Emma Morgan

It all began at the end of my senior year of high school. By that time, I had completed my fourth and final gymnastics state championship. I no longer held the identity of a gymnast, that which I had held for fifteen years. So, needless to say, I was feeling very uprooted and was left confused as to who I was and as to what my place in the real world was to be.

It was at this confusing time that my avid yogi of a mother suggested that I try yoga with her. I was not opposed to the idea but had strayed away from it in the past, due to its strong draw towards the hippie culture. I had spent my entire grade school career in an undiverse high school, so any group of people that ‘swam against the current’, so to speak, frightened me as much as they intrigued me.

A few days went by and I finally gave in and decided to give the practice a chance. Being a former gymnast, the flows and poses came very natural to me and I was pushed to my limits in a way that was much different than I had been in the past.

A couple months later, people would come to know me as a regular at a studio. I became “the one at the front that you watch when you are confused”. The summer of my year anniversary in the practice, I became a certified instructor. Deeper and deeper I was falling into my love of yoga. When the following school year came around, I decided to change my major from Fashion Merchandising to Marketing, in hopes of owning my own studio someday. At this point, I was fully immersed into the practice.

That leaves us here at the present moment. Not only did I embrace the hippie culture, but I’ve embraced it wholly and have made it my own. In what was an extremely gray and foggy time for me, I found the great light of my life, my haven for whenever the fog tries to engulf me again, and who I am supposed to be. For this, I could not possibly be more grateful.