Meet Christa Lapinig Recio | Yoga Teacher, Studio Owner, Army Veteran, Mom.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Christa Lapinig Recio and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Christa, how does your business help the community?
Fearvana Yoga at the moment dedicates 5% of profits, fund-raisers, and community classes to the Fearvana Foundation, which is a 501c3 dedicated to finding causes and charities in some of the darkest corners of the world that gets the least exposure and funding to give to those in need. I hope one day to increase that percentage. Some of our projects encompassed building the first sustainable school in post-war Liberia, empowering sex-trafficked young women in India, or rehabilitating former child soldiers in West Africa. We will pick a cause monthly or bi-monthly where donations will go to a tangible and transparent item or specific purpose. Donations will never go to admin costs, vague, or unknown purposes.

But on a more local level, we’ve fundraised for our students and causes dear to their heart. For example, we help raise close to $6,000 for one of our student’s son who lived with a rare condition called Lowe Syndrome. With those funds, we helped a non-profit continue to provide services to individuals and families with special needs so that they could reach their highest level of independence. We also volunteer and help with with neighborhood schools causes in our community. From family story nights to community park yoga, we try to increase our social impact as best as we can to show that yoga is for everyone and that lives can truly benefit from the practice. We take social impact seriously but with lots of fun!

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
One winter evening in 2014, I was obsessed with a blog called Live Your Legend and decided to go to a random meetup at Applebee’s. The person leading the meetup was Akshay Nanavati. Long story short, we became quick friends and I helped cofound The Fearvana Foundation a few months later. Akshay is a marine veteran and truly inspirational and we shared very similar ideas and attitudes on how we wanted to live our lives. Akshay wrote the book “Fearvana: The Revolutionary Science of How To Turn Fear into Health, Wealth, and Happiness.” It was endorsed by his holiness, the Dalai Lama himself. This is how Fearvana Yoga was born.

We are commonly asked what Fearvana is. It’s simply the intersection of fear and nirvana. Fearvana is the embodiment of any duality, for example light and dark. We believe that nirvana can only be achieved by conquering ones fears by finding their own worthy struggle. It requires work and finding ones’ purpose and conquering challenges that truly scares them but has the potential to set them free. And fears can take the form of laziness, anxiety, avoidance, etc. A fear doesn’t always take the form of something big and worthwhile. But once a person discovers these things, and continue to keep rising above themselves, will they be able to find their true self.

Fearvana Yoga embodies this by offering the full-spectrum of yoga from the least physical intensity to the most. From meditation all the way up to hot power yoga. Most people avoid the challenges of stillness by being extremely active, and others avoid physical intensity and gravitate to calmer classes. But no matter where a student is in their practice, we encourage the full spectrum.

And was it easy? Absolutely not. It’s been a roller coaster of being financially broke, to working side jobs to keep the business open, to feeling utterly alone and then jumping to feeling the warmth of community. But I am proud of my roller coaster and I am getting better and better. This is my personal Fearvana. This is my worthy struggle. I will continue to spread yoga to my community and to continue helping those in the darkest corners of the world through the Fearvana Foundation. This lights me up where when I’m old and gray telling my grandkids my war stories, I can also tell them the lives I’ve touched through my business.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
In a nutshell…the Army, my first son Jonas, and Harry Potter.

I joined the Army right after high school after watching the twin towers fall in the school parking lot. The following year I was deployed to Iraq. Although I was completely naive, and not truly aware of my situation, it was the best thing that ever happened. The Army kick-started my truly amazing life! I learned camaraderie, loyalty, social skills, and hard work. I also matured quite a bit, and more importantly, I seriously learned not to take my life for granted. So with those profound lessons in mind, I went to college. However in the midst of transitioning back to civilian life, and going to school, I had gotten pregnant at 23. So I said goodbye to the short young adulthood I had and became a mother. Unknowingly, it was exactly what I needed to make my life AMAZING. I finished college with honors at the age of 24. At the age of 26 I bought my own house for my son and I, and at the age of 28 I opened my yoga studio.

I am now 37 and have 3 sons with my husband who also served with me in Iraq. And how does Harry Potter fit into all this? It’s my favorite series and I’m thankful for it for teaching me that life can be magic if I make it magic. I read it throughout my deployment in Iraq, and read it with my son Jonas as he got older. That book teaches me that with smarts, courage, humor, and love, I can achieve anything.

Website: www.FearvanaYoga.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christansasmia/

Other: www.fearvanafoundation.org www.fearvana.com