A New Year’s Note From Christen

Hello to my community! Welcome to 2025.

As I wrap up another year of teaching, I think back with deep gratitude and reverence for each of you who have ventured out of your comfort zone and into my classes, workshops, and private sessions over the years. At first glance yoga and meditation are ways to get fit and flexible and reduce stress, but what keeps us coming back to these practices is something deeper.

As my students well know, the deep path is often a challenging one - albeit rewarding. When we seek truth, what we discover isn’t always pleasant. I’ve loved my students through grief, injury, illness, transitions of all sorts, trauma, shame, and heartbreak and am honored to have been trusted with their vulnerability. I’ve also celebrated with them in times of success, joy, growth, healing, humor, awe, and mystery. To my community: Though you thank me often for my teaching, I also thank YOU for what you’ve taught me. My teachings are woven from threads in your stories, your questions, fears, struggles and insights. My teachings are not only wisdom passed along from the ancient tradition of yoga and its many wise teachers, but also from the wisdom I hear in the stories you tell me as you navigate your life. You contribute to me. Your stories expand me and your thirst for meaning and inspiration are what motivate me on my path as a teacher. This is not a job for me, it is a calling I couldn’t stray from even if I wanted to.

If you’ve studied yoga with me at all, you know it’s not simply a physical practice, but a rich wisdom tradition that is just as relevant today as it was when the early seekers cultivated it thousands of years ago. The yogic path is an infinite treasure trove of wisdom and practices for navigating human life gracefully and powerfully. I will spend the rest of my life deepening my relationship with this tradition, and I will carry you along with me if you’d like to come along for the ride.

The world has never been a calm and peaceful place, but the winds of chaos seem to be swirling a bit more ferociously lately. There is uncertainty in the air, and swirling around it are hopeful and terrifying potentials. We don’t know what the near or far future hold, but we do have this moment now. More than ever, we can lean on yoga’s wisdom and practices to keep us grounded through the many storms life will bring our way. What’s more, yoga teaches us that suffering and struggle are like the sandpaper that smooth our soul. As we navigate uncertain and unpleasant moments in life, yoga guides us through transmuting our suffering into wisdom and strength. This is why I created The Self Center in 2024: In an increasingly chaotic world we must learn to create calm within ourselves, because clearly the world around us can’t be relied on for solace.

These days, while yoga is at the core of all of my teachings, I’ve expanded my teachings to include many other tools for navigating this complex human life. Through avid research, continued education, and lived personal experience, I'm realizing my vision of sharing with my community the most effective tools I’ve learned along the way. As I enter into 2025, the word COMMUNITY is on my mind (and from what I hear, the minds of many others). For the last 10 years I’ve had countless conversations with students, family and friends through which I've learned we are often navigating similar struggles as one another without even knowing it. During that time (and more, as I was holding space for people long before I became a yoga teacher) I’ve collected the advice I’ve given you and lessons I’ve learned from you with the desire to share that wisdom with my whole community. You’re everywhere, there are so many of you, y’all have so much more in common than you know, and I am so looking forward to connecting with you and connecting you to each other in big ways this year.

To close out 2024, I made the mistake of trying to keep my momentum going full speed through December. Sometimes I let my visions get in the way of my common sense, and I hear I'm not alone in that. After 2 weeks of sickness in December, I have been humbled and must reserve my energy and move more slowly into 2025. I have so many ideas to bring to life this year, but I want to do them well  and to do that, I must take good care of myself. As such, my offerings will be a bit quiet through the winter until the seeds I'm planting start to blossom in the spring.

Until then, if you’re in central Ohio you can join me for a class or workshop and follow my social media accounts and blog for any virtual events I'll be hosting:

Saturdays: 11:30 AM @ Fierce Wellness Hot Yoga, Pataskala OH

Sundays: 6:15PM Meditation and 7PM Deep Stretch at GoYoga Worthington OH

Thursdays: 7PM Relax & Restore @ GoYoga Worthington OH

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Much love,

Christen