Today, at the table we have two of my dearest friends, Reese McGillie and Abiola Akanni. We talk all about settling into us and taking up our space, cultural shifts in beauty standards, wellness as sacred ritual and yoga as nourishing movement. Reese is a thought leader with nearly 30 years of professional experience working across technology, marketing and analytics. She began her career journey working in software engineering but finally found her destiny working in analytics and data science where she gets to blend her passion for creating great human experiences with her interests in data and analysis. In addition to her professional career she is a certified yoga instructor and spends much of her spare time teaching yoga. Throughout her career she has leveraged her skills and experience to further philanthropic causes - serving on boards and steering committees for a few different Seattle non-profit organizations. Reese currently serves on the board of Community Passageways, a non-profit focused on felony diversion and prevention with a vision of ending youth incarceration. Reese resides in Seattle with her two children, husband and three dogs.

Abiola is a leader in the field of yoga, and has successfully cultivated inclusive wellness spaces that encourage communities to develop their personal yoga practice. The Nigerian-American yoga educator is the creator behind Yoga by Biola and founder of iya, the online platform offering non-performative yoga. Akanni is committed to disrupting commercial yoga standards that blot out other'd communities, and prioritize fitness-based poses over adaptable asana. Her inclusive mission encourages students to be who they are on and off the mat to embody non-performative living.

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Learn more about iya

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Learn more about iya's Yoga Teacher Training program