“i’m not here to preach, i’m here to help you rise.”
community builder, speaker, mental health educator, wellness advocate
23 years ago I wandered into a yoga studio looking for a way to calm my anxious mind. I was about to become a new mom and I needed something to anchor into to help me feel at ease. Little did I know that I would discover more than just a movement practice, but rather, a way of showing and nurturing my body and mind. Yoga and mindfulness are the tools that I have been using ever since to help me turn inward, and connect. Through this practice I am able to listen to myself and my body and create ease and compassion towards self and others.
To be honest, it has taken me years to get to this point and it is something that I revisit on a daily basis. Like so many others in this busy world, I too have struggled with finding time for myself, as I strived to balance all the many different hats that I wore. I had spent so much of my time taking care of others, that one day I looked up and realized that I hadn’t made time to focus on taking care of myself. I decided to center my yoga and mindfulness practice as central part of my well-being. This ‘a-ha’ moment put me on a path to create big shifts for me, my family, and the people around me.
This big shift also inspired me to also become a yoga teacher and to create irise yoga + well-ness as a way to connect, promote, bring awareness to and foster the inclusion of people of colour and other historically marginalized groups in yoga and wellness spaces. I saw the importance of bringing the practice and tools of mindfulness and yoga to the community because for me the practice of learning how to show up for yourself and take care of yourself is so important.
I believe that we are all worthy of ease and we all have the right to be well. My approach to teaching integrates yoga and mindfulness as tools to support self compassion and grace; creating greater connections to community. This deepens our understanding of self awareness as a way to support a holistic approach to one's wellness. For me, achieving true wellness is about finding balance, meeting yourself where you are at, and working towards being the best version of you.
you were born to rise.
Rebeckah Price is a wellness advocate, yoga instructor (RYT 200), and meditation teacher, and wellness entrepreneur that draws on her wealth of knowledge of working in underserved, marginalized, racialized, and immigrant communities in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. Since a very young age Rebeckah Price has always been fascinated by the intersectionality of wellness and community. With a background and education in Community Development and Engagement she saw the ways in which the social determinants of health had direct impacts on one's ability to be well. As an avid yoga practitioner she saw a gap in the ways in which people had access to the necessary resources and tools to support their wellbeing. Paralleling the worlds of community development and wellness, she sought to find a more mindful balance between her work and community impact.
Rebeckah's work is rooted in an intersectional understanding of power and harnessing the tools and resources to facilitate community change. Her work intersects and connects wellness and social justice as a pathway for collective wellbeing. In 2013, I founded irise yoga + wellness- as a way to connect, promote, bring awareness to and foster the inclusion of people of colour and other historically marginalized groups in yoga and wellness spaces.
Rebeckah believes that everyone has the potential to be an intersectional wellness ally and to that end, she has worked on and developing strategies and policies related to diversity & inclusion, equity, conflict resolution, settlement and integration and creating safe, cohesive communities. Using her lived experience as a Woman of Colour and her unique expertise in community development and engagement to bridge and address the gap of diversity in the wellness industry through consulting, training and workshops, etc. She has led trainings on yoga, racial equity, belonging and community for yoga teachers, wellness practitioners and businesses. She also has conceptualized, developed and implemented inclusive wellness initiatives for universities.
Rebeckah can be found in Toronto, NYC, LA and internationally teaching yoga and meditation, and online with Nike. She is on the advisory council of New Leaf Foundation, which offers yoga and mindfulness programs to youth in marginalized and under-served spaces. Her work has been featured in well + good, The Cut, and Essence magazine. She has guest lectured at Universities across Canada, from University of Toronto to MacMaster University, and taught for companies like Genuine Health, Nike, Shopify and many others.
Outside of teaching, mentoring, and contributing to her community, Rebeckah works to intentionally make wellness more accessible through her philanthropic work. When she is not busy wearing her many hats she can be found courtside at one of her three sons' basketball games or taking long walks in nature.