Meet Carolyn Pedersen-Howard | Online Yoga Teacher

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carolyn Pedersen-Howard and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carolyn, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Yoga is an amazing practice for one’s mind, body, and soul – but a lot of people have yet to discover the many benefits of the practice. The acts of breathing, stretching, and toning of the body have both immediate and cumulative beneficial effects: including strengthening one’s mind-body connection. However, due to self-limiting beliefs about how flexible one needs to be prior to exploring yoga and/or how they need to look, many people are intimidated by or hesitant about trying yoga. Or they try yoga and don’t have a very positive introductory experience, and vow never to return. I try to gently nurture my students by making my classes attainable, gentle, and fun – with lots of options and an approach that honors wherever one is at in their practice. I want to break down previous barriers and spread the love of yoga around, I focus on the most important things: that we’ve carved out this time for self-care, and are breathing, moving, and honoring our bodies! So how does yoga help the community? When people take the time for their self-care and practice yoga they become a little more at ease – they are more able to quiet the busy mind – find their breath, and stretch their amazing bodies. Every time you practice yoga, you are able to find peace and a little bit of yoga bliss and in that way you move a little bit closer to your highest and greatest version of yourself. And being that highest and greatest version of yourself makes you a better human on this planet, a better friend, mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, lover, and it has a positive impact on your entire sphere of influence. It makes your world a little bit sweeter, and gives you the energy and capacity to make the world a little bit sweeter for those around you. My greatest intention is to offer the gift of yoga to my community and to grow that community through making the world a better place one yoga class at a time.

Please tell us more about your work. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. How did you get to where you are today professionally. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way. What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?
What an amazing journey this has been! I am so honored and privileged to take the set of the teacher for my online CPH yoga community every Sunday. What grew out of a desire to continue to hone my craft of teaching yoga and to connect with my friends and family during COVID has grown into a wonderful supportive CPH Online Yoga community. It started small and has evolved through word or mouth referrals and recommendations and the challenge has been to ensure that the systems and processes are in place to provide a professional seamless experience. CPH Yoga is a virtual offering of live classes every Sunday at 9:00 am (PST). Participants are invited to attend the live class and the recording for class is available for 6 days so members can do the class at their own pace and schedule. Classes are themed with a music offering. CPH Yoga classes are restorative and attainable for most bodies. Lots of variations and modifications are gentle guided.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I live in Vista and want to give a shout out to this amazing community! I would start off with an outdoor yoga class at Alta Vista Gardens (Yoga in the park) Lead by two incredible teachers- Louise and Shelly. Handy tip: Once you pay for your yoga class you have already paid the entrance fee! I would then take my friend on a walk through Alta Vista gardens and look at all the beautiful flora and fauna there and the amazing sculptures! Having sufficiently worked up an appetite I would head straight to Milk Organics in downtown Vista! They have the most amazing delicious breakfast selection! We would then head to Oceanside and walk along the pier and have a beach day! I would then head back to downtown Vista (because that is where its at!!) and take another yoga class at Yoga Branch Vista (right next to Milk Organics) and then walk to Belching Beaver and sit outside by the fire places! An amazing day of yoga, walks and incredible food all the the beautiful city of Vista!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
In my opinion, a business that is truly amazing and at the forefront of health and healing and one that I would hand in heart recommend as a mind blowing experience in itself is: BreatheDegrees: https://breathedegrees.com/ Tim Amm’s: for your purposes, reach out directly to him.

Website: https://cph-yoga.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cph_yoga/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CPH-Yoga-106066557905299