LINDA Yogini Kamala SMITH-DIKE

My husband and I live on an organic farm and have a Tibetan Yak Ranch in Wellington, KY, US.  We were inspired to obtain Tibetan yaks and give our farm a Tibetan name after visiting McLeod Ganj, a community which is the home of the Dalai Lama and which has many Tibetan refugees.   I have studied yoga for 14 years and obtained advanced yoga teacher training in 2013 from Yogi Sivadas at the Kailash Tribal School in McLeod Ganj, Himalayas, India.  I am also a Family Nurse Practitioner with experience in family practice and psychiatry.  In 2012, I decided to take a 2 month sabbatical from work, and spent one month at Plum Village, Zen Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh's Monastery in the South of France.  I learned meditation and mindfulness practices that I now teach in every yoga class.    I also went to the Anand Prakash Ashram in Rishikesh, India for 2 weeks following my time at the monastery.  That experience piqued my interest in obtaining yoga teacher training, which I did the following year. When I returned to the U.S. after completing my training in December, 2014, I decided to leave my clinic/hospital practice and establish my own business of holistic healing with yoga.  Although my knowledge as a Nurse Practitioner is invaluable, the actual standards of care generally perpetuate patients' dependence on medications.  Less than 5% of patients, in my experience, took responsibility for their health practices, despite counseling on how to do so.    I now feel that, although my client group is smaller than my previous patient population, they are constantly moving forward in better health.  I believe that after every yoga class, they are a little bit healthier in body, mind and spirit than they were at the start of class.  At the beginning and end of each class, I lead a meditation and mindfulness practice.  My students value the holistic approach to health of body, mind and spirit, relationships, and our world.