Sheila Pride

 

I am a bhakti-tantra influenced yoga teacher.  I also work as a cranial sacral therapist and massage therapist.   I am passionate in helping individuals restore their health, maintain balance and connect with their own internal power and wisdom. I know the importance of body-mind connection and the power of spoken word; I share principles of radical self-love, positive speech, and intention setting in my work. As a yoga teacher, I encourage students to follow their own inner guru and practice the Middle Way philosophy.  My classes are dynamic and interactive emphasizing sacred movement, pranayama and ancient meditations.  My classes are designed to awaken one’s heart, move into healing and build inner strength.

 

For over 14 years, I have been practicing devotional yoga practices to awaken my own heart, to reclaim god and heal my body/mind.  I see my calling as a teacher to support the awakening of self love and healing energy within. 

The road to my calling has been winding and each life experience has uniquely prepared me to fully realize my dharma.  I honor my stepmother, Nancy, who initially exposed me to meditation and energy work when I was 16 years of age.  I began yoga at age 18 to increase my physical strength and found an inner calm I had never known before.  My first yoga teacher, Kitty Daly inspired me on my path as a practitioner and connected me to my spiritual teachers.  While pursuing my personal practice, I became a licensed clinical social worker.  

 

For 10 years I worked with individuals, healing from trauma, living in poverty and working toward a better future. My efforts were in the realms of human rights, housing rights, LGBT equality, economic justice, domestic violence, refugee resettlement and community activism.  For five years, I was privileged to work with a powerful group of feminists at Redevelopment Opportunities for Women.  During my time there, we collaboratively worked to create a cutting edge economic justice empowerment program, national economic education curriculum and the REAP training institute to promote financial equality for battered women across the country.  Soon, I came to realize that real change – societal or individual – would not happen with the same energy that created our problems. I protested.  I fought.   I cried.   I spent every drop of sweat in my crusade for equality, justice, and to end human suffering making myself ill in the process.   With time, unconditional love, bodywork and deep meditation I came to a knowing that love and forgiveness are imperative to healing the world.
 

In 2006, I felt called to teach yoga and began traveling throughout the country to study with Rod Stryker, Saul David Raye, and Matthew Krepps.  I immediately began integrating yoga therapy in my work with clients impacted by violence. I was inspired to learn more about somatic emotional release work and Cranial Sacral Therapy (CST). I began my studies in Massage and CST in 2007.  While I pursued my yoga and bodywork studies I taught at University of Missouri-St. Louis and Washington University in the schools of social work. In 2008, I left traditional social work and gave birth to a beautiful daughter named Cecilia, my highest teacher.  Currently I have the honor of teaching yoga, wellness workshops, yoga intensvies and providing body work.  I also work as a consultant with the Moksha Institue, an amazing mindfullness leadership training company throughout the US.  
My winding road has been built on a life story of healing, learning to love myself, overcoming obstacles of self doubt and challenging circumstance.  It is true, that yoga has saved my life.
 

I humbly serve the light of my teachers; I honor Saul David Raye, Rod Stryker, Mathew Krepps, Kitty Daly and Lama Lobsang Palden. I   Their words and practices are integral in my life and teaching. Finally, I honor my parents, my beloved Ryan, my newest baby boy- William, daughters Gia & Cecilia, friends and and yoga family, for their light enhances mine and i take great solace in our time spent together.