Meet Taylor Oberman of Homlistic Healing and Illumilife

Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Oberman.

Hi Taylor, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
The beginning of my story started in 2015 when I lost three important people in my life. I had lost two grandpas and a best friend to old age and suicide. A whole year went by where I didn’t make space to grieve and ended up dealing with daily anxiety, bouts of depression, loss of appetite, and loss of total direction in my life. There were days I had anxiety that lasted the entire day and I never even slept.

One day my mom recommended that I attend a yoga class with her because that was her form of relaxing. At this point, I was willing to try anything. I attended my first yoga class at Hot Yoga University and I had a panic attack 5 minutes in and laid down on the mat for the rest of the class. I never thought I would go back to yoga because that one class was just confirmation that I was broken and couldn’t be fixed.

The ironic thing about going to that one yoga class was that it helped me sleep a few hours through the night for the first time in months. I decided even though I didn’t spend most of the class doing anything but laying down that I was going to try again but this time on my own. Still full of panic throughout the entire next class I took, I focused on my breathing and telling myself that no matter what I was going to stay through the end of class.

I made it to the end of class and the instructor cued me to roll into a fetal position facing the parking lot. This beautiful red sunset bled through the windows of the studio and the words “everything is going to be okay” came across my mind. From then on, I just kept going to class knowing that every day I went I felt even just a little bit better than the last. Shortly after I started doing yoga I did my first hypnotherapy session over at Illumilife with Sherry Gilbert not ever knowing what therapy could even do for me as a human, let alone hypnotherapy.

She showed me how to reclaim my joy in life, taught me how important boundaries were, and gave me the ability to step so far outside of my comfort zone. I continued the practice of yoga and attending hypnotherapy sessions for 5 years during my time as a retail manager at LUSH Cosmetics at Fashion Square Mall.

Fast forward to December of 2017, and I was getting signals from my head and my heart that I should become a teacher, but I just wasn’t feeling the idea right away because I had such a hard time with public speaking. I remember having a conversation with my best friend while I was in California visiting her and saying, “If Hot Yoga University ever did yoga teacher training I would enroll.”

Two weeks later when I had returned from my trip, my manifestation had been answered and Hot Yoga University was having its first ever enrollment of yoga teacher training. I pulled together the money, worked it out with my job, and started my journey in February 2018. Little did I know that I would cry, laugh, and learn more than I had ever expected with some of the most amazing humans.

I got to learn from the very people that I looked up to through my healing journey with grief over the last few years, and now I was here learning how to put myself in their shoes to lead others. The experience was surreal. I graduated in the spring of 2018 and was asked to officially obtain the non-heated vinyasa yoga class on Thursdays at Hot Yoga University.

I taught for about four months before I began teaching Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings and subbing in the room on Tuesdays when I could. Teaching taught me to get in front of people, speak from my heart, and it gave me back so much exchange in love and energy that I never found in most of my jobs.

In December 2018, I took a 3 week’s break from teaching to run my insane holiday with my team at LUSH Cosmetics. After the holidays were over there were changes at the studio, and no ability for me to balance two jobs so I resigned from the studio. I buried myself so far in my retail job that I began working 50 hour work weeks with no sight of work life balance in the mix besides my yoga practice I was doing from home. That May I took a vacation that reminded me that life is too short and I wasn’t having enough fun. I came home and put in my two weeks at my job and started searching for the next thing that would capture my heart and my skills.

During my last few weeks at LUSH, I came to the realization that the coaching piece and helping my staff better their life inside and outside of work was my answer. I wanted to be a hypnotherapist. I didn’t tell anyone besides my hypnotherapist Sherry and my husband Tyler that I realized hypnotherapy was where I belonged too. Sherry was thrilled and said, “I have always known that you would be a hypnotherapist” and offered me a space to come onto her private practice at Illumilife LLC once I was certified.

I began school in January 2020 for my hypnotherapy certification with SWIHA in Tempe, Arizona. I continued to juggle more retail management jobs and was still trying to figure out how to keep a steady income while pursuing my passions. I graduated in the fall of 2020 with my 100 hour hypnotherapy certification with SWIHA. After graduation I took some space away from starting my practice right away due to my Step dad’s passing from a long battle with cancer. I took a job in the mortgage industry to work a set schedule and establish work life balance and found myself doing well with three promotions in that year I was with the company I was working for. During this time I was still working on figuring out when I would make the leap to my real career in Hypnotherapy and Yoga.

As most people know the mortgage industry has been on a decline in the last year with the increase in rates and layoffs were happening every 6-12 weeks from August 2021-January 2022. Thankfully I had survived every round but felt more scared about my stability as an employee in the business. I was miserable. I came home from work one day and cried thinking, “How could I continue to give friends and family advice about not working miserable jobs and here I am doing it to myself.” My body was giving me physical signs of pain through my injury recovery of my FHL tendonitis. I had plateaued with some of my recovery. My amazing physical therapist and performance coach Stephanie Mundt helped me realize how much stress can impact the body to heal and she taught me how to love my body where it was at and celebrate where it was going.

My husband Tyler told me to quit my job to be happy and that very next day I came home from work and resigned. I was ready to start the next era of my life, but in the things where I am the most passionate. I opened my yoga practice Homlistic Healing and began working at Illumilife LLC as a certified hypnotherapist. I spent a month putting all of my management retail experience to work with action planning, setting up my business, goal setting, and creating a social platform.

My biggest focus to open my yoga business was being able to teach goal-oriented yoga and reach people that were too anxious to get into a studio but ready to start a practice. I focus on bringing yoga to meet your body and that yoga is more than just a physical practice. I offer private lessons to students in my studio space 2 1/2 days a week, teach online zoom community donation classes, group classes, and events on the weekends, and I am currently networking to teach at small businesses in the valley/in a studio.

With my hypnotherapy business, my goals are to help clients remove barriers in their lives that hold them back from living their most joyous selves. I want to help clients set boundaries, heal from grief or trauma, set and achieve their goals, relax from a stressful job, and help rearrange whatever puzzle pieces of their life that sometimes get thrown at us. I take Hypnotherapy clients 3 days a week and attend bi weekly hypnotherapy mentor groups with 5 other hypnotherapists in the valley to grow our education in the field.

I cannot believe that I drive home after working with clients romanticizing about my life as a hypnotherapist and yoga instructor. How crazy it is that something that once helped me is now a gift I get to share with people to help them heal.

Alright, 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 most challenging part is making the leap to running your own business. People always say to live your dreams and take the leap but never understand the challenge and sometimes struggles that come along with doing so.

I thought I was going to be able to start my business on the side and work full time but I didn’t have energy to do them both. I was exhausted after an 8 hour work day. I knew that I was not going to be able to give my clients the attention that they needed if I was burning the candle at both ends working a full time job and working my passions part time. My energy was always best dedicated to one thing at a time and that is why I quit my job to start my new businesses.

Running your own business is extremely exciting and empowering but can also be really scary. You have to motivate yourself daily to create content, and go out and sometimes find your clients. You even have to remind yourself that you are doing well as a business owner because you are now your own boss. For myself I keep track of monthly business goals I set for myself and do a review at the end of the month. As a business owner you have to take risks and know that sometimes you might take a risk that takes you no where. The fun in all of that though is that you get to make those decisions yourself and have fun while doing so. Some months I have found myself not projecting to make my bills and I find myself hustling to sell my clothes on poshmark or creating a last minute event to showcase my business to more people.

What I continue to learn through all of this is that I still get to what I love at the end of the day no matter how hard the hustle gets sometimes. Change is inevitable and I just have to keep adapting and growing when it does. My advice to anyone who is looking to do this is that you can almost never have a plan, you just have to do it.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I am the owner of Homlistic Healing LLC a private yoga practice. At my studio, I focus on one-on-one yoga that is goal-oriented and I create yoga classes that meet your body. I focus primarily on foundational yoga but teach all levels of the practice. My goal is to reach all of the people that are too scared to get into a group setting or studio but are ready to explore yoga. Homlistic Healing gives them a place to explore, ask questions, and learn in a safe space. In private classes I focus on mediation, physical movement that meets your body’s needs, and creating a practice that helps you achieve goals on and off of your mat. Outside of privates I teach group events, pairs, and I am currently looking for a studio to teach in a few days a week. I am a 200 hour registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance and specialize in Hatha, vinyasa, and some restorative yoga.

At Illumilife LLC I am employed as a 100-hour certified Hypnotherapist and look to reach clients that are working through anxiety/depression/grief, setting boundaries, looking to relieve stress, and looking to work through any of life’s challenges that hold them back from living their most joyous selves. I want people to know that my main goal is to help people discover how much more they can do with their lives and their goals if they have someone unbiased to talk to or even a safe space to go when life happens. In my hypnotherapy sessions at Illumilife we offer 2-hour sessions for all clients. The first hour is coaching and chatting and the second hour is spent in hypnosis if the client wants to.

Any big plans?
My future plans include hosting awareness events about hypnotherapy and doing collaborative yoga classes/events with other small businesses around the valley. I plan to find a studio to teach in a few days a week outside of my private practice.  Outside of my work I am always looking for workshops to attend and events to grow my knowledge in yoga and hypnotherapy. At some point, my plan is to go back to SWIHA for some more school with hypnotherapy to obtain my 300-hour certificate and to take my 300 hour Yoga Teacher Training. Most of all I am just working on enjoying the journey of doing what I love to do.

Pricing:

• $115 per hour for 60-minute Yoga Sessions.
• $165 for 2 hours of Hypnotherapy.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://illumi.life/
• Instagram: @homlistic.healing
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LiveBrightBoldandBeautiful

Image Credits
Arin Garduno with Arinzona Photography