My yoga practice has opened more doors – physically, mentally, and spiritually – than I ever could have imagined when I stepped into my first class and rolled out my mat over ten years ago.  I took that particular first class because a friend told me it was challenging.  Having run the Boston Marathon twice, I believed in challenging myself when exercising.  Sure enough, thanks to Rolf Gates on that first day, I really was challenged…and exhausted.  The part that was so very unexpected, though, was how it opened my mind and my heart.  It was the first of the many gifts that my yoga practice has brought into my life.

Like many, I fell sway to yoga – the practice, the physical exertion, the heat and, the most wonderful of all, the peace.  I wondered how this could be, this peace.  The peace I felt practicing yoga allowed me to let go, to be free, and it allowed me to feel vulnerable.  The yoga poses were so new and different, I had to let go.  Who knows what I looked like back then but it sure felt good in my body.

I spent many a yoga practice in tears on my mat yet when class was over my heart felt renewed and restored.  I didn’t question all of these emotional moments, I just took them as a good sign.  I learned through my own practice the healing of the body, heart, and mind.  I began to feel more balanced, centered, and aligned – both on and off my mat.

I am trained as a mental health therapist and when I started practicing yoga I was working in the prisons.  Practicing yoga gave me the balance I needed to counsel criminals in the jails day in and day out.  Soon I left my life in corrections and jumped into the yoga world full time, managing yoga studios, and becoming a teacher myself.  It was while teaching my first class at Crunch Fitness in Downtown Crossing that I realized that yoga leads down the path of healing.  It was during my first om that my heart truly opened and I knew I was on the right path: A gift unexpected and unimagined.

My alternative healing business, Powers of Healing, grew out of further gifts that yoga has brought into my life.  I am grateful for this and want to return some of this gratitude as I help you on your own healing path.