Heal & Grow Into Your Best Self

Greetings from Colorado my beloved yoga friends!

The last I wrote you I was living in Ohio teaching at the Yoga Training Center and managing for Yoga Six.  In 2020, my family —husband David and pup Zipper — moved across the country to Boulder, Colorado.  It was a long held dream come true to live near the mountains where we could follow our passions!   We weathered the pandemic getting to know our new neighbors with social distancing and exploring the great outdoors of Colorado, hiking, biking, skiing and paddle boarding.   It was a balm to our souls in the midst of one of the most challenging times in my life and in the history of this country, the pandemic.

When I arrived, I made the conscious decision not to teach yoga.  I wanted a fresh start, and teaching in a town where everywhere you turn there’s an amazing yoga teacher —and someone breathing on you—made it easy to step away.   But my love for the practice and my personal commitment to the inner spiritual journey did not end when I stopped teaching.  Instead, I went deeper into the practices of meditation, pranayama and svadyaya, self-reflection. I changed careers and became an academic advisor for a 100% online university that serves the under-served.  It’s been an amazing, fruitful journey!

It’s been five years now, and my social network has expanded.   I met my friend Karen mountain biking and  later found out that she is a trauma counselor. We’ve had a number of really interesting conversations about the role of the body-mind in healing trauma. I’ve always held that everyone has trauma – whether that’s trauma with a little “t” or a big “T.”  It leaves a mark that can change us in ways that make us smaller, contracted away from our full, vital selves.

I’ve studied the work of Peter Levine and Bessel Van Der Kolk and have reflected. I realized that in many ways, yoga had been treatment for my own trauma, and that my teaching style (in my later years) was instinctively trauma-informed.  Today, there are so many excellent tools to help us move through the trauma and actually grow from it.  You may have heard of PTSD, but have you heard of post-traumatic growth (PTG)? Essentially this is when a trauma creates positive psychological change.

Please allow me to introduce you Karen Quigley, LMT, PCC, my friend and trauma therapist.   She’s offering an 8 week series on somatic practices to heal trauma (please edit!). When she told me about it, I got so excited because I wanted to take it! myself!! Then I thought—what about all the yoga friends I’ve taught over the years? Wouldn’t they be interested?

This is a program for anyone who is on a journey to the next best version of themselves, including the healing required along the way.   This course is for yoga teachers, yoga practitioners, coaches of all kind, professionals, therapists and anyone who is interested in helping themselves or others in the work they do. I hope you’ll consider enrolling….I may see you there!

With love and gratitude,

Laurel