LIZ KOELNYCH (she/her)
When I show up for a yoga practice I feel like I am showing up for myself. Though showing up is work, it feels nourishing. I hope to offer this to students and hold a space where we can downshift and pause the performance that exists for most of us each day.
I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua and I have worked in public health for over 10 years. I’ve dedicated my career to working with and for people who are living with HIV, and who are on the margins of the healthcare system. The demands can be challenging and unforgiving, and for that I am grateful to have yoga as a refuge.
Yoga is a practice that accepts me and demands nothing of me. Yoga has helped me to more skillfully engage with the parts of the world and my life that challenge and drain me. The practice allows me to be held while encouraging me to rest, focus and just be.
I became interested in yin and restorative classes in 2015. I wanted to challenge myself to break the habit of categorizing the practice as a physical workout alone. What I learned about the relationship between breath and the nervous system fascinated me. Unlike any practice I have found, yoga has taught me how to coexist with discomfort instead of avoiding or eliminating it. The practice allows me to observe and reconcile the imprints that a demanding professional life and trauma have left on my nervous system.