Women In Wellness: Kellie Sabas of Happy ME Yoga On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Know your WHY. It’s the reason why you do what you do. Your Purpose. It will put fire in your heart and inspire you to keep you going and thrive. When you operate on your WHY, you inspire others to take action. And the more people you inspire, the more successful you become.
As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Racquel ‘Kellie’ Sabas.
Kellie Sabas is the Chief Happiness Officer at Happy M.E., a marketing and events company.
She is the creator of Happy Body, Mind & Soul Retreats, and chief curator at www.HappyME.yoga
Kellie is a veteran wife and a mother of two growing boys. She is a certified yoga and meditation teacher and enjoys volunteering in non-profit organizations where she holds a leadership role.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
It all started during the pandemic lockdown in 2020 dubbed as ‘The Great Pause’.
Although I was working from home for a couple of years by then, I found myself having two new ‘coworkers’ at home a.k.a. my two young school kids doing distance learning who constantly needed help with schoolwork and figuring out their new schedule and technology, among other things. It was all brand new for all of us. And as we got increasingly uncertain how long the lockdown would last, everything went on pause. As clients cut down on spending, I found myself having time affluence on my side. Driven by my love of learning and optimism, I consumed all the free online courses and certifications I could get in digital marketing. And around July, I stumbled upon The Science of Well-Being, a popular course at YALE University offered free through Coursera. I enjoyed learning about the brain and how it works as it relates to ‘happiness’ and strategies to help lead a healthy and happy life. Special shout out to Professor Laurie Santos, PhD. Thank you for planting the [happy] seeds in millions of people around the world through your teachings.
Towards the end of the course, we did a ‘rewirement challenge’ where we chose an activity to re-wire our brain and practiced it for four weeks. I chose yoga and meditation. I was already doing a 30-day yoga challenge right before I started but wanted to go on and put it to the test. You see, although I did yoga [on and off] since I took stretching P.E. class in college, and my pre-natal yoga during my two pregnancies, I was never consistent with my practice. Since taking The Science of Well-Being, I am happy to share that I have been doing yoga and meditation practice daily. It’s been two and a half years and counting. I even dove deeper in my practice by taking yoga and meditation online classes where I received teaching certifications. I continuously study distinctive styles of yoga as well as coaching and yoga therapy today. Through my personal journey, I have noticed a strong commitment to holistic wellness. I experienced a massive change in my overall well-being and unknowingly began my self-discovery in the process. As a result, I now sleep better, have more clarity, focus, and discipline. I can observe my thoughts now without judgment or ruminate on things that happened or could happen. I feel less stress and worry less. And I dare say, I feel happier and grounded no matter the situation or circumstances. Our meditation teacher says, the goal in yoga is equanimity, and I am grateful that I am learning this ancient technique in modern times.
I know many can relate to my experience, so I wanted to share this journey with women who are on the same path and want to step up and enhance their well-being: body, mind and soul. That was when the inspiration came about creating a platform to find wellness resources like workshops and retreats, online and in-person. And because I love to travel, my dream is to create an ultimate self-care holiday where vacation meets transformation. To be more specific, I want every woman to treat herself to a beautiful destination holiday for herself, dedicated to bringing out her best self and discovering her true authentic self in the process. Surrounded and supported by other amazing women. My goal is to help all empowered and enlightened women move towards a healthy and happy body, mind, and soul. The whole being. This is my WHY.
And that is what happyME.yoga is all about, where people can cultivate mindfulness through yoga and meditation classes, meet their perfect coach, and find wellness retreats from vetted teachers and experts around the world.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
My background is in marketing and events. I’ve done product launches and brand campaigns in prestige beauty and hospitality industries. As a marketing consultant, I help my clients on their digital marketing and manage their online presence. I am also a meeting planner specializing in site selection where I match my clients with the best hotel and negotiate the best overall value on behalf of their organizations saving them time and money. Then I had a lightbulb moment, it dawned on me that I can marry my work with my newfound passion and focus on wellness retreats. And so my passion project was born.
Since I started the Happy Body, Mind and Soul Retreats as a passion project two years ago, I have met amazing people who support and encourage me in both my wellness and entrepreneurial journey. It’s like everything aligned effortlessly. New opportunities appear from everywhere and I’m always meeting people who are aligned with my vision. I call them our wellness experts and you can find them in our website. They are doctors, coaches, therapists, healers and teachers with diverse background across various disciplines. Each wellness expert offers their own unique programs and modalities to help individuals achieve the best version of themselves. All my partners and fellow yogis from my yoga school, Yogamu, have been an inspiration and motivation for me to continue working on my passion which has now become my purpose.
The lesson here is never stop learning and pursuing your passion. Always believe in yourself and find people who will help you reach your goals. They can be a friend or a colleague you admire, a mentor, or a coach. They are your tribe who will help you succeed. Your people. Having a supportive community plays an important role to your success.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Right when I started my passion project Happy Body, Mind and Soul, I was approached by a tech startup geared toward health and wellness to lead their marketing efforts and mentor young bright minds who will be our interns. I did the smart thing to do and weighed the pros and cons and the scale tipped more on the startup. My rational mind could not resist the allure and promise to make an impact on a massive scale, and possibly cure cancer. I thought to myself, I can ‘park my dream’ and I can always come back to it later. I took it as an opportunity to learn more. The company made me sign a non-compete and told me to stop everything I was doing with HBMS. As weeks go by, I was disillusioned. You know how some things are good in paper but not IRL (in real life), this was exactly that. Eventually, I had to make a tough choice and let go of a potentially promising career in health tech sooner than later. It was a short unpaid stint, but I learned valuable lessons and insights in others and myself. This slight distraction admittedly delayed my plans for HBMS and had to pause for a moment and asked myself what I really want. I had to rethink my next step before jumping back in. After some introspection, I hosted a virtual retreat which was a great experience overall. It reminded me of my WHY and what I love doing which is creating and collaborating. I realized, I was ready and that’s when I made it official and put up my own company in January 2022.
My key learning in that experience is to not get distracted with shiny new toys. Focus on your vision and things will happen effortlessly. When you are in alignment with your true passion and purpose, the Universe will conspire to bring it to fruition. This may sound contrary to what we were always told, to use our head, but I say this, always listen to your gut and intuition. As Steve Jobs said “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.” I believe that we all have this intelligent higher power inside all of us that always guides us back to the right direction to our calling, to our purpose. We call it in many names, God, the Universe, Divine power, higher power, the higher Self. We just need to learn how to tune in to this inner wisdom and listen. This is where meditation also sometimes called yoga of the mind can help.
In yoga sutra 1.2, the second sutra of book one, Patanjali (the father of modern yoga) lays out the definition and purpose of yoga. Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah: yoga is the cessation of the modifications, or fluctuations, of the mind. This sutra gets right to the heart of why we practice yoga.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
I truly believe that if everyone practices mindfulness in their homes, workplace, and the community, our world will be a much happier place.
I want to make yoga accessible to everyone and make meditation a mainstream where everyone can just do it from just anywhere. Just like coffee breaks, we should have 5-minute mindfulness breaks for people to calm and center themselves. Where people can join group huddles for silent meditations or do some light movement like stretching. Whether one is a beginner or a lifetime yogi, everyone can benefit from the clarity, focus and peace that comes from every practice. Instantly. Science has proven that meditation changes our brain waves and turn down our sympathetic nervous system (flight-or-flee) and turn up our parasympathetic nervous system (rest-and-relaxation). Harvard Health published a study how our brain activities go from Beta to Theta when we meditate. Beta waves are the most prevalent type when your brain is engaged in mental activities, such as having a conversation or teaching a class. Theta waves reflect the state between wakefulness and sleep and relate to the subconscious mind, creativity, and learning. Electroencephalogram studies show that when you meditate, theta waves surge as your brain enters a state of deep relaxation.
I also advocate for companies to create a Culture of Wellness, where employees’ well-being are a top priority, especially at these times when work and home blur out more and more due to hybrid and work-from-home set up.
My vision for HappyME.yoga is to provide a platform where people can cultivate mindfulness through yoga and meditation. We offer virtual yoga classes, live workshops, group huddles and daily meditation classes. Anyone, young and old can study or practice at the comfort of their homes, their office or anywhere, anytime. I also envision planning corporate wellness retreats, like a fun team-building but with a holistic approach.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
I’d love to share what I personally did to practice daily yoga and discover my passion. These are my key takeaways from The Science of Well-Being:
- Decide: Commit to improve your overall wellbeing. It all starts with YOU. You have to decide that you really want it for yourself, not for anyone else’s approval. You only have one body; love it, nurture it. When I chose yoga and meditation as my rewirement challenge, I wanted to sleep better and get more focus. Today, I sleep well and wake up feeling great every morning.
- Take Action: Once you’ve committed, do the daily practice. It takes a few weeks to form new neural pathways in our brains. In The Science of Well-being class, we picked one activity and did it for four weeks. This helped us form a new productive habit and train our brain to keep going. Eventually, it will become a part of your daily routine, without even thinking. Like an autopilot.
- Be Consistent: Put it in your calendar and keep it consistent at the same hour each day, if possible. Set an alarm reminder or place a note where you always see it, like your workstation, the fridge or your bathroom mirror. Treat that activity as an important appointment with yourself. You wouldn’t cancel a doctor’s appointment so don’t cancel on you. Stick to it as much as you can. This 4-week is crucial. Adapt it to your lifestyle and make sure it’s realistic. Do what works for you.
- Be Strategic: Use situation support. Design your environment to help you achieve your goal. Wanna fit on that dress or jeans again? Trade that cookie jar for a fruit basket on the counter. In my case, I put the yoga mat in my bedroom where I can see it every day. Seeing the yoga mat a few times a day sends a constant reminder to my brain that I need to do my daily yoga. And if I’m too busy that it’s impossible to stick to my daily schedule, I can always just grab my mat and do a quick evening practice before going to bed. Not surprisingly, it helps me sleep better because yoga and meditation activate the rest-and-relaxation response in our nervous system so we feel calm and relaxed after.
- Be Accountable: Share your wellness goal with someone. Have a buddy or accountability coach. Find a community who can support your goal and will help you commit to it. When I did my 4-week rewirement challenge, I shared my progress with my two closest friends. Additionally, I shared my ‘story’ on my social media every time I finished my yoga for the day. I also posted a video every time I completed my 30-day yoga. I have this yoga app that lets me create a templated post when I finish the guided meditation and I can add my own photo too, so it’s personalized. I also am blessed to have found my tribe and to have met amazing and generous people who are always willing to share their precious time and knowledge with HappyME.yoga community. They are all an inspiration for me to go on with my mission. One of these days, we will host wellness retreats in a beautiful destination around the world and I hope you can join us!
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would advocate for mindfulness breaks. It’s a quick breathwork or meditation practice where we can breathe and just be silent by ourselves or as a group. I would also advocate a culture of wellness be a priority in all companies and not just a nice-to-have or a box HR can tick. This is a dire need in the workplace as employees’ well-being is directly proportional to productivity. I believe investing in employees’ well-being has a direct impact on the bottom line. After all, happy individuals perform their best at work. And this has a positive ripple effect not only in the workplace but all the way to home and the community they belong to.
These are the types of activities that I would love to spread in our community either individually or as a group.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- Know your WHY. It’s the reason why you do what you do. Your Purpose. It will put fire in your heart and inspire you to keep you going and thrive. When you operate on your WHY, you inspire others to take action. And the more people you inspire, the more successful you become.
- Find your tribe. Surround yourself with like-minded individuals. They say you’re the average of five people you hang out with. Choose them well. It’s easy to get distracted or discouraged especially when people don’t understand your vision. If you don’t have them right now, find them. There are people or groups willing to help and support you. There are communities like International Association of Women, or women co-working space like Hera Hub, where you can find like-minded and supportive individuals who are in the same journey as you.
- Keep learning. Always improve your craft and diversify your skills. Life is non-stop learning. You learn valuable lessons even from your mistakes and failures.
- Fail forward. In our society, we tend to hide or be ashamed when we fail on something. Or worse, fear trying because we’re afraid to fail. But failing on something does not make you a loser. It just means there is a better opportunity or discovery waiting for you. Failure provides a stepping stone to your success. It’s part of the process. In the words of Churchill, “Success is all about going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”
- Give back. We are a social species. We are meant to help each other make it and thrive on this planet. Pass your learning and blessings to others. Volunteer your time to a cause you believe in. It seems counterintuitive but giving your time and energy in service to others, fuels you even more. It’s the law of abundance. If you haven’t done so, find something that you love doing and pass it on.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
I believe that mental health is everyone’s business because mental health is the foundation of one’s well-being. When someone is not feeling their best self physically, emotionally, socially and mentally, everyone suffers. Their family and work suffer.
It’s important to me because my mission for HappyME.yoga is to provide a holistic approach to wellness. We can talk about being fit and eating right all day, but if our mind and soul are not nourished as well, all will crumble.
Yoga has been scientifically proven to benefit the mind and body. From lowering blood pressure, increasing oxygen and blood flow, toning the muscles, improving posture, balance and flexibility to reducing stress and anxiety. It’s fairly easy and accessible. There is a yoga for everyone, young and old. You can practice yoga at home, in your office, outdoors, anywhere really. It’s the perfect exercise anyone can engage in.
Additionally, these ancient techniques have been around for thousands of years and have positive impact on the psychological and spiritual being as well.
I am thankful for my yoga practice for helping me with my emotional and mental health during uncertain times and for providing me a space to feel calm and grounded, from moment to moment, one breath at a time.
This is what I believe, if everybody practices yoga, the world will be a much kinder and happier place.
What is the best way for our readers to further follow your work online?
They can visit our website https://happyme.yoga or follow Happy Body, Mind and Soul on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/happyMEcamp.
Additionally, they can connect on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelliesabas/ I love connecting with
like-minded individuals and see how we can help each other.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
Women In Wellness: Kellie Sabas of Happy ME Yoga On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.