The Gluten-Free Yogi

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The Gluten-Free Yogi

Yoga, wellness, gluten-free and dairy-free living
www.caitsimmonsyoga.com Welcome to my “Gluten-Free Yogi” page. Thanks for reading and be well!

I started this page many years ago as I embarked on my journey with food intolerances to gluten and dairy but it has evolved so much since then—just as I have. In those early days, I was desperately seeking any and all information and recipes. I’m happy to say the world of special diets has become more accessible since then. And eating and living a GF/DF lifestyle has become second nature for me.

While I was a budding “yogi” when I started this page, I am now a yoga instructor and prenatal instructor and mother of 2. All of these roles have changed me irrevocably and I find myself gravitating towards sharing these passions more and more. All this to say— I’m still super passionate about the GF/DF lifestyle, I am still passionate about yoga—but I’m also passionate about parenting, other aspects of wellness, continually learning and growing, and more. The Gluten-Free Yogi

06/11/2021

When you try to get a family photo with your new puppy but the new puppy thinks it’s a good time to eat your hair. Thank Gus 🤦🏼‍♀️ Also thanks you get an A for effort 😘🤣

10/11/2020

MEMORY:

I am little, maybe 4 or 5 years old, playing alone on the staircase at my childhood home. Sun is streaming in through the wavy antique window panes lining both sides of our front door. Light catches the particles dancing across the foyer, making sparkles that look like fairy dust to my imaginative eyes. The staircase takes several turns on its way to the second floor. There is a triangle shaped landing halfway up and I’m standing there. I swing both legs over the railing and lean over the other side. I’m going to jump. It’s not that far down, only 5 feet or so, but it feels like a big leap to my small body. It’s high enough to test my theory safely but not too high that I will get hurt. I brace myself for the impact and let go. Time seems to remain suspended in the glittery air for that brief inexplicable moment—all of eternity moving at the speed of the tiniest floating speck. Was it my imagination or did my little feet land softly on the rug below? Did I not fall like a stone? How can I rationalize this when it defies the laws of physics, laws that even my young mind has already come to understand and respect as the only truth there is? My mind spins with exhilaration but I become resolute in my conviction of two things I’ve suspected for some time:

1. There is mystery and magic in this world.
and
2. If you believe, you can fly.

Photo credit:

09/22/2020

WHEN I DREAM OF HORSES

It doesn’t happen often
but when I dream of horses
I wake knowing
my day will be filled
with promise.
It is my own personal good omen
of happy things.
A dreamy ride
gazing down at a furry muscled neck
at two perky ears
and a beach ahead
or a wooded trail
or an open meadow
is enough to set my soul ablaze.
There is a lucidity
that only occurs in these dreams.
I can feel each movement of the magnificent creature beneath me.
Each clop of hoof and sway of neck
taking me over the bridge
between the world in my mind
and the first warm rays of morning sun
to kiss my face.
I wake knowing that this day
this life
has endless opportunities
to begin again—
to reconnect with the things that bring us
unbridled joy
Like galloping ba****ck
down an empty beach
feeling the rush of freedom and speed
wanting to cry out to the wind and sea
I’m alive. I’m alive.
Isn’t that enough?

09/06/2020

Thank you for dragging my out-of-shape pandemic butt out of bed for a sunrise photoshoot at the beach yesterday. I forgot how invigorating it is to start your day with the sun, especially on a brisk fall morning.

Normally September feels like a fresh start. There’s always something exciting (albeit also a little sad) about summer drawing to a close and the colder air of a New England autumn settling in. But this year feels different. Not like a new start—a new middle perhaps. We are still very much in the second act, arguably the hardest act. We are still finding our bearings, unsure of how or when this dark chapter will end.

And yet—I forgot how hopeful one can feel just by watching a new day begin. The sun emerging from the blue horizon, a yellow beacon of reassurance.

It reminded me of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems, Morning:

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches–
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead–
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging–

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted–

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.”

Sending lots of love out into the universe today, especially to those feeling the weight of the second act and in need of a sunbeam of hope. ☀️

07/29/2020

Please consider joining me and my friend and freedom educator, Jimmy Juste , for a mindful yoga flow and meditation followed by a workshop on practicing nonviolence (ahimsa) and anti-racism. Beginners—to yoga and/or anti-racism work—are welcome. This event will be held outside, weather permitting, at the First Parish Unitarian Church in Scituate. Please bring a mask, yoga mat or towel, water and maybe a snack. The registration link is in my bio! @ Scituate, Massachusetts

07/25/2020

Happy #5 to our sweet Bo! 🎂💖

07/09/2020

Just a reminder to mamas near and far (cause that’s the beauty of Zoom!) I’m teaching prenatal yoga on Wednesday nights at 8pm for this summer.

Join me for a relaxing pre-bedtime stretch and flow. We’ve had such a great group of moms lately and the nice thing about this format and time is that it also feels like a quarantine support group, which all parents desperately need right now. Plus, if you have kiddos already, you don’t need to worry about childcare (cause hopefully they’re asleep!).

Hope to see you soon! 💖

07/01/2020

I grew up in the most town in America. MA. She’s a pretty town with a busy harbor, two , three rocky cliffs and several beaches. The people can be as salty as the sea, cold as the winters they endure, and hearty like the souls who settled this coastline 390 years ago. The pubs and churches are frequented in equal measure. “A drinking town with a fishing problem” some say. But for all her flaws, she is an undeniably quaint town.

Each winter, at least one good storm hammers the coast, the ocean showing no mercy for the homes built in her honor. Residents know that living by the sea has risks that can never outweigh the rewards.

I spent my childhood days sailing around the harbor. The long rocky jetty looked like an opening to the rest of the world. I loved how everyone smiled and waved to one another while aboard their boats, biding by the unspoken rule that one must be friendly when one is at sea.

I loved spending summer nights on our little sailboat. My dad and I would get ice cream in the harbor and then row our dingy back to fend off bugs and feed ducks until sunset. I’d fall asleep listening to the halliards clanging on the masts and the waves lapping against our hull, the smell of marsh air mingling with wafts of fried food, fish scraps on the pier, and faraway conversations.

The beaches were our playgrounds, where we learned to hum softly to lure out periwinkles; peer into tidal pools to find crabs; surf the waves on our bellies into shore. We learned that barnacles under bare feet lead to scrapes our parents would insist could be cured by a stinging dose of the salty sea. We learned that summer storms produced the most beautiful rainbows.

Minot light, standing proudly on a ledge one mile out at sea, flashes her light in a ceaseless rhythm. 1-4-3. Even though I watched from the shore many times as a child, I hadn’t known it’s significance until a boyfriend pointed it out to me. I (1) LOVE (4) YOU (3). How lucky, I thought, that so many couples have a Lover’s Light to share what is hard to say.

Dearest Scituate, 143. With all your quirks, I see your beauty and wonder and always will. Happy July ☀️ PC:

06/21/2020

Laughter, chickens, watermelon and swinging in the hot summer sun ☀️ Happy Father’s Day 💖

06/17/2020

If you are a black birthing woman - I don’t mean to be scary here - but the stark reality is that you are more likely to be ignored, mistreated, emotionally, verbally, or even physically abused when you enter the hospital. You’re less likely to have pain taken seriously. Potentially life-threatening symptoms you report may be ignored (think ). And black women birthing are 4-5x more likely to die in childbirth than white women; in NYC that risk may be up to 12x. Black trans men are also at high risk of medical mistreatment and abuse.

These stats, which are part of a long history of obstetric violence and racism targeting black women, apply regardless of socioeconomic + educational status. In other words, race doesn’t increase your medical risk - racism does. So having a PhD, MD, being the CEO of a Fortune 500 doesn’t change it.

And if you’re a white women, this system is rooted in misogyny, sees pregnant women as a disaster waiting to happen, and thinks it can strip away women’s rights, so you may also be mistreated, verbally or emotionally abused. You have a 34% chance of having a cesarean, at least half of which are unnecessary, and which increases your chance of mortality by 23%. We’re 1 of 2 countries in which the maternal mortality rate is going up.

ALL MAMAS, and especially BLACK MAMAS need to know the truth about this. OB mistreatment is leaving 40% of women with birth trauma, and 14% with postpartum PTSD.

We have to change this system by being part of the resistance to it, and knowing the risks and empowering yourself is the best way to start. Knowledge can be the key to avoiding unnecessary and at times dangerous interventions and protecting the sanctity of what should be a beautiful, empowered experience.

If you are pregnant or working with pregnant mamas, join me for a Birth Advocacy AMA today at 2 pm ET (see stories), or listen to my free Advocacy 101 class (LINK BELOW) where I give you all the deets on:
- advocacy in your birth plan
- informed consent + refusal
- assault in pregnancy
- saying no and documenting your response
- protective documents to bring with you

May these resources support and empower you.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ideservebirthsupport

📷

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Norwell, MA
02061

Website

http://www.caitsimmonsyoga.com/

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