About Dharma Shakti

Dharma Shakti: Righteous Strength. She Who Has The Strength to Fulfill Her Purpose

My journey down the path of healing arts started in 2000 at the age of 19. I began learning and practicing Massage Therapy at a tiny holistic school in San Diego called Body Mind College. While working part time as a Massage Therapist and working full time at a trucking company, I continued my studies. I dabbled in many different teachings and modalities of natural health ranging from aromatherapy, shamanism, herbalism, acupressure, iridology, naturopathy, energy work, Traditional Chinese Medicine and much more.

My massage practice led me to yoga asana to manage the tension I was feeling in my hands, wrists, shoulders and back from being overworked at the spa where I was employed. As I deepened my yoga asana practice things began to unfold naturally for me; physically, mentally and emotionally. I was prompted and guided to study Ayurveda instead of traditional Chinese Medicine, which I had been interested in for quite some time. So I decided to enroll at California College of Ayurveda and began my studies. Soon after my Ayurveda enrollment, I completed an intensive yoga teacher-training course at the Sivananda Ashram in Grass Valley, Ca. Upon my return I started teaching yoga asana in Nov. 2005. Being at the ashram had shifted my awareness and changed my life forever. It was a VERY challenging time but the outcome was a rebirth of myself. I received a spiritual name from Swami Sitaramanda according to my vedic chart, Dharma Shakti. When I returned to Southern California I was an eternally changed being, my life was about to embark on a whole new journey!

One of those journeys is my study of Ayurveda! It was a treacherous and triumphant path with my studies through the college, but praises to the Most High!, I graduated from CCA in June of 2007 as a Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist as well as a Pancha Karma Specialist, just weeks shy of giving birth to my son on June 28th 2007. I was blessed to have had home birth with no medications and no doctors, just pure human will and strength as well as amazing support! Oh and yes, of course also with yogic breath and focus! Yoga did wonders for my birth process!

After many years of gaining work experience and knowledge in this amazing field of healing arts, I am finally working for myself as an Clinical Ayurvedic Practitioner and Experienced Massage Therapist. Being my own employer has been a frightening and beautiful journey! I have been working with ayurvedic clients since my internship, which began Jan 2007. Once I graduated, I continued seeing clients and still do to this day. I love sharing the knowledge of Ayurveda. It has been such a gift to me and it is a blessing to gift others with it as well.

Being a Yogi Shiromani (Instructor) has been a majestic gem in my life, it has helped me blossom in so many ways! Free Yoga was and still is my way of giving back to the community. Initially it started out as an idea, I had many friends who wanted to come and practice at the studios but could not afford it on a regular basis, which only encouraged the idea of a weekly class that I wanted to teach for FREE! A friend at the time liked the idea and suggested Bluff Park. We printed up fliers and sent out emails to our friends, I spent a few weeks posting up fliers all over long beach: coffee houses, health food stores, my apartment window, my store front window, light poles and any street fixtures I could staples or tape a sign onto. And this was the birth of FREE YOGA. I cannot express with words the joy it brings me to teach this class every Saturday and Sunday. To see the community build and connect with one another is such blessing in my life.