I’m Becky.
Advocate for empowerment, choice, mental health and wellbeing; longtime yoga student and teacher; proud corporate dropout; sober mama raising four teenagers.
I’m a pet lover, book hoarder, plant tender, change seeker, curator of things that smell good. Enneagram 8, anti-small talk, pro-hygge, big hugger. Midwest-born and raised. Mediocre cook, terrible (but enthusiastic!) tap dancer,
50 years old and forever figuring life out.
Mostly, though, I’m a meat-coated skeleton made of stardust – and I believe you are, too.
If there’s a question that stumps me, it’s: “What do you do for a living?” The answer was much easier in the old days when I worked in newspapers, political campaigns, and PR.
If you want an “elevator pitch,” I’ll tell you I’m an empowerment writer, teacher, and speaker, and founder of You Are Not Stuck®.
But that’s starting pretty far into the story. That’s the how I do what I do.
What lives beneath is the what, which is the way I describe my actual work: helping people identify and create the life that is calling to them.
In that way, I’m a soul whisperer. A dream doula. A change catalyst. I’m a guide into the questions for which only you have answers. Poet David Whyte refers to these inquiries as “questions that can make or unmake a life… questions that have no right to go away.” I see the divine badass in you, charm it out, and cheer it on.
The most important part of the story, though, is the why. Why is this work of empowerment what I’m called to do? The answer to that is simple:
I’ve lived a life that looked good on the outside but felt horrible on the inside.
I’ve lived a life that I didn’t feel authorized to change.
I’ve lived a life that I felt hopelessly stuck… and once I found freedom, I made it my mission to help others find it, too.
Please know this: You are not intended to spend this life squeezed and choked and squashed in a vise of Other People’s design, or values that aren’t your own, or an outdated world view; no, you were made for discernment, cultivation, and expansion.
Lines are not meant to be toed, they are meant to be moved and redrawn and colored in and erased until they suit you—and you can do that as many times as you like.
They’re your lines, after all.
Becky is no-bullshit real. She’s got an energy and warmth that’s born from her unique and relentless optimism. Yes, she’s a cheerleader. She’s a whip-cracker, too.
Scott Stabile
Author of Big Love
Becky combines deep caring with a kick-ass attitude (and humor!) to help you break the cycle, form new habits, and find a new — healthier and happier — path for your life.
Amy Calvin
Executive Coach
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A sporadic love letter from me to you with insights, happenings, homework, and the occasional kick in the pants.
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Good advice!What do you do when the miracle doesn’t come? ... See MoreSee Less
On the days when I get caught up in consumerism and comparison, and grouse about not having the money for a house with a garage or a family trip to Croatia or “wow” gifts for my daughters on their milestone 16th and 18th birthdays – no, ESPECIALLY on those days – a Tuesday morning shakes me right back to reality.
Tuesday mornings ground me. Remind me what’s truly important and how incredibly rich I am where it matters most.
What’s so special about Tuesday mornings, you ask?
The first weekly yoga class I taught after leaving corporate in 2013 was on Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m., at a little studio in St. Louis. I then took over that same time slot at the beautiful JCC here, a class I maintained until the spring of 2020 when I began Zooming practices from my living room, which I still do today.
Over those dozen years, I’ve taught in the ballpark of 500 Tuesday morning practices. Five hundred! And, every time, I cannot help but think of the contrast between life then and life now:
Far less money but way more freedom.
Fewer hours away or present-but-distracted, more quality time with the people I love most.
Less struggling through quicksand and more sitting in quiet.
Less people-pleasing and more peace.
Less grind, more gratitude.
On these Tuesday mornings – when I show up with the intention to be rather than to do – I find myself immersed in real time, moving with meaning, breathing deeper than usual, sharing sacred space with others, focusing on everything I have rather than anything I may lack.
And it never, ever gets old.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” wrote Annie Dillard. “What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”
I have a wish for you.
May your Tuesday morning hours, this one and that one, represent what you are doing with your life.
May they be filled with a kind of individual magic that only you can create.
May they align with your values and reflect your deepest desires.
May they give you the courage to change what you need to build the life that you want.
And may your choices, as they add up over time, fill you with the recognition of your own undeniable richness.
#youarenotstuck ... See MoreSee Less
When my first book came out a couple years ago, someone left a snarky one-star review on Goodreads. "Another white, middle-class mom saved by... spoiler alert... YOGA."
I could only assume it was written by a friend of my ex-husband's new wife so didn't give it much thought. But every once in a while my mind goes back to the sheer ignorance of the insult.
Insinuating that someone doesn't deserve to experience healing and transformation – especially through practices like self-awareness, acceptance, contentment, deep breathing, meditation, physical and spiritual connection – is truly bizarre.
I wonder if she would have felt remotely justified making the same comment if we swapped out some key words. Can you imagine the absurdity of…
"Another white, middle-class mom saved by... spoiler alert... THERAPY?”
SOBRIETY?
EXERCISE?
MEDICATION?
MEDITATION?
CURIOSITY?
COMMUNITY?
WILLINGNESS?
FAITH?
Yeah, me neither.
So, "Desiree," thanks for the perfect reminder that anyone can criticize, and that not all criticism deserves a second thought.
I hope you've had the good fortune of discovering yoga for yourself and, if not, that you consider giving it a go. You might just find it to be transformative – even if you are, too, another white, middle-class mom.
#youarenotstuck ... See MoreSee Less