What do YOU want?

What I Thought Was Leadership Training Became a Homecoming

Last week, I took a three-day course called Heartcore Leadership.

Like anyone would assume, I signed up thinking it would be about leadership.

You know, communication skills. Organization. Maybe some corporate-style tools I could apply to my work and daily life.

That’s not what I got.

What I got was something far more raw.

This wasn’t about leading others.

It was about learning how to lead myself.

It was about letting something deep inside of me finally come to the surface.

It was about integrity. It was about healing old, deeply seeded wounds that I didn’t even realize were still shaping how I move through the world. Wounds that taught me to guard my voice. To soften my truth. To stay “together” instead of staying real. It was about learning what actually makes me tick.

And it wasn’t pretty.

There was screaming into pillows.There was crying.There was going through an entire box of tissues.There was uncovering hidden blame I’ve carried toward my family.There was allowing my authenticity to lead instead of my armor.

We did exercises designed to test your boundaries,meant to break you.

Those who know me know I typically don’t break easy.

My walls are high. I'm guraded and often move from survival.

But by the end of day two, some of them finally came down.

What was left felt like rubble.

My ego was shattered. I was uncomfortable in my vulnerability. I have done some deep work over the years on myself with outside help, but this was next level, deep.

Because in that space, I could finally face who I am and who I pretend to be.

I’ve gotten very good at looking like I have it all together. I wear that mask well. I hold space for so many people: as a teacher, a mother, as a wife, as a daughter, as a friend. It’s part of who I am. But somewhere along the way, I learned to put myself last in that equation. I neglect myself, I'm still learning to love myself.

This experience showed me something I already suspected but didn’t fully understand:

I have blind spots.

And others can see them far more clearly than I can.

That part was humbling. Wild. Uncomfortable. I was seen as the scared little girl, hiding from the arguments, learning to survive by diassociation and distraction, showing I definetly do not understand everything and have the answers.

There was one exercise in particular where we were repeatedly asked the same question, over and over, almost like an interrogation:

What do you want?

After a few minutes and all sorts of things pouring out of my mouth like a volcano, one word surfaced at least 5 times:

Power. WTF, right?

That was my reaction too.

I’ve never thought of myself as power-hungry. If anything, I associate power with dominance or control, things I don’t want to identify with at all.

But as I sat with it, reflected on it, dissected it…

I realized what power is not.

It’s not about domination.It’s not about being above anyone.It’s not about control.

Power, for me, means choice.

It means my voice matters.

It means I get to stop reacting and start deciding.

It means living from intention instead of old survival patterns.

It means standing in my truth without shrinking.

It means allowing my authenticity to lead.

This course didn’t teach me how to manage people.

It taught me how to meet myself.

It reminded me that leadership begins inside,in the way we listen to our bodies, honor our emotions, and tell the truth about what we actually need.

As a yoga teacher, this feels deeply aligned with what I already believe:

Healing doesn’t come from fixing ourselves.It comes from finally being willing to see ourselves.

I’m still integrating everything that surfaced.

But I know this much — something shifted.

And I’m walking forward with a little less armor, a little more honesty, and a deeper commitment to living from my heart.

What This Taught Me as a Yoga Teacher/Student

This experience reminded me why I come back to my mat again and again. To stay instead of flee or make perfect.

Yoga isn’t about perfect poses or flexible bodies.

It’s about learning how to sit with discomfort.It’s about breathing through the moments when everything in you wants to shut down.It’s about noticing where you’re holding tension and to soften.

That’s exactly what this training asked of me, to meet myself with honesty instead of judgment. Observation.

It’s the courage to pause before reacting.It’s choosing truth over comfort.It’s allowing your breath to guide you back into your body when your mind wants to run.

This is what I hope to offer you in class.

Because yoga, like leadership, begins inside.

If you’d like, I can also help:

✨ Permission to drop the mask

✨ Permission to take up space and to trust yourself again

✨ Permission to practice leading yourself

✨ Permission to be direct with integrity

I want you all to see all of me, I want to see all of you. I want continued connection, friendship, love; I want the power to choose for myself. I want all of us in this world to see with our hearts, not under scrutiny, to deeply listen, to intuitively believe, and to stop the "having it all together" tension that I hold in the pit of my stomach.

In deep connection, I honor this work.

Love Lo

January 26-Feb 1

Monday- Yogalates with Sheila

Tuesday-Gentle total body release Sheila

Wednesday- Hatha Flow Lo

Thursday- Rooted in Strength Jen

Friday- Hatha Flow Lo

Sunday- Restorative Alex