Meet Kyla Pearce

from Kyla Pearce:

I’m honored to be stepping back into the Upper Valley Yoga communityfor the summer! I took a hiatus from teaching public classes to have mynow 16 month old son, Bear, wrap up my PhD, and grow the LoveYourBrainYoga program. Some of you may of heard about LoveYourBrain,a non-profit that aims to improve the quality of life of peopleaffected by traumatic brain injury—from concussion to severeinjury—through programs that build community and foster resilience. Itwas established by my now husband, Adam Pearce, and his brother, KevinPearce, after Kevin suffered a near fatal brain injury in a snowboardingaccident just before the Vancouver Olympics. We were motivated tocreate LoveYourBrain Yoga after witnessing how much Kevin benefited fromyoga and meditation to support his own healing, particularly by findinga sense of peace, accomplishment, and vitality that were unavailableelsewhere. LoveYourBrain Yoga is a free six-week series designed tobuild community and foster resilience. It incorporates gentle yoga toimprove strength and balance, meditation practices to reduce stress,class themes to foster resilience and compassion, and facilitated groupconversation to build community. When we first launched our program in2015, Leslie was incredibly supportive, and actually taught our veryfirst fundraiser yoga class to raise awareness about our program in theUpper Valley. Since then, we’ve partnered with about 50 yoga studios tooffer LoveYourBrain Yoga across 29 states and 4 Canadian provinces. It’sbeen a full, humbling, and incredibly rewarding past five years. If youknow of anyone who has had a concussion or other form of TBI, pleaseencourage them to check out our program and sign up for the next one atMighty Yoga in Lebanon, NH in July, or swing by one of my classes tochat more about it.

I look forward to reconnecting with the wonderful UVY community!

—Kyla