Dawn Torres, RYT 500
"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud,
was more painful than the risk, it took to blossom."
Dawn is the owner of Laughing Buddha Yoga Studio. She is married and the mother of four amazing sons ages 6, 18, 19 and 27.
Dawn's path to yoga was a long and winding one. She was diagnosed with severe asthma as an infant which led to a childhood restricted in the activities she could participate in and an adult challenged by feelings of frustration about her poor health. In discovering yoga more than ten years ago, she felt as if she had fallen into what she had been searching so long and hard for all of her life. To come into a practice that allowed her to breathe, something she had always been challenged with, was amazing. She found in a very short time that the healing benefits of the postures, breath work and learning to turn inward instead of "out" for answers were quickly improving her health. She began her 200 hour teacher training with Yoga Works in Seattle and fell in love with the philosophy of yoga. Reading the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita inspired her and fueled her desire to share the teachings of yoga. Shortly after receiving her Yoga Works certification she made her first trip to Rishikesh, India, the Birthplace of yoga, to study with Master teacher, Anand Mehotra, which profoundly shifted her as a person and teacher. Through Anand's teachings, she came to know even more that the answers we seek are on the inside and that through the practice of yoga we are guided to our truth. Dawn loves to incorporate yogic wisdom and laughter into her classes. She feels that while the path might have some bumps along the way, finding our truth should be fun and bring us joy.
Dawn now understands that each of our journeys are filled with their own challenges and that we have a choice in how we perceive each and every moment. What she saw as an obstacle most of her life was in fact a gift. It was the light in the lighthouse continuing to guide her, saying "look here, continue to seek, and you will find." She knows that we are often given challenges not to destroy us, but to teach us, to guide us, eventually to what in each of us is home, to the beauty of the heart.