hI, I'm Michelle LONG, MA
founder of The practice
I’ve been studying and working with women for more than 20 years. I've learned who we are and what we need.
I know that as women we too often put ourselves last.
After losing my mother and founding a women’s healing center, I fell into patterns of over-giving and over-responsibility. Like my mom, self-abandonment and self-sacrifice came way too easy to me. I inherited ancient feminine patterns, that manifested for me in my business.
we've never been taught how to prioritize ourselves.
Growing up, I watched my mother give and give. When I started my business, even though I was a holistic health educator and a yoga teacher, I found myself living and leading from a place of depletion, just like my mom. I realized as women we’ve never been taught how to devote our lives to our own well-being and truth. We were never shown how to mother ourselves, how to listen to our bodies and our own inner wisdom. My mother was never shown self-reverence, so she couldn't show me. Something had to change.
In my mother's passing, I vowed to break these ancient feminine patterns, and help liberate other women as well.
I learned that FOR WOMEN EVERYWHERE, SELF-ABANDONMENT IS AN EPIDEMIC.
For ten years I owned and ran a women's healing center in the San Francisco Bay Area. I had the honor of studying and working with thousands of women up close and personal.
I started to see how we are all hurting, and yet, we are also longing to live a different way. In 2012, The Practice® was born in my yoga studio in Walnut Creek, California. Without knowing it, the women in my classes began to show me what they needed. They wanted to talk. They wanted to get real. They wanted to dive into themselves and figure out how to live their truth and stop sacrificing who they truly are. So, I started to weave deep conversations into my yoga classes about womanhood and our wounds and desires. Magic happened. It started to transform lives. Women started to become their true vibrant, free, unapologetic selves. A spiritual practice, just for women, was born through the stories and needs of the women that walked through those studio doors.
I have sat at the feet of the most amazing spiritual teachers, professors, yogis, gurus, and entrepreneurs.
I have a Master’s degree in Holistic Health Education. I have been teaching yoga since 2002. I have absorbed thousands of hours of teacher trainings, spiritual trainings, and life coaching trainings.
What I have learned is that we need a practice and education that guides women back to our true selves, teaches us how to nurture and care for our own needs in the deepest way, and rewires our belief systems so that we can stand in our power and lead from our truth. We need a spiritual practice that teaches us to re-mother ourselves and unwind the ancient programming in our DNA. We need a support system we can lean on to re-learn how to show up and lead from our feminine power.
We need a spiritual
practice for us.
a practice of self devotion and inner committment
i've lead thousands of women back to themselves and to a truer life.
AS THE WORLD HAS CHANGED AND EVOLVED, SO HAS THE PRACTICE®.
The world is at a turning point. Women are needed on the front-lines of change to help heal our collective wounds. I believe all women are called to be leaders in this moment. Today The Practice is focused on gathering women from all over the world to deepen into what it means to be a woman who lives and leads without self-sacrifice. We cannot fully bring our gifts into the world if we are depleted, lost, and living small.
I bring everything I’ve learned over the past 20 years, the wisdom I’ve gained from my own wounds—grief, loss, and chronic illness—plus the insights I’ve gathered from my years leading women, both in my studio and online, and I created a new version of The Practice® that’s deeper and more evolved to reflect the world as it is today.
The Practice® is a feminine spiritual system and transformational process for women to reclaim their lives and put themselves first. It’s a practice steeped in self-devotion, inner connection, and sisterhood. It’s for women who are done. Done living in a way that doesn’t feel true. Done pretending. Done sacrificing. Done leading from depletion. I am here to support women who know, in the deepest parts of themselves, that there is another way to live and lead.
The Practice is...
the practice will change your life.
a way of life.
It’s connection and prayer and pain and grace.
The Practice helps us redefine who we are as women leaders and devote ourselves to our truth.
It's standing at the alter of your own life, and saying yes.
It's a deep sacred committment to yourself.
The Practice is...
the practice will change your life.
It’s connection and prayer and pain and grace.
The Practice helps us redefine who we are as women leaders and devote ourselves to our truth.
It's standing at the alter of your own life, and saying yes.
It's a deep sacred committment to yourself.
I am Here
to heal the wounds of my mother and grandmother and to light a new path for my daughter.
I am here
to hold my light as high as I can to help other women leaders find their way.
“Can you disappoint another to be true to yourself? Can you bear the accusation of betrayal to not betray your own soul?”
— oriah Mountain dreamer
WORdS i LIVE BY
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The Practice Programs
The Practice® is an integration of feminine spirituality, mentorship, and sisterhood. In a circle of like-minded women you will dive into your truth and find the courage and clarity to lead and live from a place of self devotion. We have offerings both in person and online.
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