We had the good fortune of connecting with Svenja Conrad and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Svenja, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
My aim with my business is to help sensitive introverts find inner peace and calmness through the gentle practice of Yin Yoga – at home or while they are traveling. Because let’s face it: Most of us are almost constantly and 24/7 surrounded by far too much Yang energy in our fast-paced world – from our daily work and family duties to our very own leisure activities, we often feel the pressure to perform and function faultlessly round the clock. The result is that we regularly feel overwhelmed or excessively stressed, especially when we consider ourselves (highly) sensitive (HSP) and experience strong reactions to sensory stimuli on a regular basis.
The introspective, almost meditative Yin Yoga offers us (and especially us HSP!) a helpful tool to calm down, to focus inwards, and to relieve stress and anxiety. It brings balance back into our mind and our body and helps to reset our nervous system. The passive and gentle pace is thereby a wonderful counterpart to any external stress and teaches us the art of slowing down – physically AND mentally. This, in turn, is of tremendous worth in our everyday life as one of my own Yin teachers once said: “Yin Yoga helps me to let go of the need to always be busy.”
Not only that though: In the time of COVID, Yin Yoga supports us to let go of the fear and the insecurity from the outside world for the time being. We focus on ourselves, on our body, and on our breath, and gradually find our way back into our inner equilibrium, into our inner balance.
Being a highly sensitive person myself, I wanted to create yin classes for all fellow sensitive and restless human beings to offer them a safe space and a way to learn more about how the beautiful gentle practice of yin yoga and how it can help them during times of anxiety. My next step is to create a Yin Yoga podcast, so my (future) students can practice from home or while they are traveling, in order to be able to practice whenever they want or feel the need.
Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I teach gentle and down-to-earth Yin Yoga for highly sensitive Introverts and help publishers, blogs, and magazines to create strong and meaningful content – so besides being a Yin Yoga instructor, I am also a freelance editor and writer! I am specialized in the travel publishing industry and have worked for and with national and international travel magazines and travel book publishers in Europe and North America.
I started working as a freelance writer in May 2020 – right in the middle of the first lockdown! Of course, the plan had been a different one: As my British-American fiancé lives in DFW, we decided in late 2019 to finally take the next big step! So, after 5 years of a long-distance relationship, I quit my permanent employment at a publisher in my hometown Bremen, bought a ticket – and then the travel ban hit. With no job and no perspective, I started working for magazines and blogs and even got a book contract for my very own guidebook about traveling via Couchsurfing. It got published at the end of November in 2021. Besides that, I dove deeper into the world of Yin Yoga. Alongside my writing jobs, I completed several online and in-person yin yoga teacher trainings and eventually got the chance to start working as a Yin instructor at a renowned yoga studio! All in one year, I was (and am) pretty proud of myself!
My business combines my two passions – teaching Yin Yoga to HSP and also offering my editorial and writing services to magazines and publishers in the German and English-speaking world. Traveling and Yoga – the most wonderful combination!
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Hyena’s Comedy Night Club
The rooftop bar at Reata Restaurant
Fireside Pies – best pizza in town!
Uncle Julio’s Fort Worth – TexMex at its best!
Showdown Saloon – a great bar for the typical Texan feeling!
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I am really grateful for my very own first Yin Yoga teacher, whom I found by absolute chance! All my life, I have been a very active person and was all about sports and work-outs – soccer, skating, HIIT, Vinyasa Yoga … The faster, the better! However, as a highly sensitive, restless, and anxious person, I have also always had some difficulties with dealing with stress or anxiety besides heavy exercise. In 2019, only months before the first lockdown, I discovered an online yin yoga class by Kassandra Reinhardt, an Ottawa-based Vin & Yin Instructor. I started practicing with her and enjoyed her down-to-earth and fun and positive attitude. She was the one who really made me understand what Yin Yoga means, what it can do, and how it can help me and taught me the intention behind the beautiful slow practice!
Website: https://theresheflows.de/en/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/there_she_flows/?hl=de