— Richard Rudd
Hi! We are very new to the world of blogging but we hope to become a part of this awesome community.
Who We Are
We are a recently married couple living in Portugal. We have both been dedicated to personal growth and raising self awareness since well before we met and Yoga has been an extremely important tool for both of us in that process. In fact Yoga is what brought us together as we are from different continents and we met while studying Yoga in India. Since we first met we know that our paths would be joined and that Yoga would be a part of our journey together.
In addition to Yoga we are working towards buying land that we can build a home on to be as self sufficient as possible and to practice permaculture and restorative agriculture.
It has been a slow process and we still have a long way to go but the vision is really crystallizing and starting to show some results. Moon Yoga is the first step in our effort to build a long term sustainable income that can be maintained remotely from wherever we find our place. It has been over a year in the planning stages and it has been a lot of work and required a lot of learning and growth, which is all for the best.
Moon Yoga was born out of a long struggle for my wife to heal and re-balance from the misguided efforts off the medical industry to curb symptoms and offer convenience at the expense of the whole and without any warnings that the "magic pill" they offer may be anything but magical.
This is how Jaya's self discovery and self healing started.
I had my first yoga class in Marylebone, London and throughout the class I knew that would be a practice for life. I stopped the acupuncture sessions and fully embraced yoga starting with the Iyengar system which had a profound effect on my anxiety, depression and endometriosis. I invested in regular yoga classes with an Iyengar teacher based in London and spent time with a teacher based in India where I studied intensely for some time in order to deepen my practice and knowledge.
Because of my health problems I ended up investing large amounts of time practicing and studying yoga for hormonal health, emotional and mental health. That’s how Moon Yoga began. Adding up the hours until today comes to over 6,000 hours of yoga.
The urge to teach yoga came when my dear teacher, whom I love so much and am forever grateful to said something like, I can see when your soul shines through… you would become a great teacher. To this day I have no words to explain that moment, somehow Julie Hodges (Senior Iyengar teacher based in London) presence and teachings and her dedication to yoga, her practice, and her students opened my heart so much that thinking about it still brings me to tears.
My main teacher whom I am extremely grateful to is Julie Hodges, but I have studied with many other teachers across the UK, Europe and India. I completed my 500 hour teacher training with Alanna Kaivalya.
Background…
A painful upbringing with plenty of struggle and suffering. I was extremely unhappy and lost.
Until the age of 22 I had no sense of self, I had no perception of who I was and what to do with my life. I was whoever others wanted me to be, I did whatever others wanted me to do! Lost and carrying daily with me a bunch of traumatic past events that repeated itself over and over again. I wasn’t able to appreciate my blessings and the small things in life.
My yoga journey began with a massive breakdown in my early 20’s.
I was having daily panic attacks and I was struggling with deep depression. I had all sorts of inflammation, chronic pains throughout my body and my life was in complete stagnation, nothing that I was longing for would come to me and the more I worked hard for it the harder I fell. All of this got so out of wack that it stopped me from working, studying and living life, every week or I was in the hospital or in the GP… Until the day a nurse at the hospital humbly told me: “you are struggling with generalized anxiety and depression, here at the hospital there is nothing that we can do for you. Search for a healing system that resonates with you”.
These words changed my life… I felt compelled to buy the book: By Dr. Claire Weekes - “Self Help for Your Nerves: Learn to relax and enjoy life again by overcoming stress and fear”. Right after that, I got acupuncture for six months which did wonders for my health and well being, the acupuncture therapist introduced me to the best diet for my state at the time and this experience introduced me to the power of food on our health, also at this time I ditched from taking oral contraception (a pill recommended by a gynecologist at the age of 15 to get rid of the extremely painful menstrual cramps) and the cramps returned in full force, my hormonal system was utterly out of balance. I once again looked to a gynecologist for help and he diagnosed me with endometriosis.
Since then I have been learning all I can to be able to heal and stay healthy instead of taking treatments that merely suppress symptoms and often cause more damage.
The rest of the team consists of David, a musician, artist, stonemason, and student of life who takes care of the editing, provides inspiration, keeps spirits up (and is writing this post), and Venus aka pumpkin, prickly pear, poochie coochie, stink bug, princess, puppy girl, pooper, etc... She keeps the house free of flies and makes sure we get plenty of sunshine and fresh air.
Vision
We envision a world where the feminine and masculine energy coexist harmoniously. The divine feminine is fully embraced so that true holistic healing can take place within humankind and planet Earth. We believe that by balancing the feminine and masculine, a more sustainable future will be born. In order for this to take place it begins with healing women on a global scale. When women fully embrace their rhythm and their cyclical nature, and nurture their divine feminine energy, a new era will begin to replace the current unsustainable system.
Mission
To provide yoga classes that balance hormones, release emotional baggage, restore the immune and nervous systems. That support women through the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, menopause and life’s fluctuations. To provide tools to reconnect with the divine feminine energy and to embrace their own rhythm and cyclical nature. To provide a safe space for growth, evolution and the creation of a community of like minded people where compassion for mankind and mother earth prevails, where together we heal and build a sustainable future!
We will soon begin sharing several short video classes per week that are suitable for all levels and geared especially toward women but are beneficial for men as well. I hope you'll check them out and look forward to seeing you around the blockchain =)
