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I adore Roxy’s yoga classes and really loved our conversation and her honesty about moving through difficult feelings, emotions and situations by paying attention and moving them through her body with movement and journalling.
I know yoga students and groups have often called me serene (and that I so often feel anything but!) AND while I don’t know how Roxy feels on the inside while she’s teaching, I do know that she wouldn’t embody such serenity as a yoga teacher if she wasn’t doing all this inner work.
Nothing’s good or bad. Everything is simply information. But we all need support (compassion for ourselves as we face challenges, the courage to ask for help and support and community around us to offer it when we can’t ask).
JOURNAL PROMPTS
As you watch or listen to our interview, ask yourself: How might you make more space to process, reflect and work with ALL the feelings in 2026? How and where might you access support and that essential feeling of being held we all need in order to co-regulate and thrive? Maybe there’s a yoga class local to you where you feel able to exhale deeply and let go? Maybe a great friend or loved one you don’t have to mask around? A therapist or coach? Some other kind of relationship?
Let me know in the comments or by email – eve@selfcarecoaching.net
And if you’re feeling sad reading this because you can’t think of anything that supportive, let it be a cue to encourage you to be open to more of it in 2026 and beyond.
THE SOLE TO SOUL CIRCLE IS EVOLVING
Whereas before, the deeper dive exclusive content would go out on Wednesdays, this will now be an additional bonus for my Míle Buíochas Mondays newsletter subscribers (as well as the regular polyvagal-informed journal prompts and some of the things I’m most grateful for and delighted to share with you). If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up for free here
And I’ll share more about the evolving Sole to Soul Circle soon.
Happy New Year!
Le grá (with love),
Eve
LINKS
@yogawithroxy
theyogaroot.org – check out their upcoming open weekend with free classes
CHAPTERS
(0:03) Difficulty expressing “negative” emotions
(2:07) Introducing guest Roxolana Romaniuk
(3:47) Ideal vs actual self-care through my Feel. Love. Heal. framework
(6:00) Small daily rituals and intuitive movement
(8:13) Expressing anger and difficult emotions safely
(12:21) Community, belonging, and collective care
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Do you struggle to express yourself when you’re feeling really sad or angry or hurt or any of the so-called negative emotions?
Today’s guest is an absolute delight and while she’s one of my favourite yoga teachers, I especially love what she shares about her own self-care in terms of giving space, making space for messy movement and expression.
I hope you love listening to her as much as I enjoyed talking to her and I’d also love to hear from you in terms of maybe the emotion you struggle most to process and what you’re going to do differently, what you’re going to try as a result of today’s episode.
Welcome to episode 92 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast and I look forward to hearing from you.
I’m your host and producer Eve Menezes Cunningham. I’m an author, columnist, trauma therapist, self-care coach and senior accredited supervisor specialising in ADHD and AuDHD friendly trauma-informed neuro-affirming and transpersonal and somatic approaches. I help people heal through self-care practices that honour your body and your brain and your nervous system as well as yourself, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself.
With new episodes every Tuesday you can either subscribe or follow to make it less likely that you’ll miss new episodes but you might also enjoy some of the older episodes and access deeper dives with the Sole to Soul Circle, access free resources and more information at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com.
Welcome Roxolana Romaniuk. Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you, Eve.
Roxy is one of my favourite yoga teachers at The Yoga Root and when I joined, I think it was in August, September, I changed my schedule to enable me to attend her Monday morning classes and it’s just such a gorgeous start to the week.
It was like a gift to myself to really and just like I really appreciate that every week. So where can people find you? What are you working on at the moment?
Sorry, I was so happy to hear all of this and I think my face is red now. Yeah, so I’m working in Yoga Root now and that’s where people can find me. Yeah, I’m planning to do my YouTube channel with short practice to make it accessible for everyone but at the moment I don’t have any progress on it so maybe in future this channel will be named Yoga with Roxy but at the moment. OK, and what about on Insta or anywhere else you want? Oh yeah, my Insta is @yogawithroxy but I anyway not posted that much so the place where you really can find me it’s theyogaroot.org. So that’s theyogaroot.org
I talk to everyone about ideal and actual self-care because we all struggle with it. We all know what we wish we could do every day and then the reality hits and something has to give. So I go through my Feel. Love. Heal framework.
The Feel bit is like the regulatory self-care: It might be breath practices, it could be going for a swim, it’s something you need a bit of, you have to do something, you’re changing the way you’re, you might be working with the way you’re sending those signals of safety or confidence or whatever come but it’s something you’re doing to help regulate, help yourself feel better.
Then the Love bit is the more kind of accepting, recognising you don’t have to do a thing, you’re perfect just the way you are, you’re part of nature, part of the divine but also that can be more challenging. I know that’s the part I find most challenging, I’d always rather be doing rather than accepting myself how I am.
And then the Heal bit is the collective care where it might be about community and it’s where you, as well as you’re holding space for others obviously with your work, but where you receive that for yourself.
And it might be that you’re not at the moment but in each category I kind of ask about your ideal and the reality. So if you’re happy to say, what would be your ideal in terms of that kind of lowercase self-care, the regulatory, the Feel better?
Yeah. So my ideal, which has never happened, but it’s I’m waking up at 6am and I’m just seeing how the sun is rising, doing my yoga outside, doing some journalling and planning my day and decide how would I like to live that day.
But my actual routine is I find that it’s important to have at least one small thing which you will repeat every day like day by day. So my small things which I do every day if I’m sick or like I can do this every day actually it’s just a glass of hot water. Yeah I’ve got a mug of hot water here now.
Yeah same. So that’s how my body understands I’m waking up and it helps my body waking up, my mind and also I’m doing like some it might be not something that some movements that I repeat but what I do. Just moving somehow. Like sometimes I’m playing the music and just allow myself to move however I feel to move right now. Like yeah.
That’s fantastic and what about the I always start by introducing it is when you don’t have the bandwidth to do something that kind of that accepting yourself where you are that kind of recognition that you don’t have to do a thing you’re part of the divine you’re part of nature and I also realise that can be so much harder especially for people with AuDHD.
What helps you or what would be your ideal in terms of connecting with that highest wisest truest part of yourself? Yeah so in this part I think meditation is helping me a lot to feel that I’m enough that everything is all right. Yeah, I can’t control everything what happens around me in the world but in meditation I can feel like the connection with something bigger and the feelings that I am enough and I also find that it’s important to see where you are to understand what you feel right now and try to express it somehow and I just creating some space in my house and just playing music and allow myself moving like horrible like strange like I don’t know no one can see me and I can be like how I feel now and at least have one place in the world when I can be anger when I can be like anyone.
Have you come across five rhythms?
I’m not sure.
So Gabrielle Roth she died but for decades she basically it would be a playlist and I did some when I was doing my psychosynthesis training and I was so disembodied back then and I was like I can’t dance sober everyone else was sober as well but I was like oh yeah but it would be like songs music that would deliberately provoke the kind of anger or sadness or grief or joy or I can’t remember the five specific rhythms but I remember anger was one of them and I think what you’re describing is absolutely gorgeous because you’re accepting how you’re feeling and you’re allowing it to move through you rather than suppressing it or telling yourself I should be feeling.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah that’s great I might read something about it yeah so I will ask you the author again after podcasts but I think it’s really interesting.
It’s wonderful I think what you’re doing like doing it naturally you’re not needing someone else’s playlist yeah like it’s a bit like the yoga poses it’s great to have that or it’s great to move how inherently want to but I think sometimes it’s hard to I found it through my psychotherapy like I have my therapist who I visited every week and I found that sometimes you can’t recognise some emotion so because it’s covered some other emotion and it’s like hard to realise that I’m not sad now I’m angry so yeah I think it’s important maybe at the start of this way like use some playlist to help you going through this to understand how I can express myself when I anger how I can express myself when I happy and yeah yeah yeah that’s really great.
Do you choose music or do you just let yourself move to the feeling or both.
Yeah, so I just I try to choose some music like I play in one feel like no that’s not what I need now change it and then find like something that I need at this moment. Yeah yeah and what do you notice afterwards like sorry what like how do you feel afterwards like oh I feel like really our all tension is released and I feel like I am free and I can be just who I am.
Yeah so I love it so you’re basically giving people something they can do although it’s technically regulatory it’s something you can do where you want to feel you want to upset but there’s too much. I love it thank you.
So in terms of the Heal, the collective care the co-regulation, I mean you teach gorgeous classes you hold that beautiful space and what is your ideal in terms of both holding and receiving from a community from individuals? What helps you ideally and what do you like what is your actual…?
Yeah essential yeah I think maybe ideal is I don’t know it’s hard question for me so I find that’s really important to be in some community where you can feel yourself be accepted and where you can be who you are. When I teach in some places when I will talk about yoga and what I do some people cannot understand me because. And that’s all right because we are all different that’s great but where I’m teaching in Yoga Root I feel like I’m in right place.
I feel that what I do can be important here and it’s important for me as well like because at the end of class especially in Savasana, I feel that I’m happiest person in the world. I feel just relaxed. Released and full of joy.
I don’t know yeah because yeah so yeah and I think that’s really important to find a place where you will feel acceptance where you will feel like that you know need to acting you know need to do something like extra you can just be and it will be enough yeah so this space can be like everywhere but yeah it’s hard to find the space.
And I’m aware we’re both immigrants I moved after I’m Indian Irish born in London but I moved after the Brexit vote and broke my heart because I realised that lots of people had thought that the British Empire was a good thing I’d kind of grown up assuming that everyone felt horror and shame but no and it was just even though I look white and I sound English I felt unsafe. And it was a really weird thing for me I’m 50 now but I’ve never been happier choosing like I thought I’ve always had an Irish passport so I didn’t know my dad’s from Limerick but I knew I wanted the sea I knew I wanted mountains a journalist friend said “Westport meets all your criteria” and the more I found out about it, it was like oh my god this place sounds incredible.
And I’m still pinching myself that I get to live here but it it’s also a really unusual way of having moved somewhere different to kind of create that community and that feeling rooted and safe that I never had in I mean I never fully have it because I’m not I am a blow-in I am an immigrant but I’m technically a Londoner but I’m not. Like I’m all these different things yeah but the deliberate choice and the thinking what is important to me like the sea the mountains yeah people but thinking like if you were to think in I’m not like for me Westport does meet all my criteria but if you were to think of how people might find their place in the world like yeah what advice might you have.
I think maybe just try different things like try to do some I don’t know actually maybe some sorry I just forgot how to say like the whether people meeting and they have a same interest about something like how to say it so this group like of differencing oh maybe like group of drawing or group of reading or something yeah so maybe just visiting two different groups and one day I think you can find a place where you will feel like that’s the right place I feel good after and it is that feeling good at the time and after isn’t it and I guess we upset ourselves the more upset ourselves the more you are likely to try drawing or try something that interests you rather than I should like whatever yeah I force myself to yeah yeah yeah it’s really important to listen how you react to this.
Like to listen like uh do you like it or no and if it’s no like not to try like oh no maybe I need to try again maybe I need to be like different.
Yeah it’s important to listen to yourself as well like your reaction for everything yeah yeah so in the Sole to Soul Circle bonus deeper dive content if you’re happy I’m going to ask you how you do that like what something like maybe if you’re happy to share a practice is that okay like it doesn’t have to be something else but thank you so much for joining me absolutely delightful and I’m looking forward to your class in the morning thank you so much I’m so happy to be here thank you for listening or watching the Feel Better Every Day Podcast this episode like all of them was produced by me your host Eve Menezes Cunningham.
You can find full transcripts links and more information in the show notes and also at selfcarecoaching.net as well as more information about the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and if you’re interested in those deeper dives joining the Sole to Soul Circle as well as lots of other free resources and information about other offerings if this episode was helpful please leave a five-star review in a world in which so much is coming up for healing and so many people are feeling unsafe I want to do whatever I can to help as many people as possible heal from trauma helping create a world in which everyone is safe welcome and loved physiologically emotionally spiritually and mentally able to thrive so you’re subscribing or liking or sharing feedback and other support helps me help as many people of all genders with trauma histories and ADHD and you’re learning to take better care of yourself isn’t just good for you it creates a ripple effect helping others heal too so keep looking after yourself do what feels good let yourself honour your nervous system let yourself honour your charge your life force and míle buíochas a thousand thank yous.
