About Our Instructors

Our Mission Statement

Through yoga, meditation, breath work, oneness blessings, healing classes and retreats, and nature hikes,

we strive to help us reconnect in body, mind, and spirit, awaken our true presence, power, and passion,

and help heal ourselves and this precious planet Earth.

Roy Holman
Namaste.  I began teaching yoga and meditation in 2000, and I basically teach what has been helping me grow, awaken, and heal old wounds. I am passionate about teaching, serving, and witnessing our awakening   My goal, in truth, is to help us remember who we are and transition into the new Golden Age.

I have lived abroad for over five years, including travels around Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia in 1986, and all around the planet in 1988, biking around Western Europe, then by train across the former Soviet Union, and through China. I graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1991 with a BA in Sociology-Psychology. I then joined fact-finding delegations to Central America, and lived in Guatemala for almost three years doing human rights work, refugee work, teaching, and researching the effects of US policy.

I discovered yoga and meditation and began the inner journey in 1995, at a very challenging time in my life, when my life was a mess and I was struggling with depression and an eating disorder.  Yoga helped me ground, center, and find myself.  I’ll never forget the feeling after my first yoga class – it was a revelation.

I completed a two year Hands-on, Heart-centered Energy Healing course in Seattle in 1998, then completed a Meditation and Healing teacher’s training course in 2000, and was also ordained as a Minister. I was then certified as a reflexologist in 2005. I am a 500 hour Certified Yoga teacher, in the Viniyoga tradition. The style of yoga I teach is a grounded, breath-connected, meditative, flowing traditional hatha yoga - a meditation in motion really. I call it “Feel Good” Yoga, because I simply teach what feels best to me, my body, and my students. I include breath work (pranayama) and meditation, and also try to incorporate the many aspects of emotional healing and balancing I have learned. I finished writing my first book in 2010, second in 2012, and have another in the works.

My newest passion is for the Awakening process that is facilitated by "Deeksha" which is the Indian word for the Oneness Blessing  .I was initiated as a Oneness Blessing giver in 2011, where we act as conduits to transfer divine grace to help assist the awakening process. I then went to India in late 2011-2012 for six weeks to Oneness University, (photo below) where I studied  yoga, did some deep inner work, and got trained as a Oneness Trainer to train others to be blessing givers. Our goal is to awaken as many people as possible to assist the shift into the Golden Age in 2012 and beyond.

My spiritual belief system is simple: I try to see Spirit - Divinity in everyone and everything, from looking into my cat’s eyes, to walking in an old growth forest. One of my favorite joys in teaching is seeing the look in the students’ eyes at the end of class, or after a oneness blessing. This is what yoga is all about – integration of body, mind, emotions, and spirit.  Ultimately, we are all not only connected, but made up of the same sacred energy, and the sooner we remember this, the sooner we will create a more kind and compassionate world.  I presently live in Everett , Washington , with my cool cat Mo (my guru!).  

Roy's Healing Self and Earth Blog:   http://healingselfhealingearth.blogspot.com/

                                                                                                                                         Roy at Oneness University, India  January 2012

Chris Borys   (Chris has taught many retreats with Roy)


Chris often teaches with Roy at their retreats in the Pacific Northwest as well as abroad.  She is delighted to share her love of yoga with you. Chris has studied and practiced Yoga since 1972 and earned her Hatha Yoga Teacher Certification in 1998. Her classes include techniques from a variety of Yoga disciplines and is suitable for all levels with an emphasis on working at your own capacity with compassion and loving kindness. Take this opportunity to deepen and expand your personal practice or explore Yoga for the first time in a supportive and inspiring environment.

Linda Lapping   (Linda taught with Roy in Yelapa in 2008.)

Linda Lapping, former owner and director of Heartbeat Yoga in Kent, practices and teaches in the Viniyoga tradition. Her main objective is to reach out and teach others about the amazing transformation yoga has on the mind, body and spirit. Being exposed to yoga at a very young age, Linda has witnessed first hand the positive effects a daily yoga practice can make. She is certified and registered with Yoga Alliance.

Deirdre Wilcox   (Deirdre taught with Roy in Costa Rica in February of 2012)

Deirdre is a Certified Yoga Teacher who brings to her teaching 18 years of experience in private practice as a body therapist and movement educator. Her focus is on bringing conscious awareness to habituated patterns in all their expressions: psycho-emotional, deeply held beliefs and expectations, neuromuscular movement.  Her classes focus on helping students make conscious choices in a supportive environment, with an emphasis on honoring your own current capacity with compassion and kindness. This is a wonderful opportunity to experience yoga for the first time or to deepen and expand your own practice in a warm and inspiring environment.

Rene De Los Santos  (Rene taught in Guatemala 2007, and taught with Roy in Yelapa, 2012)

Rene is a Health & Well-being Leader for the YMCA of Greater Seattle. He is a Certified Yoga Instructor in the Viniyoga tradition with over 15 years experience leading dance, movement and conditioning classes. He encourages students to work at their own pace and find joy in everything they do. Rene also enjoys traveling, meeting people, meditation, kirtan and follows Native American traditions to stay centered and happy!

Shannon Middleton    (Shannon has taught several retreats with Roy )


Shannon fell in love with yoga in 1998. She discovered how its calming effects helped her stay balanced through the stresses of college life. Once out in the "real world" yoga continued to help her stay grounded, and ultimately led her away from journalism to teaching yoga. In 2002, she attended a teacher training at the Seattle Center for Yoga and began teaching at the Mukilteo YMCA. Since then, she has completed another teacher training at the Yoga Centers and started her own business called "Tranquil Turtle Yoga." Now, she teaches about 14 classes a week in a variety of different settings. Although she is trained in the Iyengar method, which focuses on correct alignment, Shannon believes in adapting yoga to the needs of the individual. Her classes incorporate relaxation and restorative poses, as well as poses that challenge her students. She likes to remind students that yoga is a journey not a destination.

Bill Hale, M.D. (Bill will teach mindfulness meditation with Roy in the future)

Bill practices psychiatry and mind-body medicine at the Sastun Center of Integrative Health Care in Kansas City.  For over ten years he has been teaching people how to suffer less --even in the midst of

pain or other stressors -- through an intensive 8-week course in Stress Management based on Mindfulness Meditation.  He has practiced meditation since 1973, and mindfulness meditation (Insight

or vipassana meditation) since 1988. Dr. Hale attended medical school at Kansas University, followed by a psychiatry fellowship at the Menninger School of Psychiatry in Topeka, Kansas.  In addition to his residency, he completed a two-year internship at Menninger in Biofeedback Therapy.  He has trained in Ayurvedic medicine in India through the auspices of a Fulbright Fellowship, and trained in Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction at the clinic of Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of  Massachusetts School of Medicine. 

Melanie Meurehg   Melanie will teach with Roy in Yelapa, Mexico January 2013 

Melanie is a naturally intuitive healer, life and spiritual coach, Kundalini Yoga Teacher, Oneness Trainer, Oneness (Deeksha) Blessing Facilitator, Reiki Master/Teacher, Meditation Facilitator Family and Reconstructive Constellations Facilitator, practicing with clients since 2001. I have undergone many certifications, processes and initiations in Mexico, Canada and India with world-renowned teachers and guides such as Oneness University, Joa Santaur, John L. Payne, Carola Castillo, Barb Keshen, Gurutej Kaur; and other beloved spiritual teachers and guides.  It is with this passion in mind that I created Practical Healing in 2009. Under this umbrella, I offer practical immediate tools and sacred space and environment to heal, hope, connect and grow and simply be everything you are with love and freedom. Practical Healing is also a catalyst for ongoing classes, workshops, talks and courses to help you live in awareness, heal at the deepest levels, attain your highest potential and live in peace and true happiness.  Being in service and sharing a smile from my soul to yours is my passion. Everything else is a gift from the Divine, which I accept with gratitude and joy. www.onenessbypracticalhealing.blogspot.com

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