By Serenity Dean

Yoga awakened something buried deep inside of Laura Vanderberg’s heart – something lodged underneath all of the training and scientific education that lead her to become a high profile Navy SEALS/EOD Techs science advisor, teacher, analyst and technology developer.

Laura started practicing the ancient art of yoga to counteract the pain of a past injury. Before long, the positive attributes of the practice became apparent in all aspects of her life.  She wanted to give this gift to others by becoming a teacher.

The year-long weekend teacher training program asked some seriously soul-searching questions of Laura – who are you? What is your purpose?  An unexpected life-changing answer popped out of her mouth:  she was no longer a scientist. 

Yoga had caused Laura to outgrow her career.  She wanted to live by her head and her heart! Yet, she didn’t know how. “The hardest part of my continuing journey is letting go of the science – all that education and experience. It’s been how I’ve defined myself for years,” explains Laura. “But that skin didn’t really fit anymore.”

Laura decided to take a two-month sabbatical to sort out this profound revelation.  Two dogs deep, she headed west – away from the almond-orange sunsets of Virginia Beach, where all was reason and logic. Instead, she turned towards the profane pink sunrises of a world ruled by her heart and guided by her ever-deepening intuition.

“First thing,” said Laura, “I overcame the fear of camping by myself.  I felt since I was looking for a connection to a new place that I needed to be willing to be out in it.  I needed to be strong enough to hike, camp, and sleep in nature.  That is how I would know the place where I was to go next.  And it worked!”

Over the next two months, Laura and her dogs, Boo & Kenny, covered a million miles of interstate, highway and back roads, stopping often for long hikes while following the mountain ranges north.  The quiet found within the rock-lined forests was deeper than she had ever known, and her breath lengthened as her ability to meditate improved with each day of her connect-the-dot journey.     

She was getting closer.

Suddenly, thirty miles outside of Cody, Wyoming, an overwhelming happiness consumed her heart.  She knew Cody was the place before ever laying eyes on the sweet, little spot nestled at the base of the Rockies.

One of her first stops was at a little curio shop named Indigo Magpie.  “I wandered in, looking for a yoga studio in Cody,” explains Laura. “Camilla, the owner, and now a good friend, said there wasn’t one in town.  I mentioned my teacher training and my current journey.  After about 10 minutes, Camilla took me to her basement and said ‘You can open a yoga studio right here!’ That’s when I knew…but I wasn’t quite ready to believe it yet.”

Nonetheless, the signs that Cody was her place started manifesting everywhere: the classified ad in the newspaper looking for a high school swim coach (swimming being her other passion), receptive business owners, the funky little coffee shop, and that long hike into the Big Horn Mountains.  Mind finally made up, Laura headed back to Virginia Beach to close that chapter of her life.  Laura’s Here yoga studio didn’t manifest in the Indigo Magpie’s basement.  Instead, it opened down the street in March of 2007.

Opening a studio in a small rural western town unaccustomed to the practice of yoga was an exercise in learning to fully trust her own heart and intuition despite what her traditional worries and fears might say. 

“Where my life has simplified the most is shedding the people-pleasing filters,” said Laura, taking a deep breath and smiling.  “You know, those filters that tell me I am suppose to be what everyone is comfortable with me being. When I could make them comfortable, I thought I was more comfortable—but I wasn’t. Now, I find myself stretching and growing and I am so grateful for that.”  

Laura’s next step is creating a program that takes women – women who are like the old Laura when she was caught between her head and her heart – backpacking into the Big Horn Mountains for a week-long journey of self discovery.

Laura has found the most rewarding simplification – living by her true self. 

For more information on Laura and her studio, visit www.hereyogacody.com.