Ashley received her 200-hour yoga teacher training certificate from Ahh Yoga in January 2017 and is a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) with Yoga Alliance. She is trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and studied with Mindful Schools to become a K-12 mindfulness educator. Her areas of interests include: trauma-informed yoga, yoga nidra, and yoga/mindfulness for kids. She’s also trained under James Fox, founder of the Prison Yoga Project (PYP), to become certified to teach trauma-informed practices. She’s enjoyed an IRest Yoga Nidra immersion program with Stephanie Lopez and recently earned her certification in Kids and Families Yoga Teaching Training with Rainbow Kids Yoga in Chicago, Illinois.
Ashley’s big dream of growing mindfulness training in her local grade schools, prisons, and other underserved populations really took off in 2017. Since receiving her 200RYT and quitting her 9-5 to teach yoga full-time, Ashley went on to hold enough successful fundraisers to bring the first Yoga and Mindfulness Club to Washington Middle School and provide the means to volunteer on a regular basis at the Old Capital Farmers Market, with the Boys and Girls Club, Compass for Kids, the Kidzeum of Health and Science, as well as present her mission at conferences with the Illinois Association of Community Action Agencies and Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Her most current Giving Tuesday fundraiser brought daytime programming to seven more area schools. She had the honor of offering MBSR training to military personnel at the 2018 Annual SHARP Refresher Training in Marseilles and Springfield, Illinois. She founded and is the executive director of Yoga for a Mindful Midwest, an initiative that has ushered mindfulness programming into District 186 schools, local organizations, Decatur, Illinois's Eisenhower High School, and public events, an accomplishment that led to her being the 2018 recipient of the Community Foundation for the Land of Lincoln’s Women Helping Women Award. A native of Springfield, she happily makes a home here with her partner, Jim, and their fantastic daughter, Mira.