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For APOGEE instructor Noell Clark, yoga doesn’t end when she steps off the mat. “Part of a complete yoga practice is Seva, the practice of selfless service,” says Clark. Clark fulfills that aspect of her yoga at My Sister’s Place, a Westchester County-based non-profit that helps survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking.  For the last two years, Clark has been teaching yoga to the women enrolled in the center’s Life Skills Program, a 12-week empowerment and job readiness program.

For ten women at a time—a total of about 30 a year—the Life Skills Program provides skills and empowerment workshops. Clark has managed the Life Skills program since 2006. As a whole, My Sister’s Place provides legal services, counseling, education, and emergency shelter to thousands of women recovering from abuse and trafficking.

Yoga and My Sister’s Place are a good fit for Clark. She has a degree in Women’s Studies and Political Science from Purchase College, with a concentration in human services and social work.  And she knows personally how yoga, with its focus on joining the physical and spiritual, can help someone to become empowered. “I don’t come from the most pristine background—I’ve faced many challenges and overcome a lot in my life. Yoga has helped me with these transitions.” Clark says. “Yoga completely changed my life. For me it’s a no-brainer to give others the gift that was given to me and allowed me to get to the other side of my adversity.”

Exactly what yoga poses Clark teaches depends on her students. “If the women need to work through their anger, I do a rigorous practice so they can release their emotions and take it out on the mat,” she says. “If they’re farther along in their resolution, I do healing, restorative poses.” (We recently featured one of Clark’s restorative poses on this blog.)  Clark teaches five classes a week at APOGEE White Plains and encourages APOGEE members to practice Seva, too. “There’s a concept that in order to keep a gift you have to give it away,” Clark says. “If you act compassionately to others, the more you are open to receive compassion from the world around you.”

by Noell Clark, APOGEE Yoga Instructor

On busy days—and especially holidays such as Thanksgiving—it’s important to stay energized, calm and open to the people around you. Take five minutes to perform this calming and heart-opening yoga pose and you’ll be restored, relaxed and better able to receive and give gratitude. All you need is a blanket and floor space on which to lie.

To start: Roll the blanket into a cylinder and lay it on the floor. Sit with your sacrum or tailbone on the end of the blanket, then lie down, so that the blanket roll is under the length of your spine and also supporting your neck and head. Now bring your feet toward your groins, place the soles of your feet together and let your knees fall open. Put your arms on the floor away from the sides of your body, palms up. You should feel your chest opening; allow gravity to gently open your joints.

Now breathe: Then close your eyes and begin to breathe through your nose so that your belly moves up and down. Take full inhalations and exhale completely, pulling your belly button toward your spine at the end of each exhalation. As you focus on your breath, also check that your body is relaxed: Release your eyes, mouth, ears, shoulders, elbows, wrists. Focus on your in and out breath. Try to maintain the pose for five minutes, then roll to your right side and slowly come to a seated position, raising your head last. Take one more belly breath, smile, and be thankful for your day.

Learn more ways to turn on the calm in your life in our Unwind workshops, starting in January 2011.