Hi, I'm Śri (Shree),

Within each one of us lies the power to create. We are using it all the time, every day with each choice we make. Often, we get caught up in the flow of what’s going on around us and forget that we have any choices at all. We go on auto pilot. We make the same choices again and again by default because we’ve lost the ability to hear the one voice that can truly guide us. Only by slowing down and getting really quiet can we reconnect and hear what our hearts are saying. Yes, this is challenging. No, you may not want to hear what it’s saying right away. It might be calling for a change that seems impossible. But if you keep listening, it will begin to show you a way.

I kept my heart locked up in a box for many years. It caused me sleeplessness, anxiety, stress beyond belief, headaches, and several other physical and emotional symptoms. Why? Because I wasn’t listening to what I needed. I was listening to what every one needed from me. I thought that as long as everyone around me was happy, I would be happy. But really, I had abandoned myself.

Energy work, yoga, meditation, and mantra practice provided me a safe space to feel again. It was too hard to find time and space in my daily life to do this on my own, so having someone there to hold space for me was essential. It also gave me an accountability partner and a compassionate sounding board to stay true to my own healing and self care.

These practices helped me connect me back to the parts of myself I thought I had lost, in order to heal and re-integrate.

For the past decade, I've held space in many ways: 1:1 Integrated Healing Sessions w/ Reiki & Sound, global collective healing meditations and chanting circles, silent retreats for woman, and online 40-day practice containers with Sanskrit mantra, which have now become the Sacred Sound Sangha.   

I feel blessed to have had (and continue to have) so many amazing teachers guiding me, and I'm dedicated and passionate about passing on these practices that have been life-changing, and in many ways life-saving, for me.

Discovering Yoga

I have been drawn to the nature of reality for as long as I can remember. In my early 20’s, I became fascinated by the union of mind and body in the present moment and the healing that can take place there. Coming from a background in theater and dance, I began sharing this as an important life skill with children of all ages through those mediums.

Finding yoga while in recovery from surgery, I realized that the essence of what I was teaching in my theatre classes, I could share even more deeply through yoga. I was committed to finding a yoga teacher training that was based in traditional teachings. I found ShivaShakti School of Yoga in 2015 and studied intensively with Krishna Perry and Aiyana Athenien along with many other fabulous teachers there until completing my 500HR YTT in 2018. Over the years I have done specialty training in Yoga Nidra, pranayama (yogic breathwork), meditation, children’s yoga, Restorative Yoga, Ayurvedic yoga, and Thai yoga bodywork.

A Passion for Sanskrit

Shortly after beginning yoga teacher training, I was increasingly drawn towards chanting practices. I was consistently hearing mantras in my head and sometimes, I would see Sanskrit letters flash across my inner screen as I was waking up. 

In 2016, I began intensive studies in Sanskrit and yogic philosophy with Prem Sadasivananda from whom I was blessed to recieve my spiritual name Śri Devi in 2017. Through Prem’s guidance I was lead to Sri Vidya Ramananthan and Samskrita Bharata, where I continued my Sanskrit studies until 2023. In 2022, I was lucky enough to be led to Shantala Sriramaiah (Veda Studies) and since then I have been training with her inside a living lineage of Veda chanting from South India. Chanting has changed my life. I’m so grateful to now be able to pass on these practices as an authorized teacher of this tradition.

Here are some blog posts that give a couple of snippets of my journey.

How I Found Yoga: My Trip Down the Rabbit Hole 

Following a Path You Cannot See

What's in a Name? The Story of Śri

Working with Vedic Deities as a Westerner