We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Elizabeth Fletcher a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Elizabeth, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Several years before I became a yoga teacher and then a yoga therapist, I was working as a freelance business writer. Between gigs, I was traveling to Guatemala, a country to which I felt a deep, if inexplicable, connection. During one trip, an expat friend told me about local daykeepers who offered Maya horoscope readings. During my reading, one of the daykeepers said I was meant to follow a spiritual path. Whether I went to an ashram in India or returned to Guatemala, she said I needed to be trained in “magic female energy.” I had no reference for what this meant, but I felt an embodied “yes” in my gut, along with a draw back to Guatemala.

Six months later, I’d saved enough to return to Guatemala for a twenty-one day apprenticeship with the daykeepers who’d read my horoscope. I knew next to nothing about what these weeks would entail or what it would mean for my life afterward. But, again, my friend had vouched for these people and my own undeveloped intuition telegraphed they were trustworthy, so I immersed fully in the work. I would learn how to read Maya horoscopes, tend to nighttime dreams, use herbs, eggs, and candles for healing, work with a medicine bundle, and connect with the elements. The training was rigorous and mind-bending; I almost quit at one point. I pushed through my doubts and made it to initiation ceremony, which yielded one of the high points of my life.

This life-altering apprenticeship did not easily fit back into the worldview or corporate career from which I came, and it would take me years to fully integrate its role in my life. It did, however, provide me with a deeper connection to magic female energy that included creativity, dreams, subtle energy, and intuition. It provided a strong foundation when I again felt a sudden, knowing pull to change direction and study yoga.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

In 2005, I took a ten-day travel class to Guatemala as part of my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. Immersed in the country’s Catholic and indigenous spiritual practices, I returned home craving my own spiritual practice and began to meditate daily.

Subsequent trips to Guatemala drew me into Maya spirituality and an apprenticeship with Guatemalan healers who would open my eyes to my subtle energy body and my interconnectedness with the wider world. At home in Minnesota, I continued to study with indigenous and intuitive healers.

At the same time, I’d sustained several soft-tissue injuries due to various physical activities, including the competitive sports of my youth, that had built strength without balancing my flexibility. I spent countless hours in physical therapy so I could regain basic functions like sitting or holding a pen without pain.

At a friend’s urging, I set foot on a yoga mat in 2008. Although I’d signed up for a beginner’s yoga series with a patient teacher at an unassuming yoga studio, those first classes frustrated me. I wasn’t sure how to do the poses. My muscles were tight. I couldn’t coordinate my movement and breath. My competitive nature made me push until my injured wrist, shoulder and hamstring grew cranky. I walked away from that series anything but a fan of the practice.

Fast forward to motherhood when I returned to the yoga mat with renewed determination. My competitive tendency still revealed itself at times, but I was learning how to practice with more compassion toward myself. I lost the baby weight. I strengthened and lengthened my body in ways that managed the pain of my old injuries. I found new community.

A few years later, I showed up for a yoga class at the YMCA and met a certified yoga therapist whose style of yoga focused on breath and body awareness. After just one class, I understood that my long-standing meditation practice, my subtle energetic/intuitive practice, and my asana practice were all part of an integrated whole.

I earned my 200-hour certification in the spring of 2017 and have been teaching since that time. Soon after, I enrolled in the Kripalu School of Integrative Yoga Therapy. During yoga therapy training, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and relied heavily on my yoga practice to manage the physical, emotional, and spiritual side effects of the disease and its treatment. I became a certified yoga therapist with the International Association of Yoga Therapists in 2022 and have completed numerous additional trainings, including Let Your Yoga Dance®, Divine Sleep® Yoga Nidra, and Relax & Renew® Restorative Yoga.

I have worked with the YMCA of the Greater Twin Cities, Roseville Parks and Recreation, Saint Paul Yoga Center, Eye of the Heart Center, Dodge Nature Center, and the River Valley Yoga Festival.

I believe yoga is for every body. In addition to leading accessible, boutique-style yoga classes and therapeutic workshops, I specialize in embodied practices that free one’s creativity.

My free monthly Heartseeds email offers updates on yoga, creativity, and wellbeing, as well as news about my upcoming classes, workshops, and retreats. People can sign up at www.heartseedyoga.com.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In March 2020, when it became clear that we were going to be grounded at home for at least two weeks, my partner drove to Best Buy and scored the last webcam and microphone on the shelves so I could pivot to offering yoga classes online. I’d always loved the energy of working with people in person and never felt drawn to teach online, but I also knew I could offer a way for people to maintain community and ground through a scary, uncertain time.

I opened a Zoom Pro account, made space in my home, and fumbled my way through the first practices. Two weeks extended into a month. Then a year. Then two. I’ve long-since grown accustomed to facilitating people online. While I’ve resumed in-person work, some practices, such my Month of Meditation & Morning Pages, are best suited for online meetups, and I’ve gotten to work with people in far-flung places I’d not have been able to connect with otherwise.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

To be successful in this–or any–work, follow your dharma.

In yoga philosophy, the concept of dharma (translated as “vocation” or “sacred purpose”) is designed to guide our actions throughout life, and I don’t know a single yoga teacher or yoga therapist who hasn’t felt called to this work, even when it means working another job to cover the bills. The Bhagavad Gita, a world literature classic, contains a famous passage I’ll paraphrase: “It’s better to do one’s own dharma imperfectly than it is to do someone else’s dharma perfectly.” Stay true to your sense of purpose. This will help you take calculated risks, direct your practice of self-study, and keep you energized when you hit a snag.

While I may not always call it out directly, my experiences in Guatemala consistently influence my work–it’s why I often offer classes and workshops that focus on the subtle body or involve the natural elements. I’m also a creative writer (currently revising a memoir that focuses on my Guatemalan travels), and I regularly weave the creative process into offerings like Brain Hacks: Move Into Flow State and Move onto the Page: Embodied Writing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.heartseedyoga.com
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-fletcher-mfa-c-iayt-ryt-yacep-aa17085

Image Credits
Primary Photo Credit: Erica Morrow, Slow Road Photo
Dodge Nature Center Photo Credit: Andy Bernt
River Valley Yoga Festival Photo Credits: Kristina Lynn Photography & Design
Eye of the Heart Center Photo Credit: Leslie Parker