Meet Polina Eisenberg of Free Yoga at Wash Park in Washington Park

Today we’d like to introduce you to Polina Eisenberg.

Polina, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started Yoga in the Park in April 2019. After going for almost two years without teaching yoga. I moved to Colorado in 2017 to pursue my degree in nursing and after completing an accelerated bachelor’s program I started working as a psychiatric nurse at The Medical Center of Aurora. Initially, I was focused on learning the ropes of nursing – how to flip my schedule to work nights, how to deal with difficult patients, and how to balance my personal life on top of that. Then I noticed something was missing. After a year of working in the psychiatric hospital, I began to feel like I am not engaged in my community and I am not giving anything to it. So I started a small group on meetup and Facebook that was a free yoga class for anyone interested. I assumed only a few close friends would show up. There were over 12 people in my first class. So I did it again. And again. I fell in love with meeting new people and teaching them yoga all over again. I now do this class once a week and the class has grown – Now the class averages almost 25 people/class!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The main struggles I have come across have been keeping my inspiration alive. A new thing is always exciting, but once the novelty wears off you have to find another motive to continue your passion. I feel this way about my nursing career as well. I am in love with my job and my career, as well as my students and being able to teach yoga. It’s just that sometimes my own mental barriers make it a challenge to show up every day completely present and ready to be there for others. I struggle with depression and most days I try and intertwine my journey with it into my work, whether it’s on the psych unit or the mat. I find that instead of pretending it doesn’t exist, using it as an opportunity to be more vulnerable and more compassionate is a much better route for me. But some days that spark just isn’t there. On those days doing what I do gets tough, but it never burns me out and it always worth the extra effort.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
Yoga in the Park is just that – a group of people who meet every Sunday to do yoga together. The class is always free. What I am focusing on right now is creating an environment where people can grow together and feel 100% safe and accepted. My career as a psych nurse inspires me to help people focus on their mental health and it strengthens my empathy for those going through tough times whether they are my patient or my student.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I grew up in Russia right after the fall of the soviet union in 1991. So times were gloomy back then. My family had a country house in a suburban part of Moscow and there was a small river beach by the Moscow River where my friends and I would play and swim for hours on end. I was a pretty moody child so getting to this river with my friends and family was always a glimmer of light in my psyche. I always remember my grandpa, grandma, great-grandma, and mom (Russians live together until they die) lying on the beach either reading or smoking cigarettes and enjoying our break from real life for the summer.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.meetup.com/Free-Yoga-In-the-park-Denver
• Phone: 2019839280
• Email: eisenberg.polina@gmail.com
• Instagram: @polinerz

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