When I was 22, I had it all figured out. I would teach for a few years, marry my college boyfriend, get my PhD and have my first child by 30, and become a school principal. Well, I did teach for a few years, and I did marry my college boyfriend, and I did start on my PhD… and by 30 I had left grad school, gotten divorced, and—in my own mind—gone totally off track in my life. Over the next six years, I twisted myself in knots trying to make unhealthy relationships into healthy relationships, as I desperately tried to get back to the plan I thought I was supposed to be following.

During those very difficult years, yoga and mindfulness became bigger and bigger parts of my life. It’s like they were tapping me on the shoulder when I was deepest in the throes of self-recrimination, saying gently, “Um, Rachel, you do realize there’s another way, don’t you?” And, over time, I did. Attending yoga classes with a couple of great teachers led to me teaching yoga to my middle school students; starting a daily meditation practice increased my awareness of thoughts and feelings and gave me space to respond rather than react to them; journaling and therapy and prayer allowed me to see the parts of myself I was resisting and begin to open to previously unimagined possibilities in my life; a yoga retreat opened the door to healing from a hurtful relationship and planted the seeds of the work that I most wanted to do. A few months shy of 36, I started my 200-hour yoga teacher training, and finally—and painfully—made peace with myself for not yet being a mother and no longer being a wife. 

Mindfulness practices—yoga asana, meditation, self-study, journaling, gratitude, intention-setting, prayer—were crucial to helping me find my way to that place of acceptance of what was actually happening in my life. They also helped me find my way through the completely unexpected journey that happened next, which was meeting the love of my life and becoming pregnant with our beautiful son, born almost exactly one year after my first day of yoga teacher training. As Joe and I have gone through the multiple transitions from our lives before meeting, to our lives as partners and parents, all in a very short time, mindfulness practices are at the core of our life as a family. 

At the same time, as my body went through the challenges of pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and infant care twice within a three-year period, I found that I needed to add to my movement diet in new and unexpected ways. I learned how functional movement exercises, strength training, and self-massage could relieve pain and increase my capacity for daily activities, and how targeted breathing and fascial release practices could engage my parasympathetic nervous system and reduce my feelings of stress and anxiety. 

It is this full gamut of physical and mental practices that I bring to clients at The Parents’ Place. You have your own story— the life experiences that have brought you to where you are, the place you find yourself now, the unknown in front of you. Your body and mind are your constant companions. I will listen to your needs and teach you a variety of practices to help meet them so that you feel stronger, more stable, and more relaxed as you live your daily life.