Today we’d like to introduce you to Ka Zoua Xiong.
Hi Ka Zoua, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
My name is Ka Zoua Xiong, a certified yoga teacher in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am a long-time community builder and youth advocate turned yoga teacher during the pandemic.
Right before the world went into quarantine, I began experiencing what I later found out to be existential depression, where I lost interest in everything. I felt lethargic, hopeless, and empty, with persistent sadness and daily thoughts of ending my life. Although life looked perfect, I felt hollow inside with no purpose.
This resulted in me suffering silently with anxiety, internal violent dialogues, anger, and moments of what felt like my Soul fleeing my body. I carried this shame of “not having it together” and kept to myself until I finally opened up to my sister, who helped me call for a therapist, but by then, the Universe stepped in and led me to yoga in October 2019. Yoga saved my life.
I completed my 230 hours of yoga teacher training at the Yoga Center Retreat in Minneapolis in August of 2020. After an introduction to my first practice of Yoga Nidra, a laying down meditation that puts you in between sleep, I woke up to a foreign body and asked myself, “Where did all my stress go?!”
At that moment, I became overwhelmed with emotions as I finally understood how much stress my body had been holding on to and how much the stories that lived inside my head held me hostage to live only in fight or flight.
Through yoga and breathwork, I found my way back home to my body by remembering the importance of rest. I’m on a journey to guide more tired bodies, conditioned to the hustle culture, to learn how to rest for a greater impact.
My mission is to help good people do more good in the world by making yoga and breathwork applicable to their everyday stressful lifestyles.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My biggest struggle has been teaching, learning, and healing as I go. For me, the path of yoga is a spiritual path that goes deeper than the poses.
It has become the path to my self-liberation, so I struggle with sharing the deeper impact of yoga with folks with already perceived ideas of what yoga “should” look and be like. Although a struggle, it has also been surprising that the people seeking what I offer have and will continue to find me.
We’ve been impressed with Soul Ya Yoga, LLC, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Ultimately, I want to be the go-to person that tired CEOs, entrepreneurs, and organizations think of when they seek someone who can speak about REST & IMPACT. I offer a variety of classes, but my most popular ones are Yoga Nidra and Yin Yoga.
Yoga Nidra allows you to bring your favorite blanket and eye pillow to class and lay on the floor while I guide you through resting every inch of your body. If you don’t fall asleep during this process, you will be guided into a visualization meditation to connect with yourself. The yogis believe that 45 minutes of this equals to 4 hours of quality sleep! So, this is the best hack for our busy minds and bodies.
Yin Yoga is where we hold specific poses for 2-5 minutes to relax and go deeper into the fascia surrounding muscle, bones, and nerves. This practice will help you walk off the mat feeling bouncy and vibrant. During the hour of focusing on holding the poses, we tune into our exhalations to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which leaves us feeling calm and at peace.
I’m proud of being a space holder who embodies the practice with her members and isn’t afraid of what’s underneath the person who shows up on the mat. I hold my space with full conviction that each person who shows up is there to be guided back home, and I hold space with love and empathy for them to receive what they need when we’re together.
What sets me apart is that I’m intuitive to the energy in the room and will speak or move depending on the messages I receive. My teachings go beyond the poses. I use yoga as the path to the soul. I teach without music to allow members to hear their internal dialogues and assess the quality of their minds.
I challenge members to come face-to-face with what they’ve been running from, as stored emotions could surface from the deep stretches. They are allowed to release to create more room for all good things to come and stay.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Yoga has lasted for the past 5,000 years, and I see it lasting another 5,000 years. I know that building a strong community of members who practice together is at the heart of all successful yoga studios and yoga teachers.
Therefore, I look forward to using my community-building strength to help demystify what people think yoga is to experience the impact of how using these tools effectively can hack our mind, body, and soul to thrive in this world of hustle and distractions to remember our true calling.
I see Yoga Retreats will continue and more companies and schools will use yoga tools to help their employees and students have more energy to make a greater impact.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.soulyayoga.com/learnmore
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soulyayoga
