Wise Heart Collective
Amy has been growing the Wise Heart community of loving and being loved since 1996. In 2004, her work in the world became fiercely inspired by the birth of her first child. After the arrival of her fourth babe, she established the original website Love & Be Loved in 2013 with the mission of sharing the light of Love & Compassion with the world. Her work as a yoga teacher & Reiki healer, and her experience of connecting with other tender humans has been the catalyst for the creation of Generous Wisdom | Spacious Heart and all the Wise Heart Practices you’ll find here.
The community is growing into a collective. The practices are for everyone whose intention is to increase loving-kindness in themselves & the world. You are invited to reach out for collaboration on initiatives, projects, & events that work toward increasing deep care & joy for everyone.
The Yoga
Amy has been practicing and studying yoga for over half her life, close to 26 years, and has been teaching for over 18. She has studied with teachers Ed Fox, Claudia Cummins, Martha Marcom, Marcia Miller, Michele Vinbury, David Swenson, Tim Miller, Jivana Heyman, and Anne Douglas among many others during her practice in Mansfield (OH) and her training at Yoga on High in Columbus, Ohio. Amy spent the beginning of her yoga teaching journey in the discipline of Ashtanga Yoga which focuses on cleansing and healing the body by linking one posture to the next through a strong and meditative breath.
While Ashtanga provided a firm foundation for her practice, Amy has spent years exploring and teaching a variety of styles including Power Yoga, Vinyasa, Hatha, Restorative, Resilience-Focused & Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, Mindful Movement for Resilience, Yoga for Seniors Citizens, Yoga for Kids, Yoga for Veterans, as well as themed workshop-style classes, such as her signature series Yoga TLC©. Her formal and informal trainings and certifications in trauma-awareness, resilience, accessibility, contemplation, racial + social justice, and mindfulness enhance her ability to offer practices that explore embodiment and meet students where they are on their journey.
Yoga Teaching & Mindfulness
Amy is an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance (ERYT–500) and has completed the 300 hour Mindful Teacher Certification Program at Mindful Schools. She has held classes in traditional and nontraditional settings, indoors and out, online and in person, in yoga studios, gymnasiums, hospitals, martial arts studios, wellness, fitness, and art centers, front lawns, medical and corporate offices, music and dance academies, military bases, and college campuses. Her approach to teaching is individualized as she seeks to address the needs of each student making yoga & creative movement accessible for all. She encourages everyone to question, experiment, and take ownership of their practice by deciding what works best for them.
Cultivating the ability to resource ones’ self and make choices inspired by inner wisdom are some of the foundational aspects of her teaching. She encourages her students to offer themselves this compassion and personal agency and to extend this same freedom to others.
As a practice guide, Amy is clear, kind, fun, and easy-going, encouraging and supportive, contemplative and practical.
Energy Work
Amy is trained as a Reiki level II practitioner in the Usui Reiki tradition.
The Spirit Work
Spiritually, Amy embraces spirit wisdom found in many traditions, honoring benevolent teachers, lineages, and scriptures from around the world. After practicing Catholicism for 43 years and founding & stewarding the mission of The Catholic Yogi, she has grown into a fuller sense of Universal Loving Awareness & Presence that manifests in her offerings here.
Amy has greatly benefited from the Franciscan teachings of the Universal Christ, as well as teachings on the divine feminine as offered by Mirabi Starr and Michele Vinbury. Tibetan Buddhist The Dalai Lama, South African Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, American Buddhist Frank Ostaseski, Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr, and Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings have had an enormous impact on Amy’s own teaching and practice.
Amy’s philosophical approach is one of wholeness and connection within community. She is passionate about honoring and reclaiming the ancient and modern practices that serve the highest good of all. She has created courses and practices that support wholeness, well-being, strength, belonging, and joy in the face of difficulty, as well as joy in the face of happiness and ease.
Writing & Language
Amy has been studying and practicing the art of reading and writing for over 26 years with formal training at The Ohio State University and The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, Vermont. She holds a BA and MA in English with a focus in writing. She has been a writing teacher to students of all ages, elementary through college in multiple genres, such as personal essay, research & technical writing, poetry, & creative nonfiction. Amy has enjoyed writing poetry since she was 12.
She cites some of the most influential coursework during her writing, yoga, and resilience studies as Critical Theory with JF Buckley, Poetry Workshop with Paul Muldoon, Mindfulness Based Emotional Resilience (EMBER) Yoga with Michele Vinbury, and the racialized trauma, resilience, somatic and soul healing work of Resmaa Menakem. These influences & others support, enhance, and inspire her to teach from a place of embodiment and wholeness.
Amy views her work as a way to offer self-discovery, self-study, reflection, & awareness practices that invite students to feel safe-enough & brave-enough to embark on their own journey of healing, growth, and freedom through self-inquiry, self-exploration, & self-liberation for the highest good of all.
The Gratitude
Amy offers abundant gratitude for each and every one of her teachers, their teachers, and their teachers back & forward throughout time, her ancestors, her children, her colleagues, her past, present, and future students, and all deep wisdom lineages and traditions that benefit the highest good of all.
Acknowledgments
Amy resides on Kaskaskia land in mid-Ohio and wishes to honor the indigenous peoples who cared for this area before her. She honors the Yoga, Hindu, Asian, Usui Reiki, South Asian, Christian Mystic, Buddhist, & Celtic spiritual traditions from which she draws wisdom, support, courage, strength, and energy.
The Community
A Note from Amy
Friends,
I am not alone. And I have not created this space by myself. This work of my life would not be possible without the loving and sacrificial support of my parents when I was young and the consistent and fierce encouragement of my partner throughout our relationship, the glowing & endlessly illuminating presence & action of my children, and my dear friends and colleagues who are living the work of their own lives while inspiring and supporting mine.
The love I am able to give and receive feels boundless, and I am in deep gratitude to you all,
Amy
Generous Wisdom | Spacious Heart 