What matters most to you in life?
That was a question Lisa Garside found herself asking nearly 15 years ago, when her oldest son was dying of an auto-immune blood disorder. He was just a 1-year-old, and the medicine he was going to need to keep him alive would have meant constant care. At the time, she worked in mutual funds, and when she was told she might have to quit in order to take care of her son, her initial thought was, “I can’t do that – I have to work.”
The moment hit her like a ton of bricks. Her son survived the disease, but Garside’s career in mutual funds did not; she realized she wanted to pursue work that made a difference in the world, and instead became certified in personal training and a reiki instructor before finally landing on yoga.
“I realized that wasn’t a good way to be thinking, especially when it comes to children,” she said of her previous view on work. “What I wanted to do was help people.”
It’s been 15 years, eight of which she’s spent teaching yoga in Hopkinton, and she hasn’t looked back once. Now, Garside’s journey has landed her in a new location, smack in the center of Contoocook, where she’s been since October.
The new studio on Cedar Street in Contoocook is about a mile away from her old location near Interstate 89’s Exit 6, but the feel couldn’t be more different, she said. It’s much bigger, for one, with plenty of light and high ceilings to give the space an ethereal atmosphere. Outside, one can hear the Contoocook River flowing by.
There’s also a wider selection of retail items, such as healing stones, metaphysical items and consignment clothing, as well as a lending library. Garside works with 10 instructors and four musicians, who come in periodically to sing for classes, and she often tries to bring in outside teachers and workshops.
It’s certainly not mutual funds, and Garside said she works a few side jobs in addition to running her studio. But the studio sustains itself, and her, too – she became hooked on yoga after being involved in a series of car accidents one year, and found that one session was all she needed to make the constant headaches she was experiencing go away.
She hopes moving to a new location will help her become more accessible to the community, and will encourage others to tap into yoga for a similar experience, even if they never set foot in her studio. In addition to teaching, she’s been working on a book about yoga, in which readers will be able to choose a pose from each section – say, one from a back-bend section, another from a neck-stretching section – to create their own practice. She hopes to have that completed by June.
(Caitlin Andrews can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @ActualCAndrews.)