Parenting Resources Archives | Full Circle Yoga KC

Prenatal Mantras and Change

October 27, 2023 by Full Circle KC

One thing for sure is change!

* If you are expecting there are constant changes with how you feel and your body, and baby’s minute to minute growth.

*If your parenting then there’s constant change with schedules and child development.

*The weather in the Midwest!

*Unrest in the world

*New classes and workshops at FCYKC!….keep reading for all the details!

We have talked mantras this month and how they can support us in pregnancy, labor and birth, and parenthood. The big change in our household is welcoming a teenager! Gah, time flies! We are celebrating and honoring this time of change as parents and as our daughter begins to navigate these years as a teenager. My mantra is “I will not fear, but celebrate and honor this stage of parenthood!”

We have LOTS of exciting classes (some new!) and workshops to end out 2023!

Social Emotional Yoga with Mrs. V! (ages K-5^th grade)- THIS SATURDAY October 28^th 1:30-3:00pm. Costumes encouraged! Next class will be holiday themed on Saturday December 23^rd. See full description here.

Storytime Yoga with Emmi!– Starting Friday November 3^rd at 10:00am. Your preschool-aged kiddos are invited to join Miss Emmi for Kids Storytime Yoga. We’ll use fables, fairytales, books, yoga poses, breathing, mindful movement, music, and coloring to build self-awareness, emotional regulation, body awareness, concentration, and more. And we’ll have fun! See Emmi’s bio here

Coming of Age Workshop– Wednesday November 8th

5:30-8:30pm- Empowering our Girls to Celebrate and Embrace Their Changing Bodies. Full details here.

Build Your Best Birth Plan– with Taylor owner of With You Wellness KC. Thursday November 30th 7:30pm-9:00pm

Tickets $75. Link to reserve coming soon!

Coming soon! Moms Morning out Yoga Class– watch for upcoming announcements and details!!! Monthly Saturday Moms Morning Yoga!!!

Coming of Age Workshop

July 15, 2022 by Full Circle KC

Join our preteen yoga and puberty for girls workshop! Our coming of age workshop is a 3-hour workshop that celebrates the changes in preteen girls in the Kansas City area.

In many cultures, the phases of a life cycle are celebrated and honored with traditions and ceremonies. In this workshop kids (she/her) and mothers are invited to celebrate, share, and honor the coming of age from kid towards adult.
This intimate and sacred 3-hour workshop will include group discussion and education about puberty, activities, journal writing, yoga, storytelling, and ideas for a memorable celebration that commemorates a first moon/period/menstrual cycle.
We will help facilitate a time of connecting, story telling, and offering information about puberty, periods, products and mental health to help open the doors of conversations between you and your child.
Hosted by Jenny Hellman, MSW, owner of Full Circle Yoga and Stephanie Cook, RN
For more information and to reserve go to www.full.circleyogakc.com
Purchase “Coming of Age” pass

Our next workshop is Saturday August 6th 9am-noon

Coming of Age

June 24, 2021 by Full Circle KC

COMING OF AGE

Our first (and we hope of many!) Moontime/puberty workshop was amazing! It was such a powerful gathering, I’m still sitting with the feelings and reflecting on the shared time we spent together. It was such an honor to hold and share space with warrior women, girls and kiddos and celebrate such a special community. Through yoga, storytelling, real talk about puberty and starting your mooontime/period we connected, normalized, laughed, cried, opened discussions within our circle and after with mother’s/daughters/kiddos. When we create safe spaces we can be courageous and vulnerable and tell our stories that can break down taboos and shame to pave a better way for our children.

As a social worker and mother of a daughter who is at the beginning stages of puberty, creating a workshop around Coming of Age was deep in my soul. I wanted to offer a scared space for mothers and daughters/kiddos to be able to come together and hear stories of women starting their period, to feel the wisdom and powerful energy that’s created when women come together. We come from a society that doesn’t speak, celebrate or honor this momentous time in a girls/kiddos life. I want that to be different for my daughter and others.

In reading some really wonderful books like Moon Mother and Moon Daughter Myths and Rituals that Celebrate a Girl’s Coming-of-Age gave me a foundation for which to create such a workshop. Reading excellent articles like this one which also included some humorous ads to a sometimes uncomfortable and even taboo topic with a girl faking her period just so she can have a party. I also collaborated with an amazing nurse, Stephanie, and Mama of two daughters who is incredibly talented and creative in her approach about talking all things puberty.

As Stephanie and I collaborated our hopes for this preteen yoga workshop blossomed into these cornerstones:

*To begin to shift the cultural paradigm of shame-pain-fear-embarrassment-nuisance regarding our menstrual cycle to one of an empowering experience and shift the way mothers/daughters relate to one another.

*Ideas for celebrating a girls/kiddos Coming-of-Age.

*Knowledge is power- and when we give our girls/kiddos valuable information they can be the change agents to break our culture paradigm and support and celebrate others.

*Raise Awareness- As Oprah says, when we know better we do better. Like seasons of Mother Earth and phases of the Moon we too have cycles/seasons/phases that if we know and understand our bodies we can embrace each phase.

*Support our daughters in claiming their own Goddess power

Our workshop began with creating a safe gathering through agreeing to

*Speak and listen from the heart

*Letting other support us when we open ourselves to to confide and be vulnerable

*Confidentiality

*Respect

*Love

We opened our circle with introductions introducing ourselves, our pronoun, and sharing the name of a woman we wanted their energy to be in the gathering as well.

__________

Partner Yoga was next, because yoga offers the opportunity for mother and daughter/kiddo to have eye-contact, build trust, and work together as a team. It allowed for a moment for everyone to feel the energy of beauty, strength, love, openness for what was ahead for the afternoon. Our partner poses involved heart openers so that our hearts could receive and send love into the gathering. We had trust poses to remind each other of the importance of trust during challenging poses and challenging phases in life. A warrior series to promote courage as well all need courage in times of transition. Part of the fun in partner yoga is figuring it out, like in life, working together with those that love us to figure life out. We had to end our yoga session with a fun Hersey Kiss pose because when we are having our moontime/period we often need chocolate and some extra love!

We transitioned into storytelling next which was so very powerful. Mother’s were asked to share their story of when they started their period/moontime. Many of the girls/kiddos and mothers approached me afterwards telling me this was one of their favorite parts. Telling our stories has a multitude of benefits. When we share our stories it helps us find common themes and patterns. It can break down barriers so that we can really change the way for ourselves and others. Stories can make us feel less alone and can help reclaim something that has long been considered negative or left to figure it out on your own. Storytelling is powerful, empowering, and builds empathy.

Girls and kiddos were then given an opportunity to decorate their own moontime pouch while mothers wrote a letter to their child to be put into the pouch for reading later or maybe even on the day she/they start their period.

We then transitioned into the 101 of puberty and periods with Stephanie who used visuals, hands-on, and excellent art and hand outs to talk about a girls/kiddos changing body and what they can expect during the transition. She showed how tampons work (there was more than one mother in the room that had to learn the hard way about how to use a tampon because NO ONE talked about it!). The girls/kiddos were totally engaged and asked brilliant questions!

We ended our gathering with a beautiful ceremony that we will keep scared by just sharing that it was powerful!

It was an absolute honor to be a part of this gathering and hold space for all the mothers and daughters/kiddos that attended. I’m already looking forward to our next Coming of Age Workshop!

Do The Research But Be Prepared For Not Finding The Answer….

April 15, 2021 by Full Circle KC

Do the Research, But Be Prepared For Not Finding The Answer

Reading all the books you can about birth, postpartum, motherhood, breastfeeding, sleeping? Listening to all the recommended podcasts before baby arrives? That was me… and… it’s still me…. trying to get all the expert advice and research on how to raise our children…. especially now, as we begin to enter the world of tweens!

Does the research and prep really help when thrown into parenthood? Depending on the day the answer may be different! Somedays, it’s absolutely! And, other days it’s a resounding NO and I can’t find the answer often resulting in tears and feelings of failure and alone. I remember those tears as I struggled with breastfeeding my daughter. I had all the “best,” “recommended,” “must have if you want to breastfeed” books but breastfeeding didn’t come easy. I also remember finding a book that gave us such wonderful tools and guidance when “time-outs” didn’t feel right for us.

It’s important to arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible from books and classes. But, don’t forget your own wisdom and instincts when you are in the trenches of motherhood, it can be just as important as the books.

As much as the books promise to have all the answers, there is no user manual for your child no matter how many books you read. Best practices you’ve read may not work and that’s ok. Sometimes the answers aren’t in a book. There are no answers sometimes. For some of us, not having answers feels really vulnerable and scary, and it is!! Sometimes the best answer is within your mamas instinct and listening to your gut. Sometimes it really is the old adage of try and if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. Letting there be room for air and breath and giving yourself the ok not to follow the rules and improvise can be so liberating!!! And that just may be where you find the answer you’re looking for!

The books, podcasts, classes are all so incredibly helpful, offering tools (and sometimes some good tricks!), as guidance. I think that’s the key in that these wonderful resources we learn from are tools in guiding us as parents. If we can listen and trust our gut, be okay with trial and error, and give ourselves grace when we make mistakes we will raise confident, bright, kind, creative, critical thinking, champions of change children.

Finding a community of other Mamas is a wonderful resource to share ideas and experiences and receive ideas and experiences. There’s nothing like real life lessons shared among Mamas, sometimes there’s tears of laughter and sometimes it’s tears of struggle. Our Mamas and families at Full Circle Yoga KC have tremendous wisdom, courage and willingness to share vulnerable lessons of parenthood! There is a natural energy of uplifting and holding space for women who are on the journey of motherhood at Full Circle Yoga KC that is truly what makes Full Circle Yoga KC such a special place.

It has been a long year, a REALLY long year of having to be at a distance from each other. I’m tremendously grateful for zoom classes and the deep dedication of our community as we faced such hardships this last year. My heart fills as the vibe and energy returns to the studio with expectant Mamas returning for Prenatal Yoga, Mamas and Babies return to BYOB Yoga Class and Mamas and Littles attend Mama and Movers Yoga Class.

Full Circle Yoga KC is family centered yoga studio in Midtown Kansas City specializing in Prenatal Yoga, Prenatal Partner Yoga, Baby Yoga, and many family-centered workshops.

It’s O.K. to find another doctor

November 16, 2020 by Full Circle KC

My original title was it’s ok to fire your doctor, but being mindful of the power of words and how it’s important for us all to find kindness and healing in the division we live in right now, it didn’t feel right. And, our healthcare works are working harder than ever to keep us healthy during this pandemic. However, with that said, it really is okay to find another doctor and say goodbye to one that doesn’t feel right for you.

Last week a smart, well educated, loving, safety awareness mother shared she had left the pediatrician in tears. This hit such a strong chord for me, likely because I remember as if it were yesterday walking out of the our pediatrician’s office in tears. It was my first child and breastfeeding was NOT coming easy for us, however I really wanted to breastfeed and felt like I was doing everything I possible could. I had a nipple shield, I was going to weekly support breastfeeding gatherings at the hospital, I was pumping, drinking water, finger feeding with a tube. At our tw0-week check-up the pediatrician did not offer warm fuzzies that I needed as a new mom, did not offer validation for the work my baby and I were doing. Instead she went straight to the discussion of giving my daughter formula with still continuing to try and breastfeed. I felt like she had given up on my daughter and I. I’m sure my reconciliation is more harsh than the actual encounter, but what I heard was ‘you’re not doing enough, you don’t have enough milk supply, your baby is suffering.” Yes, my baby had not made it back to birth weight in two weeks and that was a concern for the pediatrician and for ME- I wanted my baby well and healthy and gaining wait too! Not the feeling you want as a new mom when all you’re trying to do is the best for this new life that holds your heart. As I drove away from the office that day in pools of tears I remember thinking that day I needed to listen to my mama gut, seek support that offered validation and support in this crazy hormonal fourth trimester, continue to education myself, and give myself some grace. My gut told me I needed to say good-bye to that pediatrician stat for my mental wellness. I knew I needed a pediatrician that would listen to my concerns, validate my efforts and speak kindly, yet professionally while offering medical care and expertise I so respected in the field. So, I fired that pediatrician and found a family physician that met my needs and by baby’s. And 10 years later we are still with her.

My heart pulled for this new Mama that had joined our FREE lunchtime Moms Chat. And it hit a chord for the other moms who were quick to support, validate, (and ready to get her back!), and remind her she was doing a great job and each mom and family have to figure out what works for them, in this situation, it dealt with sleeping. While physicians are required and should give medical advice, it’s all in HOW they say it that can make or break how it’s received. Our lunchtime virtual chat that started during the pandemic at the suggestion of a FCYKC mom, have been so insightful, supportive, helpful, funny, and uplifting. I LOVE seeing how women embrace motherhood together and uplift each other and the WEALTH of knowledge they each bring and share.

In prenatal yoga class I often ask Mamas to close their eyes as I read the differences between third trimester and fourth trimester. Babies are used to constant contact while in the womb and when they come to earthside there is a drastic shift in this, so much that the discussion becomes about how to put baby down. I appreciate Sarah Ockwell-Smith (author of The Gentle Sleep Book and numerous others) simple statement that perhaps the answer is *not* to put baby down and discover parental understanding and empathy for baby and remembering that parents and babies are individuals which makes us all different and unique.

Being a first time parent myself I remember trying to figure out the right way for so long. Embarrassingly so, it took awhile to really get there is no right way. The day I decided it was time to find another practitioner was an empowering moment. Each parent, child, and family is different and if caring for a baby comes from love, education, safety, empathy, and getting to know each other, in the end that’s what’s important and the right way.