If you want the short version: to serve, to teach, to heal, and to do my part to create a better world.
If you want a better story, it goes something like this:
Three years ago I found myself in the depths of my own personal fire. Everything hurt. My mind focused only on fear. My body felt completely foreign. And, my spirit was slowly suffocating.
I looked to the one thing that always worked for me in the past, movement. The fire was so intense that even when I moved I could not transcend it. As fate would have it, my movement practice delivered a mentor. She came to me when my fire had almost consumed me. I felt stuck, and I could not see the way out.
I showed up to our first session, thinking that I was going to move, feel better, and all would be right with the world again. Boy, was I wrong! She asked me to do the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do. She asked me to lay on my mat, be still, and breathe. She validated that I was in the fire, but then she told me that I must stay there. And that the only way out was through.
My initial response was F**K that! There must be another way out. She cannot possibly understand the depth of my suffering. My body and my mind completely resisted the simple task of being still. Seeing this, she lovingly acknowledged the pain and suffering. The acknowledgement allowed for a tiny space. A still soft voice crept in through that tiny space, and whispered, breathe, you can do this. In that moment I took a breath and surrendered. I dissolved into a pile of tears and felt the depths of my pain.
When our session ended, my mentor told me that I needed to do two things. I thought to myself, this is it, here comes the magical cure. And to my astonishment, she told me that I needed to gain control over my mind and I needed to learn how to love myself.
My ego piped back up. Doesn’t she know who I am? I am a Pilates instructor, I teach people how to mindfully move and connect to their bodies on a daily basis. Who is she to tell me that I don’t love myself? And in that moment my ego won, I decided that our mentorship would end right then and there.
But as destiny would have it, the divine had a different plan for me. My suffering increased to the point it was too much to bear. Something had to change if I was going to make it out of the fire alive. I put my ego aside, and went back to my mentor for another session. The soft still voice spoke to me again, but this time it asked me a question, “How do you even begin to love yourself?”
Over the next two years, with my mentor, I developed movement, breath, and mindfulness practices that allowed me to to unpack the stories that I had been telling myself. I learned to be an observer of my thoughts, and how to take responsibility for the reality that I had created for myself.
These practices that I now call embodiment practices were ultimately my saving grace, and walked me through the fire. Embodiment taught me how to have an intimate relationship with myself and to ultimately love myself deeper than I ever thought possible.
As I began to transcend my fire, clients who were in the depths of their own fire were drawn to me. I began teaching them embodiment practices, and being apart of their journey blessed me, more than I can express in words. There was no going back. I knew my life’s purpose, hence, the creation of Embody by Lo.
It is my goal to empower as many people as possible through this program. Empowering people to rediscover who they are at a soul level. And then embodying their truest and most authentic self. Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you. It is my hope that you will choose to join me on this journey.
xo-Lo