Caitlin Vives Yoga and Reiki

This class isn't your typical yoga class... join us!
- 50% accessible, trauma-informed, yogic movement
- 50% breathwork, meditation, vagus nerve techniques, and self-calming exercises

You're guaranteed to walk away empowered with at least one technique to help bring the calm from yoga class into your everyday life.

Join us and empower yourself with tools to bring the peace you find in yoga class into your everyday life.

Sunday's yoga class is a unique offering of 30 minutes of accessible mindful yogic movement and 30 minutes of breathwork, meditation, self-calming exercises, and vagus nerve techniques. You are guaranteed to walk away from each class with at least one centering tool to use in your daily life.

Pre-registration is required and class packs are available: GWDC.PUNCHPASS

Group yoga classes at Greater Washington Dance Center start tomorrow! Check out the various class pass options at: Gwdc.punchpass.com

Group yoga classes at Greater Washington Dance Center are back in session starting this Wednesday (9/4)!

Sometimes what we THINK we need isn't what we ACTUALLY need.

This morning, all I wanted to do was sleep in. Instead, I was up before the sun. So, I threw my chaotic morning curls into a messy bun, pulled on a giant sweatshirt, brewed some coffee, and headed up to the beach for the sunrise. I surrendered my want for what was being given.

Still a bit disgruntled at my shift in plans, I arrived to an empty stretch of sand and a gorgeous burgeoning dawn. And, there, I sat drinking in the seaside sunrise and its intuitive whispers, welcoming in the guidance and insights that otherwise would have escaped me had I pursued what I thought I needed instead of surrendering what was being given.

♡ May you, too, be given what you ACTUALLY need today and find the courage to surrender ♡

Are you brave enough?

Are you brave enough to stand in your wisdom, to own your truth, and walk YOUR path? Are you strong enough to release the Western culture "no quitters" fallacy that forces us to ignore our truth and surrender to the mold society wants us to carve ourselves up to fit into? Are you wise enough to honor when something is not for you and walk away before life has to force your hand?

Life is scary! Change is hard. Following your inner compass when society tells you to follow norms, instead, is challenging.

Sometimes, the path forward is obvious. Sometimes, the path forward isn't clear. Sometimes, what you think is the right path is not, and you have to find a new way and have the bravery to step away from what is or never truly was for you. Sometimes, what everyone else thinks is the right path for you is not for you.

Are you willing to be counter-culture by honoring not what is for everyone else or what everyone else thinks you should do, but what is for you? Are you willing to honor YOU? Be you... love you... live as YOU? I hope so. You deserve it.

You deserve to be you. The world deserves to witness and love and experience that genuine you too.

All of my love to all of your YOU♡

Not everyone is a yoga fan, apparently 🤣

If instruction manuals were written by yoga teachers 🤣

Today, notice the little things... not just around you, but within you. Notice the changes in your breath when you think about a topic, the feelings in your body when you speak about a situation, the sensations of your energy (within and immediately around you) when you are sharing space with someone, the patterns of your thoughts when you're engaging in routine activities.

Get curious. Get quiet. Notice♡

Communication is key.

Whether it's communication with self, friends, partners, or family, communication can make all the difference in our experience of self, others, and the world. Use words wisely. Consider them before you say them. Apologize if and when you misuse them (because we're humans and we all make mistakes), then -- and this is the biggy -- own it and make a concerted effort to not repeat the misstep.

Communication can make the difference between an expression of vulnerablity versus an ego-centric argument, a person feeling seen versus a person feeling demeaned, a person feeling supported versus a person feeling abandoned. Communication can hold a relationship together or tear it apart.

I wish you beautiful communication today, within yourself and your life♡

Goal for the day: be more like Barley.

- Give love abundantly to those who show me genuine love and deserve my trust

- Reserve my affection for those who treat me well, and create space from those who do not

- Take it slow (with snippets of temporary swiftness)

- Enjoy the little things (sunlight, naps, comfort, affection, food...)

- Communicate my needs and wants

- Be gorgeous 😄😁🐶❤️

Blustry days are perfect days to practice balance asanas on the beach.

Why? Because, it imitates life and challenges my ability to balance in all ways better than any studio or fair-weather practice.

How? As the wind whips around me and crumples my mat, as the sand shifts beneath me and grates across my skin, and as unsteady gusts attempt to topple me and upend my stability, can I maintain my steadiness -- physically, mentally, and energetically -- and retain a playful willingness to try again when/if I fall? Can I connect down through the three points of my feet, into the unsteady ground, smooth my breath, calm my mind, and root into the center of mySELF?

Even more, can I bring that practice into my everyday life off of the mat? THAT is the true practice.

Little known fact: I am a poet.

I was a writing major in college, with a penchant for poetry. Today, that nagging urge to write struck me when I least expected it.

As any artist knows, inspiration ebbs and flows, and sometimes it smacks you right in the face. Today, it assaulted me on my way up the beach, following my morning yoga. Verses to a poem yet unwritten poured into my mind. Knowing I'd forever lose them if I waited to write them down when I got home to my usual writing perch, I sat down right there at the top of the dunes. And I wrote.

The ability to surrender the "shoulds" to opportunity is a beautiful challenge that's worth the effort.

Svadhyaya, the yogic tenet of self-study, is pivotal in our ability to create and maintain self-awareness, contentment, healthy relationships (with self and others), centeredness, and so much more. Until we know ourselves, we can not be ourselves, and what is this life but a gifted opportunity to uncover, embody, and love through unapologetically being our truest self?

You belong.
No matter your color, creed, abilities, background, sexuality, or identity, there is space for you to safely belong.

Everyone deserves this, no matter their age. This is why all of my offerings hold this as a central goal.

This is also one of the reasons I am so joyfully aligned with Greater Washington Dance Center . Their core value of creating and maintaining a safe, accepting, inclusive environment in which every individual may flourish and grow is something that speaks to my heart, not just during 🌈 Pride Month 🌈, but every single day.

Happy Pride month to everyone in between, as well.
You are seen.
You are valid.
You matter.
🌈❤️

So much of adulthood is stripping away the social conditioning and wants of others, and coming back into who we truly are... who we've always been. That true self always existed beneath the masking and performing and doing.

As we peel away these layers and rediscover ourselves, often, we find that we were deeply in tune with, if not simply aware of, this true self in our childhood but got lost along the way. That self was always there waiting to be freed.

♡Be your beautiful truest self, because there's no one else worth being ♡

I adore all of the yoga offerings I GET to teach, but private sessions are really where it's at. Everything is customized and tailored precisely to that individual practitioner to meet them exactly where they are and support them in attaining their personal goals. The differences experienced and made in private yoga sessions are phenomenal.

The leaps and bounds this spunky preschooler has made in the last nearly 8 months of weekly private yoga sessions have been the most gorgeous advancement to witness. Sheer joy, this kiddo. Kicking cancer and reaching goals with the most effervescent zeal imaginable.

I am so fortunate to GET to do what I do ♡

(Photo shared with permission)

Those who do not love, support, and accept you are not your people. Plain and simple. You deserve to be surrounded by love, support, and acceptance for the person you ARE, not for the person others want you to be.

Be you and you'll find not only your happiness and your people, but yourSELF♡

You are beautiful just as you are. You do not need to carve off or hide away or ignore parts of yourself to be loved. You are the most gorgeous version of yourself in your truest authenticity. YOU are who you were always intended to be... no one else. Just you♡

Every body has a place in my yoga classes.
Every body deserves the healing and release of reiki.
Every body is welcome ♡

When I was initially seeking out yoga teacher training, I knew I wanted my classes to be the safest, most inclusive, most welcoming, most accepting place possible for my practitioners. And so, I chose to pursue trauma-informed yoga teacher training.

What does a "trauma-informed" yoga class look like in comparison to one that's not? In my classes, these are some of the ways it manifests:

- I do not touch my students.
There are no physical adjustments. I solely use verbal and demonstrated redirections.

- I do not walk behind or in between students.
Practitioners always know where I am in the room. I will never invade their physical or energetic space during class.

- I do not only cue students to close their eyes.
I offer alternate options and communicate the acceptability of both choices.

- I do not cue certain postures.
Some asanas are broadly known to make many individuals feel vulnerable, and so I do not include those poses in my classes. Practitioners may practice them, of course, but I will not be ushering the entire class into that experience.

- I do not use certain words in my cueing.
As an anatomically-focused teacher, I seldom used pose names to cue students into postures, which means I am constantly using body part names to guide practitioners' movements. I am methodical in my word choices and body references.

- I do not use music, top lights, or scents.
I do not attempt to force or direct my practitioners' experience; it is theirs to shape and hold. Plus, people have a wide range of responses to music; what is calming to one is grating to another. Top lights and scents can trigger overstimulation, and so I avoid them

- I do not expect -- or even want -- my practitioners to do everything I say.
I empower my practitioners. I encourage the class to listen to their bodies first and to honor their body's needs.

- I do not make class serious.
I keep my classes casual. I ensure students feel safe to try -- and in that trying, maybe not succeed initially -- by maintaining a comfortable environment.

As a trauma-informed yoga teacher, I strive to create and embody the safest space possible for each and every one of my practitioners so that they may fully dive into their experience of self.

In today's 3pm yoga class, we will focus on grounding into the divine feminine. We'll move and breathe and be in our essence, releasing all that which draws us away from our grounded and divinely guided selves.

Don't forget to pre-register at least 1.5 hours prior to class to secure your spot in the unique offering: GWDC.PUNCHPASS