Skirt Magazine Interview with Jenny Buergermeister

What makes Jennifer Buergermeister so skirt!? Goddess energy, of course! The owner of Jennyoga, she explains that her Mecca of Zen is all about “Shakti, which specializes in the empowerment of people with courage, love and hope.” A creative and expansive force, Shakti is “the look” a woman gives her husband when he passes a sarcastic remark about her growing waistline and the gaze of the lioness as a predator stalks her helpless cubs. You really don’t want to mess with Shakti. From her, the Eternal Mother, all life originates. Yuj, or yoga, realizes the unity of all things and it integrates the masculine with the feminine to promote balance. I feel our world seeks balance by calling forth the feminine, which has been lost for several thousand years, and to heal the wounded male archetype. (Note: This has nothing to do with being or not being a feminist.)

My studio is dedicated to cultivating the “warrior energy” inside of each of us by teaching others to remember that spiritually, love is the real motivation of our lives. A warrior is not a soldier of war; a warrior is one who stands for truth and integrity, who loves without fear, and who leads a life of service and sharing. A warrior is creative in motion, exists in the flow, and is courageous in tribulation. Most importantly, the warrior truly knows that he/she is worthy and has much to be grateful for. Being a warrior also requires faith.

Paulo Coelho said in his book Warrior of the Light, “Angels help him in his struggle; celestial forces place each thing in its place, thus allowing him to give it his best…His companions say: ‘He’s so lucky!’ And the warrior does sometimes achieve things far beyond his capabilities. That is why, at sunset, he kneels and gives thanks for the Protective Cloak surrounding him.”

I am a fan of Skirt magazine because it empowers its readers to live with passion, courage, and inspiration. As a “feminine” magazine, Skirt promotes the feminine Shakti energy of creation or power. Shakti teaches us how to flow with grace. Grace is the flow of spirit that emanates from the heart. There is a distinct difference between flowing and being stagnant. Vinyasa, which is Shakti yoga flow, teaches that stagnation is impossible when you are one with the spirit. The words spirit and breath share the same root and essentially mean the same thing. Quality breathing helps to open the stagnant channels in the body and to promote the healthy flow. So if we breathe, it becomes possible that the spirit can cure any emotional, physical, spiritual or mental blockage. That is why I developed Breathe the Cure™ - people helping people to remember they are made from love by offering it through the service of love. I believe in possibilities!

How about letting go of fear—the fear of failure or of not being good enough? How about facing our fears and doubts so that we can live the life we have always dreamed to live! Why wait for dis-ease or trauma to get the bigger picture of what is really important?

Cancer is on the rise. Jennyoga is dedicated to empower patients and families through the journey of cancer from diagnosis to treatment and beyond. I created Breathe the Cure™ (Breathecure) as a foundation to support others and to find programs, which will lead them to health and stress-reduction. Breathe the Cure™ is currently seeking nonprofit status with the IRS, which will enable us to create free yoga and healing art programs that allow people to try something totally new, such as yoga, pranayama, Qi Gong, and meditation. All of which can ultimately lead to the greatest adventure of all – an inner journey to the very depths of one’s being; the discovery of the higher Self.

Along the way one will cultivate a higher sense of Self, a more pronounced sense of purpose. People have the tendency to look outside of themselves for satisfaction. This leads to a never-ending search where one finds nothing but emptiness because real fulfillment is not “out there”--it thrives within. I have found in my journey that wholeness is found and created from within. It is not to be found outside the Self. The thirst for wholeness is quenched by the springs of the universal being. Then, that unique fabric of the Self connects to the great tapestry of the universe. The being of self communes with the greater source and all becomes fused as one.

Faction leads us astray, as human beings, from reaching our full spiritual potential—spirits to learn, laugh, grow, play, and cry. As the old saying goes, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I think it is important to know that we are here to realize life is full of light and darkness. They both exist to recognize the other: Shiva and Shakti, or the Yin and the Yang. Or let me put it like this! Sometimes our hearts break so that God’s tear can slip inside to fill it with love and compassion so that we may someday help someone who is similarly bereaved. Life isn’t necessarily always supposed to be a walk in the park. How much would we learn if it were? Would we likely ever come to know the depths of our own being?

I moved to Houston in 1980 so I feel like a native Houstonian. High school was crazy. I will leave it at that. We had a lot of fun and I love my friends. We are a solid community still supportive and in regular communication with each other. I am fortunate.

I lived in Mexico City for three years where I studied Spanish and worked in television. Then I returned to Houston to attend college at UH. I was very attracted to knowledge, yoga, the healing arts, anthropology, and psychology thanks to the inspiration of three fantastic teachers.

The late Dr. Michael Doran became like my second father and, in my opinion, was unfairly relieved of his position as an adjunct professor because it seems that he was too inspirational! Of one of the greatest minds I have ever known, his love for his students and our love for him caused quite the stir among the university officials who refused to create a GEOGRAPHY program for us to learn more. We campaigned, no one listened. Why wouldn’t we have geography programs in our colleges? You know, I did a survey on campus of well over 200 people and most of them had no idea whether South America was above or below Mexico. Don’t get me started, it makes me silly!

Dr. Roger Maley, whose passions of Transpersonal Psychology also lead me to where I am today. He introduced me to the writings of Shakti Gawain, Joan Borysenko, and Carl Jung. From his class and these texts, I began to think more deeply about the mind/body/spirit connection.
Dr. Lloyd Swenson fed me great knowledge about the history of science in his honor’s class, which encouraged me to become a huge quantum physics buff! I am fascinated by what physics says about our universe and our existence in it. I got lucky. I have met many who don’t even remember college, let alone a professor they had that inspired them.

I worked for ABC for a year, and then I transferred over to Health Media Network where I met two fantastic people – Carrie Woliver and Dr. Keith Robinson. They taught me so much about friendship and living your dreams with love, truth, and passion. Their friendship ironically foreshadowed the union that I made in 2004, eight years later, with Bruce Cameron, my current business and life mission partner. Bruce survived cancer and is a devout yoga student who I met when he could barely touch his toes. Now, he is standing on his head! Bruce has a protective set of wings over me. I feel their comfort and cherish his support, faith and dedication. Keith and Carrie had the same spiritual connection. Weird!

Then, beyond college and into early adulthood, my late husband became my greatest teacher of all. Experiencing grief is no doubt one of the most challenging and life-changing experiences. The irony is that it, too, can be an “opportunity” to discover who we are, what’s important and what is real. No one can predict life's sudden turns. I learned that being grateful is an essential key – grateful for the good and the bad. We never really know what will come of the lesson. I constantly asked, “Why? What am I here to do? What have I learned from this?” I didn’t stop asking until I got clarity. If we do not synthesize “the learnings” life—the lessons—then denial and repression can fragment our very being. Not to put this too simply, but I’ve experienced that fragmentation can lead to victimization.

I was once betrayed by a “friend” in a business deal. It’s scary what a victim will do once given the opportunity to strike their venom. Usually attacking the one closest to them, they wait until you’re “weak” and strike their fangs right into the jugular. It’s never fun to have a friend do that, especially when you just lost your husband. However, I understand that our experiences with others teach us many important lessons. Sometimes it is just time for them to go away because paths change. And rather than becoming bitter, I have learned how to become a true friend. I now see who my real friends are and how to tell the difference by observing behaviors more closely. Real friends feed, they do not take.

But even our enemies can be our friends if you can find “the learnings.” Actually, one of my favorite books is The Little Soul and the Sun, a children’s story written by Neale Donald Walsch. It addresses soulful contracts that aren’t always fun and easy lessons. How can we learn to be forgiving if we have no one to forgive? The book says that souls come here to teach each other lessons of life – sometimes learning involves friction! How else could we get moving?

First of all, I have been to hell. And I mean that seriously. Losing a loved one feels like having your heart ripped out of your chest. There were moments during and after the shock of my husband dying, that I thought to myself, “If there is a hell, this is it.” I remember thinking once that if all the phantoms and demons in the universe suddenly faced me and said the most horrific, terrible things to me, that I would look at them with my “Shakti” gaze and say, “You can’t scare me or take me, I am already there.” That was a profound experience for me. I’ve had numerous “other-worldly” or mystical experiences, even with things most people can’t see nor do they want to see, had a few epiphanies, and then I lost fear. It was so strange. Bad dreams stopped, guilt and shame were no longer my own to carry. I faced the demons and chose love.
I found love in my heart for those that I have blamed in the past or could not forgive for leaving me. It’s as if I understood the realness of every parable of Jesus, and of all the poems of Rumi, or the teachings of Buddha, and every other great mind and/or prophet who ever walked this Earth. They all fundamentally said the same thing: Where there is fear, love cannot be. Ok, I got it! Think about it. All of the “great ones” overcame their fears. Isn’t that why we should go to the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights? It’s a metaphor for losing fear! You have to face the beasts to overcome their temptations.

Mind you this awareness did not happen overnight, but I am certainly in a different place now. I have learned that sometimes we compress in order to later expand. In those moments of compression, the real gem of learning is being formed. Some of the greatest writers and poets were some of the most depressed people on the planet, and many of them quite eccentric. Introspection and reflection are indeed tools for developing deeper cosmic and spiritual awareness. That is, in essence, how yoga saved my life.

Twenty five pounds too skinny, lying on the couch one day for a nap, which was the only sleep that I endured after my husband crossed over, I fell into a place between sleeping and waking. Then out of nowhere a voice much like my own screamed at me from somewhere inside and outside my head, “Get up and go to yoga NOW!”

I jumped up completely alert yet confused. But I listened. I went to the phone book and found a yoga studio that looked like it would be interesting and began a hot, sweaty yoga class. After two near death experiences on my mat, I began to feel better and soon afterwards I began to eat again, evidently a necessary component to remaining healthy and alive. At that time, sun gazing wasn’t on my list of skills, or even within my scope of understanding, for survival. And I still am not sure if I would rely on that method today – yogini or not.

I am content with she who eventually came out of the abyss of re-identification. A friend once painted on canvas for me a butterfly coming out of a deep cave in the ground. Surfacing, with fairy dust twinkling on its wings, it flew out from the heart of an Angel to the light above, returning to life. And then he painted another one of a broken egg shell resting on a window seal decorated with red curtains, and from the egg was a trail of the same fairy dust which indicated that the butterfly had “hatched” from its shell and was flying along a lovely passageway paved with trees – heading on a journey.

The butterfly, specifically the blue morpho, became my mascot and symbol. The blue morpho is vibrantly blue on one side, and on the other, it looks like an owl, with yellow eyes, and full ears—an adapted survival trait, one that preserves the Self. Once airborne, it has only a two-week lifespan. It goes through many stages to become that beautiful, fluttering butterfly, to experience the freedom of flight, and then to die shortly thereafter. Its determination to live and to be beautiful from the inside-out amazes me as it moves through each stage of its development: larvae, caterpillar, cocoon, butterfly. And in the last stage of its transformation, there is the struggle.

The struggle is to squeeze out of the cocoon through a tiny hole which helps the butterfly develop its wings so that it will begin to fly. I think we are all butterflies. We just need to be aware that struggles can help us to grow our wings and fly. What a beautiful metaphor for ascension and transformation!

Needing a sabbatical in 2001, I quickly sold my house in the Montrose to move to a farm in Rosehill, TX. I was grief-stricken then and I realize now that I had to return to the cocoon where I could re-identify with myself and ask the serious questions. Who is Jennifer? What does Jennifer stand for in life? Who do I want to become and how can I be the love that I want to be?

The answer that came to me said, “Serve. Then you’ll see.” The guidance to serve has been right for me - love people, serve and help others and everything inside begins to come together.
I am sure that my early years were more about being served than serving. I am an only child, a leo...should I go on? But my heart has always been good, just a little misguided, like the hearts of many a youth. If I fell, I would always get back up, dust my knees off and keep marching. That is me. I have experienced a lot of things walking in the gusty winds of my own ego. And I see others who are walking in it now.

Yoga has really helped me see that I am no longer so attached to my ego. The ego is what often leads us into trouble. Ahhh, and I have learned patience. Something I did not really have before. I like to say that I discipline the ego well with yoga and service. It keeps me humble and on my watchful guard not to slip into the perks of me, me, me. I think my students and friends would agree that I do not judge and I am one who believes in humility without losing personal power.
I think that we have been beaten up enough, ironically, mostly by ourselves. That never really gets us very far. That is why I am also against working for companies who use fear tactics to manage their employees. It serves no one. Not even their company in the long run. Karma always has a way of coming back. And sometimes the bigger we are, the harder we fall. I try to remain humble so as to keep the forces of lower vibrations from scratching and shrieking at my desire and intent to remain peaceful and centered. I want to be a peaceful warrior, not one who stomps and yells and uses force, manipulation and tyranny to get outcomes. Does that make sense to spirit? It wounds the spirits of all involved. And yes, I have had that experience too—expectations to serve without being fed anything in return. Hey, that’s slavery and a very old way of doing business!

I believe in standing up for truth and kindness. We don’t have to beat each other up to make things work. That’s how I run my studio and manage my teachers, and so far so good. My troops are laughing, smiling and marching forward into becoming the greatest teachers that they can be. They are warriors too! Most importantly, they are doing so with honor. We are a very loving community always available to help each other through the good times and the rough times. My teachers are my Angels and they know I am always here for them! We do not teach an exercise program. We teach what it is to practice YOGA! It is a way of life that embraces love and acceptance. I get a lot of feedback, but the one phrase variation that I get the most is that my students and teachers have light in their eyes and EVERYONE is kind. So if you are kind, come to Jennyoga, you’ll feel at home. I love that! I also like to think that it is a home for those who are ready for the next step in their practice beyond the physical.

Truth – I am known to speak it. I figure, “Here is my truth and if you don’t understand what I am sharing, then ask me to clarify.” I don’t mind. I know that no one can ever take my truth from me. I would prefer to die than conform to something that represses me from expressing who I am and what I love. There is so much fear in our world. We need friendships. Friends are generated when interesting discussions are brought forward with the premise that it is ok to be different. But love is universal. To find out if an action comes from love, ask this question: is it for the highest good of all and is it ecologically beneficial for the planet?

I think we fear that which we do not understand. Therefore again, I am dedicated to people who are ready to release fear so that they can find happiness—so that they can live, love and laugh at a deeper level. The deeper you go, the more space you find to fill. Of course this is all experiential, quite gestalt really, and until you start the journey, it is somewhat esoteric. Like anything, you don’t know until you know. And the journey begins when you desire to know another way, and it usually hooks you pretty fast. Most of my students would agree. We have choices. What do you choose to lead your life?

Again, my greatest teacher was my late husband. But recently I have learned a new kind of love – and that is the love for and from a child. One of my students introduced me to a widower several years ago. We became good friends and then best friends. I fell in absolute love with his daughter, Claire, who is an only child, full of spirit. She lost her mother at two years old or so, just a few months after I was widowed in 2001. Last week, because I mentioned that I love roses, she convinced her father, my BFF, to go and buy four rose bushes. She planted them into pots all by herself that Sunday afternoon. Knowing this, my heart filled up, penetrating into deep pockets that I didn’t even know existed. I can’t get the image out of my head of her potting those roses. The feeling is so peaceful and loving. I feel that she and I are great teachers for one another, each teaching what the other yearns, leading to other levels of love. A mother who she vaguely remembers died of cancer when she was just a baby. It must be difficult to not have a mother. She has indirectly brought me closer to my own mother. I am very grateful to know Claire.

Experience has taught me that it is important to let be what is. We are all here at different phases of our lives and stages of spiritual evolution. All of our experiences are different. No two lives are the same. And that is what I believe our Creator intended. WE are each emanations of the Creator’s desire to fulfill all possibilities. Who are we to judge such a Divine emanation? I think we have to remember what the prophets and saints have taught us – turn the cheek, love thy neighbor, let go and let love, be the change…

My yoga practice is pretty solid. But like anything, it is a journey. There is always a next step. I am not quite sure if we really ever master anything. Would we still be here if we did? I love my students, many of which are in my teacher trainings. I see great things in each of them and there is nothing more gratifying then seeing them blossom. It is the archetypal mother in me that is growing. I live to teach, share, and also learn from them.

I believe in quality of life versus quantity. As a lululemon ambassador in Houston, I only wear lululemon athletica to practice yoga. I shop at Whole Foods and Central Market. I prefer one organic big and juicy anything versus a lot of mediocrity. I have two bachelor’s degrees with honors, one a B.S. in psychology and the other, a B.A. in journalism. And I almost finished a third in Biology. I attended graduate school at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, hold a doctor of divinity degree from Spiritis Seminary, am a master and trainer of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), and studied Hypnosis and many other mind/body programs or techniques. I haven’t spent much time not pondering the universe or seeking to increase my knowledge base through study and experience. Yet, I know that I know nothing. And I am ok with that. What makes me most happy is working on projects, meeting people, and bringing the right people together to do good things for others. I love to be in the flow with spirit as a unit of like-minded folk interested in being the change we wish to see in the world. Connection! I like to feel connected. Those who cannot connect, I send love that they find a better way. They are missing the icing on the cake and the surprise out of the mystery of a synchronistic life.

I also work at MD Anderson and teach Hatha yoga in the Place…of wellness where I began as a volunteer over a year ago. I also volunteered at MD Anderson in College where I first pursued mind/body wellness. I am a volunteer for The Yoga Teachers Association of Houston and sit as Vice President [now president] on the Board of Directors. I also write their newsletter and help manage the calendar of special events as well.

Love has a way of making what it says come true. I believe in finding passion and courage. When we lose fear, the world opens up. Beautiful things happen. It's not always easy at first to stand in your truth because it seems to be a test of how much you actually believe in your truth and how grounded you are in it. It’s worth the battle. Be a warrior!

We invite members from the Houston community to drop in and say hello, share a green tea from our complimentary tea bar, and talk about yoga and the city’s recent expansion in pursuing the yogic path. Houston, a very international city, has a long history of philanthropy and a reputation for accepting and embracing all people and ideas, which makes Houston an embodiment of meritocracy. The number of people practicing yoga in the United States is increasing dramatically. In 1990 there were approximately three million people practicing yoga. In 2004, that number was up to 15 million.

As the research on yoga continues to grow with the Houston Medical Center being one of the leading research centers in the world, it is not surprising, based on the history of this city, that one day Houston may take the lead in developing key programs in health and wellness that other cities can model. Houston is becoming one of the most expansive cities in the United States in the promotion of yoga as a way of life and exercise. The reason is because Houston has always been open to the progressive ideas. Though yoga is ancient, its many benefits are now seriously being recognized.

As MD Anderson takes the lead locally in researching yoga and its complementary benefits in the treatment of cancer, Jennifer Buergermeister, owner of Jennyoga, founded the organization Breathecure™ to contribute in the promotion of cancer awareness and research of the benefits in quality breathing and yoga. Jennifer has recently published several articles on the subject of breath in Natural Awakenings Magazine and Icon Magazine. “Passionate, determined and focused, we hope to bring about the type of community awareness about dis-ease where people can share information and always gather what’s new, what’s different and what the experts are saying about the progression of dis-ease research.”

Jennyoga aspires to be an educational studio where anyone can come to learn more about the yogic tradition, prevention of dis-ease, and breath and wellness by “building bridges with yoga.” Jennifer said, “Yoga bridges the body with the mind, mind with heart, and heart with Spirit. We want Houston to be a bridge to the world with yoga and the healing arts.”