We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Krysten Rodriguez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Krysten below.

Krysten, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Botanic Body Yoga was inspired by my most deeply rooted intention in all of my offerings: To empower each individual to embrace their unique inner-nature, and embody that essence in their most authentic expression.

Many Yoga practices & studios in Western culture are guiding students through a “cookie cutter” kind of experience. Teachers may often be guiding off of a script or standard sequence with no intuitive connection to the people in front of them – some even pushing participants to do certain poses or fitness oriented advancements that can be unsafe – because they’re not recognizing that each & every individual has different needs from the practice.

Yoga is a one size fits all practice – but there is not only one style of Yoga that fits all.

“Botanic Body” means to me, true inner essence. My offerings are curated to intentionally empower every participant to connect with their own body, listen to what they need, and honor that by doing what feels good for them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Krysten, I’m a 25 year old entrepreneur, and advocate for healing, growth and abundant living. Nature & travel enthusiast, born and raised in Michigan, and currently based in St. Petersburg, Florida since 2020.

Botanic Body Yoga is my holistic business offering mindful practices & services, consciously curated with intention to support authentic health & wellbeing, generate community connections, and encourage abundant living!
Some examples of my offerings include:

• Working 1 on 1 with private clients with intentionally curated practices to meet their individual needs

• Hosting community classes & events

• Collaborating with other businesses & entrepreneurs who offer various modalities to curate powerful healing experiences

• Hosting fully inclusive transformative retreats

• Curating events within my local community

My business has grown from my deep love for the Yoga practice, for all the powerful tools of healing & empowerment it has equipped me with. My journey to finding Yoga began back in 2015, when I began searching for natural ways of managing mental illness. I had struggled most of my young adult life with severe depression and anxiety. Growing up I witnessed someone I love dearly struggle with these very same issues, relying on doctors and prescription medications in attempts to heal, and maintain a decent quality of life. I myself was put on anti-depressants at the age of 12, being labeled with depression. At the time, I wanted to be on medication, I thought that it would “fix” me. By the time I reached age 15, I had grown to realize that the medications were not truly supporting my healing, but actually making me feel worse.

I decided to stop taking the anti-depressants, but still used Xanax for anxiety when it came up. In the years after this decision I moved through many dark days, a lot of them filled with abusing mind & heart numbing substances as I searched for ways to feel better within. After a few years of growing up, experimenting, and self-discovery, I finally decided I didn’t want to take any prescription medications at all – and said goodbye to even the occasional “anxiety spot fix” of Xanax, and thus began my journey of healing.

I moved to Louisville at age 19, and still struggled heavily with feelings of depression and anxiety. At this time in my life I began to develop the understanding that our emotions are our guidance system – meaning that the feelings of depression, anxiety, instability – are there to serve as intuitive teachers. The dark emotions exist to signal to us when something isn’t aligned with our highest benefit in our life, and therefore guiding us to change. Having decided that I no longer wanted to rely on prescription medications, I eventually began searching for natural healing modalities, and found Yoga, Breath-work and Meditation.

The early days of these practices for me felt much like stepping into a room where everyone is speaking quickly in a different language that you sort of understand, but not fluently. I spent days & evenings alone in my apartment doing Yoga & Meditation on the floor -notably feeling that it was doing something good for me, but wondering if I was doing it “right”. I learned a few different forms of Breath-work that I immediately found to be powerful tools of alleviating anxiety. Slowly but surely, one step at a time, these practices became as much a part of my life as the depression & anxiety once were – and eventually replacing those feelings more & more with newly found empowerment.

After the year I spent in Louisville, I moved back home where I took my 200 hour RYT at AM Yoga in Grand Rapids. I had many guides & inspirations on my journey to finding AM Yoga, who I am eternally grateful for. The people in my life who inspired me by simply doing their work of healing, and sharing their stories, are the reason that one of my strongest beliefs in life is that we are all here to be students & teachers to one another.

All of this to say, that my journey of healing and empowerment began in darkness. Struggling with mental illness and experiencing the numbing effects of prescriptions and substances led me to the understanding that all true healing is fueled by our ability to listen to what our bodies are saying to us, and to honor our needs with action. For me, the most powerful tools in my healing journey were Yoga & Meditation, Breath-work being a key tool as well. This is why it has been my mission to share these practices with the world, and empower each individual to awaken to the truth that we are all capable of healing ourselves, and creating the life we choose.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In 2021 I was hosting classes at a local event space in my community, this space was primarily geared towards music & nightlife, but I hosted Yoga classes there on weekend mornings.

(Another part of my background is heavily rooted in the music & performance scene – I used to spend much of my time attending festivals & doing performances – so I have connections with musicians & love curating events in collaboration with music because I believe it is very potent healing modality.)

I loved the space & felt it would be perfect for a day festival primarily because it had a very prime location in the heart of downtown, so the idea came to me to bring together a couple of my musician friends & artists to curate a Conscious Music & Arts Festival including a full day of music and live art, centered around a downtempo Yoga class with live music. I presented the idea to the owner of the space who loved it & was on board immediately, agreeing to fund the investment, and leaving the curation to me.

I began doing all the back end work on putting it all together, arranging artist contracts, calling in performers, artists & vendors. As the process came along, the owner of the venue became hard to reach & flaky. missing promised deadlines he had made to sign artist contracts. At the point where I had quite literally built the entire event, had artists waiting for deposit payments & contracts to be signed, I was told that the owner was backing out because one of his in-house DJ’s told him he thought it was a bad idea.

At this point I had put so much heart, love & work into the project – had multiple artists waiting – and was so excited to bring it to life, that I couldn’t imagine just letting it all go. My original vision was pretty heavily relying on the prime location of that space to be used to advertising & promoting, but I decided to move forward anyway with finding a new venue, and fund the event myself.

Being the largest scale event of this kind that I’d curated, and doing all of it on my own, I was being fully driven by the vision of curating a powerful space where the community could come to celebrate life, express & witness art in all forms, and share loving connections. I found a new venue, which wasn’t exactly ideal due to the setting / location – however I was nearing my deadline to make this thing happen, so I locked it in and set it all in motion.

To sum it all up, the turnout of the event was much smaller than I had expected – primarily due to the fact that it was all planned to be at a different venue in a more prime location – and the biggest takeaway from this experience & event was a major learning experience. All in all, the event itself was a success in the essence that those who attended had a beautiful time, creators & musicians got to showcase their art to the community, the Yoga experience that I shared was fun & powerful, and many beautiful connections were made.

At the end of it, I had invested a LARGE amount of money that I did not see a return on. I paid out of pocket for all the performers and promotion, and financially it ended up being a major loss for me. However, the feedback I received from the attendees & vendors at the event provided a solid return in the essence that everyone had good things to say about the experience I had curated, and also offered constructive criticism as to how I can better facilitate these style events in the future.

I learned MANY things from this experience that supported me in more powerfully curating events with my business. One of the most powerful takeaways being to allow the “losses” to serve as lessons – to not allow the “failures” to stop or discourage you – but to fuel you in moving forward even more powerfully with all of the insights & wisdom received from each experience, to continue curating even more potent & powerful creations.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe that the thing that has helped me build my reputation the most is simply showing up authentically as myself, in all that I do. Along with that, creating spaces where others feel safe to show up authentically as who they are.

Everything that I create and offer with Botanic Body Yoga is a reflection of who I am, and sharing the tools that have empowered me in my journey of growth, healing, and creating a life I love. I believe that people love my events and services because they are all rooted in the intention of empowering each and every individual to feel safe to connect with themselves and each other, and celebrating their true essence in the way that feels most authentic to them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/botanicbodyoga
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/botanicbodyoga
• Other: Botanic Body Yoga Wellness Portal – A subscription service with over 150 guided videos of all different lengths & styles, go-to photos of simple stretches for tension spot relief, and hundreds of plant based recipe archives: (New & more easily accessible website coming soon) https://botanic-yoga.tribe.so/group/wellness-portal-community

Image Credits
Out There Visions Portraits by Paulina Maria