Why Yoga is Part of Tierra Sagrada

Why Yoga Became Part of Tierra Sagrada

People sometimes ask us:

Why Yoga?

If Tierra Sagrada was born from years of walking alongside Indigenous communities and learning about traditional medicine, why include a practice that comes from another part of the world?

For me, the answer is simple.

Because healing has never belonged to one culture.
Yoga entered my life long before I imagined creating retreats or speaking about healing with others. It became a quiet companion — one that helped me understand that the body is not separate from the spirit and that emotions are not something to overcome, but something to listen to.
In 2012, I completed my Yoga teacher training with Alosja van Leeuwen.
At that time, I did not yet know how these different worlds would meet. I only felt that they belonged together.
At Tierra Sagrada, we have spent decades walking with Indigenous communities, listening to stories, participating in ceremonies, and learning different ways of understanding health and balance. Again and again, one insight returned:

The body remembers.

Many traditions speak of this in different languages.

Some speak of energy centers. Others speak of emotions stored in the body. Indigenous traditions may speak about imbalance in our relationship with ourselves, with nature, with ancestors, or with spirit.

The language changes.
But the invitation is often the same:

Listen.
Slow down.
Return.

Yoga became one of the ways I learned to do that.
Through movement and breath, I started understanding my own patterns more deeply — where I hold tension, where I resist, where I protect myself, and where life asks me to soften.

Then life opened another chapter.

In 2022, during a period of profound transformation in our family, sacred plant ceremonies entered our lives more consciously and became part of our path. They expanded our understanding of healing and showed us that transformation cannot be rushed.

Healing does not always happen by doing more.
Sometimes healing happens when we remember.
When we reconnect with the body.
When we sit with the elements.
When we allow ourselves to be guided by ritual, community, silence, and presence.

This experience did not replace Yoga.
It deepened it.

Today, our retreats are born from this meeting place.

A place where Yin Yoga, Restorative practices, Temazcal, Indigenous wisdom, ceremony, landscapes, and moments of stillness coexist.

Not because one tradition completes another.
But because all of them remind us of something essential:

Your body is wise.
Your body speaks.

And there are a thousand ways to come back into balance.
Maybe all healing begins with remembering that.