I moved back to New York 10 days before I had my first daughter a little while after that

mom Meckia died.

That was really odd for me because I never had grief that happened before. She was going to

come up for the birth of my daughter and then about sick and was unable to and we

talked the whole time and I went to the local yoga studio and I said I'd love to teach a class in honor of her and I don't need to take any of the proceeds, we'll donate them to.

I'm a kid's children who are now twice orphaned and they said yes and then it went back and forth and the class number got put on the schedule so I said in my head

I'm gonna just start teaching something in the building that I live in and gather a group of people and we'll just send money to our kids and that's how the class started.

Hey friend, welcome back to the Light Watkins show.

I'm Light Watkins and I have conversations with ordinary folks

just like you and me who've taken extraordinary leaps of faith in the direction of their path,

their purpose, or what they've identified as their mission in life.

And in doing so, they've been able to positively impact and inspire the lives of many other people who've either heard about their story

or who witness them in action or people who've directly benefited from their work.

And the goal is to expose you to as many people as possible who found their path, and I want to humanize them.

Because after hearing story after story, you are going to eventually give yourself permission to move even further in the direction

of whatever feels like your path and purpose because what you'll see is that anyone who does

that has had to overcome many of the same obstacles that you might be facing right now.

And my guest today is Taren Toomey.

She's the founder of a movement movement called the class, which is a workout class where fitness meets

mindfulness. And if you lived in New York or Los Angeles over the last 10 plus years, you've probably heard of the class.

It started as a fundraiser in the basement of Terences New York City apartment back in 2011 and continued

for almost two years without a name. Obviously there were plenty of ups and downs and mistakes and hiccups and of course

...