A #FlashbackFriday Essay...

(Originally posted on Facebook July 9, 2021.)

My yoga journey began over two decades ago when my sister-in-law (then my brother’s fiancee’) wanted to do something together to bond. We attended a community center yoga class and I wasn’t feeling savasana. At all. But something shifted.

A few years later, I was practicing at a local studio, experienced racial microaggressions in the yoga space along with my best friend, and fell in love with Paul and Sommer Sobin, amazing Anusara yoga teachers. I learn to LOVE savasana, and I’ve been on retreat with them in Umbria, Italy. Relationships matter. And something shifted.

A few years later, a few people suggested I pursue teaching. I became a 200- and 500-hour Pranakriya yoga teacher. I met my India BFF Stacee Johnson Yoga during YTT. I created Yoga2Sleep in 2012 and haven’t looked back. My friend Chris Eder, an Air Force veteran and yoga teacher who used yoga to deal with PTSD (and who was stationed in Iraq the exact same time my husband was there, in close proximity – there are NO accidents), introduced me to some folks like Rob Schware of the Give Back Yoga Foundation and Suzanne Manafort of Mindful Yoga Therapy, who were sharing yoga with service members and veterans. I also met Jana Long in the parking lot of the Maryland University of Integrative Health after taking a yoga class with Stacee (again, NO accidents – I had no idea I would attend MUIH later) and she told us about BYTA and her work. Relationships matter. Something definitely shifted.