What Happens When You Start a Yoga InstaGram?

I’m 20 years old. I like graphics, aesthetics, yoga, and social media. I have a yoga blog. Why not turn it into a brand? If I fail, thats it, no consequences. So why not? That’s pretty much my philosophy with this. That’s how I view social media businesses overall. At this point, social/digital media is so saturated that things typically end up getting popular by chance. So let’s see what happens.

I plan to feature more aesthetic yoga poses and balances on my Instagram. I also want to add more ifestyle-oriented posts like this one about a healthy breakfast idea. Finally, I am definitely going to utilize Instagram stories to have a more interactive relationship with my followers. If you want to see more of this I encourage you to go follow my Instagram! This way its easier for you guys to give me feedback and request post ideas that you want to see. I want to be more interactive and fun on my Instagram, and more informational and in-depth on my blog. I’m gonna hit the yoga community from all angles.

In case any of you were interested in starting a social media brand here are a few tips to keep in mind:

1. Make your brand name consistent, EX: whathappensonthemat is my brand name on all social media platforms
2. Know your focus for each social media platform, EX: insta for fun posts, blog for informational posts, snapchat for Q&A’s, youtube for vlogs and lifestyle videos, the list goes on
3. Try to keep your fonts the same! The importance of font in branding is SO REAL
4. AND FINALLY WORK HARD TO CREATE HIGH QUALITY CONTENT: don’t get lazy! your audience can tell!

I hope this helps and I hope you checkout my new insta: @whathappensonthemat

Namaste. xx.

What Happened When I Started Yoga?

Story Time!! What might come as a surprise to you is that starting yoga was my new years resolution in my junior year of high school. The surprise is that it actually stuck.

I think I had maybe been to a few classes here and there. A beach class on vacation on time. An extremely awkward intro to yoga video in gym class. But nothing legit. My first legit class was on a snowy day sometime in January 2014. My friends and I parallel parked in downtown Princeton, filled the parking meter to the brim, and arrived at our very first yoga class. Gratitude yoga had a 4:30pm (after-school) beginner flow. Seemed appropriate.

There are a few things that you need to get used to when you’re new to the yoga community.

What Happens At Hot Yoga?

Hot yoga is misleadingly self explanatory. Of course it’s hot. But what the name neglects to describe is the steam. The sweat. And most importantly the stink. But I’ve been to hot yoga enough times that I have developed a few tips and tricks to help you get through a hot yoga class without slipping in a pool of your own sweat.

What’s happening in MY life? #1

In case you wanted to get to know the voice behind the blog a little more: keep reading.

First off, my name is Claire Towell and I am currently in the home stretch of my sophomore year at Rutgers University. And by home stretch I mean finals. And by finals, I mean the Walking Dead. But outside of finals week, Rutgers is amazing. There is truly a place and an activity for everyone at Rutgers. I am able to sing in an A Cappella group on campus, take photos and do social media for the Recreation Marketing Team, hangout with an extremely diverse group of friends, and practice yoga at FREE classes on campus. I would definitely say that I’m thriving here. LOL.

Other than being a college student, when I’m at home I’m a nanny! Currently I am suffering from an intense case of baby fever because the family I work for has a newborn baby girl. SO CUTE. SO ADORABLE. NOT ENOUGH WORDS TO DESCRIBE IT. It might be a little bit weird to post a photo of her on her since she’s not actually my kid. So you’ll just have to take my word for it that she’s adorable.

Overall, being a 20 year old college student, everything is stressful. School is a lot. Work is a lot. Social events are a lot. Health is a lot. Basically, life is hard. It’s hard to be a multi-tasking millennial. It’s hard to try to be the best version of yourself all of the time. It’s hard when you feel the need to impress everyone and be perfect all of the time. It’s all just a lot. For me, practicing yoga makes it all feel like a little less.

I thought coming to college would be a piece of cake. I didn’t think that it would make me so stressed that I needed to eat 4083792318 pieces of cake to manage it. I thought making friends would be easy. I didn’t think that seeing 23082978673 beautifully intimidating college girls a day would hurt my self esteem the way it did. I thought I would be overwhelmed with excitement, not overwhelmed with schedules and deadlines. Obviously, being almost finished with my second year here at Rutgers, I have found my peace. I have found my daily routines. And I have found out a lot about myself. Having yoga as an outlet at college was such a huge part of me finding my place here at Rutgers. Yoga gives me time for solitude and reflection. Yoga gives me time to observe my breath and my body and cultivate self love. Yoga provides a community of supportive friends. Yoga gives me my mat. For one hour I get to shut off the outside world and just live on my mat in my own little tropical island. My mat is my ninja-training studio. My mat is my happy place. One yoga class at a time.

Please if you want to know anything more about me, my life, and my yoga practice don’t be afraid to ask!!

Namaste. xx.

What Happens When You Self-Reflect?

Self reflection is difficult. It involves candid honesty with ones self. Something that as humans, we often avoid. When I ask myself, “how is my blog doing”, do I like the answer? Yes and no. On the one hand my blog does excite me. I love the way it looks. I love the way I set it up. I love the title. I love the topic. I love the images I have chosen. I LOVE my post about memes. But am I happy with my blog? Overall: Eh. Maybe a little. I have so many ideas and plans for my blog that have not come to fruition just yet. I would conclude that currently I like my blog, but there is still potential for growth. This is often something that happens to us in life. We have all of these plans of the future, but then life happens and we lose track of what we really want. We get caught up in the little things that we don’t focus on the big ones because they do not illicit immediate satisfaction. We do not prioritize our time accurately.

Recently I was at the gym and a colonel from ROTC at Rutgers was working out next to me. He began asking me questions about my hobbies and interests. He asked me if I was a ballet dancer, and I replied “no, but I practice yoga a lot”. He then asked me if I was a yoga teacher and I replied, “no, but one day I would love to do the teacher training, I just don’t have the time for it right now.” He THEN, asked me what I was doing with my time instead of yoga teacher training. I said I’m a student so I’m studying, working, being social, and sleeping (I REALLY value my sleep). Here’s where the deep stuff comes. The colonel asked me a question: “If you lived until you were 90 years old, and you slept for 8 hours every night, for how many years would you be asleep?”. My flustered self responded 3 days like an idiot. (negative self reflection LOL). But basically, the answer is 30 years. You would be sleeping for 30 WHOLE YEARS OF YOUR LIFE. The colonel asked me how old I was, I replied “20”. “You’re still asleep.” he said. He was right. I am still asleep. I am not waking up every morning doing what is most important to me. I am not prioritizing my time the way I should be. I am asleep at the wheel.

The moral of the story is, if you really want something, you will make the time to do it. Whatever you want, but you are not yet working towards, don’t beat yourself up about it. Just do something different. Re-prioritize your time so that you are spending it on the things that you really want in life. Make the time to life your dreams one step at a time. In regards to my blog, I haven’t followed through with all of my ideas for it because I am spending my time on other classes or activities, or SLEEP. But if I could take just 20 minutes out of the 24 hours in a day to working on something for my blog I know it could get that much better. So wake up people. And stay woke.

Namaste. xx.