Julia Forest
Co-founder & training director
Introduction
Julia is an international yoga teacher, birth doula, women’s health advocate, and closet artist who is passionate about health, environmentalism and empowered birth. She is co-creator of the Sacred Birth Yoga & Doula Training, is founding director of Awakened Spirit Yoga and co-founder of the Wellkind Foundation, a non-profit that focuses on community empowerment and wellbeing through the lens of permaculture. She also created the Sacred Earth Yoga Training, the first yoga teacher training program that combines yoga, mindfulness, permaculture and leadership to transform lives and communities.
Background
During the past 20 years, Julia has been practicing and studying with extraordinary teachers in North America and in India and deepened her practice in several lineages such as classical hatha yoga, mindfulness meditation, vinyasa, Scaravelli inspired, yoga therapy and kundalini. A solo journey to Spain sparked a 10 year pilgrimage to Rishikesh India, where she taught and studied yoga and meditation in ashrams and monasteries.
A self-proclaimed anatomy geek, she draws from more than 16 years of experience in body-centered therapies and physical rehabilitation and has taught individuals of many ages and abilities including teens, women who are pre- and post-natal, elders, as well as people living with MS, fibromyalgia, cancer, osteoporosis and chronic pain.
The emphasis in her classes is on alignment, yoga as a tool for transformation, the healing qualities of inner stillness, movement and breath for the cultivation of inner peace, health and wellbeing. Her approach is trauma informed and accessible. She teaches from the heart and creates an environment in which her students can explore and discover their inner wisdom and potential. She believes that we all have within us what we need to heal ourselves and is passionate about honoring source tradition while exploring the potential that yoga has to offer in everyday life.
Julia has been deeply influenced by her many teachers and mentors such as Thich Nhat Hahn, Jetsumna Tenzin Palmo, Monica Voss, and Judith Hanson Lasater. She offers retreats, yoga teacher training programs, anatomy and physiology intensives, and specialty workshops worldwide.