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Soulshine, better than sunshine.
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You cannot do yoga.
Yoga is your natural state.
What you can do are yoga exercises,
which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.
– Sharon Gannon, Jivamukti Yoga Co-Founder

 
Dear Yoke Folk,

                  Just over ten years ago, after obtaining a Co-Active Life Coaching certification (a two year process), I went through an empowering and transformational leadership program with the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), Both programs enticing me to dig deeply into understanding myself, a process in the Yoga world known as svādhyāya. 
                The final project for the leadership program was to create something to be taken out into the world. An offering to continue pushing the edge of our own leadership capacity. A handful of dragonfly (the name of our leadership tribe) women and myself took this assignment as a call to formulate and deliver an experience, akin to our own, for teenagers. A two-year process of thoughtful engagement, elaboration, and co-active creation resulted in a four-year self-leadership experience. 
               Shortly, after the designing process completed we meet, Kenadie, the founder of an organization serving foster girls from the inner-city regions of Los Angeles County. We combined services to offer a multi-level interactive self leadership summer camp with winter supplements for the community of young gals Kenadie had created.
             Now, ten years later our aim remains true as we continue to hold space for these youth to engage and transform their perception of self. I am grateful to say these youth are beating the national averages of graduation from high school, college engagement, teenage pregnancy, and incarceration rates amongst this population of youth. I am continually inspired by their fortitude to not be another statistic of perpetual poverty and instead choose an authentic path of personal success.
              This last month Kenadie joined The Yoke board. She will continue to head up the youth programs with me. The youth program will now be called Camp FireFly (a nod to the light within us all). We are also expanding this offering into self leadership retreats for adult women to be named Alchemy.
              To top off this new programming, under The Yoke umbrella, I found out this week I’ve been accepted into Antioch University’s Leadership and ChangePhD program. My proposal to the University is to use the in-depth study of the PhD to develop a self-leadership model with a thread of Yogic philosophy and practices woven into its framework. This element will strengthen these offerings as well as the Yoga Teacher Training we have been formulating. So please stay tuned as we roll out this next evolution of The Yoke.
               

Really Excited!  LauraLynn,
theYoke's executive director

 

with Jillian Sims

 
"There is a cultural feeling of emptiness and Yoga fills the void we feel from materialism."   

Though Jillian came to Yoga as a substitute to her physical workouts as a dancer it wasn't until an overwhelming sensation of Universal accpetance over took her in Śavāsana during one practice session that she became truly hooked. The all encompassing practices known traditionally as Yoga lead her again and again to deeper understandings of herself both inwardly and outwardly. 
 
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I’m a meditator. Sort of.

I meditate on a daily basis for about four days in a row. Then, I miss a day. Like today.

It’s day 4 of my brand-new-again daily practice. I’ve squirmed every time I thought about sitting on my cushion today. It’s as if my butt is a magnet of the same polarity as my meditation spot. I get near it, and I can feel invisible forces driving me away.

Somehow, on days 1, 2 and 3, I woke up knowing I had to start meditating immediately. Maybe it’s because I knew I would otherwise get distracted. I didn’t even brush my teeth first. From my horizontal sleeping position, I slid off the side of the bed, onto the floor between the bed frame and my closet, and there I sat. I picked up my mālāfrom my nightstand and off I went. 

Auṁ… 

But today is day 4, and something happens to me on day 4. Every dang day 4.

By now, my body has figured out that I’m getting up early. I bounced out of bed this morning, no alarm needed. I figured, hey, I might as well brush my teeth and wash my face before getting started, so I can show up all fresh and clean for meditation for once. I took my mālāfrom off the nightstand, looped it around my wrist and then...
As we expand our offerings to communities across the country your contributions keep us humming along.

We are appreciate your support! 

Give

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Another way to support us is to designate the Yoke as your chosen Amazon Smile organization.

Everything you need to know about designating "Yoke Inc. Fairborn OH" is here.
A Yogic Vision of Self-Leadership

Coming this fall Alchemy, the first self leadership program for women.

More details and how to register coming very soon.
Meet Kenadie
Kenadie Cobbin-Robinson is the CEO of Kengen LLC and founder of KenGen Cares, a firm that delivers transformative training to professionals who want the best out of their careers and their lives.  Before starting Kengen, Kenadie provided strategic leadership and how the public workforce system engages business. As a well-known thought-leader in employment and training, Kenadie is using her expertise to transform leaders and their teams across the country. 
 
Camp FireFly

Together Kenadie and LauraLynn joined their passions to offer a uniquely empowering self leadership program to engage teenagers within the US foster care system under the organization, formerly known as HerShe (now Camp FireFly). 
 
Nationally, 1 in 10 foster youth will go to college, while only 1 in 100 will graduate from college. The rates of teen pregnancy, incarceration, and other actions associated with a high potential poverty cycle are amongst the highest nationally for this teenage population. The youth attending this unique programming formulated by Kenadie, LauraLynn and a team of advisors, is beating the odds. 27% of the 130 foster youth attending this unique model of Self Leadership have obtained some type of higher education degree, post emancipation. Pregnancy rates are lower than the national average and incarceration rates are nearly void.

 
* Please stay tuned for our newly revised website to share more about this program.
 
www.theYoke.Yoga

...is in overhaul phase. Information about new Yoke programs and an online library of videos are part of the change.

 Stay tuned!
Copyright © 2019 theYoke, All rights reserved.


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