I’m still on a photo-sharing binge from our retreat. (Hats off to professional photographer, Hannah Hardaway, also former US Ski Team ski champion, which we found out during the brag session).

Below are members of all courses – Body Thrive, Yoga Health Coaching, Living Ayurveda, and Yogahealer Business Course. Paula is the LA beauty in the white. I think this was taken during our brag session. Did I mention, we did a brag session?

I’ve learned from all the rap I’ve been listening to, plus Mama Gena, that bragging is an important part of social structure. Bragging helps us get to know each other quickly, and establish expertise, strengths and accomplishments.

Bragging establishes a sense of self-worth when other people can truly relate to celebrate your wins. Bragging ups the bar in the group, propelling the group to own their past, embrace their present and catch a glimpse of their future.

Let’s just say we all became instafans of “the brag.”

As wellness leaders in the field of yoga and ayurveda we’re more familiar with downplaying our achievements. As a result we know less of each other’s deep gifts and specific potential. To put it mildly, dharma shows up and sticks around at a solid brag session.

Paula (pictured above) joined YHC in January. She just started a virtual brag session on our YHC blog, with a post about enrolling the next 2 members into her version of body thrive pilot group today. Boom. I think I”ll brag back that Alex enrolled seven Yoga Health Coaches this month for our next group. YHC hasn’t been a cake walk for Paula, but she is over the hump. She is an implementer, and as such, will go far in this training of transforming her drop-in-services to more committed relationships with her students. She is well on her way, and a self-proclaimer “lifer in the YHC community” just 6 months later.

Below is Candice, who is also in Paula’s YHC glass. Candice is a sparkly yogini from Aspen, and single parent to her teen girl. She joined YHC as a natural next step in her professional journey, and from a desire to develop her business skills in line with her healing skills.

I was deeply impressed by our more senior members and past retreaters who assimilated our newbies in record time. Rapid assimilation is an effective essential for dynamic groups. We’re becoming masters.

If you’ve never witnessed deep listening, you may pick that up in the pics. (Along with my armpit sweat line in case you missed that).

Deep listening is another core component in dynamic groups. It naturally arises with care and inclusion, but it’s also a practice for us. I lead primarily through deep listening to my members. Below you’ll see Rachel Peters. She is a Certified Yoga Health Coach and coached my February Body Thrive group. When she joined YHC she was working full time at Prescott College as the director of Field Operations. She owned a yoga studio in conjunction to that before starting YHC. During her YHC training she got pregnant, took a leave, had her babe, came back. Rocked her coaching. Quit her job, and now you’re about caught up to speed on Rachel.

I learned in our Leadership coaching onsite meeting after the group retreat that Rachel wants to grow her admin/org/management skills. So, she’ll be heading up our internal leadership management. I am beyond thrilled to have access to her unique zone of genius and empower her with organizational growth opportunities. A match made in heaven.

Part of our method in Body Thrive (for personal wellness) and Yoga Health Coaching (for the careerists) is tap into our member’s zones of genius to develop our group’s capacity.  When we ask better questions of each other we find how the organization wants to grow. At this onsite we also discovered (duh!) that we need to better support our coaches in Europe, Australia/New Zealand and South America. We have excellent coaches in those areas who will become regional leaders.

Below are Shelly and Batool.

Batool is an original member of the first class of 8 Yoga Health Coaches in 2013. Shelly came in to YHC 2 short years ago via the Yogahealer podcast. These two women have my back at every turn since our first connection. I never dreamed of the people that would come. I never dreamed what we would do, who we would serve, what we would experience in our desire to become and support Yoga Health Coaches. Shelly now heads up our YHC Continuity program, which supports and continues training for  our coaches. Batool mentors in Living Ayurveda, the Yogidetox and coaches the Body Thrive Coaches.

If you notice behind our gorgeous faces, you’ll see the white posters filled with our past, our present and our future.

I’ve spent some time in these this post-retreat photo-journal series describing how I didn’t foresee any of this. Now that we’re a team, moving together, growing, recruiting with a very talented admissions department, we can see where we’re headed. We’re building structure to improve what we’ve become and generate global leaders in Yoga Health Coaching. Buyah.

I’ve had so much fun sharing what we do. I’m proud of myself for creating this effective of a curriculum and I’m proud of coaches and those stepping deeper into leadership.

Our next class of Yoga Health Coaches is enrolling before June 30. We have about 10 spaces. To find out more about what we do and how it works, watch this webinar.