My doga journey began as a happenstance like most amazing thing that come into my life. I was browsing on my computer and came across a home video of Suzi Teitelman doing couple doga poses with her cocker spaniel. I immediately resonated with it especially because I had a 15-year-old cocker, Malak.
Malak has been with me since he was 8 weeks old. I took him everywhere I was allowed to bring dogs and did a lot together. We visited assisted living for seniors, the dog beach, hiking and dog parks. Since the age of 13 Malak started slowing down with high-energy activities such as hiking. Towards the end he didn’t even want to go for long walks. But once I saw the YouTube video I started practicing DOGA with him. I bought the online DOGA teacher training package from Suzi Teitelman and got whatever books that was available on it. I thought I found my soul’s purpose when I started teaching yoga to people but DOGA feels even deeper calling than that.
I kept practicing with Malak and started looking for ways to offer DOGA. First thing I did was approach NKLA to offer DOGA at their adoption events. They were very responsive and I was assigned to do a DOGA demo at their annual Strut Your Mutts event. I wanted to start marketing it online and expand my DOGA services. So I took some DOGA photos with Malak pictured above. The very night we took these photos Malak left his body to the rainbow bridge. He hadn’t been feeling well the last couple weeks but the vet didn’t see anything majorly wrong with him. He seemed to be doing better the day he passed.
I was devastated and couldn’t teach doga for a while. Teaching yoga got me through these times and lots of tears. I even took an animal communication certification course to heal. I still had to show up for the doga demo at Strut Your Mutts LA. Since I didn’t have Malak to bring with me I took a stuffed turtle to the demo, as my brand for yoga is turtle Flow yoga. The event went great and received such a great response. I’ve been part of this wonderful event to support adoption for dogs and cats every year ever since. And I’ve done other events and public doga classes with the stuffed turtle.
Fast forward two years, I was gifted with Daisy, who is exactly how I visualized my next dog would be. I still wasn’t sure if I was ready to have another dog but I felt like everything lined up for me to say yes. So I adopted Daisy and it was as if was made just for me to be my DOGA partner. She took to it with so much enthusiasm from day 1. It is her favorite activity to do. We’ve done a public DOGA class together and special events and she was amazing. You can read her whole back-story on the team section. I feel so blessed that she came into my life.
The grief takes a long time and Malak definitely left a strong imprint in my heart forever. He was so much more than a dog to me. He certainly is my guardian angel. Malak means angel in Arabic and I named him that because he had this white spot on his forehead like an angel.
Just when I was feeling moving on from my grief of losing Malak, Prince passed on. I’m such a fan of music especially him. That was another unexpected shocking loss so I was looking for some answers online. Then I came across Abigail Noel who is a medium and an emotional alchemist. I began listening to her live videos and learned a lot about the afterlife and how our loved ones from the other side design dogs. She said that they even blow essence of their souls in their hearts. It rang so true to me as I feel that my grandfather designed Malak and Daisy was designed for me by Malak. It is a knowing that is so strong that I embrace it as my Truth. She validated lot of what I was noticing that after watching her videos for a year I decided to join her Moonwalking portal for taking your life to the next level. From the readings I got in those portals came the idea and inspiration for Doga Alchemy. I’m so grateful to Abigail Noel for her insights and encouragement. Both turtle Flow yoga and Doga Alchemy concepts came to me during meditation.
NOW is the time to move forward what I tried to do three years ago. I feel the divine timing of Doga Alchemy coming together. So I put on my graphic design hat back on and got to work to create the logo and now this website. It was challenging and I hit lot of oppositions but I pushed through and got it going. It feels so magical how it’s come together. It certainly is a labor of love. I feel divinely aligned to that deeper purpose I felt when I first discovered DOGA yet embracing the unknown.
I believe in the healing power of DOGA for both humans and dogs. I’m looking forward to sharing my DOGA journey with you. I hope it brought healing for Malak on his last year on earth and that he is proud of where I’m going with it.
I didn’t intent for this blog to get so long. Whoever made it to the end of this blog gets a big applause. Thank you for reading my story. Please leave any comments and questions below and share with anyone who might appreciate the story.
Hope to see you on the mat or online soon for DOGA.
Pawmaste! xo
Steph
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