Whitney discovered yoga in 2008 while in nursing school. A lifelong athlete, she was looking for increased flexibility and strength to supplement her triathlon training. As her high-stress career as a cardiovascular RN developed, she learned to rely on her yoga practice as a way to process the experiences she had at work, keep her body healthy, and stay calm under pressure.
Throughout the years, Whitney’s yoga practice has helped her recover from eating disorders, sexual abuse, physically and emotionally abusive relationships, physical injuries, and addiction. This ultimately led her to become a yoga teacher and owner of the Indigo Yoga Studio, and embrace veganism.
She first stopped eating animals at the age of 16. A lifelong animal lover, she grew up with pets of all sorts, from snakes and rats to birds, horses, goats, and pigs... and of course cats and dogs. She connected deeply with horses, working with them from a young age. One year, her 4-H pig won a prize and was sold at auction. Very distressed at the thought of her friend being turned into bacon, that was it until age 18, when she started eating meat as a way to attempt to lose weight on a diet. Once she stopped drinking alcohol and deepened her yoga practice, she gravitated naturally towards a plant-based diet, and became vegan completely in 2019. The transition to veganism was natural and driven by deep shadow work and spiritual searching during a dark time in life, particularly sparked by the teachings of Sri Dharma Mittra and practice of Dharma and Kundalini Yoga.
She is an E-RYT® 200, YACEP® and practices/teaches a variety of styles of yoga, including Hot Yoga, Vinyasa, Yin, Ashtanga, Rocket, and is currently in the process of obtaining her Kundalini Yoga Level 1 certification. Her daily practice is Kundalini meditation and sometimes Kriya, and some sort of asana (mostly Ashtanga primary and rocket).
In August 2018, she was blessed with an unexpected opportunity to become owner/operator of Indigo Yoga, a beautiful little hot yoga studio in Las Cruces, NM. She currently continues to operate the studio while working in a COVID ICU in a rural hospital an hour away from her home in Las Cruces.
She is married to a man she’s loved since age 14, Sam. They live in Las Cruces with their companions Isis, an aging pitbull, and Elliot, a psychic teenage boy cat.
In this episode Whitney Pérez-Wright and Holly Skodis discuss the following:
- Sri Dharma Mittra and his book Life of a Yogi
- Patrick McCleaf & Sara Gruss
- Recovering from food and alcohol addictions with yoga and veganism
- Ram Dass
- Wearing a masking times of Covid
- Kundalini Aquarian Sadhana
- Under Armor Mask
- Switching towards a whole food plant-based diet
- Join Whitney and Holly on @yogaisvegan Instagram Live, Saturday January 23, 4pm EST
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Connect with Whitney
Instagram: @Whitney__stark
Instagram: @indigo__yoga
Website: indigolascruces.com