MISSION AND VISION

I am Heather Cherisse Curtis, I am a member of the Tsilhqo'tin First Nation. 

I grew up in Tl'etinqox with my Grandparents,  Jack and Lila Elkins. 

 I am the only child of Charles Curtis and Arda Elkins. 

The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are. ~RUMI~

My life experience, education and training have given me the tools to respond to life's experiences rather than react.  To become more grounded in the present moment, to live in harmony with my emotions, to create a life that I am passionate about.  I am here to serve as a breath, meditation and yoga guide.  

Did you know that grief, trauma and emotions manifest in your physical body?

 "There’s an increase in just about every medical issue over time,” says Bessel van der Kolk, MD, a trauma researcher and author.  

I spent the majority of my childhood in with my grandparents, as a teen I moved into Williams Lake with my father.  My mother Arda was in a severe car accident in 1989 when I was in Kindergarten, the accident left her brain injured and paralyzed.  At 6 years old, the roles were reversed and I was now teaching my mother how to talk, how to eat and for ten years reminding her that my name was Heather.  Grief and I have become good friends over the years.

The ability to heal our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies through the ancient practices of breath, meditation and yoga are profound.  I began my journey to become a yoga for youth teacher in 2017, I have always had a strong desire to impact youth in a positive and meaningful way.   It all became crystal clear to me one day when I was looking into the Yoga for Youth training which led me into a 200 hour alignment based training. 

My life experience and my education to date were the milestones for me to begin to share these modalities of healing.  As I dove deeper into the study of this ancient practice, the more I realized that these practices were capable of teaching us how to move trauma, grief and emotions from ourselves in a beneficial and pro-active way.  I have always felt supported on this journey.  When I am sharing these tools, my heart is filled with honour, gratitude and I know that this is exactly where I am meant to be.  We are powerful beyond measure.  As we become connected to this intrinsic part of ourselves, the more potent the medicine.

When the five senses are stilled, when the mind is stilled, when the intellect is stilled, that is called the highest state by the wise.  They say yoga is the complete stillness in which one enters the unitive state, never to become separate again. If one is not established in this state, the sense of unity will come and go. "Katha Upanishad ~ Eknath Easwaran

Photo Credit: Trevor Mack