Hidden Gems: Meet Melissa Lago of Yoga Transforms Us

Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Lago.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Great question! I will never forget what The Rev. Dudley C. Rose, my thesis advisor at Harvard Divinity School, said to me after reading my thesis. He said, “There is a saying among ministers that every minister has their one sermon, which they share in a thousand different ways, I think yours is resilience.” At that moment, I felt so seen.

I’ve come to realize that resilience is a life-long journey. There is no end point, but it can be strengthened. Looking back, I can see that the seeds for my work, bringing yoga and chaplaincy together to support people in building resilience, were planted in my childhood. I grew up in Ojai, California, a town known for its spiritual seekers and artists. My parents were both. We moved to Ojai for the Oak Grove School, founded by Jiddu Krishnamurti, a philosopher and teacher from India, who was interested in the question, “How do we realize our human potential?” He was interested in this question, not only for one’s own benefit, but for the sake of humanity. This question continues to guide my life.

My father died from cancer when I was a child, and after his death the practices of yoga and meditation that I’d been introduced to at home and the Oak Grove School became bedrock. They helped me to experience post-traumatic growth, which led me to receive a full scholarship to Phillips Exeter Academy (Exeter), a boarding school, in New Hampshire.

Fast-forward several years and I began teaching yoga privately to a student in Berkeley, California. When she wrote me a testimonial the last line stayed with me. She wrote, “The yoga experience with Melissa has not only changed my body, but her insight and perspective has changed my mindset.” At that moment a light bulb went off. I knew it was the alchemy of yoga and the wisdom that we were gleaning in our discussions and readings that had ignited her transformation. I wanted to deepen my understanding of this potent combination and expand upon it, and so I went to Harvard Divinity School and developed The Mind Body Wisdom Method. Now this methodology informs how I teach, serve as a chaplain, work with private clients, and facilitate retreats at Drala Mountain Center and elsewhere.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Similar to my life path, my professional path has not been linear. It has been more akin to walking a labyrinth. As we walk a labyrinth, we get closer to the center, and then at the moment that we think we have arrived, we return to the outer edge, yet we continue to walk and trust that eventually we will make it. This is a metaphor that I love to return to, so that I don’t get discouraged when things go more slowly than I’d like.

Two of my challenges have been finishing my book and marketing my work. Hence, I am working to say, “Yes,” to more opportunities to share about my work, and I am seeking an editor. Also, I like to remind myself that obstacles can be teachers, and that our struggles are like the grit that creates the oyster’s pearl.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Yoga Transforms Us?
I am a teacher, chaplain, and transformational facilitator. I offer Yoga and The Mind Body Wisdom Method both privately and for groups to facilitate growth, healing, resilience, and transformation.

The intention of Yoga Transforms Us is to provide practices, tools, experiences, information, and inspiration that support well-being, resilience, and transformation. Through engaging our minds, bodies, hearts and spirits our awareness deepens, we transform.

The four pillars of Yoga Transforms Us are:

1) Mind: Cultivate a perspective that brings peace through curiosity, inquiry, mindfulness, awareness, observation, and inspiration.
2) Body: Create ease, build strength, cultivate flexibility, reduce pain through linking attention, breath, and movement. Bring attention to the five senses. Listen to the body.
3) Heart: Cultivate compassion, gratitude, courage, openheartedness, and happiness. Create space to feel emotions fully and to listen to their wisdom.
4) Spirit: Connect to a sense of inner peace, community, reverence for life and or God. Cultivate a reliable pathway to the sacred and to an experience of inner refuge. Awaken. Practice gratitude.

Last, I see individual and societal transformation as inextricably linked, and my hope is that the work we do to embody these pillars will ignite personal and societal transformation.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
My life is guided by prayer. I have deep faith in God and profound gratitude for the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, who I was introduced to by my step-father, Jack, when I was eleven years old. Shortly after my own father died.

My life has had so much luck and magic in it! I see life similar to when I walked the pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago in Spain. On the Camino you follow the yellow arrows all the way to Santiago de Compostela. I see my life as having many “yellow arrow” or blessings that guide me to the next opportunity, lesson, or person.

Through my journey, I have met some of the most amazing people! I am grateful for my family, friends, mentors, teachers, and God. I feel deeply blessed!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yogatransformsus.com/
• Instagram: yogatransformsus
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-lago20/
• Other: https://www.dralamountain.org/program/yn126-yoga-and-nature-gifts-of-the-season/

Image Credits
Mary Prentice, Photographs #1-5 and #7
Melissa Lago, Photograph #6