WES

“My mental health struggles helped me find yoga, or yoga found me. I found it at work, at this rehab I worked at.. but this is almost less important rather that I was in a major and traumatic transition point in my life and I felt it, WOW, a flood of emotions and energy, life.. light shoot through me. I remember telling my therapist who just did not get it.. I think I just felt spirituality. I was in tears.. it felt so good to feel connected. It was like getting shackles taken off after over 15 years of them holding me back. It was freedom. It was new life and energy. It was like the “magic pill” all the psychiatrists were trying to prescribe to fix me, but it came from within me.”

KATIE

“And, as tends to happen, it took me 7 months teaching yoga in Cambodia, several near break-ups, a lot of self-medication, 7 more months back in Vermont with my family, quite a bit more deeply damaging inner turmoil, excessive screaming, crying, and guilt-tripping before I finally mustered the courage to end things for good.
And I know this seems like more of a story about a shitty relationship than anything about yoga, but what I’m really trying to say is that throughout four of the most tumultuous years of my life to date, yoga was the ​one​ constant. The one thing I always had with me.
Away from my friends, my family, the people and things that I hold most dear - yoga became my family.
When I needed to pause, reflect, let something go - rather than crawling into my mom’s bed or calling my brother, I would get on my mat.
Yoga was my confidence, my love, my peace. When I was in the darkest of spots, yoga brought people (strangers, really) into my life that reminded me what love should look like. Sharing the practice of yoga with my students began to teach me what I should be seeking in my own life.
And even after I had returned to the familiarity of my parents’ house in Vermont, being in the studio, teaching, was the time that I felt most at peace. Most centered. Most grounded. Most myself.
Yoga brought me home. Yoga brought me ​myself.”

KAT

“I’ve always felt fat and strong and I have a complex relationship with that pairing. There are times when I fully lean into this dichotomy, owning my own body, feeling content, proud, comfortable in my size, allowing myself to take up space. There are other times when I wish away that fat part of this body equation. Where I would gladly shrink down and take up less space. As someone fat and strong, sports/fitness is a complicated and complex landscape. Where do I belong? How do I fit, both figuratively and literally? When I first explored yoga, these were still prevalent questions and concerns. Classes filled with lithe trim people, their long limbs folding easily into twists and binds, legs floating skyward into inversions, while my thickness kept me moreplanted, made it so crossed legs and folded torsos looked different than those elvish bodies surrounding me. All those Legolases to my squat strong Gimli.”