YOGA NAMASTACY
Powerful Body. Peaceful Mind.Yoga, lifestyle, and self-realization.
2021 IDEA World Instructor of the Year / Co-Creator of the First College-Accredited 200/500-Hour YTT / 2,000+ Trainings Delivered Worldwide
Get to Know Stacy
Stacy McCarthy is an Integrative Wellness expert, celebrated speaker, and yoga specialist known for transforming lives through a holistic approach to yoga, lifestyle design, and self-realization.
Named the 2021 IDEA World Instructor of the Year, Stacy co-created the first College Accredited 200- and 500-Hour Yoga Teacher Training and has delivered over 2,000 trainings to audiences as large as 1,000 people, speaking at events around the world.
A former full-scholarship athlete at Colorado State University with a degree in Exercise Physiology, Stacy spent years in the corporate world before answering the deeper call of yoga. Today she teaches women — at any age — how to have a powerful body and peaceful mind without dieting or excessive exercise.
Stacy lives in Rancho Santa Fe, California with her husband Tom, where she teaches at her in-person Yoga Nest and welcomes a worldwide community of students through her online platform.
“A lot of people find yoga intimidating.
My mission is to guide them past that fear. To give them the confidence to get on their mat and live their fullest life.”
On the Blog
My Favorite Places in Nashville
Beyond the honky tonks: where I moved, thought, and ate my way through Music CityEveryone knows Nashville for its music, its neon, and its honky tonks. I love all of it. But on this trip I found a quieter Nashville, one that fed my body, my mind, and my spirit. I...
The Class That Taught Me What 65 Really Means
A birthday wish, a room full of teachers, and the sequence that moved us allI have taught thousands of classes in my life. But I will remember this one for the rest of it. For my 65th birthday, I did not want a party. I wanted a practice. So I asked my community to...
The Vinyasa That Meets You Where You Are
A new way to flow, breathe, and belong on the matThere is a moment I will never forget. A woman in her early fifties walked up to me after class, eyes glassy, and said, "I think this is my last yoga class. I just can't keep up." She had been showing up faithfully for...
On the Gram
3 WAYS TO BUILD HAMSTRING MOBILITY
Without overstretching
These three seated progressions gradually increase hamstring mobility from one leg at a time to both legs together. The focus is not on forcing a deeper forward fold, but on creating length through the hamstrings while maintaining control through the pelvis and spine.
This matters because newer yoga practitioners often overstretch the upper hamstring near its attachment at the sitting bone. More range is not always better. Build mobility gradually, stay out of sharp sensation, and let strength and flexibility develop together.
Your goal isn’t to touch your toes.
Your goal is healthy hamstrings for life.
Tag or share with an athlete or friend.
Home again. 🤍
Days of new streets and new skies.
New architecture, new accents, new rhythms.
That is what travel does.
It stretches you.
It grows your heart a little bigger,
a little more tender toward people
whose lives look nothing like yours,
until you remember how much we all share.
Then the horses come walking down my street,
the dogs press their warm heads into my hands,
and my students gather under the trees again.
And I see it clearly:
home is not the opposite of adventure.
It is what adventure teaches your eyes to see.
👇 What does coming home teach you?
#YogaNamastacy #TheMomentEverythingChanges #RememberWhoYouAre #PowerfulBodyPeacefulMind #IntelligentYoga
Nashville, y’all. What a trip. 🤠✨
It had been decades since I’d been to Music City. Tom and I packed our boots and said yes to everything.
The Hermitage Hotel stole my heart first. Opened in 1910, all Beaux-Arts arches and chandeliers, and the very rooms where Tennessee’s suffrage fight played out. This design lover was in heaven.
Then the food. E+ROSE became our morning ritual (that Fire Flour Toast!). Chocolate strawberries in our room. Golden hour mocktails. My beloved alcohol-free Prima Pavé.
A farm day with my dear friend Jessica at Southall Inn and Franklin: pumpkins, hay bales, a red tractor straight out of a painting. Watching her glow in the beautiful life she’s built might have been my favorite moment.
Dinner at Drusie & Darr, another Jean-Georges gem. Turmeric cauliflower with the sauce poured tableside like a ceremony. And yes, the pink marble bathroom lives up to the hype. Dolly and Miley watched over us.
A honky tonk night with a live band. I laughed, I swayed, I forgot everything but the song.
Then Dallas happened. Broken “escalator to heaven,” a 15-minute tram, a missed flight... and the universe upgraded me to the presidential suite. When the plan breaks, rest anyway.
Nashville, thank you. For the music, the food, the friends, and the reminder that joy is not frivolous. It is fuel.
👇 What is your favorite travel memory?
Plot twist: I slept in a presidential suite last night. 🏨✨
Not because I’m fancy. Because my airline and I had a difference of opinion about physics.
My Nashville layover landed late in Dallas. The “escalator to heaven” (three levels, and yes, that is really what they call it) was broken, so I carried my suitcase up all three. Then I sprinted to the tram, which took 15 minutes instead of 2. Then I ran to my gate and watched my flight leave without me.
Every other flight: completely full. So Dallas said, “How about the presidential suite?” Honestly, who says no to that?
Almost to San Diego now. Grateful for the detour, the upgrade, and the reminder that sometimes the scenic route comes with room service.
Powerful Body. Peaceful Mind. (And really strong arms from those escalators.) ✨
👇 What is your best travel plot twist?
Dinner at Drusie & Darr, and it was everything. 🍽️
Another Jean-Georges restaurant, and he never disappoints. The turmeric cauliflower, poured tableside in the most beautiful golden sauce, was unforgettable. The service was warm and seamless. Every detail felt considered.
And the room. Soaring arches, glowing chandeliers, the famous pink marble women’s bathroom everyone talks about. Even Dolly and Miley on the walls made me smile.
A great restaurant feeds more than your appetite. It feeds your senses, your memories, your joy.
👇 What is the best meal you have had lately?
Nashville nights. 🎶
There is nothing like live music in a honky tonk. The lights, the guitars, the voices rising over the crowd.
We soaked it all in, and for a little while, the rest of the world could wait.
👇 When did live music last give you goosebumps?
Nashville, we have arrived.
Checked in to the Hermitage Hotel and I am in architecture heaven. Beaux-Arts arches, a stained glass vaulted ceiling, marble everything. This beauty opened in 1910 as Nashville`s first million dollar hotel.
And the history in these walls. In 1920 this hotel was headquarters for the suffragists fighting for the 19th Amendment. Women strategized right here for the right to vote. I felt that the moment I walked in.
Then out into the music. Honky tonks with live music pouring out of every doorway.
And the food. This vegan girl found some wonderful plant based spots here. Plus the prettiest mocktails and a lovely alcohol free sparkling, Prima Pavé, that I am officially obsessed with.
Nashville, you are showing off.
Powerful Body. Peaceful Mind. ✨
Three years.
Three years since my mom passed. Before I tell you how she died, I want to tell you how she lived.
She lived in our house for seven years. Not tucked into a back room. Not on a schedule. Not being managed. She was at the center of our life.
She came on family walks in her wheelchair. She came to dinner. She came to Hawaii. She came to the garden when the roses were in. She came everywhere we went, because one of us does not get left behind because her body is folding.
On the walks, my son would push her wheelchair and pop wheelies. She would act like she was mad.
She was not mad.
You could see it in her face. The little gleam. The tightening of her grip on the armrests, half theater, half delight. The half-smile she could not hide even when she was, for show, scolding him.
My daughter brushed her hair and held her hand for long stretches without needing it to be a moment. My husband was the structural beam of the household. He never made her feel like a burden. Not once.
She loved Hawaii. She loved the garden. She loved the animals. She loved being part of everything.
That sentence, said simply, is the part of the obituary that does not get printed but should.
These are words from my new book. Writing them was how I learned to slow down and see the seven years before the hour.
I miss her. But I got to love her all the way to the end, in the middle of everything. There is no greater gift than that.
These are words from my new book, The Moment Everything Changes. Coming soon.
Powerful Body. Peaceful Mind. ✨
