Book Belinda

Belinda Thurston is a yogini, tai chi player, Buddhist, African-Japanese American, journalist, speaker, motivator.

Custom Just Being Programs

Just B Yoga provides consulting and creation of custom programs for your organization/team utilizing mindfulness, meditation, focus, breath and body-movement, bringing a holistic approach to collaboration, creativity, productivity and communication.

Here are programs that can be provided or modified based on your needs:

SELF-CARE AND WELLNESS – Workplace teams, residential programs/facilities, recovery community, school admins/staff

(Intro + progressive programming – 4-8 sessions)

* Self-care is caring for self  * Recognizing what needs care  * What’s out of balance

* Body listening/body wisdom. * Spirit listening/spirit wisdom

* Caring all the time, not special moment  * Sharing is caring

FOUR DIRECTIONS HEALING – BIPOC communities, LGBTQIA communities

(1.5-2 hr session – depends on size of group)

Ritual and Ceremony |  BIPOC focused

Ancestral indigenous practices  | Relevance and recognition today

Practices/exercises | Movement/affirmations/meditations/actions

TRAUMA YOGA – first-responders, trauma care, caregivers, service workers, front-line workers, recovery community

(Intro + progressive programming – 4-8 sessions)

* What is trauma  * What is yoga

* Listening vs fixing * Shifting and calibrating = restoring

* Triage – urgent care * Progressive practices and exercises

RESTORATION CIRCLE – Teams, groups in conflict, Recovery community, generational/complex trauma survivors and relatives, families, neighborhoods, school admin/staff

(Intro + progressive programming – 4-8 sessions)

Ritual and ceremony | Community commitment

Mindful movement | Present awareness

Conscious communication

 

Speaking Engagements

Do you need a dynamic, engaging and energizing storyteller? Belinda Thurston delivers messages about community, connection, trauma healing and recovery all with passion that is sure to leave an impression on the audience. Always informative and engaging, Belinda offers  interactive, thought provoking events. Belinda is available for keynote addresses, presentations for teens, professionals, medical experts and yogis.

Donate to Just B Yoga

Just B Yoga is a donation-based community yoga outreach. We practice “open source yoga” – giving freely and accepting what is given in return. We believe yoga should be affordable and accessible to all. Please consider supporting our mission.

Teacher Training

Receive teacher training from Belinda Thurston, a trauma recovery and community focused yogi for the last 20 years.

Learn the history of yoga and how to use the eight limbs of yoga to create harmony inside and out. Teacher training teaches fundamentals of anatomy and physiology to keep students safe; how to teach to diverse body types and abilities; how to create intuitive class sequences and structures that are inclusive and accessible.

We currently offer apprenticeships — one-on-one trainings with a custom schedule that fits you and the instructor.

  • Set your own schedule and work at your own pace
  • Choose to focus on: Trauma, Recovery, Teens/Children, Philosophy, Anatomy
  • Assist/Intern with community yoga programs or receive guidance on creating your own
  • In-person and virtual training available

Trainings offered on a sliding scale based on a financial need. $900-$2200. Payment plans can be arranged.

About Me

Belinda Thurston, E-RYT 300, is the founder of Just B Yoga & Tai Chi LLC, Michigan’s only full-time donation-based yoga studio. She is an African-Japanese American, female-identifying sapio-asexual queer, originally from Washington, D.C. who is passionate about equality, eliminating disparity and oppression and creating healthy, thriving, mindful communities.

The studio, founded in 2010, is a safe space with a mission of accessibility and affordability. It is best known for its support of the LGBTQIA community, plus-sized students and trauma survivors.

Belinda is trained in trauma sensitive yoga, yoga for special needs, yoga for children and teens, yoga for bigger bodies and yoga for addiction recovery.

A bulk of her work is teaching yoga for survivors of sexual trauma, working with local nonprofits and government agencies.

Belinda retired from 23 years in the newspaper industry, specializing in multimedia, digital and investigative journalism. She has worked at small and large newspapers including the Dallas Morning News and USA Today.

Belinda is a talented speaker and storyteller whose presentations weave the lessons of a corporate management career and being a survivor of childhood violence and sexual trauma with the healing journey yoga, tai chi and meditation have provided.

Belinda has been a presenter on mindfulness, trauma and wellness and social justice for colleges, government and other agencies. She is passionate about the role yoga can have in the social justice movement and toward healing generational wounds.

Belinda was recognized among the top 10 studios in Michigan in 2017. She received the Woman of the Year Aware by the Women’s Center of Greater Lansing in 2013. Belinda and the studio were honored as a Michigan Hometown Health Hero in 2012.

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