Why You Need a Vacation

This summer I’m looking forward to a couple of good getaways. In recent years I’ve gotten much better at taking real breaks, getting out of my house and away from my day-to-day responsibilities. I even (reluctantly) took a break from my kids for Spring Break this year, and you know what? It was the best break ever. I got good sleep for the first time in years and my mind became sharper and more creative. I caught up on a lot of work. I felt balanced and peaceful.

I’ve learned that there is HUGE value in taking a break and claiming some time just for yourself. It’s an opportunity to let go of stress you may not even know you’re carrying around. It’s an opportunity to HAVE FUN. It’s an opportunity to rest and rejuvenate. It’s an opportunity to spark your creativity. It’s an opportunity for peace and quiet so you can nurture your dreams. It’s an opportunity to get clarity about situations in your life, then become inspired to take action.

With all these benefits in mind, I have two trips planned (so far) this summer.

One is a week-long getaway to South Padre Island with my husband and our good friends. My parents (bless them!) are keeping all three of our kids for the first half of the week so we can relax and enjoy some adults-only time.

The second getaway is the studio’s Renewing Your Spirit Yoga Beach Retreat in July. And while the retreat is technically “work” for me, there will still be a lot of opportunity to relax and have fun.

I’m looking forward to stepping out of the car and being enveloped in the warm gulf breeze that makes hair styling products and appliances obsolete and makeup melt right off your face. Yay! No need to worry about hair or make up for a few days!

I’m looking forward to a whole schedule designed for wellness. Lots of yoga, lots of downtime, lots of fun activities with like-minded folks.

I’m looking forward to spending time with and getting to know these like-minded folks. Folks who lead busy, interesting lives and who have chosen to take some time off for their health and well-being. I love hanging out with like-minded folks because they invariably provide inspiration for some aspect of my own life.

Have you thought about joining us at the retreat? It’s going to be awesome. We’ll be staying in two and three bedroom condos at the La Mirage Resort. It’s a nice, but not too fancy, venue right on the beach. You can choose to have your own room or have a roommate.

You and your condo-mates will prepare most of your meals in your full kitchen, so every person can make sure their dietary needs are met. You’ll also have a living space, a dining space, and a large balcony. The resort features two pools, three hot tubs, two saunas, a basketball and volleyball court, daily maid service, washers and dryers in each unit, shaded barbecue pits and picnic tables, and much more!

Angela and I are looking forward to offering daily yoga classes in our own signature styles. Angela, with her light-hearted, easy-going, anatomy-focused classes, and me, with my therapeutic and methodical (but fun!), highly customized classes.

On the first and last days we’ll have one class per day, and on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, you can choose to attend any or all of the two classes and one workshop that we’ll offer. All classes will be held in the La Mirage meeting room, which is a large indoor space that overlooks both the beach and the pool and features large windows and wood floors.

When we’re not practicing yoga, we have fun activities planned for daytime and nighttime. For daytime, we’ll hunt seashells (I know a great spot!), compete at building sandcastles, and take a ferry to explore a nearby private island. In the evenings we can go on a nighttime beach walk with flashlights to look for crabs (it’s fun, I promise!), enjoy a beach campfire, or have dinner in town.

If the day’s scheduled event isn’t your cup of tea, there’s a ton of other Port A activities you might try. You can find a long list of options on our retreat page. We designed the itinerary to provide lots of options and flexibility so that each person can create a schedule that suits their interests.

The retreat is a full 10 weeks away, and we’re already at over 35% of capacity. We anticipate a rush just before the Early Bird Discount expires on May 31st. If you’re interested in joining us, please register soon to reserve your spot and secure your desired bedroom configuration.

We’ve set up an easy payment plan, so you only need to pay the deposit to hold your spot and take advantage of the Early Bird Discount, then you can pay the balance by July 1st.

This retreat is a really special opportunity to focus on your health, wellness, and happiness. You’ll experience the enormous value in taking a some time off just for yourself. You’ll gain peace, calm, clarity, and perhaps most importantly, inspiration to make positive changes in your life. I hope you can join us!

XO, Zelinda

P.S. If you'd like to attend the retreat with your non-yogi friend, family member, spouse, or partner, ask us about our special non-yogi rates :)

How We Built Our Thriving Yoga Community

Today’s post is going to be a little different and a little bit special. I’d like to give you a sneak peak behind the scenes of the business side of The Yoga Room.

A couple of weeks ago Racheal Baxter Cook from The Yogipreneur asked me to write a guest post for her ♥ Your Community Blog Tour, which is a collection of 30 heart-centered yoga entrepreneurs who are sharing their yoga-community-building stories during the 30 days of April.

Some background about Racheal: I “met” her online a couple of years ago. She’s a former financial planner who left her job and created her own business where she consults and coaches yoga teachers and studio owners on how to launch and run successful businesses.

While I’m not a client of Racheal’s, I do know that her work is very well respected in the yoga business community, so I’m honored for the opportunity to write this post and share a little bit about The Yoga Room with both our own yoga students and the worldwide community of yoga teachers and studio owners who are looking for tips and ideas to help their communities thrive.

So here we go!

I think it’s important to first give you a frame of reference for who I am and what The Yoga Room in Round Rock, Texas, is all about. I’ll give you the short version :)

I am a former high tech engineer and marketer. I worked in Fortune 500 computer companies for 10 years, and I realized early on that I didn’t really love that work. Instead I wanted to do some kind of work where I could help people more directly and personally.

At the same time that I began my career in high tech, I also started practicing yoga. Eventually I studied to become a yoga teacher, and then after a few years of working full time, teaching yoga on the side, and planning how to open a yoga studio, I opened The Yoga Room. Then a few months later I left my job in high tech marketing to run the studio and teach full time.

When I opened the studio my objective was to offer yoga for regular people like me: stressed out employees of Corporate America. I knew the benefits of yoga first hand, and I wanted to share those benefits with people who normally would never step foot in a yoga studio. I’d been to yoga studios filled with Olympic athletes and I’d been to yoga studios filled with young skinny yoginis, and to be honest, I felt intimidated in those places. I felt like I didn’t fit in. It was very important to me that in my studio everyone would feel welcome and comfortable.

I came up with the tagline “Yoga for Every Body,” which has two meanings. It’s for everyone. And it’s for people with all kinds of bodies. I think our tagline sets people at ease right away, or at least enough ease that they click past the Google search results and onto our website.

On our home page, I’ve written a welcome note to visitors to our site. I tell them that yoga is for every body, and I tell them how at The Yoga Room we make yoga accessible and beneficial for everybody. I welcome visitors to contact me with any questions they may have. I strive to make them feel at ease and welcome.

That feeling of ease and welcome is at the core of every communication we put out and every decision we make.

The Yoga Room has a staff of six people who help me run the business and the studio's front desk, and 14 active teachers including myself. All of the staff knows that our priority is helping our students, especially the new ones, feel welcome at the studio. This is how we do it:

• We make it a priority to learn our students’ names and stories. What kind of work do they do? Do they have any injuries? The better we know them, the better we can serve them.
• When we see a new face walk in the front door we make a special effort to help them feel oriented and comfortable. We show them where to put their shoes and where the restrooms are located. We focus on being really present with them so that we can answer any questions or uncertainties they may have.
• We intentionally keep our class sizes small, usually no bigger than 12 students. This allows us to provide lots of personalized attention and make sure that the practice is working for each student.
• We approach our classes with love and acceptance. We strive to model being our authentic selves (flaws and all) so that our students are invited to do the same. We’re all together on the path of creating better versions of ourselves.
• Our excellent teachers are pros at offering modifications. We focus on teaching and demonstrating the most gentle versions of yoga poses first. Then we offer modifications for those who want more challenge. We emphasize that every person’s body is different, so every person’s pose will look different. We talk about how in yoga practice we are not competing with anyone, not the person on the next mat, and not with our own expectations about what our bodies *should* be able to do. We walk our talk of Yoga for Every Body.
• We look for opportunities to reach out into our city community. During months with nice weather, we offer a free monthly Yoga on the Plaza class, co-sponsored with our City. We teach yoga classes in our local schools. We offer a Work-Trade program that pays people in studio credit in exchange for helping us with studio chores.

Our simple intention to help people feel welcome and at ease has really worked for our studio. We’ve magically built an amazing community of kind and lovely yoga practitioners.

Sometimes the reality of the studio and the community catch me by surprise. When I walk into my class and find my students already there, sitting on their mats, chatting and laughing with each other, it fills my heart with love that we've created what we originally set out to create: a studio that offers Yoga for Every Body. It really does make my heart beam.

XO, Zelinda

P.S. If you're a yoga teacher or yoga studio owner and this article resonates with your vision of the kind of yoga business you'd like to build and grow, please join our mailing list for our upcoming yoga business training and/or our upcoming therapeutics-based advanced yoga teacher training!

And if you'd like to read more about what other entrepreneurs are sharing about their communities, you can read yesterday's post from Allison Braun and tomorrow's post from Caroline Frenette, or see the full list of bloggers at ♥ Your Community Blog Tour (the sign-up is at the bottom of the page).