Good Neighbor Podcast: Colorado Springs
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Colorado Springs. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Tony Hills helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Is your business serving the residents of Colorado Springs? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpColoradoSprings.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Colorado Springs
EP #90: Embracing Spirit: How One Mother's Journey Changed Her Approach to Yoga
What makes Stacie Wyatt with Embracing Spirit Yoga a good neighbor?
What happens when personal challenge transforms into profound purpose? Stacie Wyatt's journey with Embracing Spirit Yoga reveals the unexpected path that led her to bring adaptive yoga to people with neurological conditions in assisted living homes throughout her community.
For 18 years, Stacie has worked with individuals facing conditions like traumatic brain injury and dementia, but her approach shatters typical yoga stereotypes. Rather than focusing on physical postures, she teaches the essence of yoga—connection, presence, and mindfulness. "It's not about the shapes or looking cute in yoga clothes," she explains. By bringing services directly to small assisted living homes in regular neighborhoods, she removes barriers that prevent many from accessing wellness practices.
Behind this mission lies a deeply personal story. Thirty years ago, Stacie became mother to a daughter with multiple disabilities. The first decade was filled with resistance and anger until yoga practice sparked a profound shift in perspective. Her daughter became "an absolute gift" who opened doors to new possibilities, inspiring Stacie to serve others facing similar challenges. Even during her recent health struggles following hip replacement complications, she found ways to serve—baking bread weekly for the homeless population when she couldn't teach.
Yoga teachers interested in learning adaptive techniques can connect with Stacie through her website, social media, or YouTube channel where she offers mentoring programs and resources. Whether you're a practitioner, teacher, or someone facing challenges, her message reminds us that transformation often begins when we say yes to life's unexpected journeys.
To learn more about Embracing Spirit Yoga go to:
https://new.express.adobe.com/webpage/8Iq2gxfVnyhaE
Embracing Spirit Yoga
719-661-8802
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Tony Hills.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you a yoga teacher who wants to serve other people and be inspired at the same time? Help might be closer than you think. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing our good neighbor, stacey Wyatt, with Embracing Spirit. Yoga, stacey, how's it going?
Speaker 3:It's going good. I'm doing good, thanks.
Speaker 2:Awesome. We're excited to learn about everything that you do, so tell us about your business.
Speaker 3:Well, my business has been official for 14 years, but I've been teaching adaptive yoga for over 18 years, and the population that I target are people who are living in assisted living homes in our community and they have neurological conditions like traumatic brain injuries or dementia, and what people often think of with assisted living is it's like this big building, and it's really not. It's homes in everyday neighborhoods that have been renovated to house six to eight individuals with neurological changes, and a lot of them are homebound. So I bring the services to them, which is really cool, because there's a lot of barriers that prevent people from getting out into the community, including transportation, finances, and being able to access a yoga class in the community is really really hard. So I bring yoga to them.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's awesome. How did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:Well, I was fortunate enough 30 years ago to be gifted a beautiful daughter of mine. She was born with multiple disabilities that at the time I didn't know, and for the first 10 years of our relationship and our life it was really hard and I had a lot of resistance and anger and it was really really hard. And then I started to practice yoga for myself and I realized this is an amazing way to connect and I felt so good in myself that I healed a lot of my own emotions. I looked at my daughter as an absolute gift in the world that is opening a door for me, and so I knew that I wanted to serve a different population and not just be a regular old yoga teacher teaching people to touch their toes. So I embarked on this amazing journey because I saw something beautiful in my daughter that I didn't ever want her to feel that she couldn't access things because she's different.
Speaker 2:Okay, what are some myths or misconceptions in your industry?
Speaker 3:Well, I think that people have a general misconception about yoga that it is a physical thing, and there is an aspect to yoga that has to do with the physical form of our body and the shapes that we put it in. But that's just one part of a whole, and I teach the other seven parts of the eight wheels, the spokes on the wheels. I do teach people to feel a sensation in their body, and a lot of times they're paralyzed, so I move their body for them, but what I'm really trying to teach is an awareness of the present moment. We go through a lot of grief.
Speaker 3:I teach breathing techniques, mindfulness techniques, present moment stuff, and I think the misconception is that a yoga teacher teaches people how to touch their toes or put their body in a crazy shape, and it's really not about that. The definition of yoga is union, and so I like to bring two pieces together, whether that's you and me or them and their breath, them and the sensation they feel when they stretch. It's not about the shapes or looking cute in yoga clothes. It's a connection, and I teach connection more than anything.
Speaker 2:Okay, how do you attract your customers, your clientele?
Speaker 3:I work hard, okay, how do you attract your customers, your clientele, assisted living homes and I reach out to the CEOs and I say this is powerful and this is meaningful, and this will help your individuals and the caregivers and staff working in the homes to feel more present, to feel more alive and to feel more gratitude. And that's really what it's all about is bringing the wholeness to all the people. Whether it's the janitor cleaning the hallway, he hears the message and maybe that makes a difference in his life too.
Speaker 2:Okay, outside of work, what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:Well, I love to garden, I love to walk, I love to be outside, I love to serve. I've been enduring a really hard year of hip replacement infection and so I'm not able to do a lot of physical yoga myself or even do the activities that I love. So I had a big void in my life not being able to work as much and see my people. So I turned that void into baking bread for the homeless population in our community, and so every Saturday I deliver bread to a church downtown that feeds the homeless and that has filled a huge void of service that was missing this last year. So that's what I do for fun.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's switch gears. Can you describe your hardship or life challenge you overcame? How it made you stronger? What comes to mind?
Speaker 3:Absolutely my daughter, I say. The story that I have is that she was this beautiful girl who opened a door and said Mom, if you walk through this door, your life is going to transform. And as soon as I said yes to who she is, my life completely changed to be inspired by individuals that are working through really hard things and they teach me so much at raising her on my own and and seeing the good in people with differences, and it just has changed my life, and so I feel like she's the reason why I woke up and became a non angry person and I'm able to turn that love that I have into service for other people. It's really amazing.
Speaker 2:Okay, stacey, please tell us one thing they should remember about Embracing Spirit Yoga.
Speaker 3:I hope that people will remember that it's not about the body and it's about the wholeness, and that if there's yoga teachers out in the world that feel inspired to serve and want to know a different way to teach yoga, that it's not about a sweaty room full of young, hard bodies to reach out to me. I'd love to mentor yoga teachers and have them shadow me and learn my technique and how to do this in a way that brings a wholeness to the individual.
Speaker 2:Okay, how can our listeners learn more about Embracing Spirit Yoga?
Speaker 3:Well, you can reach out to me on my website. It's a pretty basic website. I'm also on social media Embracing Spirit Yoga and I have some mentoring programs, and my biggest way is on YouTube. I have an entire playlist designed for yoga teachers on how to reach out to assisted livings, how to do it, mentoring stuff, and then I also have weekly videos of people who might enjoy a chair yoga class, something that they can do at home and just kind of learn my method and my technique.
Speaker 2:Well, Stacey, I really appreciate you being on the show. We wish you and your business much success moving forward.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpcoloradospringscom. That's gnpcoloradospringscom, or call 719-679-4720.