About

I'm just a small-town girl trying to do my best to use my energy for good.

My goal since I was little has always been simple: to use my whole self for good in the most unique way I can. I also wanted to make friends from all around the world. Somehow, all of that has come true, and every day I do my best to focus on using my gifts for good. It's a nice reminder not to complain, but instead to do what I can to make things better.

I grew up in rural Illinois with straight-edge hippie parents who built a passive solar home on a Navy salary. My mom grew a garden that kept us fed, and my dad might have been a spy, or maybe he was closer to Homer Simpson. We'll never know for sure. He had the original yoga mindset and flexibility, though. I'll never forget the first time I saw someone sitting in full lotus. It was my dad's comfortable position while he sat on the floor waiting for his bowl of lasagna to heat up in the microwave for one minute.

My parents took my brother and me on "clean up the ditch" weekends. We recycled what we could and threw the rest away. I learned that taking care of the environment and taking care of other people were naturally connected to taking care of yourself. It wasn't made into a big deal. It was simply a way of life. It's no wonder I was drawn to the healing arts as a young person.

As a teenager, I finally made it to the nearest big city, Chicago, where my ballet teacher, Rory Foster of American Ballet Theatre, brought a simple hatha yoga teacher into our program for stress relief and relaxation. I was hooked. I remember thinking this practice was like having my own spaceship, traveling through inner space where I could find better ideas and guidance for how to live my life.

Eventually, I got myself to New York City to "make it" as a dancer. I found myself pounding the pavement, landing gigs dancing in everything from Cremaster 3, Matthew Barney's art film shot in the Guggenheim, to dancing on a rooftop for Whitney Houston, appearing in Lady Foot Locker campaigns, TV commercials, and the occasional fashion job. Fashion, at least for me, paid the least, so I was always trying to figure out how I was going to support myself.

Wherever I went, I was getting people to do yoga. Backstage, during rehearsals, while we were waiting around, I saw yoga as a solution to so many problems. Boyfriend broke up with you and you're heartbroken? Yoga and some deep breathing can help. Hungover? Yoga can help you feel better and move away from wanting to party and toward wanting to take care of yourself.

That approach, which felt pretty radical at the time, led to opportunities blogging for magazines, making YouTube videos, and eventually, weirdly enough, yoga became my big break. I started a small studio in my boyfriend's living room that quickly grew into Strala Yoga, now practiced in more than 100 countries with over a thousand Guides leading classes every day somewhere in the world.

My goal has always been to help people feel better and practice yoga and the healing arts in a way that feels like themselves, rather than feeling like they had to become someone else.

I disliked the dogma, the rigidity, and the abuse I saw in some of these systems, and I spent a lot of energy trying to create a better way for all of us.

As wonderful as those opportunities have been, my favorite part of this whole adventure is meeting people out in the wild. I'm definitely not Julia Roberts, but every now and then someone recognizes me and shares a story about how something I've written or taught helped them through a hard time, inspired them to move, or simply made their day a little better. Those moments mean more to me than you can imagine.

Just the other day, a woman jogging across the street spotted me and called out, "I love the softness. Thank you!" It absolutely made my day.

So if we ever happen to cross paths and you have something you'd like to share, please come say hello. I'd truly love to meet you.

I got to write a book that did well enough for publishers to let me keep pitching ideas and write more books.

Like Johnny Cash, I've been everywhere, and I still love getting around, as I like to say, so I don't get dusty. These days I live with my awesome daughter, Daisy, and my husband, Mike, in our lake house in rural Illinois so we can be close to help my mom, who is living with dementia. We first came back a few years ago to help care for my dad as he lived with Parkinson's disease. Sadly, that disease has an ending too many families know all too well.

But don't feel sorry for us. We landed in an incredible community where Daisy is thriving and living her best country life. Mike and I are, too. Wherever you go, there you are. There are wonderful people everywhere, and there's always something we can do to help make things a little better.

My big little life story has led me here, to this chapter of Living Softly. "Accomplishing more with less tension" is a nice tagline, but for me it's a very real, everyday practice. It's given me the incredible gift of vitality and a positive attitude, no matter what's happening in my life or around me.

I've had a few different chapters so far, but this one feels like it's here to stay. Living Softly isn't just the title of a book. It's the way I hope to keep living for the rest of my life.

I hope it helps you.

And if we ever meet somewhere out in the wild, please come say hello.