
I think at least I can brand: multi-cultural and polyglot, right?
So I think this blog is going to be a little bit of everything.
Because it is so easy these days to feel like we must align ourselves with one movement, one group, to be recognised as one thing—to be just.
And that creates even more polarisation.
I am sad when I see and feel self-righteous, blind fury rising everywhere—but especially when it rises inside of me.
Multiple truths, please.
Broader compassion, please.
Everyone who wants to be here (in my blog space, my website, my classes) is welcome!
The yoga I learned teaches—Wise Body, Wide Mind, and an Open Heart.
I am hoping that if I can stay grounded in the full spectrum of my contradictions, my wisdom, my joy and sorrow, even the moments of utter stupidity—
That the people who feel the same—who know that we are, and the world is, complicated and layered, and that it is okay not to understand everything, and impossible to understand everyone—
But also know that there is weight to our true self, Atman—
That they (you) might meet me in that space.
“Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.”