We believe in self care as a form of protest. 

Lisa is an editor and ghostwriter who assists existing and new authors in creating exceptional prose and reaching new readers. A UNESCO award winner for peacebuilding education, Lisa works with household-name clients like Eckhart Tolle, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Marianne Williamson, Geneen Roth, Ashanti Branch, and many others, to refine and deliver their teachings to the world.

She is an award-winning short story and poetry author, the 2015 winner of the Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs inaugural prize, and a former academic director at the University of British Columbia in global economics and community development.

​Nishi is an AFPA (American Fitness Professional Associates) certified Personal Trainer, and Nutrition and Wellness Consultant. She is a South Asian by birth with a trained western influence in the food, fashion and fitness industry.

Nishi supports people to get on their nutrition goals, engage in their fitness regime and dress up their personality, right out of their house with 100% online services through her company Food, Fitness & Fashion.

Her services revolve around personalization with 80% nutrition, 20% fitness, and 100% mindset that is customized and tailored to the clients needs with daily checkins and motivation without drastic lifestyle changes. Her offerings include training based on HIIT, Weight training, Cardio, Strength Training, Pilates and Yoga. She helps her clients improve their lives with only a 10-15 min investment on a daily basis. She provides wholesome easy to make, tasty recipes for all including gluten-free, vegan, and paleo options.

Nishi is a mom, an Engineering Leader by profession and an aspiring AMERICAN SMOOTH Ballroom Dancer competing in the US. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and 12 year old daughter. Her husband is a cross fit junkie and her daughter pours her heart into Tap dancing.

Nishi is a Retreat Leader with Dragonfly Healing Center, facilitating workshops and sharing inspiration at numerous retreats.

Pooja Sathyanarayanan, MA, MSc

Pooja holds a Master’s in Positive Developmental Psychology from Claremont Graduate University and a Master’s in Applied Psychology, Clinical Specialisation from Pondicherry University, India. She has worked and volunteered in non-profit, behavioral science research and tech start-up settings.

As a participant of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction 4-week course and the Mindful Self-Compassion 5-day intensive, she has learned to tend to the stresses and anxieties in her life from a space of self-compassion and by turning toward rather than resisting unpleasant emotions and feelings. She is constantly seeking opportunities to understand and create content related to the human capacity to flourish and thrive.

​In her spare time, she enjoys reading, hiking and window shopping at gift stores.

Sher Gibbs, MBA, PhD

Dr. Sher Gibbs is the Senior Management Consultant for Ways of the Rising Woman. Sher is the Dean at Monfort College of Business at the University of Northern Colorado, UNC, and the President/CEO of GCNF Ventures, Inc. Her background is in software engineering and business. Dr. Gibbs has more than fourteen years experience in IT and an unwavering passion for all things "entrepreneurship". She assists start-ups and small business owners with business development and strategy, new product development, and innovation. Dr. Gibbs has started four business ventures and has a keen eye for great new business ideas. She is extremely proficient in business and technical writing, identifying new business opportunities, and performing industry, market and competitive research. She consults with businesses large and small, including our nonprofit organization.

Dr. Gibbs is the current Director at Large for the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, whose mission is to provide the network to advance knowledge and foster business development through entrepreneurship education and research. She is also involved in other meaningful initiatives in service to our nation, including community service organizations and aligned professional affiliations.

Sookie (she/her) has been teaching yoga since 2004 and practicing since 1997. While her foundations are in the Iyengar and Ashtanga traditions, she discovered the deep benefits of Yin Yoga and became one of its first teachers in the DC area in 2009.

​Sookie immigrated from Seoul, S. Korea with her family when she was eight years old and grew up in the suburbs of Maryland. She studied Computer Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and enjoyed many years in sales, marketing and software development at Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard while raising her family.

She is a yogi, ceramist, writer, outrigger canoe paddler and community volunteer. She and her husband of thirty years live on Maui and have two adult children who have flown the nest.

Yasmina Porter, RYT

Yasmina Porter is a Dance historian and Fulbright Scholar raised in Ghana West Africa. She is a Prayer Practitioner, Professor, Storyteller, Mindful Dating Coach, and Certified Teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. She received a traditional Yoga education. She worked one on one and in small classes with her guru, Montanette Bennet at an Ashram in Ghana over a four year period. Porter went on to study within a secular Ashram in Bangalore,India and become Certified in Pre-natal and Post Partum Yoga through whole Birth Yoga. She received her qualification to teach through her guru in 1996, and went on to be the primary Yoga teacher at her own studio, Funk Works, in Emeryville, California.

​Yasmina Porter is currently on the faculty at Cabrillo College in the Dance Department and the Academy for College Excellence where she is a Professor of Movement, Stress Reduction and Yoga. She is also a fluent Spanish speaker.

Yasmina has completed the Advanced Retreat Teacher Training Certification through Dragonfly Healing Center and has led workshops teaching yoga and dance at several of the Moving Into The Light Women's Retreats.

Yolanda Rhodes, soprano, a native of East Palo Alto, began to develop her musical gifts as a young adult. She studied voice with Joseph Frank and Kaye DeVries. She worked with mentors in the worlds of jazz and theatre. An active soloist and recitalist, Ms. Rhodes has been a featured singer with AACI every year since its founding. She has performed newly commissioned works by Joshua McGhee and Valerie Capers and an extensive repertoire of artsongs and spiritual settings by numerous composers including H. Leslie Adams, Margaret Bonds, Jacqueline Hairston, Betty Jackson King, Lena McLin, Zenobia Powell Perry, Florence Price, Hale Smith, and William Grant Still, among many others. Her recital repertoire includes American and European arias and artsongs from a wide range of eras, as well as spiritual arrangements and solo renditions of spirituals. With pianist Josephine Gandolfi she has collaborated in vocal jazz arrangements of classical works.

The Moving Into The Light Women's Retreats are blessed by Yolanda's gifts of creativity.

Yolanda offers private voice coaching as a path of liberation as she guides you in freeing your own voice.

Asha Goldweber, Ph.D., RYT, is a yoga and meditation teacher, writer, and research scientist—and is dedicated to making these fields accessible and meaningful. Translating contemplative science and harnessing the power of the heart-mind-body connection, Asha’s offerings empower and elevate. Her work spans corporate, private, and community based settings (e.g., tech companies, studios, juvenile justice systems, and after school programs).

From a young age Asha was exposed to Eastern philosophy. Her late mother, a Sri Lankan immigrant, would frequently host Buddhist monks at their home for dana and encourage service at the Washington Buddhist Vihara. A lifelong student, Asha began studying and practicing yoga over 18 years ago. She is devoted to sharing yoga with each student—to help them embody their true nature, and for the benefit of all beings. She teaches from the heartbeat of her practice: Bhakti (the yoga of love and devotion) and compassionate service.

Asha challenges students to show up for themselves—to elevate themselves and everyone, everyday; to see possibilities; and to do so with joy and equanimity. Her intention is to offer radical self-acceptance, laughter liberation, gratitude and the urgency to rise, particularly to women and girls of color and system involved youth.

In 2015, she founded Women of Power, a salon for intersectional feminism and action, which has (inter) national chapters. She has attended Summer Arts at CSUMB where she studied and honed her writing. Asha’s writing appears in Feminist Wire and Chapbooks. She recently submitted pieces entitled, “A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Being Other” and “Seeing and Being Seen.”

In her previous life, Asha worked as a research scientist at SRI International and Johns Hopkins University—where she designed and evaluated statewide mental health initiatives and evidence-based, prevention programs in schools.

Nancy is a virtual assistant based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Development Studies and a certificate in child psychology from Daystar University. Nancy has worked as an administrative assistant supporting non-governmental organizations that dealt with children, young people and mothers in Kenya. She has gained excellent communication skills, organization and empathy for clients over the years. She has worked with communities and community groups while helping women to start up small businesses and savings groups. Nancy loves supporting small businesses and organization to scale into heights through social media management and presence.

Currently, she is supporting the Ways of Rising Woman as a virtual assistant focused on social media.