Student Spotlight
Annette Doody, candidate for M.S. in Holistic Nutrition
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| Annette Doody teaches a yoga class at CCNH's 2003 Natural Health Conference. |
Annette the Clayton College student recently became Annette the CCNH presenter during our 2003 natural health conference. Upon reading our conference brochure, she quickly made a kind, generous offer. Annette Doody volunteered to teach a yoga class combining Eastern philosophies with lifestyle choices such as the deep inner wisdom that comes from meditation, along with the classic asanas or postures.
Such is the way of a yogic lifestyle. During her presentation, Annette said that to extend a servant’s heart into the world is a gratifying way of watching the world become a better and better place. She and her husband model these values with their two teenagers by making sure that one of their annual family vacations is an intentional communion with nature: fresh air, outdoor exercise such as hiking, biking, fishing in clear, cool water and catching only enough fish to feed the family.
How does this help make to the world a better place? Perhaps their example can remind parents and other adults to slow down and enjoy all that is life, to strive less and to be happy with less. Annette’s kids are learning, now, important life lessons that will prepare them for college. They are developing their own ways of giving back and paying it forward.
Naturally, Annette knows it’s the simplest gifts that create real satisfaction, and a sense of abundance does contribute to abundant health. That’s why she freely offers to share her far-flung yogic experiences. While this world-traveler has managed to study yoga in Europe, Canada, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, her favorite yoga heaven is relatively close to home: Kripalu in the Berkshires of Lenox, Massachusetts (www.kripalu.org).
Annette says that she didn’t find yoga, it found her; first, along with a Newfoundland neighbor when she was 13 years old. Surviving an off-and-on attraction to yoga throughout college and afterwards, for the last 15 years it has been her life’s work.
She opened her first Yoga For Wellness studio in Ottawa, Ontario, and later moved it to the Dallas, Texas area. While achieving more and more commercial success, Annette realized that marketing and operations left her precious little time to teach the many ways of yoga, one-on-one.
“I now have a yoga studio within our home that enables me to focus on each client’s health needs, and to help them build a personal program that offers nutritional/lifestyle coaching along with the right level of yoga for them.
"For instance with restorative yoga, we ‘breathe into’ reconnecting with life source so that an ill or injured body can regain its strength. Often by opening up a weakened area with focused attention on deep breathing, slow stretching and body awareness, clients even report feeling stronger than ever before."
The practice of breath work and meditation as part of yoga are more healing and centering, while the ‘yoga buns blowouts’ that others seek are strictly aesthetic, for body-sculpting, she adds.
“I can teach both, plus the other levels in between, just not all at the same time. As the age-old wisdom of yoga suddenly gets more and more modern,” she concludes, “we need to remember that it’s not about just working out. Yoga is really about how to live life.”
Visit Annette online at: www.pathend.com or e-mail her at annette@pathend.com.
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