Life and Work with Emily Blanche

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Blanche.

Emily, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My yoga quest began in the early 90s taking Kundalini Yoga classes in my chircopractor’s front office after hours on Mondays. I had asked my mom if there were any yoga classes in town. She couldn’t find any and asked her chiropractor Jap Singh Khalsa who started a class that ended up being my first steps in a long journey. Many years later after graduating from the Bikram Yoga teacher training in Los Angeles, I moved to San Francisco and lived my dream of teaching yoga and living in the city. After a good stint, I moved back to Phoenix and began teaching around the valley and working towards my Kundalini Yoga teacher certification and learned to play the gong and received Reiki training from Sangeet Kaur Khalsa. In 2009, I began to lead sound bath meditations at my home studio Bikram Yoga Phoenix owned by Brooke Sterling. Together, we held quarterly meditations that were well attended and proved to be a need among the students. Ten years later, I’m still at it and have expanded holding sound baths at many yoga studios, art galleries (such as the Phoenix Art Museum), private events, ceremonies, group homes and serving people with special needs. Seeing and hearing the benefits of these events my goal is to share this medicine with as many people as possible.

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?
I am grateful I felt pulled, almost pushed in this direction. When I first started, there were not many people doing this, so I thought it must not be a path. I struggled trying to make other side jobs that had better paved paths my thing but felt a little lost and unfulfilled. It wasn’t until I fully accepted that this is my calling, this is how I can best serve my community that things started to really flow.

Please tell us about Gold Lion Healing Arts.
At the moment Gold Lion Healing Arts offers sound bath meditations, yoga, reiki healing and meditation classes for groups and private clients. These experiences support people into a powerful, deep state of relaxation that encourage the body’s own natural intelligent healing systems to activate. I’m currently working towards my Doctorate and Masters degree for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine. I’m excited to be able to expand what GLHA has to offer the community.

Besides bi-monthly Sound baths, I also teach weekly yoga classes: Yin yoga with sound healing, Restorative yoga with sound healing and Kids yoga.

I am able to customize each class to meet the specific needs of attending students. Helping each person to feel safe and seen.

What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
I feel a good teacher is a good student. It’s important to get on the other side of the experience regularly. Not only is it good self-care to practice, but it’s important to be in the student’s shoes to see what styles of teaching feels good what doesn’t. Keep learning, keep growing.

Contact Info:

• Website: goldlionhealingarts.com
• Phone: 602-828-3122
• Email: goldlionaz@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/goldlionaz
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emily.blanche.5

Image Credit:
Sumits North Phoenix, Sweatshop Central, Urban Yoga, Airi Katsuta

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