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

Larissa , appreciate you joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

I was working full time as a high school guidance counselor, and I really loved the career but also found it to be quite stressful at times. The school was poorly understaffed, and there were always so many things going on that needed urgent attention on a daily basis. While I loved the students and colleagues, I knew that I could not stay working in such a stressful job. While working as a school counselor, my husband suddenly passed away from a brain cyst, and this life changing event caused me to take a career trajectory. My daughter was only 8 years old at the time, and fortunately we were able to collect some Social Security benefits. At that time I started to focus on other career opportunities, including teaching college courses and eventually teaching yoga as well.

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

In 2009, I lost my husband suddenly following a brain cyst, which created many changes in my own life. I was a single mom at that point, and had a lot of increased responsibilities. To help in my healing process from the grief, I spent a lot of time at the gym working out, swimming and doing yoga. I was really enjoying the yoga classes, and going there almost daily. I learned that the gym was offering a 200 hour yoga teacher training, and it really intrigued me. I wanted to dive deeper into my practice, but also questioned whether I would want to teach yoga or not. I enrolled in the training, and began teaching yoga right after graduating from the program. I then went on later to complete an additional 300 hours of yoga training, along with specialized trainings, including yin yoga, sculpt yoga, sound practitioner training, yoga nidra, restorative yoga, and more. Recently I transformed a room in my home into a yoga room to provide individualized classes, sound, and meditation to my students and friends.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

I work as both a yoga teacher and as a licensed professional counselor. One crossover between the two fields is that they both involve working directly with people, and in some form of a “self help” or “healing” process. While I am not the one who does the healing, I am the one who provides the tools or techniques to assist the client with healing. One of the biggest components of providing assistance with clients is to practice empathy, compassion, and understanding of my clients. I always strive to get into their shoes to gain a better understanding of what their lives are all about.

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

I think that the biggest story of resilience involved the loss of my husband and then the complete change of course that my life took following the tragedy. I wanted to have a flexible work schedule which allowed me to have greater freedom to be able to pick my daughter up from school, and be around more at home to take care of everything that needed to be done. The changes that I made in my own life allowed me greater happiness with my profession, more money, and more flexibility. When I was working a full time salaried job, I figured that I was just stuck doing that quite a while in order to pay the bills. Once I branched out and started working more for myself, I recognized that this allows me for freedom, flexibility, and even greater financial benefits.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/larissar6/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larissarzemienski
• Other: https://www.yogaalliance.org/TeacherPublicProfile?tid=120612

Image Credits
Araya Photography