What do you remember the first time you took a yoga class?

I remember being told to inhale and exhale but not being sure if it was actually happening… I also remember feeling pretty cool in Warrior II.

Did you have a favorite Yoga instructor when you were a practicing yoga student? How did that instructor help you in your yoga practice?

One of my favorite yoga instructors was this energetic, male teacher who taught early on Saturday mornings at my local home gym. His flows were super challenging and creative and got me excited to get on my mat, even when it felt too early. His teaching style encouraged me to just have fun with it and not take myself too seriously.

What led you to pursue yoga teacher training?

Before the start of my career as a Pediatric Nurse, yoga became a constant in my life, a form of grounding I didn’t know I needed until I kept on its path. I came across this yoga school in Goa, India. All inclusive stay in a beach hut? I was all about it. I made a plan to give it a go before pursuing travel nursing. I simply wanted to immerse myself into the practice, be totally outside of my comfort zone, with no major expectations. I obtained my 200HR Ashtanga and Vinyasa YTT in Patnem, Canacona, Goa India at Kranti Yoga. Three years of travel nursing later and the miracle of my son, I found myself looking to my mat to guide me in entering this new chapter in my life. This rolled into a reignited spark of my desire to share this practice in a new way. So that brought me to take on a 300HR program at Studio Bamboo Institute of Yoga, with the hopes of truly giving others a sense of what yoga has given me thus far — exploration, grounding, stability, genuine human connection, and rediscovery of the self. Through this program thus far, I have obtained 15HR Certifications in Mindful Yoga Therapy for trauma and in Adaptive Yoga.

Define Yoga in your terms?

Yoga, to me, is an exploration of the self. It’s an inquiry of how you want to show up in the world. What you practice on the mat translates to what you practice when you come off of it. Constantly shifting and reconnecting, letting go and becoming.

If a person is brand new to yoga, what advice would you give that person?

Stay on the journey, it will bring you to parts of yourself you didn’t even realize are there; but don’t take any of it too seriously, just show up and enjoy the process. Also, reflect on the fluff your teachers add into their classes, it’s there for a reason.

We all have superpowers when we are doing what we love…what is your yoga superpower?

Ahimsa, compassion and nonviolence. A symbol of genuine care and compassion toward all beings. I think it’s the nurse in me!

At Coastal Pilates and Yoga we are incorporating the healing modalities of heat, sound and colored light (chromotherapy) into our practice of chromoyoga. Tell me about your first experience in the room, what surprised you or stuck with you after that first session?

As I stepped into the ChromoYoga room, I truly felt wrapped in its serenity. As this sense of calm washed over me, I also felt an innate desire to find balance within myself.

Chromotherapy (color light therapy) is a healing modality that can improve the health of the body and mind. Explain how you weave color therapy into your yoga sessions.

Color is perception, right? I like to tie in this idea and apply it to everyday life. If a color evokes a certain emotion or feeling, how can we move through that? How can we take what we do in our practice and carry that out into our daily lives? If life evokes a certain emotion or feeling, how can our practice help us process that? I like to take my students through a sensory awareness meditation before we dive into practice. The focus becomes on enlightening our senses to then be able to take in the colors that tie into the specific time of day. From there, we can move through them in an intentional way and ultimately become more present in our bodies.

Often the color that we are most attracted to is the color we need. Do you have a color that you just seem to release into when doing chromo yoga?

It depends on the day for me! Every color has its purpose and each time I show up to my mat, I don’t realize what I need until after it has taken effect. That’s the beauty in Chromo Yoga!

Do you have a favorite pose while in that color?

I’m a big crow fan. I always surprise myself when I get into it and it is the only thing that’s on my mind when it’s happening.

What can a student expect when they join you for a yoga class here at Coastal Pilates and Yoga?

Shake things up a bit. Come without expectations! I’ll do the same and we can evolve together.

Tell me what you do when you are not teaching yoga?

When I’m not teaching yoga, you can always find me drinking coffee! And while I took a break from caring for patients as a Pediatric Nurse, I’m still caring for my little buddy — my son, Otto. He keeps me busy, but I bring him everywhere! You can catch my family at weekend brunches, the farmers markets, on the beach, or jogging around in our new jogger. I hop on the Peloton from time to time to shake things up. When the surf is good, I’m out struggling to catch waves but having the most fun doing it!