A professional mama finds serenity through a playful yoga practice
Iām playing with blogging the transcripts from my podcast, Ritual of Practice. In this episode, I interview Christina Sloan about her yoga practice. Read below for the transcript or follow the link to listen to the interview.
Link to audio: Ritual of Practice with Christina Sloan
Episode Transcript:
Welcome to ritual of practice podcast. I am your host, Angela Houghton. The intention of this podcast is to inspire your practice. I thought it would be fun to offer stories about different people, integrate practice in their lives. I am so appreciative of the humans that share their experience on this podcast and to you listener for joining us.
May you show up for what lights you up. Hi there. Today on the show, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with my good friend, Christina Sloan. I call her Chrissy and we're both lifelong students of the practice of yoga. We actually met, uh, through yoga. I went to one of her classes and over the years we've traded off, um, being students of each other or teachers and back and forth.
So it was just a fun way to stay connected. Really a joy to sit down and talk with her [00:01:00] about the journey of her practice as a yogini. And we get into lots of different topics that really are just real life parenting, social media, you know, Work all of it. So this episode is, yeah, real life and yoga.
And even if you don't have any interest in yoga, you may find that there are some gems in here that you can apply to your practice that you choose to do in another area of your life. So, um, I hope you enjoy this episode with Christina Sloan.
Good morning listeners. I am here this morning with Chrissy Sloan. We know each other through yoga. That is just one small part of, Chrissy's life. She's also a lawyer and a mother and so many other things. I imagine some of those things might pop up in the interview [00:02:00] today.
Um, as we. the discussion of her yoga practice, um, which is why we're here today. So Chrissy and I have traded roles of being student and teacher over the years. And I have learned so much from Chrissy as a student. And I feel like we're very much on this path together of being students. I think lifelong students forever, forever students.
So, yeah, it's, I'm going to go ahead and dive into the first question, to get us started. So what initially sparked your interest in yoga, Chrissy? I have to go way back 21, maybe even 22 years ago is when I started and I was in Boulder, Colorado for law school, Boulder, Colorado. Everyone was doing yoga even way back since 2001 fall of 2001.
I start law school and, um, I also was pretty obsessive with movement in my life forever. I grew up in a very competitive tennis family, randomly in [00:03:00] Georgia, where tennis is queen for girls, especially, um, played my whole life. And then in college, very obsessively, I played the, the Southeastern tennis, um, circuit and was ranked and all the things.
And then I played in college. And then I had my me too moment with a gross groper college coach, the main coach, who also coached the boys team and gave them all sorts of privileges that he didn't honor. For the girls. So my sophomore year, I quit tennis, which was just massively devastating for me, but I needed movement in my life.
I found climbing soon after that became obsessed and then moved West largely to sort of, Oh, what's this whole climbing thing out West? I was going to school in Boston. Um, so start in a climbing jam, that kind of thing. So it was starting to take off back then. And then I moved to Boulder where everyone's doing this yoga movement thing.
So I'm like, okay, what's this? And then very quickly I became addicted. What was interesting is University of Colorado had an amazing student program for yoga within the university with Indian teachers. [00:04:00] And today, in 21, 22 years, the only Indian teacher I've had was at the University of Colorado. And he was amazing.
And I do think he saw my interest right away. I do feel like he gave me a lot of attention in classes because I was probably more serious student than a lot of other ones, but the university made it cheap and extremely accessible to do as much yoga really, as you wanted. And, um, the facilities were not nice.
You were like in the, you know, some gym. I can't really I can think of the room, but it was like a gym room. It wasn't anything cool. But then from there, I progressed into the studio scene in Boulder. Um, and, you know, law school is stressful. My personality is triple type a and I very quickly realized that I needed this very badly.
And I think 1 of the reasons I moved from the East Coast where everything is just super intense and Everything's at 150 percent all the time. And everyone is my personality, quite frankly, or a lot of me. There are lots of me's out there. And I knew it wasn't a place that I was [00:05:00] growing and felt like what was my, my place.
And as soon as I moved out West, big open skies, big horizons, everything felt like. Deep breath out here and yoga just, you know, expanded that for me. Okay. I have that. I have a question within that, that you just shared. So when you, you said, so you were climbing in Boston and then you moved out West to, you know, explore more of the climbing.
Was there someone in the climbing community that turned you on to yoga or was it just seeing it all around Boulder that sparked your curiosity? I don't remember anyone introducing me. I remember just showing up at this yoga class that the university had. And it actually was, you booked it like a class, like an elective.
So, uh, yes. Okay. And, and you actually paid a really nominal fee for a semester of yoga. Okay. Which I think was two times a week is my recollection. Um, and then did you build on that? So could you take, take like yoga. Level two or yoga [00:06:00] level. Yes, exactly. 1 0 3 or what, you know, as it Yes. Okay. So I did, I, I remember Mo, I do remember Studio Life in Boulder, but it was expensive too.
And I was a student. I had no money. I was working for nonprofits and had no money whatsoever. So I don't remember a lot of studio life. I remember mostly being in that room with that teacher for, you know, the three years I was in law school and all Indian teacher. I did hear that, right. Mm-Hmm. . Wow. Yeah.
Okay. Um, so you, you spoke a little bit to this, but, um, maybe to dig a little deeper, what did your practice look like when you first started? So twice a week going to this elective, um, did you ever practice outside of, um, the university or was it always in that setting when you started? I think it was mostly just in that setting.
Um, what's interesting too is, Those teachers were very movement based. It wasn't, there wasn't a spiritual piece of it. There weren't, weren't teachings on Hindu mythology or [00:07:00] any of that. Um, I just remember a lot of movement. Meanwhile, I was still climbing a ton. So law school was amazing. I climbed every day of the week, pretty much.
Um, and. And I remember just appreciating the movement of climbing in a whole different way. You know, it felt like yoga, the, the, you would need to bring the same breath work to it. Same body awareness. Um, so I would say I was practicing yoga while I was climbing a ton, but really my yoga practice was that class.
That's all I remember in the beginning. And I didn't. Have any pressure awareness that it would be anything else than that. You know, now I have this amazing home practice and I do yoga everywhere and anywhere that I feel like I need it. I'll just have these moments where I'm like, I need to talk right now or I need to sit and breathe.
And, you know, back then it was just movement for me in that room. Yeah. I have two questions now from what you just shared. Um, and this isn't really, uh, you know, super important. It's more just my curiosity. Do you know now if you were practicing Ashtanga or Hatha yoga? I [00:08:00] would call it Hatha. Yeah, but I don't remember there being Terms associated with it.
I do think the university did a great job of just making it super approachable for everyone Yeah, and I do remember the teacher being really great at teaching all levels classes So he you know, he talked to the students in the room and you know, I do remember in time him Encouraging me to do harder stuff than other people are doing, which is funny because I'm with Nova.
It was like, no, honey, that's, let's, you need to, you need to expand some other things for you to get there. So, and then my other question is kind of the middle piece. So you spoke to your practice now, which is, you know, your home practice is a big part of your life and doing yoga everywhere. What about that middle point?
So you graduated college. And then, you know, there's a lot of time now since you've graduated college, what is, what did it look like once you were no longer in the university setting? So then I moved to the Roaring Fork Valley where, uh, yoga [00:09:00] was the strong yoga community there. I met my teacher, Nova, who I also loved.
Um, and I practiced a lot with Nova. I don't think I probably did some weekend workshops then, then, and started to understand some of the deeper. Um, aspects, even benefits of yoga, and I probably started to be introduced to mythology and some of the cool things that yoga offers, but I still don't think I dug in that deep.
Um, I was remodeling 115 year old house by myself. And that was a disaster, took a ton of my time, um, was trying to climb and then I was new to my legal career. So I, I think that I was beginning to dabble in a deeper way, but still not anything like what, you know, I've found since then. It wasn't until I moved to Moab, which we bought our house in 2003.
So I was spending a ton of time in Moab. So I was spending a ton of time here between 2003 and 2007. I [00:10:00] didn't move her full time till 2007. So at that time, there was no yoga scene in Moab. Susan, if y'all remember Susan, I don't remember her last name. So this will probably be worldwide. So people just coming back.
The Roaring Fork Valley is on the western slope of Colorado. Yeah. And Susan would be a local teacher to Moab that I think is around. She moved to Ridgeway. Oh, yeah. A while ago. And, and I. Last I heard she was still teaching over there. Yes. She was teaching at the Grand Center mostly. I don't think she was even at the MARC then.
Moab Arts and, they just renamed it. They took out the recreation. They renamed the R. Anyway, Moab Arts and Recreation Center. Um, she was teaching in one of those tiny rooms in the Grand Center. Which is a community center, but mostly serves our seniors. Um, and I didn't enjoy the class. Sorry, Susan, I did not enjoy the class, which is okay.
And I, one thing I tell people when they're starting yoga is one, give [00:11:00] yourself a little time. There's this whole obsession with yoga in this country right now. And You'll go to your first class or two and be like, what's the big freaking deal? Um, and then the other pieces, it's extremely teacher dependent.
You've got to find your teachers. And I do think early on, I lucked into amazing teachers who really spoke to me, um, who I respected, who I knew had all this, you know, information to. You know, expand anything I knew before, but also keep me safe and all these things and, and you got to find your teacher.
And so I think, you know, when it's not the right teacher, she was not the right teacher for me and there was nothing else going on. So I was like, all right, well, I guess I'll start teaching yoga. Um, I had done, but by that point, I know I had done some sort of intensive workshops, but I had not gone through teacher training.
I'm like, well, I'll just start teaching. Um, and then I started to very obsessively go through a ton of teacher training and. Nova was Anyasara trained, so she's the one that introduced me to Anyasara. Started studying with Jeanne [00:12:00] Manchester, um, Sienna Miller. Those were my, my main teacher trainings with, were with those.
And that was probably about around the time when we first met. It's when you started teaching yoga in law, because I don't, that's how we met as I showed up as a student. And then I also had done some teacher training, was like a long time student at that point. Started on the Anusara path because I remember you like chasing after me one day and you're like, are you Anusara inspired?
Because I had like put something on my thing that wasn't actually like on my marketing flyer and you're like, oh hell no I worked so hard for my Anusara inspired certification. Yes And so I was like, oh shit. I like messed up and so I corrected that, you know I was thinking inspired in the sense of like Inspired by these teachings, which had been, you know, what, where I had spent the bulk of my time, but I had not received the certification and I completely honored, you know, I, I appreciate being called out [00:13:00] on in that sort of, I don't even remember that.
So I hope that, uh, yeah, it's not bad about it. I was like, Oh, I made a mistake. That's so my personality, which is bringing up things I love about you. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, but I showed up as a student and really appreciated having, you know, the opportunity to practice Anusara, which was something that I loved in our community.
So that must have been around 2000s. That's when you started teaching? Yeah. Nice. And so, I mean, that is one of the questions is have you shared your skills with anyone? Um, you know, so I know from being a student that you've shared them in our community. Um, what about outside of that, um, with your kids? Do you share your practice with your kids?
Oh, they used to practice with me. I've shared and shared and shared and offered and offered, but they are 10 and 12 now and don't do much of it anymore. If I ever can get my, my 12 year old is like, no, I mean, I don't even [00:14:00] exist to my 12 year old anymore. So she's like, no way. Um, although interestingly, she will sometimes if she's way into sports, mostly very traditional volleyball and softball in particular.
And, uh, she's a natural leader like her mama and Leo also. Um, and she will often lead stretching and warmups beforehand. And I will see, um, now and then some yoga in there. And she's done some breath exercises with her team, too. And what's interesting is sometimes she'll tell me about them and sometimes her friends will.
Or sometimes Austin will hear about it and tell me. So, so I know it's trickling in, although it appears to be a rejection of all things mom with a 12 year old at this point. And then, um, the other cute thing, which is not yoga related, but I say, yeah, baby, all the time, which I actually didn't realize this until recently when, you know, My 12 year old's friends will walk by me and be like, yeah, baby, everyone keeps saying that to me because you see it all the [00:15:00] time.
Mom, like even all my friends now I'm like, what? And now in volleyball right now, they have a tournament coming up and it's a sort of private league thing. And I was at one of their scrimmages recently and they came together for a cheer and it was yeah, baby, the whole team. Um, I was like, you do love me. I actually pulled her aside afterwards.
I'm like, you do love me still. Yay. Um, my, my 10 year old was more interested in the practice, honestly, from the, from the beginning. But now pretty much the only time I can get her to do anything with me is if I'm like, can we do a video for Instagram or let's do pictures? Then she'll be like, Oh, okay. I know that we're all, you know, cause she, she's on Tik TOK and all the things.
Yes. The show part. Well, that is another way of sharing. I mean, I have seen posts and I think that can be a really beautiful way to inspire others and share your skills. Do you want to speak to that at all? Yeah. How you've shared and what inspires you to share? What types of things do you enjoy sharing on social media?
Yeah, I think, I think that's important. I've [00:16:00] gotten, um, Um, lots of positive, great feedback, mostly positive feedback about my Instagram, which is all yoga. Moab Yogini. Um, but I've also gotten some really negative, nasty things. Um, you know, my husband, who's just like, why are you just showing yourself off on?
Why do you need to do that? Um, to one of my best friends, best girlfriends, who's like, that's not yoga. That's you showing off. And it's like, no, it's, I'm out there to inspire people. And I have been told by many people, Hey, I started to check out yoga. because I'm inspired not just by the practice you have, but your obsession with it.
Like, what is this yoga thing about if you're just, you're there all the time coming back to yoga constantly? And, um, I also, you know, absolutely talk it up with everyone I know that Um, you know, yoga. I mean, it makes you a better person. It really does. It does me anyway. Um, and it helps me regulate stress and all sorts of things.
I can't [00:17:00] even, you know, um, stress how important yoga is in my life. So, Instagram is a way to get that out to people all over the world. And yeah, you got to block, block some gross guys that are DMM you, you know, stupid stuff. Um, but otherwise I'm there to share and I'm especially there to share for the mamas because I think another thing that, uh, restricts people from coming to their mat is they think I need an hour to, to do yoga.
No. I mean, sometimes when practice is three minutes, sometimes it's. Three hours. Um, it can be all those things. And I'm a mom and I work a ton and I'm successful and I have a very strong yoga practice and you can do all of it. Yeah. And I feel that, um, you speak to that in the social media sharing also, which is part of what inspires, so it's not just.
You're showing these movements, um, of a practice, but it's the words that you, you know, couple that with that, um, inspire. So, yeah. Um, there's, I mean, not caring what other, I mean, there's, there's a [00:18:00] time to, you know, take that in and be like, and self reflect, but really then to be like, Nope. No, thank you. Yeah.
Keep doing what you're doing. Yeah. So, uh, let's see where we're at in the questions. Um, you've answered quite like you had have shared. One of my questions is, do you see yourself practicing yoga for the rest of your life? And, um, Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. It'll be interesting, you know, to see what you're experiencing in your practice five to 10 years from now.
Absolutely. And I've seen my own teacher's practices really evolve as they've aged. And I think that's beautiful. You know, the, when the maintenance of yoga is just appreciating where you are on this particular day, this particular moment, um, and also what's going on with your breath and body. And that's, that's changing, you know, daily, but certainly as you age.
Um, honestly, I feel stronger physically in my practice than ever before I'm 44. And so I haven't reached that peak yet. And you know, I'm [00:19:00] looking forward to these strong years and then I, you know, I know I will peak and I will look forward to the journey that comes next. Hmm. So beautiful. Oh, one other question about, um, weaving it into these other aspects of your life.
Um, you can touch on this just a tiny bit, but how has your yoga practice influenced your legal career, your life as a lawyer and business owner? So you're not only a lawyer, you're also, you know, you run your own law firm and, um, I don't know if you're comfortable with me sharing, but, um, you know, own properties, you know, that you intend to develop and, you know, super inspiring.
And so how does the way you navigate that aspect of your world, how has that influenced by your yoga practice? Yeah. Um, Pranayama is the breath practice piece of yoga and super important as you move into your practice and expand your practice. And it's not something that will resonate with most people, I think, in the beginning of their yoga practice.
But as you practice longer, you'll understand how important it [00:20:00] is and beneficial. And for me, um, I don't know, I think it was probably the Roaring Fork years. I don't remember in those early years being tuned in to. The breath piece. Quite frankly. Um, maybe I was, I don't remember it, but today, I mean, whether it's, I'm about to go into court with a client, um, whether it's, I'm in a hard mediation, whether it's, I'm just counseling an emotional client and, you know, any of that, I, I take a moment to breathe deep and to remember, you know, the moment, everything about the moment, whatever that means in the moment.
Um, I was county attorney for four years. I've never had a harder job than that. It was so heavy and burdensome and every day I had to dig deep and, and really grateful for my yoga practice to be able to help me move through that. A huge part of that was just the stress of the job itself, but then with any public office, you're subjected, especially in Moab, this very, um, a small town full of [00:21:00] intense people and big personalities.
There's just so much judgment and hate on all of our public officials. You know, I do think the county attorney gets a lot of it. Based on the nature of the job. But man, I feel really Sad. I don't know. Compassionate. I don't know what the right I'm it's a very emotional thing to think about how hard public officials are working and how much uninformed, nasty critique they get.
Um, and so on a daily basis, especially the last year of the election year, who I was so grateful for my practice just helping me. Stay mediated, hopefully approaching certain situations, um, debates or public meetings where you knew people who oppose you or what you're doing or who, you know, accepted lies and misrepresentations being spread on Facebook with at face value without any investigation of truth or fact, uh, you know, saying unemotional in that moment and I credit yoga with that.
I can't even [00:22:00] imagine. I can't imagine those four years without yoga. Thank you for sharing that. Um, my last question is, um, if you have any ideas or no advice, it's kind of a heavy word, but more of a lightness of someone who was wanting to get started, like where would they start? What are some ideas or tools that you would, you know, suggest to them for getting started into practice?
Um, at a basic level, one of my favorite things to do, no matter where you are in your practice is put on some of your favorite music, whether you have a mat or not, you know, you need a mat. I often practice without a mat. Um, Roll out your mat or not. Put on your favorite music. Get your favorite beverage next to you.
That could be coffee, tea, wine, whatever you like. And just start moving and, uh, you'll find a practice that way. And often, my practice now goes through phases and sometimes I'm super motivated and sometimes I'm not. But I can tell when I need yoga, sometimes that's because I'm cranky, but often that's because I feel a tightness, [00:23:00] a physical tightness, a tightness with my breath, a tightness with my energy, and I know I need to get on my mat.
And if I'm unmotivated or I don't know what to do, I'm not inspired that day by anything in particular, I just put on music and start moving. Another thing is seeking out, you know, we have two studios now in town and they're both great and dabble. Go try a few classes and then hone in on your favorite teacher and commit to go.
You know, make it a ritual every single week. Angela teaches at 530. It's on Wednesdays and I love her class. It's my Wednesday ritual and I love going and people are like, Hey, you should try this class in that class. I'm like, no, thank you. Um, I got my ritual. So dabble and, and commit to it. You know, I think commitment is a big piece and discipline is also a big tenant of yoga and learning the discipline of practice.
And also I do think social media can be inspiring. I go on Instagram and just look at certain accounts, or maybe I have a pose in mind like, Hey, I want to tackle this pose today. And [00:24:00] I'll go look up online. Sometimes it's YouTube tutorials. Mostly it's Instagram for me, but there's different techniques and, um, You know, I'll search for the pose.
I'll, you can get videos, tutorials, pictures, written texts to give you tips, all of that stuff. And You know, I'll be like, Hey, maybe they might have a trick or maybe the way they say it. Something Nova always said to me is you hear something when you're ready to hear it. And so maybe I've practiced a certain asana, which is a yoga pose, um, before, but I'll find someone's little tip on Instagram and it'll unlock something for me on that particular day.
So I do all those things. Yeah. I, I want to add to what you said because, um, you know, thinking of like going outside of our community. So we locally have two studios currently, and so yeah, like going to different spaces, someone in a city might have multiple. I remember being in a city and be like, which one do I go to?
And, you know, they often have intro, um, opportunities to try out, like for a [00:25:00] very minimal cost, but we also have something I just saw yesterday at our aquatic center. Um, there was a morning class happening. Um, I know we have a community class locally at our community center. Okay. And so, yeah, just looking into different areas.
And then, you know, through the pandemic, it's insane how much yoga there is. I actually practiced already this week online on a zoom class, which I hadn't done in a while, but it was kind of like, oh, this is convenient because I, you know, was managing parenting and making dinner and And I didn't feel like I could, you know, leave my son to go to the studio to class.
And so, um, and YouTube, I have, you know, friends locally that, um, you know, will take classes on YouTube and I've posted in the past. On YouTube. So, so many opportunities to dip into the practice, but then I love what you said about developing a ritual. And of course that's, um, you know, the, the essence of this podcast is the ritual of practice and, and that ongoing commitment to whatever it may be that you're choosing [00:26:00] to practice.
So. Absolutely. And if you're tired as every moment is every day, just, just step onto the mat and you've, you know, you've made that first step of commitment and that's all you need to do the rest flows from there. It does. Oh, so beautiful. Well, it's been such a joy to have you on the podcast, uh, this morning, Chrissy, and I'm so grateful for, you know, obviously you're such a busy woman.
So for you to take the time, um, and come and share your practice with us is, it really means a lot. Thank you. I'm glad you're doing this. It's super fun. Uh, we're going to sign off now. So, uh, thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to the ritual of practice podcast. You can find the show home at ritual of practice.
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