Meet Leah Lobato

We were lucky to catch up with Leah Lobato recently and have shared our conversation below.

Leah, we are so happy that our community is going to have a chance to learn more about you, your story and hopefully even take in some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. Let’s start with self-care – what do you do for self-care and has it had any impact on your effectiveness?

One of my favorite things to remind myself is that “Self-care is not selfish.” Self-care has been a difficult journey for me. There are many factors in my life that had me believing that taking time for self-care was in some way selfish. I spent many years of my life worrying about and caring for others. From being the oldest daughter, to being the care taker in my first marriage, stepping into adopting twin babies, transitioning through a divorce to being in a long term relationship with someone who struggled with being consistent, parenting difficult teens and believing I needed to be perfect at work. Self-care was the last thing on my list.

I was gifted an amazing opportunity in 2020 to participate in a 200 hour virtual yoga teacher training with the BIPOC community through Yoga Assets. Interestingly enough, if 2020 would not have been the shut-down of the world as we knew it, and if it would have been business as usual, I would have refused the offer to participate. I would have believed that taking time to take a yoga teacher training was not an appropriate use of my time. The truth was, at the time I started the training I was a helium balloon with a pin prick and I was slowly losing my ability to float.

Taking the time to spend 200 hours learning more about yoga provided me an amazing opportunity do a lot of self study. I was able evaluate the way that I managed myself in my life. What I learned through those 200 hours is that simple mindfulness, meditation and movement create a peace in my mind and body to be able to sit with myself, be aware of my thoughts and calm my system. It doesn’t need to be an hour long yoga practice, just the simple practices of taking a few breaths and focusing on the present moment.

This knowledge has lead me to continue my meditation, mindfulness and yoga journey and to begin teaching others. In todays fast paced world the practice of taking just a few moments through the the day to be present is the best self-care anyone can give themselves.

What I hope to give back through my self-care journey, is that self-care doesn’t need to take a lot of time or cost a lot of money, it just needs to be a few moments to focus back to your own personal center and remember that we are each a frequency vibration offering our energy back into the universe.

What I hope to

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I have worked in disability advocacy throughout my professional career. I began by volunteering with individuals with disabilities through my k-12 education. My mom was a para-professional in an elementary school and we would often visit her class or help out on field trips. After graduating from college, I went on to work with adolescents in a residential treatment program, then with adults with disabilities and finally working helping individuals with disabilities access employment.

One important piece of this work is helping individuals with disabilities access their community and recreation. I began my career as a Recreational Therapist, helping individuals access recreation to improve both their physical and mental health. My yoga journey re-ignited my passion to look at all aspects of access for all individuals. The Yoga Assets training model to make “yoga a yes for every body,” reminded me to strive to make all the yoga practices I teach accessible and give many options for those that attend the classes I teach to make the practice fit their body and needs.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. Self-care is not selfish – make time for yourself, you can’t fill others cups when yours is empty.

2. Make it a yes for every body, not just yoga, but all things. Universal design is the philosophy focused on creating products, environments, and systems that are usable by all people, to the greatest extend possible. When our society can create access and opportunity that works for all people and is inclusive of all people we will all be more effective.

3. Be present in the moment. The difficult moments serve to teach us lessons and give us the opportunity to enjoy the shining moments even more. If all our life was easy, we would not appreciate the joys of our lives in the same way.

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

If I only had a decade left of my life I would focus on each present moment. Stop to smell the flowers, enjoy the changing seasons, feel the sand between your toes and the cold falling snow on your face. If I only have 1o more years to live, I would only see my Japanese flowering cherry bloom 10 more times. I would only get to experience the first snow of the season 10 more times. When you think of this over the course of a life span you forget that there are not infinite opportunities to be present in a particular moment. Savor each one.

Image Credits

All photos are owned by me