Rebby Kern (they/them) is a wandering spirit shining light into the lives of others. Rebby’s personal mission is to operate from connection, seeking justice and empowering voices. Rebby generates space for connection, empowerment and self-discovery through their 10+ years in LGBTQ policy and activism drawing connections to yoga asana and philosophy while uplifting experiences of marginalized identities. Their experience drives their passion to include diverse identities around race, gender identity, sexual orientation, body, disability and more. 

Kerri is the founder of CTZNWELL, a movement that is democratizing wellbeing for all. A descendant of generations of firemen and first responders, Kerri has dedicated her life to kicking down doors and fighting for justice. She’s been teaching yoga for over 20 years and is known for making waves in the wellness industry by challenging norms, disrupting systems and mobilizing people to act. 

Mado Hesselink (she/they) helps yoga teachers integrate their heart-centered mission with practical teaching strategies so that they can integrate the benefits of yoga into their lives and share those benefits with their community.

A student of yoga for over 20 years in the Krishnamacharya lineage, Mado is white & able bodied, queer, neurodivergent, an immigrant, and lives on unceded Cherokee land. Her life has been profoundly influenced by the experience of growing up in Hawaii as a third culture individual, by becoming a mother at the age of 24, and by the death of her own mother in 2012. Parenthood and partnership continue to be her greatest yoga teachers while asana and meditation support her aim to show up skillfully and compassionately in every area of life.

Sherene Cauley (she/her) is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, the founder of The Nurtured Life, the Associate Director of The Whole Health Center in Bar Harbor, Maine, and a Phd student working towards her Doctor of Ministry with a focus on social transformation from United Theological Seminary, Twin Cities.

Sherene lives with her husband, mother, and children on the coast of Maine.

Sherene founded The Nurtured Life in 2003, a Maryland-based wellness service to build mindful life practices into everyday living. As a mother and connected community member with an academic background in education, she recognized the need for holistic early childhood education and designed The Nurtured Life to offer guidance to families in communication, physiological awareness, natural world connection, and whole foods sustenance. In 2008, Sherene completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training with Diane Finlayson and, in 2009, a certificate in pregnancy yoga to integrate yoga practices into family care. The role of The Nurtured Life naturally broadened to become a nexus for practical and emotional family support with the launch of a whole foods purchasing cooperative, a network of peer support, and coaching services for parents and families.

Today, Rohini is internationally recognized as a teacher of the Akasha and spiritual explorer. Through her revolutionary approach to empowering spiritually curious individuals, Rohini guides her community through a wondrous journey inward so they can experience the awe of a limitless reality. 

Through the MI Community, her podcast, and her educational opportunities, Rohini makes the wisdom of the Akasha accessible to everyone. 

Tina Strawn (she/they) is a joy and liberation advocate, activist, author of "Are We Free Yet? The Black, Queer Guide to Divorcing America" (Row House Publishing, January 2023). Tina is the owner and host of the Speaking of Racism podcast. The heart of her work is founding and leading Legacy Trips, immersive antiracism experiences where participants visit historical locations such as Montgomery and Selma, AL, and utilize spiritual practices as tools to affect personal and collective change. Tina has three adult children, an ex-husband, an ex-wife, and an ex-country. She has been a full-time minimalist nomad since February 2020 and currently lives in Costa Rica. Tina travels the globe speaking, writing, teaching, and exploring where on the planet she can feel safe and free in her queer, Black, woman-identifying body.

This is the final episode of Season 2. It features me talking about the reason why I decided to take a sabbatical and make space for REST.

I recorded this prior to the supreme court's further attack on our civil rights and the planet, so there is no mention of the most recent traumas and horrors happening in our country and world. This episode focuses on rest as a practice and the reality that not everyone has the space to rest. 

Tristan Katz (they/them) is a writer, digital strategist, and equity-inclusion facilitator based on the ancestral land of the Cowlitz and Clackamas peoples and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and Siletz Indians, now known as Portland, OR. 

Tristan offers justice-focused marketing programs for yoga and wellness professionals, along with workshops and trainings centered around queer identity and transgender awareness with an anti-oppression and intersectional lens. 

Jenée Johnson, Program Innovation Leader, Mindfulness, Trauma and Racial Healing, pioneered and leads the unique effort to bring mindfulness into public health practices and programs though the Trauma Informed Systems of Care Initiative in the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Her goal is to improve the organization’s ability to manage change, stay resilient, inspire growth, and become a mindful culture that leads and serves with compassion.

Tanisha Hubbard-Hood, or Tan (they/them/she), is a caregiver, solo-parent, movement instructor, Yoga student and aspiring activist. While the physical practice of yoga is what drew them to the mat, it was the calling of something deeper that led to the decision to complete a YTT. The introduction of the 8-limbed path during training was the starting point of their curiosity of the intersection of yoga and social justice. Forever a student of the practice, Tan is always eagerly seeking out spaces where crucial conversations around accessible wellness and movement are being held. This includes completing workshops/programs for Yoga For 12-Step Recovery, Accessible Yoga, and Skill in Action. Their deep practice of self-study is heavily inspired/influenced by other community members and teachers and in the ways that they bravely show up and share their stories. The current question(s) on Tan's mind: How can I acknowledge/heal all the trauma and dysfunction that I have inherited and in turn transform my lineage? Or, another way to frame that question - how do I alleviate my own suffering so the ones who come after me don't take that on as well? Given my current situation/social location, what is my role?

Madison Page was the founder of Core to Coeur, a curated marketplace and community for taking and teaching movement, wellness, and fitness classes over live video. Birthed from a virtual Pilates business built on Squarespace in 2017, C2C grew into a larger movement to democratize wellness for all people. Madison's expertise is in building impact-driven businesses, community building, content marketing, and marketing strategy.  She is also the co-host of Stretched! a podcast about inclusive wellness powered by Core to Coeur with Liz Getman. She is a fully certified Pilates instructor, specializing in rehabilitation, functional movement, and post-partum exercise. Currently, she is creating a body of daily poetry writings called Ditties.

In a previous life, Madison worked as a choreographer and performance artist and has made/performed in work for The Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Film Center at Lincoln Center (New York), and in 2017 as an artist in residence at New Expressive Works (Portland)  where she performed an autobiographical duet she made for her and her mom.

Octavia Raheem has received national attention for her work training yoga teachers and diversifying the yoga and wellness industry. Trained and mentored by exemplary teachers, Dr.Gail Parker, Tracee Stanley, Chanti Tacoronte- Perez, Octavia’s work as a yoga professional focuses on practical tools to teach individuals how to manage stress, anxiety, and fatigue through restorative yoga, Yoga Nidra, and meditation in a way that is accessible to all levels/abilities, and restorative to the nervous system. Her work has been featured on Yoga Journal, Mantra Magazine, Well+ Good CNN, WXIA, and Atlanta Magazine.

Jacoby Ballard is a social justice educator and yoga teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah. He leads workshops and trainings around the country on diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a yoga teacher with 20 years of experience, he leads workshops, retreats, teacher trainings, teaches at conferences, and runs the Resonance mentorship program for certified yoga teachers to find their niche and calling.  In 2008, Jacoby co-founded Third Root Community Health Center in Brooklyn, to work at the nexus of healing and social justice. Since 2006, Jacoby has taught Queer and Trans Yoga, a space for queer folks to unfurl and cultivate resilience and received Yoga Journal's Game Changer Award in 2014 and Good Karma Award in 2016. Jacoby has taught in schools, hospitals, non-profit and business offices, a maximum-security prison, a recovery center, a cancer center, LGBT centers, gyms, a veteran’s center, and yoga studios. He lives with his three best teachers, his partner, his toddler, and his wily dog. Jacoby just released his first book, A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation. 

Reggie's yoga and meditation journey was born of curiosity; forged in adversity and has become a lesson in surrender to the miracles that exist in commitment to personal peace and wellbeing. Adopting yogic discipline has saved his life and he is committed to sharing these practices far and wide to help others - regardless of their race, identity, orientation or economic status. He has studied extensively with many amazing teachers along the way - ever mindful that the best teacher is the eternal student.

Wambui Njuguna-Räisänen is a Kenyan-American based in Finland, passionate about making wellness through yoga and meditation seamlessly engaged in equity and justice so that more people of the global majority can live well and thrive. Wambui is deeply inspired by spiritual teachers and communities that seek ways to apply the insights from our various practices and teachings to situations of social, racial, political, environmental and economic suffering and injustice. She would like to see wellness spaces engage more in social justice + collective change and activist spaces learn to breathe deeply and practice sustainable self-care in the midst of dismantling systemic oppression. This is her definition of community care.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist and an aspirational cousin to all sentient beings. Her work in this lifetime is to facilitate infinite, unstoppable ancestral love in practice. Her poetic work in response to the needs of her cherished communities has held space for multitudes in mourning and movement. Alexis’s co-edited volume Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines (PM Press, 2016) has shifted the conversation on mothering, parenting and queer transformation. Alexis has transformed the scope of intellectual, creative and oracular writing with her triptych of experimental works published by Duke University Press (Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity in 2016, M Archive: After the End of the World in 2018 and Dub: Finding Ceremony, 2020.) Unlike most academic texts, Alexis’s work has inspired artists across form to create dance works, installation work, paintings, processionals, divination practices, operas, quilts and more.

Meryl Arnett is a mama, meditation teacher, the creator of The Mindful Minute podcast, and the head of meditation for Shoreline meditation app. Her passion is introducing mindfulness in ways that are accessible to all of us.

Meryl's meditation classes have been featured on CNN Headline News, WXIA-TV and Atlanta Magazine, and her podcast has been named a Top 10 meditation podcast. She has been teaching corporate, private & group meditation classes since 2010, and she co-created Sacred Chill {West}, the first meditation + yoga studio in Atlanta to offer regular, independent meditation classes. 

Lama Rod Owens is an author, activist, and authorized Lama (Buddhist Teacher) in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Rod is the co-founder of Bhumisparsha, a Buddhist tantric practice and study community. Lama Rod is visiting teacher with Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme), a visiting teacher with Natural Dharma Fellowship and the Brooklyn Zen Center. Lama Rod has been a faculty member for the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s professional education program in mindfulness for educators and has served as a guest faculty member for the school’s course Mindfulness for Educators.

Anjuli is a Pakistani American licensed marriage and family therapist, specializing in trauma, recovery, resilience, building and cultivating joy. She has 15 years of practice working with immigrant south Asian, middle Eastern Muslim, and LGBTQ plus populations. Sherin received her B.A. in sociology and anthropology from Mary Washington University and her M.A. from CIIS. She has trained and mentored with leading figures in trauma recovery and energy psychology, including Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Staci Haines and Vianna Stibal. In addition to awards for academic excellence and community service, Sharon received the 2007 emerging leader award from the E-Women network and has been featured in O magazine as a finalist for the magazine white house leadership project. Her new book is Joyous Resilience, A Path to Individual Healing and Collective Thriving in an Inequitable World.

Adriana Adelé, she/they, is a yoga facilitator and an advocate for collective well-being who studies and shares yoga as a practice of liberation. Through yoga, Adriana holds space for intentional movement, deep rest, Black holistic well-being, disruption of toxic dominant narratives, discernment in action, learning/unlearning, embodiment and affirmation of our eternal divine wholeness as individuals & in service of collective liberation. Her work helps adults and kids effectively integrate the practices and benefits of yoga including movement, meditation, deep rest, and breath techniques to their busy, messy, very real daily lives. Adriana is a RYT-500, E-RYT-200, a yoga teacher trainer, holds a bachelor’s of neuroscience from Oberlin College, and is the yoga + mindfulness teacher and strategic collaborator for Get Fresh Daily well-being programs.