Happy Friday Reader

Welcome back to The 5 Things Friday Coffee Break! This is my weekly roundup of fun, creative, and personal growth-inspired finds that I think you’ll love.

In Each Issue:

☕ The Weekly Brew: A more personal note from me each week
​📝 Journaling prompts inspired by my weekly brew
🎨 Five creative, thought-provoking, or just fun things I’m loving
🖼️ A spotlight on one of my artworks (sometimes with a special discount!)
📅 Upcoming events and offerings
✨ And who knows—maybe some surprises!

Boating with Friends

Throw back photo to the yoga studio I opened many years ago...

Happy Friday Reader
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I’ve practiced yoga my entire life in some form or another, and I’ve been teaching yoga almost my entire adult life (since 2008). My favorite form of yoga has always been an intense, sweaty flow class—linking breath and movement while moving through sun salutations. It has always felt right in my body. That worked well for most of my 20s and 30s.

For the last 2–3 years, I’ve been teaching a short, 30-minute flow class on Zoom every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I’ve nicknamed it “muscle flossing” because we practice what I think all of us need to do daily to keep our muscles strong, supple, and healthy.

Lately, it’s been dawning on me that my teaching has changed dramatically. I’ve slowed my practice down considerably. What once was a flow filled with sun salutations now maybe has one—because that’s what’s sustainable for me right now. I’m much more interested in slow, deep stretching… in opening and expanding, then contracting and coming back to self… than I am in “getting a good workout.” This transition from power flow to what feels like a very slow flow snuck up on me. But it was accelerated by breast cancer.

I had my lumpectomy on a Monday, and by Thursday, I was teaching my morning yoga class. This was, in large part, a personal statement I was making to myself. No one made me do this.

Everything in my left arm was tight. I wasn’t supposed to extend my arm past 90 degrees for a week. I was surprised at how painful and debilitating the lymph node biopsy site was. I was frustrated that I couldn’t extend my arm fully. I was sad that the stretches I turned to daily because they felt so good now hurt—and I wondered if they would ever feel good again. (Even a month later, I’m still not back to 100%.) After that short 30 minutes, I was exhausted.

So why did I keep teaching those classes, even the day after my second surgery to remove the skin over the original lumpectomy site?

It wasn’t about proving I could do it. It wasn’t about being strong—because I assure you, I didn’t feel strong or healthy in any way. It wasn’t about working for work’s sake.

It was about this:
Each inhale, each exhale, each moment on the mat was an opportunity to come home to myself.

That’s what I’ve been teaching for the past 17 years, and it rang true in my body and soul during those first post-surgery classes. With each modified movement and every breath, I knew: This is yoga, too.

I also knew it mattered for my students to see me showing up in a body that wasn’t at 50%—let alone 75%—and still making space for the practice. Yes, I’m on the thin side, but this wasn’t the “Instagram yoga teacher” image. Those days, I didn’t even wear yoga pants or a fitted top. I wore sweatpants and a soft, comfortable shirt. I chose comfort over demonstrating physical alignment, because I needed to show alignment in another way—through presence, not perfection.

I didn’t have to do everything I taught that day for it to be yoga. I could have laid there the entire class, breathing deliberately and intentionally, and that would have been yoga. I’ve been saying that for years, but now I’m living it. Sometimes alignment isn’t about muscles and bones—it’s about breath and spirit. And that work is just as important.

Way back in 2008, in the very first yoga teacher training workshop I ever took, my teacher, Stephanie Keach, circled us up and asked if we had any current injuries. Everyone had something—and none of them were visible. At the time, I had a broken heart. My engagement had just ended. I was in my early 20s, feeling lonely, lost, and shattered. I took all of that to the mat, too.

I’m no stranger to bringing sadness to the mat and letting it transform me. But this slowing down—these physical limitations—are evolving my practice into what I’ve always known yoga should be:
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A place to come home to yourself.
A place of breath-led evolution.
A place where lying in savasana or resting in child’s pose the entire class is still yoga.

We all have pain. We all have discomfort. We all have injuries—past, present, or future. We all need modifications at some point. And if you are intentionally staying with your breath, it is yoga.

Our practices will sometimes be strong and sweaty, and sometimes slow and meditative. Our practice is allowed to change and evolve as we do. This is not weakness. This is a gift.

And the real question is how do you take your yoga and it's lessons from the mat into the world?

Together We Float,

• From Mat to Life – How do I take my yoga—or any mindful practice—and carry its lessons off the mat and into my everyday interactions, choices, and challenges?
• The Practice I Need Now – How has my practice (yoga, creative, spiritual, or otherwise) evolved as my life has changed? What do I need to release so my practice meets me where I am now?
• Presence Over Perfection – Where in my life can I focus less on “doing it all” and more on showing up fully present, even if what I’m doing looks different than it used to?

1) This week I've been reading The Fair Botanists by Sara Sheridan. I've got a tiny bit more to go on this one but i've been loving it!
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​This year, I’m keeping a running list of every book I read and sometimes what I thought — You can access it here, not everything can make it to this newsletter.
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2) I've shared this recipe before but I'm going to be making it this weekend adding sweat potatoes, and spinach too. It's definitely a comfort food for me. Kitchari is so good! ​

3) With the scars from my lumpectomy and Lymph node biopsy and the recent sunburn I had, I've been slathering myself with this Vitamin E, and even started using it as a moisturizer on my face.

4) I have a Pinterest page I call Creative inspirations. I'll see creative things that inspire me. Another artist's work typical does stir things inside of me from color palettes to techniques that I wonder how they have done something. If I need a little inspiration I head to this page of mine on Pinterest.
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5) I finally got to share a recent watercolor commission that I did for a friend. It's a picture of your daughter (a very talented ballerina) waiting behind the wings on stage to go on. I think this is one of my all time favorite commissions I've ever done.
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If you're in need of a special gift for fall or the upcoming holiday's I'm currently taking commissions for that time, just shoot me a reply and I'll send you information about my commission process.

Together We Float,
-Alisha

Coming Soon: The Healing Project Collection Mark Your Calendar for This Tuesday August 12th 10AM. This latest collection opens to you here on the Newsletter list. This deeply personal collection marks a huge evolution in my art and you don't want to miss it! I have a hunch these pieces will not be available for long. ​