We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anahata Eco Yoga Retreats Shayne Cohen & Adriana Vergara a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

“Anahata Eco Yoga Retreats,” led by Shayne Cohen and Adriana Vergara, is a growing and powerful community for spiritual development. Anahata offers weekly yoga classes (at Miami Ironside), meditations, uniquely curated monthly holistic workshops, Yoga Teacher Trainings (at The Sacred Space Miami) and their well renowned immersive yoga retreats in exotic and secluded nature destinations around the world. Shayne, is the lead teacher of Anahata. She has been fully committed to her yoga practice and spiritual path for the last 31 years. Shayne began her practice under the guidance of world-renowned Sri Dharma Mittra. Today, she continues to be a student for life, constantly learning and achieving certifications in multiple holistic practices as pranayama, chanting, Nada Yoga, Acutonics and others.
Adriana, who also happens to be one of Miami’s top art consultants. Is the producer of all Anahata’s adventures. She is extremely admired in the community for her loving and human aspect that attracts others who are looking for transformation and spiritual development.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

“Anahata” literally translates to “Heart Chakra.” Chakras are vortexes of energy on our physical body. The Heart chakra is where love, compassion and kindness are empowered. All Anahata experiences are mindfully curated with love to offer a safe environment to open your heart, release sadness, frustrations or anger and then recharge and revitalize through a variety of magical holistic healing methods.
We base the Anahata experiences with the understanding that feelings and emotions are physical manifestations of energy, and when they become suppressed that energy becomes toxic. Without release, it surfaces into illnesses. Connection with nature, yoga, breath work, meditation, sound healing, chanting, kirtan, nature excursions, and wellness retreats lead us to spiritual grounding.
We are extremely privileged to witness the opening and transformation of so many beautiful people that make part of our community, we get to see them bloom.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Anahata was originally created with the vision of curating international yoga retreats. After only two years of enormous success, the pandemic happened and two retreats, Colombia and Guatemala had to be canceled, forcing us to return the money to all our clients and leaving us in debt and uncertainty of what the future of Anahata would be. We first thought (like everyone else) that the pandemic would not last and that quickly we would be back on a plane traveling internationally as planned.
We humbly began offering daily meditations over zoom and the weekly yoga classes that were originally done from The Sacred Space, we also began transmitting them over zoom. Our community was extremely grateful for our daily gatherings online. The word got out quickly, in a blink of an eye our zoom members was enormously shocking to us. People that had never taken our classes or joined our retreats all of a sudden registered to be with us on a daily basis.
With so much excitement we decide to add another layer, we offered different online workshops on Tuesday’s. We would invite guest speaker to teach anything from Ayurveda to art. It was mind blowing how much engagement we had and how happy we felt to be together even if it was through a screen.
After one year passed, we felt people where ready to gather in person outdoors. We created our first Day Retreat in a gorgeous private farm in Homestead. We offered yoga, rituals, live music, swimming and so much more. The Day Retreats would sell out immediately so we kept producing them. People where in need for spirituality and community. We then moved into hosting monthly workshops on various holistic practices including our now famous “Breath & Ice Club” based on the Wim Hof method. Sacred Drum Making Workshops for families, monthly live music Kirtans, Kundalini practices, meditations and so much more.
We then got offered an outdoor space inside The Bal Harbour Shops to continue our weekly yoga practices. Then came an offer from Stella McCartney to bring their clients together for a series of outdoor wellness events we curated for them for the following 8 months.
When we look back, it was the pandemic that forced us out of our comfort zone and expanded our vision to what Anahata is today.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.anahataecoyogaretreats.com
• Instagram: @anahataecoyogaretreats
• Facebook: Anahata Eco Yoga Retreats
• Youtube: Anahata Eco Yoga Retreats

Image Credits
Photo Courtesy: Anahata Eco Yoga Retreats