TeriLeigh was barely ten years old when she performed her first yoga pose and discovered that her ability to see energy, auras, and chakras was a unique gift. Struggling to give language to the glorious and amazing world of her vision, TeriLeigh majored in Creative Writing and Literary Studies at Beloit College in Wisconsin. She admired the world of literary allusions, mythology, metaphor, and symbolism as an outlet for verbally expressing the intricate layers of existence. She became a high school English teacher in 1995. Distraught by the state of the world and her own denial of her spirituality, TeriLeigh suffered chronic depression from 1994-2001 when she discovered yoga again. She realized that yoga not only curbed the depression better than medication and psychotherapy combined, but also provided the spiritual outlet she had long craved. Since committing to a six days a week yoga practice, TeriLeigh has grown 2.5 inches, straightened out a lifelong scoliosis in her thoracic spine, erased all residual symptoms of clinical depression, conquered all effects of post traumatic stress disorder, and switched careers from teaching high school to teaching yoga & spirituality full-time.
To complement her energetic awareness, TeriLeigh has studied extensively with West African Shaman, Malidoma Somé. In 2009, she was initiated as an Elder into the Dagara Tribe of Burkina Faso. Her commitment as an elder is to teach the wisdoms that have been passed on through the lineage of the Dagara people. Thecosmology of the Dagara Tribe teaches the value of spiritual ritual, relationship to ancestors, and the healing powers of five elements: fire, water, earth, mineral, and nature. TeriLeigh infuses these teachings in her yoga instruction, private consultations, and writings.
TeriLeigh now leads yoga classes, workshops, teacher trainings, and offers studio consulting (both business and spiritual in nature) at yoga studios and spiritual centers around the country. She offers private consultations in the form of one-on-one yoga instruction, aura/chakra readings, and shamanic divinations both at yoga studios and long distance via teleconference. She maintains a blog (Prana Pages) featuring articles about the chakra system, elemental and shamanic healing, yoga postures, and healthy eating. TeriLeigh also posts live audio yoga classes to an iTunes podcast and on her website regularly.
Philosophy
At our core, or depth, our deepest innermost truth, we are love. However, in our humanity, we experience pain, illness and injury, all indications of forgetting our true purpose of love and reminders of our humanity. At our best, we experience a perfect balance of our humanity and our spirituality, a union- we live in the truth of spiritual beings of love living physical human experiences.
Stress is the human response to anything in life that seems to contradict with our innermost love. Thus, stress in life manifests in the body and mind in the form of pain, illness and injury. In yoga practice, we physically align the body in ways that open the energetic and spiritual channels of the body to an optimal state of balance and flow. Thus, as we relieve stress through yoga practice, pranayama breathing and meditation, we are also becoming true channels of the love that is our essence.
TeriLeigh's unique ability to see and read the auras and chakras of all living creatures allows her to visibly see the energetic Truth of all things, and what stresses or issues are blocking the full expression of that Truth. Through teaching of the chakra system (The Energetics of Yoga) as she has seen it her whole life, TeriLeigh has developed a system of determining which body parts (Body Wisdom) tend to hold what types of stress and which yoga poses can best release those issues.
Students who study with TeriLeigh will gain insight into the physical and emotional issues that have plagued their lives as lessons to lead them toward full expression of love. Yoga practice and spiritual study with TeriLeigh results in an expanded awareness of life on earth and a deeper connection with Spirit.
