Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Izzy Gandarilla. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Izzy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I am a second generation Latina growing up in the suburbs of Chicago-land., I was always walking the line between 2 worlds. In my twenties i started my yoga practice, first yoga healed my physical body from a knee injury, and then yoga took me on the path of healing emotionally. I carried the power of yoga close to my heart every day as i navigated the medical field as a neuro-psychometrist. Working in neuro-science department I learned a lot about the human body, and especially the brain. The yoga postures and the breathing began to make sense to me in medical terms, being able to not only understand yoga and neurology because i personally experienced it, but also gaining academic knowledge. After almost a decade in the neuroscience field,i began to ask the doctors why they were not recommending yoga to their patients coming in with chronic pain, anxiety, depression, their responses were all pretty much the same, yoga could put their patients in danger due to the compression that some of the yoga poses called for. That’s when it came together for me, what if the yoga teacher could teach yoga without compressions, and understood the benefits of yogic breathing on chronic pain. I started by teaching yoga to the doctors, the response was great and i felt proud of my work. However, i had this feeling of wanting my people, people that looked like me and my family to be able to benefit from this knowledge, of making yoga safe. And that’s when i took the leap, i knew i could not work at another yoga studio because i needed to make the classes affordable and accessible. So i opened my own studio, everything is bilingual, and our classes are only $10. The first year it was just me working alone, then I was able to train 2 teachers in the effectiveness of breathing, and the modifications needed to make a yoga practice free from compressions. A year and a half into my dream and the studio is growing, people are feeling the difference in their well-being, and they appreciate our approach to yoga and our goal to make wellness affordable & accessible . Seeing people take control of their health makes my heart expand.

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

My name is Izzy. When i was 21 i ran the chicago marathon without training! that’s right i completed a marathon with no training, and i paid the price. I had a knee pain and i felt hopeless thinking that i was going to have knee pain forever, that i would never be able to run again, i couldn’t even go up/down the stairs without feeling pins in my knee. A friend suggested i try yoga, and i was upset, how could someone suggest an old boring thing to me, but i went anyway. after the first class i was hooked, I went to yoga everyday for 3 months and without realizing when or how, the knee pain was gone. I still continued my daily practice, and soon I started to heal emotionally. That’s when i knew i wanted to share yoga with people, but i did not want to be like some of the teachers i met along the way, they did not really understand the anatomy of the body, and why the poses work or why the breathing practices worked. And so i was not prepared to teach yoga the way i wanted to or the way i felt was correct. Luckily the universe took me to where i needed to: the neuro-science institute at alexian brothers (now Amita). While working with neurologist i learned what i needed to in medical terms and i was able to apply that to my yoga knowledge. I put yoga and neurology together and I took it back to my community, but more then that i share it with anyone that wants to take their well-being into their own hands, this is why i only charge $10 per class. I want the world to heal.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

This is silly of me, but when i first started the studio, I really didn’t believe in myself, and was afraid to take rent a studio on my own, so I found someone that had signed a lease to a space and said he was willing to split the rent and the space. I was paying him half the rent. One day the owner walked into the studio demanding to see the man who rented the space. I found out that this person had not been paying rent for 5 months. I was paying him, but he was not paying the actual rent. I learned then that i needed to take responsibility for my dream and believe in myself. I was scared signing a lease on my own, and getting everything in order, but i did it!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

That women should be passive. I grew up in a Mexican household, with some strong traditions, some traditions that i love and uphold and others that i realize will end with me. One being that women should be passive, not to be outspoken. However, having my own business and yoga style calls for me to be outspoken to speak up about what i am doing and how it can help. I realized that if i kept being passive my yoga studio was not going to survive, and it would not do my community any good. We need affordable and accessible wellness, all of us do regardless of our background, and so I started to speak up, and let people know what we do in the studio and why it is different. Why it is so special.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.neuroyogainstitute.com
• Instagram: neuroyogainst izzy_gandarilla