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!

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.

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).

Allie Doran

Yoga for me started at a young age, thanks to my mom who would do Lions Breath late at night. Having this influence, I have been doing some form of yoga on and off for many years. Over time I started to become more committed to my practice and found the Yoga of 12 Step Recovery (Y12SR) training and completed it in 2018. It was through this training I found the passion for incorporating the practice and philosophy of yoga into my professional world and decided to further my experience through the Yogis in Service 200-hour teacher training in 2019. I am grateful for my yoga practice as it continued to lead me where I needed to go and discovered a bridge to meditation through learning and practicing Yin yoga. In the midst of 2020, I completed a 25-hour Oracle Yin Yoga training. I love the idea of practicing life skills on my mat, and finding a deeper connection to myself, and the people around me. Yoga is so much more than movement, and I hope through teaching I can share a piece of my heart and breath with you.

Elle Zimpfer

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