About MeHi! My name is Denise Olsen. I am a 200 hr YA registered yoga instructor. I am also an RN, a mom to 3 children (one not so child like anymore ), a daughter, a sister,an aunt, a friend.
For me, yoga is a way of life. I have come to believe that it actually saved me. On September 11, 2001, my husband, Jeff Olsen, a NYC firefighter was killed at the WTC. My world came to a grinding halt. I was left alone with 3 children- ranging in age from 18 months to 8 years old. I had no idea how to begin picking up the pieces. I was alive but not living.
My first yoga class was a Bikram yoga class. I went mainly for the stretch because I was already doing intense physical workouts. The feeling I had when I left was something I hadn't felt in a very long time. I describe it as "being so happy-it feels like my heart may burst"- AKA post savasana bliss. It was that feeling that brought me back for more.
Slowly, I noticed a change in the way I felt, an inner peace...it reached into every corner of my life. It gave me a clarity that I had never experienced. The more I gave, the more I learned. The more I learned, the more I wanted to share.
So, after practicing for close to 9 years, I enrolled in a teacher training program at the Yoga and Healing Center in Scotch Plains, NJ. The program was designed and taught by Wendy Gross Pinto. It was transformational. She offered us the tools to create a life we dreamed of. I will forever be indebted to her.
I currently teach yoga in a Military Wellness Program in Holliswood Hospital. I work with active and retired military personnel with PTSD.
My goal is to give back to the Universe that which was given to me-love, abundance, healing and hope...
A short tribute to my greatest teacher, in life and death, my husband-Jeffrey Olsen- the soul of my soul
