Meet Our Teachers

MEET OUR TEACHERS

Nicole Chumsky

Nicole is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Mindfulness Coach and Registered Trauma Informed Yoga Instructor. She specializes in helping people build self-awareness, learn how to be powerful in their lives, strengthen their ability to tolerate change and guide them in making choices that are meaningful. She is the owner and founder of Be Embodied, LLC and has been in private practice since 2013, teaching mindfulness since 2015 and teaching yoga since 2016.

With years of experience she realized how many people suffer from being out of touch with their bodies. She was able to draw upon her own experience and the experiences of her clients to clearly see the ways in which disembodiment increases stress levels, reactivity and discontent with life. Using her expertise she created Mindflow™ Yoga.

Mindflow™ teaches you how to keep your mind in flow with your body through mindfulness meditation based instruction. These classes teach you to train your brain to pay attention to everything happening inside the four corners of your mat. You are encouraged to let your body inform your pose rather than the pose inform your body. In this way, you embody self-compassion, focus your mind and master taking yoga off the mat and into your life! Nicole realized that everyone can greatly benefit from yoga practice and was eager to share her secret to living a more fulfilled life!

Ashley Petit

Ashley started a regular yoga practice when she was seeking refuge from the chaos of being a full-time working mom. She dabbled in yoga for years, even teaching prenatal yoga for two years in a birthing home in Nicaragua. She came to the mat to find quiet, not just on the outside, but on the inside. Yoga began to strengthen her relationship with her children, family and most importantly herself.

Ashley holds a Master’s Degree in Health Education and an undergraduate degree in Health and Wellness. The majority of Ashley’s graduate studies were focused on researching women’s beliefs of breastfeeding preconception. Ashley has a 200-hour yoga teaching certification and teaches, Vinyasa Flow, Prenatal Yoga and Chair Yoga. Ashley spent two years serving as a Maternal and Child Health Educator with the Peace Corps in Nicaragua. While overseas, she educated Midwives on balanced nutrition and safe birthing practices, taught reproductive health in the local high school, ran women’s groups in the community and acted as a birth worker for dozens of women. This work inspired Ashley to become a Birth and Postpartum Doula through DONA International. Ashley is also raising a family of her own and continuing to seek her true passion of inspiring women in her community through yoga and birth advocacy.

Shawnell Tillery

Donna Phillips

Donna C. Kester Phillips, Ph.D. has been an educator since the early 1970’s beginning in the elementary classroom. Experience as a reading specialist and a classroom teacher eventually led her to the college level where she is currently an Associate Professor of Education at Niagara University. She has authored the monthly children’s book review column “Pick of the Literature” for the Western New York Family Magazine since 1994.

Dr. Phillips was introduced to yoga in the late 60’s and eventually became a certified trauma-informed Yoga teacher. Her resulting interest in mindful movement led her be become a certified QiGong instructor. During this time, she began formally studying mindfulness which she now integrates into her teacher preparation classes. This work led her to establish the annual Mindfulness Conversations conference and more recently the Center for Mindful Practice at Niagara University where she is currently the Director.

Erin Mauro

Shealyn McCoy

Jessica Durham

Jessica found yoga in 2011 and quickly discovered the profound healing powers of the mind body soul connection. This sparked her deep and life long journey of self growth/healing and promoting that healing to help others live their most authentic life. After years of exploring and expanding multiple styles of asana, yoga philosophy, and meditation, she travelled to Bali, Indonesia in November 2019 to complete her 200hr YTT in Hatha and Vinyasa. She has been teaching since then. Her goal is to provide a safe space to express intuitively without judgment, to connect with yourself and to discover your own unique practice while finding unity with others. She continues to be a lifelong student, endlessly expanding her knowledge. Jessica offers group classes as well as private yoga sessions. Aside from yoga, Jessica loves learning, traveling and exploring, hiking, and connecting with nature (such an Earth sign).