Styling A Yogi: Burgundy Boss

STYLE

Nov 8

"The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me." - Ayn Rand

You never know when you'll need an emergency yoga class, so I wore my super hero gear under a pant suit, Super Woman style! I'm obsessed with this Nike Pro Indy Sports Bra. You can also add the matching Nike Pro 3" Cool - Compression training shorts. They actually feel nice and comfy under pants, sweats, joggers, or any high waist trouser!

You want to know what inspired me to do this shoot? I think for some time now, I've always had a real desire to express and create. Deep down, I would feel like I had so much to offer but no outlet. So I had to start carving one for myself, like the Shawshank Redemption! No one will hand you anything in life, I had to stop thinking and start doing. So the morning of this shoot I was ready give my best shot and tell a story. These photos, I feel, reflect my personality and my abilities as a woman. It's been a tumultuous year, but through it all I wake up everyday and I'm ready to work. I don't give up.

As a child, I've always been a bit of a tom boy inside but felt that women can really be more than that label. What is a tom boy anyway? Someone who can handle their own around males, really into sports or possibly better at them, wears jeans and baseball caps, into cars, video games, or "masculine" things, etc.? Well newsflash, a tom boy is a woman! We want the same things out of life because we are all human. Women have their own strengths, talents, and skills. But it doesn't make us less of a woman to strive for the same things as men and I think that we are more than labels.

I read on Newsweek via Twitter last month that "Tim Allen gets 3X the salary of Tracee Ellis Ross despite earning half the ratings & none of the critical acclaim." It's already hard enough in the workplace sometimes, women do so much around the house, and raise children. I don't have any of my own but my friends who are moms do quite a lot! This is not to say men don't help or support us. Trust me, my dad was a great role model for me. But it's important to me that I get on board to support equal pay, increased enrollment in higher education in science and technology fields, the fight against domestic violence, a cure for breast cancer, and women's rights regarding sexual assaults on campuses across the nation. It's also important to me to #vote and be involved in the process, to strive for progress.

When I was studying in my undergrad, one of the coolest things I got to do was work for The Galerstein Women's Center. It was an amazing experience and one that left an imprint on my outlook forever. We worked on projects to increase women's health, educational resources, exposure to male-dominated STEM fields, and created a Safe Zone for the LGBTQ community.

I feel that I have to shed light on these topics as I venture into this journey. "I volunteer as tribute!" I could be like Katniss from The Hunger Games too! It's a conscious path that I'm trying to walk, I want to find a balance between what is happening in the world and translating that through my yoga practice and daily life. We cannot turn a blind eye to the issues that affect not only our economic future, but our health and how we feel about ourselves.

"Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one's being, from bodily health to self realization. Yoga means union - the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day to day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions." - B.K.S. Iyengar

"I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass." — Maya Angelou

Do you want to know who inspired me when I was in the planning phases of my blog? To be honest, it was Linda Hamilton, aka Sarah Connor from The Terminator!