We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kendra Guthrie a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kendra , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
In 2021, I took a life-changing risk by leaving my career in higher education to follow my passion for mindfulness, yoga, and wellbeing full-time.
I had been working at the University of Oklahoma in Tulsa for over seven years, balancing roles as a yoga teacher and Scheduling Coordinator. With the pandemic, everything changed and the small spark glowing in my heart to create change in people’s lives lit a bonfire to serve. The more time I spent working with individuals overcoming adversity and trauma—those in recovery programs, justice-involved spaces, and youth in underserved schools- the more I witnessed how trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness had the potential to make a profound impact in our communities. Experiencing how healing these practices could be myself, I knew our collective futures stood a better chance at health and harmony if more people had equitable access to these vital resources.
I had been serving with Humble Warrior Collective since 2015 as a teacher and research coordinator. When the former Executive Director, Melissa Smith, relocated to Washington state with her family, she and the Board of Directors invited me to be the to serve the Humble Warrior Collective as the next Executive Director. Leaving my career was a huge risk. I was giving up financial stability, tuition & benefits for myself and my kids, and everyone I came to care for at OU. Krishnamurti said that “intuition is the whisper of the soul,” however the passion of my heart speaks loudly, and it was an immediate “YES” to step into living a more purpose filled life. Serving in this role for the past three years has been a challenging and fulfilling career experience. I feel lucky and grateful to work with all of the amazing Humble Warrior teachers, volunteers, supporters, and program partners working to create lasting positive impacts in Tulsa and Oklahoma.
In reality, the first step on the path of this “greatest risk” journey started when I began practicing yoga and meditation; followed by the next risk of becoming a certified yoga teacher. Feeling freed from the traumas of my past, I had set out to reclaim my future. I was newly remarried and weaning my daughter while returning to college full-time to complete my undergraduate degree. Yoga teacher training was a way to deepen my practice and also create a dedicated space of self-care that I needed.
I had no idea that the physical and emotional intensity of yoga teacher training would crack open the armored shell that had protected me from feeling what I had lived through. The body has its own survival mechanisms. It had kept me in a hypervigilant, people-pleasing, performative state of being. What had allowed me to be resilient, surviving sexual assault, childhood abuse, and domestic violence, had also stored in my body the somatic memories of those traumatic experiences. Research from Judith Herman, Bessel Van der Kolk and Peter Levine demonstrated how trauma is stored in the body, the effects of trauma on the nervous system, and effective ways to release stored trauma from the body. As I experienced a deeper relationship to myself, mind and body, my focus shifted to learning trauma-informed, holistic wellness, movement, and mindfulness practices that help individuals process the effects of trauma on the mind-body system. I learned a variety of evidence-based applications of yoga through a trauma-informed lens from professionals across multiple disciplines that offered a complementary, therapeutic practices for somatic healing.
Inspired by the words of Maya Angelou, “When you learn, teach, when you get, give,” living authentically meant learning to tell my story and walk in service with others. While Hatha Yoga serves as the path of physical practice through asana, Karma Yoga represents the yoga of selfless action towards others. As a survivor, I actively choose to arm myself with a blanket of compassion and as my understanding expanded, teaching yoga for me took on a new, deeper meaning. I saw what was a missing piece of vital information and useful tools for so many who struggle with the untreated effects of trauma, including mental illness and substance abuse; people like my mom, family members and friends. I started volunteering my time teaching trauma-informed mindfulness practices to men and women at local substance abuse recovery centers and working with the nonprofit organization that would become Humble Warrior Collective, serving incarcerated youth, women in diversion programs, and youth in underserved schools.
Today, Humble Warrior Collective has more than doubled it’s impact in the community and has grown to serve a wide range of diverse and resilient populations, including veterans, active duty service members, justice-involved youth & adults, mental health care facilities, survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, seniors, and at-promise youth in elementary, middle and high schools, proving that this risk was not only worth it but essential to who I am and the work I’m meant to do.
Stepping up to lead this organization was one of the scariest decisions of my life, but it was also the most rewarding. That risk opened doors not just for me but for the countless people who have found “peace,” connection, awareness, stress relief, pain relief, self-healing, hope and resilience through our programs. I’m proud of taking a bold risk that transformed everything.
Kendra , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
At Humble Warrior Collective, we focus on providing yoga and mindfulness programs for veterans, survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking survivors, active duty service members, underserved children and youth, individuals in recovery, mental health care facilities, incarcerated individuals, and seniors. Our team of teachers function like a mobile yoga studio, taking the practices to populations overcoming trauma and adversity. Our programs and curricula are designed to help individuals find connection, self-awareness, empowerment, self-healing, and resilience through mindfulness and movement practices. A dysregulated nervous system is one that experiences chronic stress. Chronic stress, known as the silent killer, is the #1 underlying condition of the 6 leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, lung issues, accidents, liver failure and suicide, according to the American Psychological Association. We believe that holistic approaches like yoga and mindfulness offer a unique, personal path to restore and establish sustained wellbeing on an individual level, and that’s a core part of what drives us.
What sets Humble Warrior Collective apart is our trauma-informed approach, which goes beyond traditional yoga. Informed by Stephen Porge’s polyvagal theory, we fuse mindful movement modalities such as yoga, breath work, somatics, EFT, massage, etc. all designed to meet individuals where they are, both physically and emotionally, with practices that invite balance back into their nervous systems. Every session is built with a deep sense of mutuality, accessibility, empowerment, and empathy for the unique challenges that our program participants face.
Not only does Humble Warrior partner with organizations and businesses to bring healing breath, movement, and mindfulness practices/classes to individuals, our organization also offers trauma-informed support, trainings, and workshops for mental health and healthcare professionals, care providers, first-responders, service members, schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. When there’s grief in the office due to the loss of a colleague or an active-shooter training creates residual anxiety and negatively impacts workplace morale, that’s when an intervention with Humble Warrior Collective trauma-informed mind-body modalities can help with self-regulation and co-regulation practices to build resilience, bringing balance back to the nervous systems in the room.
My personal vision as Executive Director is to see a ripple of improved health, mindfulness and compassion move through our communities. Oklahoma has a complicated history of trauma. This state became a home to many first Americans forcibly removed from their native lands; those that survived the Trail of Tears. Over a hundred years ago, 35 city blocks of the Greenwood district burned down during the Tulsa Race Massacre, erasing the wealth of Black Wall Street. This state welcomed back migrant Okie families who left to find work, returning after the Dust Bowl dust settled. Currently, Oklahoma’s largest employer is the Department of Defense and many of our brave veterans choose to stay or relocate to Oklahoma after service. Today, Oklahoma’s unique and complex history combine to create a state where Oklahomans suffer from trauma, mental & physical illness, substance abuse, poverty, incarceration, and adverse childhood experiences (ACES) at unprecedented rates. Oklahomans deserve to be happy, healthy, and free.
I’m most proud of the lives we’ve impacted—helping people discover their own strength and move toward thriving. Whether it’s someone finding calm in the midst of chaos, a veteran reconnecting with their body, or a survivor reclaiming their sense of self, the work we do changes lives.
Humble Warrior Collective is about finding balance and resilience in the face of adversity, and that’s something our students, teachers, board members, and I myself, have lived personally. Through our work, we aim to share that possibility with others, offering them the tools they need to revive, grow, and thrive.
In addition to working as Executive Director for Humble Warrior Collective, I am available to speak/teach at conferences, workshops, events, and maintain a private practice seeing clients for therapeutic yoga and movement, mindful coaching, Socratic dialogue, meditation, and holistic wellbeing.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
One story that truly illustrates my resilience comes from a pivotal moment in my life when I was forced to choose to leave home as a teenager. When my dad suffered a brain injury when I was in 8th grade, our lives fell apart. As a Japanese-German first-generation American, I was born in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in the 1980s. There was hardly anyone in town that looked like me or my family. Growing up in a tricultural family, without relatives close, medical tragedy plus a lack of support resulted in a cascade of financial instability, mental illness, substance abuse, violence, and trauma. This left me trapped by circumstances that were beyond my control and suffering at hands of my extremely abusive and unstable mother. The emotional and physical toll was heavy, but deep down, I knew there was more to life than the cycle of pain and chaos I was experiencing.
At 14, I made the difficult and life-altering choice to leave home, emancipating myself from abuse. That decision wasn’t just about physical freedom; it was about reclaiming my agency, my voice, and my future. I had no roadmap and no safety net, but my friends and their caring parents knew that staying in that environment would destroy me. So, I found shelter and a soft place to land from 9th through 12th grade in the homes of my friends and their compassionate, generous parents; Gina White and her dad, Jimmy; Valerie Olson and her mom Betty; Jennie Mattox and her parents, Tammy and Carlyn.
That journey was filled with challenges—like escaping from a DHS children’s shelter at 16 to self-advocate, navigating adult situations as a teenager, working, excelling to graduate high school with AP honors, and earning several scholarships to attend Oklahoma Baptist University. I felt lucky to not be a minor in state custody and conversely compelled to be perfect; people pleasing to maintain the grace that allowed me a place to live free from abuse.
All that success and overcoming, only to find myself in another abusive relationship—this time in my first marriage. When my mom eventually lost her battle with Fentanyl in 2008, her departure liberated my inner child and catalyzed the bravery that adult me needed to leave an abusive situation. Once again, I had to free myself, only this time it wasn’t just about me, I was fighting for my son now too. After selling my diamond ring and spending all the money I had on lawyers, I ended up representing myself in divorce court. When I went Pro Se, I had to learn the ins and outs of family law, spending hours in the law library at the Tulsa County Courthouse, drafting and filing legal documents, eventually going all the way to trial. It took nearly 4 years and it was worth winning full custody and freedom for us both. I went on to earn a Paralegal Associate’s Degree and a Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts, with a concentration in Criminal Justice, Administrative Leadership, Mediation, and Nonprofit Management.
Looking back, that initial decision to leave home at 14 was the catalyst that set the course for everything I do now. It taught me that resilience isn’t about being unbreakable—it’s about being able to rebuild, again and again, stronger each time. That’s a lesson I bring into my work with Humble Warrior Collective. I want others to know that, no matter where they come from or what they’ve been through, they have the power within them to heal and rise. It’s not always an easy journey, but it’s one that’s deeply transformative.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
If I could go back, the only way I would not choose the same path is if I had never taken a yoga class in the first place. That pivotal moment was the arc in my path away from pursuing law or public policy as a profession. Knowing what I know now, I would choose this professional path every time. I’m grateful to be living a purpose-filled life; using the gifts of my adaptive nervous system and sharing the wisdom of trauma-informed mindful movement practices to make a positive impact in the lives of others who have suffered and strive to thrive.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kendraguthrie.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kendraguthrieyoga/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humblewarriorcollective/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendra-g-55a6bb139/
- Other: https://humblewarriorcollective.org/
Image Credits
Group Photo of Teachers and Board members by rocks by Jack Dean Photos