2019: Year in Review

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  • Started 2019 with a winter-celebratory skate at the Bentway under the Gardiner.

  • Watched my first Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game (they didn’t win but it was a hyped up atmosphere supporting the local team)

  • Started teaching at my favourite east-end studio, AfterGlow - was welcomed with warmth and love from all the staff and regular students

  • Visited friends in San Jose, California - had a taste of Californian winter amidst the snow in Canada

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  • Participated in leading a 2-hour Community Yoga class for YMCA’s Sweat for Good Annual Fundraiser

  • Started my Personal Training Specialist certification program on Sundays and made an active effort to create vigorous and challenging programs of my own.

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  • Led my second Meditation & Productivity workshop at the YMCA and led students through movement, breath, journaling prompts, a sharing circle, and mindfulness tips.

  • Got my second tattoo: a sugarskull with flowers symbolizing ‘Rebirth’

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  • Celebrated my 29th birthday with so many of my closest friends and family

  • Provided Reiki to 50+ unique bodies as part of Mejuri’s Wellness activation event for the public and also for their staff

  • Completed my Personal Training Specialist Certification!

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  • Travelled to Tulum, Mexico for my best friend’s bachelorette

  • Started leading group and private sessions, teaching mindfulness and the basic foundations of Stand Up Paddle Boarding along the city’s island shoreline

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  • Travelled to San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua for a 7-day surf trip and adventure. Although losing my wallet, phone, and valuables mid-way through the trip, I found refuge through new and existing friendships.

  • Starting training my first two personal training clients

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  • Celebrated the matrimony of two of my closest friends with their families that came in from Ottawa and the United States

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  • Camped out under the full moon and packed a Stand-Up Paddleboarding trip to Sandbanks Provincial Park (haven’t camped outside in over two decades!)

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  • Quit my full-time job and bought a one-way ticket to London -> Berlin and began a three week Euro trip of a life time

  • Explored various art schools and yoga studios in Berlin and Prague

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  • Flight from Amsterdam was cancelled and was almost stranded in Europe - returned to Toronto only to be greeted many feet of SNOW!

  • Taught my first ‘Mandala Magic’ Art & Meditation workshop to Glow Girls, an after-school program for girls, ages 8-12 years old

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  • Road tripped from Toronto -> Kingston -> Montreal -> Prince Edward County after not driving for six years

  • Celebrated the New Year in the havens of Octopus Garden, sweating, meditating, howling, and manifesting for the new decade.

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Finding Love, Seeking Humility

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Finding Love, Seeking Humility

How much my body has been processing change. Moon cycles, puking, insomnia, chills while sleeping at night, headaches, tight psoas, irritated throat. The thing about travel that I hate and love is making the most of every moment but also at what expense of exhausting the body down? I have given myself many opportunities to sleep, rest, stretch, decompress, meditate, journal, and simply doing nothing seems to be the best anecdote.

Here is a recap of my three weeks in Europe (a very spontaneous and immediate trip, albeit very fulfilling and self-actualizing). Some of the paragraphs were written on train rides while scribbling to-do lists, places to visit, hostels to stay at, and sketches that remain in my small notebook.

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