Giving Back Through Mindfulness.
Donation protected
Hello friends.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Sarah Shown or Sarah Egress as many folks know me as. I am partner and leading lady in the vaudevillian, circus band This Way to the EGRESS. I am also a music teacher who has been teaching in Lehigh Valley for the last 13 years. You have found your way to my Go Fund Me so I am assuming that means you either know me or know the journey I am asking you to take with me. In attempt to make this description as clear and to the point for you all, I am writing it into 3 sections.
1. What I am prepared to offer in exchange for raising the funds to get this training.
2. Why this cause is personal and important to me
3. Why I hope this cause will be important to you.
PREFACE - Kickstarter VS Go Fund Me
This Go Fund Me is for a 10 month Kundalini yoga teacher training certification (!)
I was originally considering a Kickstarter because I don’t expect everyone to just give me a hand out and don’t mind working to see this through. However, I have run several successful Kickstarters through my band and know what they entail. Once I weighed the amount of time, work & resources launching and fulfilling a kickstarter takes against balancing that with my day job teaching, band work, gigging, solo work, AND the training, education and practice for this program, it would have been more stress than would be healthy for me right now. That being said, if I don’t raise enough funds to make this training possible, I will be cancelling this project and refunding all contributors. So much like a Kickstarter, if I don’t meet my goal, it won’t be happening.
1. What I am prepared to offer in exchange for raising the funds to get this training.
Like I said I don’t expect y’all to just give me money for a teacher training; especially when there are so many worthy causes out there to be giving to. So what I am going to promise is if y’all can help me raise the funds for my teacher training I will promise to pay it forward and give back to my community the following ways.
For the year following my certification I will offer
***a free monthly class somewhere in the Lehigh Valley
*** free monthly online classes for folks who would like to attend but aren’t local
***provide a free youth class/workshop to help teach them mindfulness and healthy coping through mindfulness.
One of my biggest hurdles with my mental health and wellness over the years was that is has become an industry. Including yoga. While I don’t believe people should work for free, I also don’t believe that these tools should kept from folks who need them just because they are under privileged and it is something they can’t afford financially. Lack of healthcare, mental health care and social resources were literally a massive factor in my little sister’s death. If there is someway I can offset that as an individual I would like to.
2. Why this cause is personal and important to me.
My personal path with yoga started when I was 16 and I found a book of Paramahansa Yogananda’s. My grandfather was a grammy winning, accomplished guitar player and he was a wonderful human. Cancer took both him and my grandmother when I was very young. I got to know them through the notes they left each other in the margins of an E.E.Cummings book and got to know their beliefs with Paramahansa’s Autobiography of a Yogi. I spent the following years dancing on and off the path of many branches of yoga. Ashtanga, Hatha and Iyengar. Through those years I had many traumas, trials and tribulations including the deaths of several people I loved. This all culminated with the death of my little sister in 2016. I was lost and not well. I turned heavily back to my yoga practice and that is when I discovered Kundalini. What I have learned and practiced with Kundalini has transformed my mental, physical and spiritual health in a way that is real, true and healthy. Sixteen was also the year in my life that I chose the path of a musician. I dove heavily into my studies and by the age of 22 I began teaching music lessons. For thirteen years I have been teaching piano, violin, voice and a slew of other instruments. Teaching has been one of the most profound exchanges I have shared with humans in my life. I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to provide and exchange music in a way that impacts humans on a level that is difficult to put into words. Every day I see how music changes and improves the lives of the people I work with. I would be just as honored and humbled to be able to offer the same through yoga the way that yoga has through me.
3. Why I hope this cause will be important to you.
I grew up poor, a child of a hard working single mother taking care of three children. I have seen the cycles that poverty perpetuates. Mental health care in our country is inadequate and we are losing an entire generation to addiction. Mindfulness and Kundalini have played a massive role in healing those impacts on me. Through my certification as a teacher, my hope is to bring these teachings and practices to people and children who may otherwise not be fortunate or privileged enough to otherwise experience these ancient technologies. Technologies that I and hundreds of thousands of others have used to transform their lives and be of service to their communities. As Yogi Bhajan the founder of Kundalini yoga once said “If you do not do seva—selfless service, you have just let your soul go hungry. Selfless service to others is the food of the soul.” I cannot think of a better way to serve my community than to provide it with the same opportunity for higher living that I was graced to have. My hope is that you can provide a piece of light in a sometimes grim and uncertain world. When our communities thrive and rise we all thrive and rise. If as a community you can help me raise the funds for this training, than upon completion I will help give that back to my community through mindfulness.
ABOUT THE TRAINING
If you would like to know more about the training I am taking about please follow this link.
https://www.blendingwhispers.com/kundalini-teacher-training
ABOUT KUNDALINI
Kundalini is a Sanskrit term from ancient India that identifies the arising of an energy and consciousness which has been coiled at the base of the spine since birth, and is the source of the life force (pranic energy, chi , bio-energy) that everybody knows.
It is possible to find acknowledgement of this spiritual movement in many yogic and tantric traditions, Tantric Buddhism, Taoism, gnostic mystical tradition and some Native American teachings, and indigenous societies. An image of a rising snake in the body signifies its existence in the esoteric art of many cultures. The capacity to intensify and raise energy in the body has been explored for thousands of years. It is a natural human potential.
Kundalini awakening offers a profound opportunity for those called to follow a spiritual path. It gradually releases many patterns, conditions and delusions of the separate self.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Sarah Shown or Sarah Egress as many folks know me as. I am partner and leading lady in the vaudevillian, circus band This Way to the EGRESS. I am also a music teacher who has been teaching in Lehigh Valley for the last 13 years. You have found your way to my Go Fund Me so I am assuming that means you either know me or know the journey I am asking you to take with me. In attempt to make this description as clear and to the point for you all, I am writing it into 3 sections.
1. What I am prepared to offer in exchange for raising the funds to get this training.
2. Why this cause is personal and important to me
3. Why I hope this cause will be important to you.
PREFACE - Kickstarter VS Go Fund Me
This Go Fund Me is for a 10 month Kundalini yoga teacher training certification (!)
I was originally considering a Kickstarter because I don’t expect everyone to just give me a hand out and don’t mind working to see this through. However, I have run several successful Kickstarters through my band and know what they entail. Once I weighed the amount of time, work & resources launching and fulfilling a kickstarter takes against balancing that with my day job teaching, band work, gigging, solo work, AND the training, education and practice for this program, it would have been more stress than would be healthy for me right now. That being said, if I don’t raise enough funds to make this training possible, I will be cancelling this project and refunding all contributors. So much like a Kickstarter, if I don’t meet my goal, it won’t be happening.
1. What I am prepared to offer in exchange for raising the funds to get this training.
Like I said I don’t expect y’all to just give me money for a teacher training; especially when there are so many worthy causes out there to be giving to. So what I am going to promise is if y’all can help me raise the funds for my teacher training I will promise to pay it forward and give back to my community the following ways.
For the year following my certification I will offer
***a free monthly class somewhere in the Lehigh Valley
*** free monthly online classes for folks who would like to attend but aren’t local
***provide a free youth class/workshop to help teach them mindfulness and healthy coping through mindfulness.
One of my biggest hurdles with my mental health and wellness over the years was that is has become an industry. Including yoga. While I don’t believe people should work for free, I also don’t believe that these tools should kept from folks who need them just because they are under privileged and it is something they can’t afford financially. Lack of healthcare, mental health care and social resources were literally a massive factor in my little sister’s death. If there is someway I can offset that as an individual I would like to.
2. Why this cause is personal and important to me.
My personal path with yoga started when I was 16 and I found a book of Paramahansa Yogananda’s. My grandfather was a grammy winning, accomplished guitar player and he was a wonderful human. Cancer took both him and my grandmother when I was very young. I got to know them through the notes they left each other in the margins of an E.E.Cummings book and got to know their beliefs with Paramahansa’s Autobiography of a Yogi. I spent the following years dancing on and off the path of many branches of yoga. Ashtanga, Hatha and Iyengar. Through those years I had many traumas, trials and tribulations including the deaths of several people I loved. This all culminated with the death of my little sister in 2016. I was lost and not well. I turned heavily back to my yoga practice and that is when I discovered Kundalini. What I have learned and practiced with Kundalini has transformed my mental, physical and spiritual health in a way that is real, true and healthy. Sixteen was also the year in my life that I chose the path of a musician. I dove heavily into my studies and by the age of 22 I began teaching music lessons. For thirteen years I have been teaching piano, violin, voice and a slew of other instruments. Teaching has been one of the most profound exchanges I have shared with humans in my life. I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to provide and exchange music in a way that impacts humans on a level that is difficult to put into words. Every day I see how music changes and improves the lives of the people I work with. I would be just as honored and humbled to be able to offer the same through yoga the way that yoga has through me.
3. Why I hope this cause will be important to you.
I grew up poor, a child of a hard working single mother taking care of three children. I have seen the cycles that poverty perpetuates. Mental health care in our country is inadequate and we are losing an entire generation to addiction. Mindfulness and Kundalini have played a massive role in healing those impacts on me. Through my certification as a teacher, my hope is to bring these teachings and practices to people and children who may otherwise not be fortunate or privileged enough to otherwise experience these ancient technologies. Technologies that I and hundreds of thousands of others have used to transform their lives and be of service to their communities. As Yogi Bhajan the founder of Kundalini yoga once said “If you do not do seva—selfless service, you have just let your soul go hungry. Selfless service to others is the food of the soul.” I cannot think of a better way to serve my community than to provide it with the same opportunity for higher living that I was graced to have. My hope is that you can provide a piece of light in a sometimes grim and uncertain world. When our communities thrive and rise we all thrive and rise. If as a community you can help me raise the funds for this training, than upon completion I will help give that back to my community through mindfulness.
ABOUT THE TRAINING
If you would like to know more about the training I am taking about please follow this link.
https://www.blendingwhispers.com/kundalini-teacher-training
ABOUT KUNDALINI
Kundalini is a Sanskrit term from ancient India that identifies the arising of an energy and consciousness which has been coiled at the base of the spine since birth, and is the source of the life force (pranic energy, chi , bio-energy) that everybody knows.
It is possible to find acknowledgement of this spiritual movement in many yogic and tantric traditions, Tantric Buddhism, Taoism, gnostic mystical tradition and some Native American teachings, and indigenous societies. An image of a rising snake in the body signifies its existence in the esoteric art of many cultures. The capacity to intensify and raise energy in the body has been explored for thousands of years. It is a natural human potential.
Kundalini awakening offers a profound opportunity for those called to follow a spiritual path. It gradually releases many patterns, conditions and delusions of the separate self.
Organizer and beneficiary
Sarah Egress
Organizer
Bethlehem, PA
Taylor Galassi
Beneficiary