Kelly recently completed her 200 Hour YTT requirements for Certification as a Yoga, Mindfulness, and Meditation Instructor, at the Yoga Farm in Lansing, New York, in April 2020. (www.yogafarm.us) This training that she received from her beloved and respected teachers: Christopher Ananda, Daniela Hess, and Jeannie O’Neill, helped her to embody and bring full circle her Ayurvedic understanding, by immersing herself into learning about Yoga, which is a branch of Ayurvedic Medicine.

The additional training in Mindfulness and Meditation helped her to not only embody this ancient wisdom, but utilize it more fully, by establishing a daily movement and breath based spiritual practice, helping to ground the knowledge and enhance the effectiveness of her self care practices. Yoga and Meditation help bring about understanding and clarity with respect to the mind and spirit, complimenting her traditional Ayurvedic training which focused on ways to transform one’s life through the physical body.

Kelly studied Traditional Ayurvedic  Medicine and Bodywork at the dhyana Center of Health Sciences in Sebastopol, California, and completed her training in June of 2008. She gained her Certification in Traditional Ayurvedic Science, Holistic Nutrition, and Clinical Aromatherapy, through the dhyana Center, from her deeply respected and loved teacher, Deanna Batdorff.  She worked for a year as an intern at The Dhyana Center, to help facilitate further learning, and enhance her understanding of Ayurveda as a Science, through hands on experience.

Traditional Ayurvedic Bodywork and Techniques, Cooking and Nutrition, Gardening, Medicine Making, Herbology, Transformative Pancha Karma Journeys, and Vedic Spiritual Practices being her primary areas of experience. Kelly’s Ayurvedic studies and training includes: 165+ hours of Theoretical Instruction, 85+ hours of Clinical Training, a 1 year Internship which included traditional hands on Bodywork, Donation Clinic Consultations, Traditional Pulse and Lifestyle Consultations, and Pancha Karma Transformational Healing Retreat experience, at the dhyana Center.

Kelly completed her California C.M.T. requirements in August 2008, at the Sebastopol Massage Center, in Sebastopol California, training with Patricia Oberg. Kelly has a 250 hour California Massage Therapy Certification in the following modalities: Swedish, Hot Rock, Deep Tissue, Thai, Sports, and Reflexology, as well as training in massage for people with health challenges, and those healing from or fighting serious illness.

Kelly has been studying Herbology and other alternative healing methods such as Holistic Nutrition, Flower Essences, Wild Crafting, Chinese Medicine, and the use of Food Grade and Isolate Vitamins and Supplements, since 1995. While working to find health and balance in her life, she learned about gluten free and dairy free cooking, and many ways to transform her perspective and health.

By integrating what she learned from Ayurveda, she followed a self care program, successfully lost 75 pounds, overcame childhood asthma and her dependency on asthma medication, over a five year period of intense detoxification, dietary and lifestyle changes, and meditation.

Kelly graduated with honors in 2006 from Sonoma State University, with B.A. degrees in Women’s and Gender Studies, & Geography, & Minors in Environmental Studies and Planning, & Psychology. She worked as a Naturalist for over seven years, taking children and adults out into wilderness settings, to teach them about the Physical and Cultural Geography of various locations in the San Francisco Bay Area, and reconnecting them to nature.

Sharing and interpreting valuable knowledge is one of Kelly’s main passions & skills. She considers caring for and knowing her self, and helping others to empower themselves to be well through Ayurveda, her primary dharma or calling. White Lotus is a vehicle to help manifest her dharma, assist her in working to cut her cords of Sankara, and help eliminate suffering wherever possible.

Growing up in Cortlandville, NY, she understands the challenges of living in a climate that gets harsh winters, and the suffering involved with being diagnosed with asthma as a child, and continuing to suffer throughout her teen and adult years. She depended on asthma medication from the age of 7 until she was 35, and was hospitalized due to asthma, every Fall throughout her childhood, and often as an adult. Her struggle to overcome this disease led her to study many aspects of holistic health over her lifetime, and to earn her Certification as an Ayurvedic Practitioner in 2008.

Ayurveda’s holistic approach addressed not only Kelly’s physical body, but also her emotional body and causal body, therefore addressing the imbalances causing asthma to manifest as a symptom, at the root cause in her heart chakra, rather than simply attempting to eliminate the symptoms or deal with the symptoms of asthma externally.

She discovered that the mind and body were very connected and that grief was a powerful emotion that had, over time caused asthmatic symptoms to appear, and that diet also played a major role in its manifestation as a dis-ease. By learning her Doshic Constitution, she was able to focus on healing and see results! Knowing her elemental make up, also empowered her to understand what foods, spices, supplements, and activities would help bring balance to her mind and body, and as a result, lesson her asthmatic symptoms and her dependency on western medication to control them. This resulted in an improved quality of life in many ways including: less breathing difficulties, less illness, increased energy and immune function, financial savings, and an increased level of happiness and contentment.