Mary Rose Yerger

I attended my first yoga class in high school at a local gym. As we lay in savasana the instructor read beautiful passages about the yogic lifestyle. I was drawn to these readings and the way that yoga seemed to incorporate the whole person, mind, body, and spirit! In these classes, we learned about the health benefits of eating locally and seasonally, pranayama, meditation, and the awakening of energy behind each asana. I did not develop a regular yoga practice until I came to Lila in my sophomore year of college and truly experienced communion with these energies. I had finally felt what I had only ever read about in books or heard about from teachers! It felt like I had opened a door, stepping out of the little closet inside my head and into the incredibly vast temple that is my body. There was so much to explore!

Throughout my personal practices of yoga and meditation, insights began coming to me about my past. I was shocked to find the emotional traumas I had been holding within my whole body, not just my mind. At this point, I knew that I wanted to merge my spiritual and physical interests in yoga with my academic interest in clinical psychology and trauma. In my own healing journey, yoga assists me in beginning to release these blockages systemically. A peak experience in Rishikesh India during my teacher training allowed me to feel the truth of my being. I could see clearly that as I let go of these tightly held patterns in mind and body that hold my ego together the more I could rise into the truth of my being, which is nothing but pure light, love, and bliss!

My interest now lies in emotional and trauma-sensitive yoga. As I grow as a teacher I hope my classes become increasingly sensitive to the needs of practitioners who have experienced emotional and physical traumas in their lives (AKA all of us!). I want to invite others to join me in bravely and compassionately connecting with our hearts. Together we can explore and let circulate both the lightness and darkness within ourselves through the safety and structure of a holistic yoga practice. As we practice, we release, we become lighter and together rise to our highest expressions of Self.

Maryrose is an RYT-200 with Yoga Alliance, certified in Lila Yoga. She teaches sun salutations and moon salutations here at the studio. Maryrose continues her practice of embodying yoga with the gifted creator of Lila Yoga Erica Kaufman in State College. She is also studying trauma-sensitive yoga and soon hopes to begin instructing an emotional yoga program with another spiritual teacher of hers, Kathy Gates. Maryrose received her Bachelor’s in Psychology and Biobehavioral Health in 2015. She is currently working as a Basic Needs Case Manager, Youthful Offenders Program instructor, and DUI instructor at the Community Help Centre where she shares, as often as possible, the gifts of yoga and mindfulness with her clients. She aims to incorporate the yogic philosophy and practices into her work as a trauma therapist in the future and is forever grateful for the path that yoga has guided her on.

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