The Sunday Series - The Preface
Learn what to expect each Sunday, starting January 12, 2025, from this new series focused on using a wholesome approach to yoga to reframe the Sunday Scaries
This post is serves to acquaint you with this new series on Substack. Below you will find a bit about the author, the inspiration behind and purpose for this series, and previews on forthcoming content.
If you are drawn to this work, you’ll want to subscribe before January 12th to make sure you don’t miss the kickoff of weekly content for free and paid subscribers.
What is The Sunday Series?
This series is provided by me, Koral Brady of Kommon Ground, LLC, as a weekly chance to intentionally check in on your mind, heart, and body before another week begins.
I am a registered yoga teacher, full time university professor, and trauma survivor. On and off the mat, I specialize in breaking the norm, emphasizing choice, and creating practices that meet others where they are at.
I challenge those in the yoga community that operate on spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity and empower students to be their own source of healing, exploration, and love.
The Sunday Series is designed to reframe the Sunday Scaries and was created in response to the popularity of a Sunday afternoon slow flow course I teach in Northern Michigan.
Each Sunday subscribers will receive a post containing reflections, ideas, and tools on how to practice yoga on and off the mat. Beyond movement, this series will look at ways to practice yoga in the every day moments, like when you’re overstimulated, when deadlines are barreling down on you, and when you get caught up in the narrative that you’re not enough and need to keep being productive.
Even if we can’t meet on the mat in person, you deserve access to these opportunities to center yourself and get clear on your needs and wants as you build a peaceful confidence to lead yourself and your loved ones through the days ahead.
Who is The Sunday Series For?
This series is for those who know they have a choice in how Monday feels and the week unfolds, for those who are curious about learning more about yoga, for those who seek connection to a dynamic community, and for the heart-minded warriors!
If you’re looking for practical, bite-sized ways to create a sustainable yoga lifestyle, you’ll want to be here on Sundays!
The Promise of The Sunday Series
Subscribers will receive weekly emails with practical ways to practice yoga beyond just a movement practice
Subscribers will be able to reframe the Sunday Scaries mindset
Subscribers will learn more about the eight-limbed yoga path
Free Subscriber’s Receive
Weekly List of Five Ways to Practice Yoga in the Coming Week
Paid Subscribers Receive
Affirmations for quieting the Sunday Scaries
How I practiced yoga beyond movement for myself and in my relationships in the last week
Ways you can reflect on your yoga practice from the prior week
Yoga sequences, meditations, messages from the heart connected to yoga philosophy and trauma informed care
Practices to connect to individual limbs of yoga
Practices for chakra check ins and balancing
Thought and/or journal prompts for how to frame and prepare for the upcoming week in ways that focus on your needs, wants, and dreams
Information on current offerings + first access to upcoming workshops and retreats
Scroll down for Content Preview!
The next section presents you with a preview of what you can expect weekly in your inbox as support in your self exploration and connection to community if you choose to become a PAID SUBSCRIBER.
The post also includes a Preview of the Five Ways I Practiced Yoga This Week content that FREE SUBSCRIBERS can expect weekly.
Happy reading and resting!
Content Preview - From The Last Sunday of 2024
As we enter a season with a lot of messaging about a “new you” that can make you feel compelled to criticize yourself and overhaul your habits, I want to remind you that you have permission to move at your own pace. Your dedication to growing and evolving is beautiful, but if it’s going to last, we need to find sustainable ways to reflect, learn, unlearn, and shift.
On the eight-limbed yoga path, the Niyamas (positive duties or observances) remind us to look at all parts of ourselves. Svadhyaya (self study) invites us to find ways to witness ourselves and to question why, how, and when we engage in certain patterns.
If your an ACTAR fan and have made it to book three, I encourage you to look at page 618 and the sentiment that is shared when the main character learns to embrace all the “good” and “bad” pieces of herself. To reach that acceptance, the character had to witness everything she is. Rather than letting it destroy her, she chooses acceptance.
This passage reminded me that to find peace, we have to stop hating ourselves. Funny enough, the day I read that passage, social media presented me with a post that said, “The most anti-inflammatory thing you can do is stop hating yourself.”
These messages are finding me at at time where I feel inclined to keep repeating messages of hate towards my physical body. I’ve taken up my svadhyaya practice in these moments. Here’s a look at my internal dialogue and processing when I realized what I was doing:
Me: I’m so fat. How did this happen. I’m so upset. I can’t stand to see this body.
Inner voice: This is a tender moment. Your body has changed. You’ve enjoyed food and drinks with less restriction before during a celebratory part of your year. Do you really regret eating your wedding cake?
Me: No, I do not. In fact, I’m so happy that I didn’t restrict myself. But, this hurts, I want to point out the weight and hate myself so that when other people notice it, I’m already ahead of them and it won’t impact me.
Inner voice: Why do you think this hurts?
Me: It hurts because my mom focused so much on my weight and commented when I was too big and where she thought I should be. It hurts because I was called an “pudgy” and an “eater” as if it was a slur for eating normal meals. It hurts because the cloths I love don’t fit the same. It hurts because I take care of myself and this doesn’t seem fair.
Inner voice: Do you want to keep hurting?
Me: No, but this feels impossible to shift, to erase.
Inner voice: You already know the answer don’t you.
Me: I think so, I’m supposed to love myself anyway.
Inner voice: Exactly.
Me: I just don’t know how to do so when all I hear are the rules and judgments that have haunted me for over thirty years. The active judgments people hold, and I still feel.
Inner voice: Keep breaking those judgments down. Piece by piece you’re unwinding a narrative. You’ll always be aware of its threads, but you can burn many of its ends so they stop growing. If you see it as a wall, you can keep chipping away at it. Either way brunt or crumbled, you’ll see the wreckage, but you’ll also finally see how to move away and create a new system of self love and confidence for yourself.
As you make changes this month and year, my hope for you is that those shifts are motivated from love and curiosity rather than self hate and loathing (leave the loathing to Glinda)!
So here, is a prompt to work with. You can ponder it, you can meditate on it, you can journal about it:
In which ways might I be judging myself too harshly? Where is it no longer productive or helpful to keep holding a judgment about myself?
Be kind to yourself in your exploration and processing.
5 Ways I Practiced Yoga This Week
Svadhyaya (self study): The reflection in the notes above was one of many moments I engaged in self reflection this week. I’ve had many moments this week where I observed pieces of me in those around me.
Satya (truthfulness): During a conversation in which stigma was being wrongfully cast at a distinct group, I used my voice to share true facts about the topic that clearly pointed out the harm in the other’s approach.
Pranayama (breathing): I have used my breath during moments of overstimulation during the holidays to give myself a moment to touch back to reality and safety.
Samadhi (bliss) - While I was sitting observing the canal in front of our current accommodations without any distractions, two dolphins appeared right in front of where I sat.
Asana (physical movement/postures): I’ve practiced intentional grounding and foundational work before several weight training sessions. I also was able to practice a gentle yoga class in a studio in SWFL with my aunt.
The intent of this content is to help all subscribers notice that there are many ways to create a connection to yoga beyond a physical movement practice.
I feel passionately about breaking down some of the stereotypes and correcting some of the ways many Westerners think about and practice yoga. I hope you’ll find ways to connect with the limbs, philosophy, and history in your personal practices.
New Year’s Affirmations
I am allowed to move at my own pace
Resources are available to me to support my needs
There is abundance within me
What I seek is already mine
Current Offerings
Studio Classes pick back up in Jan. in SSM, MI
Free yoga videos for different moods and goals here
Daily Mindful Morning posts on Threads (@kommon.ground)
KG Free Monthly Newsletter with recaps, offerings, and monthly intentions (email Koral.kommonground@gmail.com to be added)
Access to BREAK Coming Soon: This is a five week online container focused on guiding a small group of individuals through a major shift into freedom. The offerings includes:
5 Weekly Meetings with structured practices on Zoom
Week 1 - Feeling the hold, being stuck
Week 2 - Shaking loose
Week 3 - Breaking out
Week 4 - Exploring new options, beliefs, choices
Week 5 - Empowering & grounding
Weekly resources for participants to move through at their own pace, including meditations, prompts, music, yoga movement sequences, and somatic practices that match weekly themes posted on Teachable
Access to a group chat for accountability and discussions on weekly content
Priority access to THAW, the Spring container, and CLIMB, the summer program!