Welcome everyone! We are Brian and Danielle, a husband and wife and proud parents of two daughters who are the treasures of our life. To better understand how we ended up on a spiritual journey creating the Yoga Zen Life we feel like we should tell you a little bit about our story.
We have been happily married for over 20 years and we live in our old stomping grounds of Columbia Falls MT. We live on 2 acres of wooded property in our house we physically built ourselves. We are big into camping, hiking, fishing, skiing, and pretty much anything that deals with the outdoors.
Our proverbs we live by is “families that play together, stay together”.
I, Danielle, am a professional accountant with a bachelor’s in business administration majoring in accounting, I am an aromatherapist with Doterra essential oils, I am a blogger, a life coach for women, and I am passionate about yoga zen.
Who would have ever guessed I was stepping down the path of Yoga?
But I have always had a thirst for the deeper spiritual truths that connect us all together but never fully dove into the research. But since then I have had a change in heart.
The point that shifted my path was my husband’s spiritual quest for self-discovery. He is a journeyman electrician who soon found his passion after his awakening 3 years ago, which lead him towards becoming a spiritual transformational teacher. His eagerness and thirst for knowledge have led him to become certified as a meditation and mindfulness teacher, NLP, and life coaching.
He likes to call himself a modern-day yogi and tries living his life centered on zen.
Before all this happened my husband had many negative things going on in his life from living a fast-paced lifestyle full of stress. He was battling panic attacks and anxiety, he had problems sleeping, and he had a pinched sciatic nerve from a fractured spine. Needless to say, he was a wreck.
After the solid year of building our house, he was ready for some changes and somehow was drawn towards the ancient art of meditation and yoga. He practiced day and night without hesitation. He was fully committed and disciplined about his new spiritual routine.
Well, about 6 months into his practice he started experienced what he called a breath-taking spiritual awakening where massive amounts of energy started flowing through every cell of his being. He explained it like he was being baptized by fire.
It sounded a bit scary at the time. For two weeks he went through a transition to where he didn’t sleep. During this time he studied, he read, and he meditated. He said he felt so energetic and alive. It was like he went through a purification process clearing all the junk and emotional baggage he had stored beneath the surface.
It wasn’t until he read the book “the Dark Night of the Soul” by St. John of the Cross to where he learned about the discomforts of an awakened soul. He soon realized that because of all the emotional baggage that he has been packing around had become stored inside the physical body causing dis-ease.
He explained it to me in his electrical terminology like our body’s nervous system is like the filament of a 60-watt lightbulb and God’s energy is like a trillion watts of pure positive energy. Our fleshy bodies are not conditioned for this energy without taking the time and preparation for this process. This created resistance to the natural flow of this life force which caused it to work harder to purge it’s way up the tree of life and creating more fuel and heat.
Bottom line, a bit painful. I watched him go through quite a scare there for a while.
But once he surrendered the discomfort finally went away and many blessings have come pouring into his life since then.
Looking back, I realized he hasn’t had a single panic attack, he is happier, he is passionate, he stopped drinking, and he sleeps like a rock. Not to mention he hardly ever gets sick anymore.
But one of the greatest gifts that he manifested was the healing of his back. He used to get cortisone shots in his lower vertebrates every six months to find relief from the severe pain of his pinched nerve.
But it has been over 3 years now and he has no more pain without the need for any injections…
There have been many other spiritual gifts that have come into his life, but we might talk about them in one of our future blogs. After this period of his life, he has continued diving into every ancient text to discover the truth about our existence.
This has inspired me to jump into my own spiritual path of self-discovery.
Because I am not going to lie to you. I am a busy mom who is full of some MAJOR emotional baggage. With my full-time job as a senior accountant and being that I am glue that keeps our family together, I have much inner work I need to take care of. I got laundry, dishes, housework, bills to pay, dinner to cook, dance recitals, and not to mention I have multiple online businesses.
The bottom line, I was at my max.
But with what happened to my husband I started taking his advice and taking care of my well-being. I started eating healthier, meditating, and doing yoga asanas on a regular basis. Since then I can honestly say I have noticed some drastic change in my life for the better.
So, I have joined forces with my husband to teach, inspire, and encourage you to start living a Yoga Zen lifestyle. We truly hope that with our research, our own personal experiences, and our encouraging words steer you towards your own path of self-discovery. “It is spiritual poverty, not material lack, that lies at the core of human suffering.” Yogananda Paramahansa
Be well and soulful,
Danielle and Brian