Allyson was born on October 3rd on the shoreline of Connecticut. She was raised in a small beach town until the age of 17 where she moved to Tampa, FL to pursue an arts degree in Creative Writing.
While in college, she discovered yoga, meditation, and made traveling a priority. She spent the summer of 2013 in Ghana teaching yoga at a rural clinic in Kongo. There, she worked one on one with patients in the maternity ward instructing poses to relieve pain and create a feeling of peace and relaxation.
The summer of 2014, she backpacked through America to learn about sustainable living and permaculture. She worked on three farms located in Georgia, Washington State, and Alaska. Her passion for herbal medicine, healing with plants, veganism, and organic living was ignited here.
With the relentless desire to travel constantly calling to her, she decided to spend her last two semesters of university abroad in New Zealand. Allyson was accepted into a prestigious writing program at the University of Auckland. She won an award for a short story that she wrote about one of her experiences on the farm in Georgia. You can read it HERE.
After her time in New Zealand, she traveled back to Connecticut to prepare herself for her next adventure. She was set on volunteering in another third world country. After getting delayed by the Peace Corps due to lost paperwork on their part, she joined a half-marathon training group to bring her spirits back up. Here, she met a woman who connected her with an organization in the Dominican Republic.
For all of 2017, Allyson volunteered for the Village Mountain Mission near Luperon, Dominican Republic. She taught two pre-school classes in a local village named La Sabana. Here, she learned how to speak Spanish. Allyson went on to create an education program in another village, teach English to adults, teach yoga to short-tern volunteers, help build houses, deliver medication, and anything else she could do to support the people in the local villages.
After her time in the Dominican Republic, Allyson left to teach English in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She taught English and writing to middle school and high school students and facilitated and after-school Mindfulness Club. During summer vacation, she went on to India to live in an ashram.
In July of 2018, Allyson became a certified yoga teacher by the Om Shanti Om Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
Allyson returned to Chiang Mai and eventually moved to a small island in the Philippines to teach yoga full time. From here, Allyson traveled to Singapore, Indonesia, and back to Northern Thailand to teach yoga at a recovery center called the New Life Foundation.
In 2019, Allyson returned to Connecticut to connect with her family and open her own yoga studio. She taught regular yoga and meditation classes and facilitated events and workshops.
Allyson also became a certified Stretch Therapist and apprenticed under a licensed acupuncturist and physical therapist to learn more about TCM. She learned more about holistically healing physical ailments, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and learning how energy interacts within the body.
Due to COVID-19, Allyson was forced to close down her studio and stop working in the acupuncture clinic. She redesigned to be available virtually by offering online retreats that educate her online community on spiritual and holistic topics as well as yoga, meditation, and journaling classes.
Allyson is extremely passionate about making the world a better place in the name of wellness. She incorporates her many skillsets into her events and retreats including ancient medicine, yoga, traveling, mindfulness and self-care.
She also has a incredible skill for managing and bringing people together that has developed from her experiences traveling all over the world and working one-on-one as well as leading group classes and workshops. Allyson is able to understand and empathize with all types of people.
Interested in working with Allyson? Send an email to ally@shanticommunity.com
