I never set out to be a yoga teacher. For most of my life, I was more likely to be overthinking than flowing. But life has a way of cracking us open.

 

After graduating from UCLA, I moved across the country to teach high school through Teach For America, where I saw firsthand how trauma shaped my students’ ability to learn and connect. I wanted to help but didn’t yet have the tools. That led me to a PhD in clinical psychology focused on trauma and systems change—but after years of studying the mind, I realized something: Western psychology was more focused on diagnosing and categorizing symptoms than addressing the roots of suffering.

 

I had spent my life chasing credentials, prestige, and the kind of success the world told me to seek—not just for the sake of achievement, but because I truly wanted to help people heal. I thought becoming a doctor was the only way, because that’s what I had been taught real healers were. But the stress of juggling 100-hour weeks caught up with me, and I developed a serious nervous system disorder that forced me to slow down. In that stillness, I saw that healing wasn’t in another diagnosis—it was in the breath, the body, and the spaces between certainty. So I walked away, releasing the dream I had carried for 20 years—one that had defined me for as long as I could remember—and headed east.

 

I spent months in India studying Buddhist psychology, yoga, and meditation, immersing myself in practices that don’t just treat symptoms but cultivate deep healing. Though I had been practicing yoga since 2016, it wasn’t until then that I truly understood it—not as exercise, but as a way back to myself. My health returned—not through another prescription, but through breath, movement, and reconnection to my body. Now, my parents catch me with oracle cards, incense, and crystals instead of PhD books and therapy manuals, and—thankfully—we’re all just trusting the process.

 

My classes blend gentle yoga, breathwork, and meditative reflection—but more than that, they create space to slow down, soften, and remember that healing isn’t something we study—it’s something we live.

 

When I’m not teaching, I’m probably traveling (through the aisles of Costco), baking sweet treats, guiding clients through deep healing work, getting lost in books on systems change (or Faerie Smut—IYKYK), or hanging out with the most beautiful girl I know, my pup Wilma. Healing is messy, weird, beautiful, and sometimes (99% of the time) best accompanied by an unreasonable amount of artisanal pastries.

 

Healing isn’t about escaping the darkness but learning to meet our own light within it. After all, the stars don’t disappear at night—they just become easier to see.