Blog Posts
Living Yoga + Foundation
At Foundation PDX, we believe that retail can extend past the traditional store model and create an impact in our community. This belief has led us to create a business that uses fashion as a vehicle for change. Women who shop with us are empowered to align their fashion with their values and directly invest in Portland nonprofits. Each quarter we partner with an organization aligned with our core commitment to equity, justice, innovation, and growth. Those we have the honor of collaborating with are our Impact Partners. Change starts with each of us, and we make it simple to vote with your dollar.
This quarter’s impact partner, Living Yoga, is a trauma-informed healing and resilience organization offering multiple services. Safe spaces are essential when survivors of harm and abuse want to heal. Living Yoga works to ensure that everyone they serve can breathe a bit easier and begin the journey of healing physically, mentally, and emotionally. Living Yoga implements its mission of fostering healing and resilience by training volunteers to provide trauma-informed yoga classes for those impacted by incarceration, substance use disorder, and health disparities. They also train community members and care providers to recognize and respond to symptoms of trauma.
Being healthy, physically and emotionally, is a right. Living Yoga has built a community that grows and heals together. Trauma lives physiologically in our bodies in a pervasive way, and trauma-informed practices move into those harmed spaces, helping the body release the trauma and relax into a healthier existence.
Living Yoga uses mindfulness paired with down-regulating movements and breath practices to calm and support the nervous system. . Through the practice of trauma-informed yoga, reconnection to the body begins. Living Yoga offers services that teach ways to move from a place of trauma into a place of confidence, protection from re-traumatization, and self-awareness. It is from this place that healing happens, and where we can be empowered to create personal and collective change.
All of Living Yoga’s classes, services, and training center accessibility and healing justice. Living Yoga volunteers are trained in trauma-informed best practices, and receive ongoing anti-racist education. Their services include learning tools that can be used within and outside of yoga – tools that support people in building resilience to daily life stressors, and confidence in interrupting oppression. We all deserve to live well and whole. Living Yoga envisions a world where all people, no matter their circumstances, have the support necessary to heal.
At Foundation, we are proud to support Living Yoga’s work and vision through our Impact Program. Each purchase you make with us from now until March 15th can directly support Living Yoga with bringing more health and healing to our city.
