Pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and stay a while. Every week I open up about how Ayurveda shows up in my real life: the messy, beautiful, and seasonal reality. As a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, personal trainer, and yoga teacher, I blend movement, ancient wisdom, and honest storytelling for women who crave a deeper connection to themselves and the seasons. Subscribe below and I'll see you in your inbox.
What a documentary taught me about noticing what matters
|
I might be a little late to this party, but I wanted to share a documentary I watched this weekend that truly stayed with me. My Octopus Teacher on Netflix came out in 2020 and has won several awards and I can absolutely see why. It’s beautifully filmed, deeply tender, and quietly powerful. Fair warning: you may want tissues nearby. One moment that really resonated with me was when someone asked the man in the film why he kept returning to the same kelp forest every single day. His response felt so familiar. It’s the same reason I return to my favorite trail again and again you begin to truly connect to the place, the trees, the animals, the plants, the rock formations. You start to notice subtle shifts that you’d miss if you were always chasing something new. To me, this is also yoga. The more we return to the same practices, the more they reveal themselves. The longer I’ve been teaching, the more the subtle body continues to pique my curiosity how one pose affects my energy differently than another, how working with specific vayus can shift the tone of a practice, how different mantras create slightly different inner landscapes. In a world full of shiny distractions and constant urgency, this documentary offers something rare: a calm, grounded witnessing of one man’s devotion to slowing down. He begins by looking outward but over time, Mother Nature reveals lessons that transform not only his life, but his relationship with his son as well. And that feels like a remembering many of us are craving right now. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend it. And if you do, I’d love to hear what it stirs in you. Hit reply and tell me- I read every one. Andrea Claassen
The Sacred Meditation Circle • Seasonal Strength • Ways to Work with Me |
Andrea Claassen
Pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and stay a while. Every week I open up about how Ayurveda shows up in my real life: the messy, beautiful, and seasonal reality. As a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, personal trainer, and yoga teacher, I blend movement, ancient wisdom, and honest storytelling for women who crave a deeper connection to themselves and the seasons. Subscribe below and I'll see you in your inbox.
Confession: on Sunday morning I woke up, came downstairs, sat at my computer, and thought, "I should probably come up with a new way to bring people to my website" because #pitta. And I'm tired of the generic wellness freebies, download this guide, take this quiz to find your dosha. I wanted something with a little more flavor, something that felt like me. Then it hit me. I'd be recording our annual Hallmark Christmas preview episode for Hallmark Mysteries & More, and I thought: what if I...
For the past two years, I made a quiet vow to devote my daily living and yoga teaching to the vayus which are the five sacred movements of life force energy. What started as curiosity became a full-bodied devotion, completely by accident. Each class, I explored one vayu more deeply. Noticing how it showed up in my breath, my teaching, my relationships, even my rest. I began weaving the vayus into everything I offered on the mat with my students, and off the mat in my daily rituals, family...
Reader, what's the sweet treat you keep reaching for even when it's keeping you stuck? A few weeks I taught a yin yoga class at our new studio. The theme was non-attachment/aparigraha, one of yoga's most quietly radical teachings. I told the story of Hanuman and the coconut trap: a hollowed-out coconut filled with treats, with a hole just big enough to fit a hand inside. The monkey reaches in, grabs the treat, and then can't pull his fist back out. He's not trapped by the coconut. He's...