Mental Health + Yoga Non-Profit

I remember being in some generic prerequisite college class in Missouri

where the question, “what do you want to do with your life?” came up. My

answer was that I hoped to help people.

At the time, I was on

track to earn a bachelor’s degree in health sciences, which I earned a

few years later. It’s a non-clinical degree that took the form of many

career paths over those years, and in the end I used my degree to get

career-level nanny jobs. Out of college, I was working for families,

earning a salary and often benefits, traveling, cooking, and co-raising

little ones. I loved it. Nannying was creative, fun, and fulfilling work

that allowed me to make a tangible difference in the lives of the

families I worked for. I watched words be learned and spoken, steps be

taken, tantrums be had and recovered from. I cared for moms and dads too

so that they could devote more time to their family and less to

housework and ritual tasks like laundry and tidying. I was helping

people, one family at a time. It was important work, every day was new

and different, and most importantly, I could wear yoga pants to work.

I

pulled away from full-time nannying for a handful of reasons, most

notably because of a sudden death in my family. I spent a year traveling

between St. Louis, MO, South Korea, the Lake of the Ozarks, Nashville,

Bali, and Kansas City, MO, figuring out what I wanted to do next, where I

wanted to land. In that year, I earned my yoga teacher certification

and made the decision to move to Los Angeles.

Just before the

holiday season, my family suffered another sudden loss. I relocated to

California after Christmas that year, worked as a nanny while I got my

footing, and now teach yoga full-time. Sometimes I struggle with what I

do—so many people come to me solely for exercise guidance, but I feel I

have so much more I want to give and so much more I am able to offer.

Yoga has done so much more for me than work out my body, and I’m eager

to share the benefits of the practice—physical, emotional,

psychological—in hopes of helping others in their times of darkness and

need.

I’ve been hearing the question, “what do you want to do

with your life?” repeat in my head a lot lately. Every time I hear news

of someone dying from suicide, or an overdose, or a shooting, I feel

called to action. I’ve had trouble picturing what that action could look

like until this year.

I’ve been developing the idea of a

nonprofit dedicated to providing free online resources for anyone

suffering, grieving, or coping with trauma or pre-trauma for a while

now. Only recently have I spoken of it to those around me, and even

those conversations have been limited to a small handful of friends,

family, and charity work consultants. I initially wanted to host a big

fundraising event to get this nonprofit off the ground, but after seeing

yet another loss of life at the hands of a mental health issue, I don’t

want to wait. I don’t need to spend time or money putting on a show and

a dress and a full face of makeup to ask for funds when I can just ask

right here, right now.

I’ve seen crime and personal struggle —

with mental health always at the end of the string — tornado through my

own family, and I know it touches so many lives beyond my own.

I

also know that yoga is a science-based, whole-life practice that offers

many methods for coping with grief, loss, sleep issues, anxiety,

trauma, inexplicable dull moods, stress, self awareness, and more.

It

clicked for me one day: I’ve used yoga to carry myself through two

really big traumas in my life, and through all the smaller tough times

before, between, and after. Why can’t it do the same for others? I have

thought a lot about my parents while developing this idea. I've used

them as a mold in my mind for what a person needing these resources

might look like, what they might want, and what they might realistically

use. The truth is, a lot of people don’t have a full picture of what

yoga is and what it can do for them, can’t afford a yoga studio

membership, don’t have time to get to classes, don’t know which classes

to search for, don’t feel comfortable enough to seek out a group

activity, or don’t think their body is made for yoga.

My

solution: I want to offer a free, collaborative online space that a

person in need can go to in times of struggle where I, along with other

professionals, can offer help and guidance through the darker parts of

life. With organized content, both audio and video, ranging in length

from one minute to one hour that can be done privately, anywhere, and

anytime. This resource could allow people to see—on their own time and

in in their own space—that yoga is for everyone.

If you have the

means and would like to donate to help get this nonprofit

legally-approved and off the ground, your support in this new chapter

would mean the world to me. I don’t know what this will be in a year,

let alone 10, but I know I’ll never find out if I don’t start now.