I’m so excited to have my friend Karmen Morales Sanchez as a guest blogger today! Karmen and I first connected at a small Naples yoga studio back in 2013 where we were both teaching. Karmen is now a Mom to two adorable little boys, and is going to share a bit about her journey back to yoga.

From Karmen…

My postpartum yoga journey has been a coming home to myself in many phases.

It was when I had my second child that my yoga journey truly evolved. Sure I always had to modify my poses while pregnant, and I had to ease back into my practice after my first born, but my practice then remained greatly the same.

Fast forward to parenting a neurodivergent toddler, and nursing a second baby - my body, my nervous system and my soul where BEGGING me to do something different. None of my previous practices, anchors, and tools were working. And to be honest, the last thing I wanted to do was Yoga…yoga as I knew it anyway. I dabbled with HIIT workouts mainly bc my body wasn’t losing the weight as fast I wanted it to (I know I know, but we yoga teachers are not immune to body image complexities). But my body said a hard no to that as my cortisol levels would spike and I would swell up like a big achey balloon. I hit a wall.

It was around this frustrating time in my life that I spoke to a long beloved colleague of mine and I remember her casually saying “oh I remember those early child days - restorative yoga was all I could handle.” .

Suddenly it clicked. I’d spent years avoiding restorative bc “it wasn’t for me.” However, in those moments….it was the ONLY thing that WAS for me. When I accepted and adopted restorative yoga as my main practice, my body began to unwind. Literally and figuratively. As I allowed my body to have what it desperately needed, I began to come home to myself. My body was still mine, but it needed a different kind of support, and a different kind of love now. My postpartum yoga journey became (for the first time) a true practice of meeting myself where I was (mentally/emotionally/physically) on the mat. Some days it looked like 5 mins of legs up the wall, some days a chest opening Jason Crandell restorative session, some days yoga nidra while my children napped. I learned from new teachers, and as my Yoga dogma lifted, so did the layers of pain, anxiety, and tension.

Listen, raising children is hard. Raising special needs or neurodivergent children is sometimes harder. Having to go back to work, or missing your job to become a stay at home mom - it’s ALL hard. Yoga teaches us to focus on what we CAN do, one breath at a time. That’s what my practice has finally become. I’m finally back (three years postpartum) to my original hatha style - but it took three years for my body to desire it again…and that’s ok! As a Mamá my biggest gift from yoga has been to truly cling to the phrase “right now it’s like this, and that’s ok.” (Which I also, totally credit my dear friend Lauren Wessinger for).