SALMA MOHAMED (she/her)
I was introduced to yoga when I was 14 at summer camp in Maine. I remember so much of the emotional and physical growing pains I was navigating at that time in my life, feeling held together by little more than unwavering conviction, teenage angst, and a persistence to live fully despite everything I felt was weighing me down.
I remember joining one of the optional sessions offered every other day: a mindful movement practice that began with grounding, moved into connecting body + movement with breath, and closed with rest. I remember feeling entirely changed after that 60-minute session. There was a clarity in thought and a purity in my heart that wasn’t fully there before. I could hear the lake more vividly, feel the grass more intimately beneath my feet, and hold each moment with my peers with a little more presence. I witnessed the interconnectedness of life in a way that didn't feel burdensome. A lightness.
Along the way, I kept returning to yoga, freestyling whatever I needed, meeting myself wherever I was off and on the mat. Finding my voice, humanity, and capacity for presence, joy, love, and life itself. But between summer camp in Maine and graduating from college and then graduate school, the hiatuses between my practice would grow. I moved to Boston in summer 2023 and felt like I drifted too far from this lifeline of movement and mindfulness.
In the years between, my path took me deep into maternal and reproductive health: as a doula supporting people through some of the most vulnerable and transformative moments of their lives, and through work in public policy and advocacy, pushing to change the systems that shape those experiences. That work reminded me how necessary it is to understand myself and align with my values, and how that kind of intentional healing has to happen in both mind and body: in breath and full presence with myself. The act of coming home to oneself. To do this necessary and important work, I needed to remember the tools that support that.
So I took a chance on myself and signed up for the JPCY 200hr Yoga Teacher Training, graduating in June 2026. I'm endlessly grateful to this program for bringing me back to the mat, and back home to myself. It reawakened something I didn't know I was still missing, and gave me the tools, the community, and the confidence to hold space for others in this way. Now, I'm energized and hopeful about helping others come home to themselves, too!