About Me
I began practicing yoga long before I knew it. As a young girl, my favorite place was high up in a maple tree that stood in our front yard. There I would sit quietly for hours, observing the birds, the trees and weather. I felt free, quiet and at ease. There were troubles in my life, but high in that tree I would calm my body and center my mind.
My life has not been much different from most. I have suffered my share of anxiety, loss, grief, illness and pain. But early in life, yoga found me and blessed me with a passion and a purpose in life. Because of this ancient path, the wise teachers, and supportive friends who I have met along the way, I have learned that what appears to be misfortune can turn out to be a blessing. Injury and pain are teachers that can be transformative, opening doors to greater learning and opportunity for growth. Life has taught me to be more compassionate with myself and others, to forgive myself and others, and yoga has helped me to heal, and to remain vital, and strong even while aging. For this path that I have traveled, for all of my teachers, and my students, I am grateful beyond words.
I live in the beautiful Farmington Valley of Connecticut with my husband and our two Maltese dogs. My love of nature is nourished with hiking, biking, swimming and kayaking. I am blessed to practice and teach yoga in a growing community of engaged, like-minded souls who are also seeking healthy and wholesome lives of mind, body and spirit.
Qualifications
I began to meditate at the age of twenty while earning my bachelors degree at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. Finding that meditation both appealed to my need for a spiritual practice, and helped me to experience less anxiety, I continued to meditate through graduate school for my Masters Degree in Public Health at the University of Massachusetts.
In my mid-twenties, I was fortunate to study with a meditation master from India, and, for six years, delve deeper into the practice of meditation, and yoga. Within a year, I no longer needed to use medication to control my chronic back pain due to scoliosis.
In 1987, I lived at the Kripalu Center for Yoga in Lenox, Massachusetts for a month and became a Certified Yoga Instructor. I emerged from this month-long experience with an expanded sense of possibility for my life. I began to use my growing knowledge of yoga in combination with my healthcare training to offer classes in yoga, stress reduction, and wellness to the general public, physicians, and other healthcare professionals. Over the past three decades, I have had the opportunity to study with some of the most talented teachers in the Kripalu, Iyengar, Anusara and Mindfulness traditions. With these respected traditions as foundations, I teach a style of yoga that is uniquely my own.
In 1991, I met Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, (founder of the mindfulness movement in healthcare) who encouraged me to do an internship at the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program, University of Massachusetts Medical Center. My teacher, the wise and gifted Saki Santorelli, EdD, inspired me as I observed how he brought meditation and mindfulness into the lives of those seeking relief from stress, chronic pain and disease.
In 1994, I was hired as the Director of The Stress Reduction Program at Griffin Hospital, the first program of its kind in Connecticut. Over the next six years, hundreds of patients and healthcare professionals benefited from this program which integrated mind/body medicine into the hospital setting. During this time, I also was lead yoga teacher for the Cardiac Heart Disease Reversal Program at Griffin Hospital.
In 2005, I returned to college to become a licensed Physical Therapist Assistant. I have worked as a clinician in outpatient physical therapy for Hartford Hospital since that time. This experience has brought depth to my understanding of anatomy and physiology, injury prevention and rehabilitation. It also enriched my yoga teaching allowing me to effectively address the needs of students with a variety of physical needs.
For the past 25 years, I have taught yoga classes, offered private sessions, workshops and trainings to 30 to 150 people a week. In recent years I expanded my training to include a Certification in Yoga Therapy from the International Association for Yoga Therapy, and Certifications in Yoga for Osteoporosis, and Yoga for Arthritis, with Loren Fishman, MD.