We've forgotten how to rest. I'm on a mission to help women dare to rest to reclaim our health, creativity, and lead with power.

I was living with severe panic attacks for decades when one day I entered a yoga studio expecting to take a yoga flow class to improve my strength and conditioning, but ended up seeing 25 women lying down with pillows and blankets practicing yoga nidra meditation and decided: I want what they got. A year later I was off my anti-anxiety medication and I have never looked back.

The more I practiced yoga nidra meditation, the more I learned how to rest. Yes - in today's busy world where we ignore the rhythm of the sun and the moon we've got to learn to rest. Yoga nidra is the best teacher I've found to do this. Gently, you lie down and are guided to sleep while conscious. The result? You are both relaxed and empowered. You begin to wake up to everything in your life.

I was a women's empowerment coach for years, and the moment I found yoga nidra meditation it was clear: rest is what women need first. We need to dare to rest, release what no longer serves us, and rise up from a peaceful place. We cannot lead without rest. Rest is medicine, and the more we forget the harder it becomes to journey through life. Every self-care tool is just a bandaid without rest as your foundation.

Women especially, have so many reasons to rest. Our creative spirit needs rest. Our mothering hearts need rest. Our sensitive bodies need rest. Our leadership potential needs rest.

I am now a yoga nidra meditation cheerleader because using yoga nidra I've seen women get the best sleep of their lives, lose weight, get off medications, manage pain, give birth confidently, improve their pain during menstruation, address fertility issues, cultivate ease during the journey through menopause, unleash their creativity, and begin dreaming big in their lives. 

It all starts with daring to rest. 

Every yoga nidra meditation I create, or yoga nidra meditation program I lead, it's with this daring spirit that I invite you to rest. If this feels like it's for you, I hope you'll join us.

My Story + Why Yoga Nidra Meditation is Medicine.

Listen to me talk about the power of yoga nidra rest meditation.

Meet Karen Brody Founder & Chief Yoga Nidra Cheerleader

I'm a dreamer. Mom. Writer. Activist. Women's history lover. Change maker. Introvert. Yoga nidra meditation cheerleader.

I joined the Peace Corps after college, lived in a thatched house with no electricity, and supported Mayan women entrepreneurs. Met my British husband in the Peace Corps. We've lived around the world, from Belize to Kenya, and settled in Washington, DC to give my oldest son a life-changing education that meets his learning differences. We consider the world our home.

I've been writing about women's lives for over two decades. You may have heard of my play Birth, called "The Vagina Monlogues for childbirth" by Dr. Christiane Northrup, and the movement of communities around the world who have produced the play, translated it into four languages, and raised over $1 million to improve childbirth.

My new book comes out this year, Daring to Rest (Sounds True, Nov 2017).  You can host a Daring to Rest event for women in your community when the book comes out - go here for details.  This is a book to help women break the cycle of fatigue and reclaim their power because it's time to wake up -- women can no longer remain in, what Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls, a 'psychic slumber.'

You might be surprised to know that my favorite place to practice yoga nidra meditation is in my car. Second favorite is 'sleeping' with others in my at-home yoga nidra rest cave, practicing with girlfriends or my husband and kids. I love introducing people to yoga nidra meditation, sharing it with people on airplanes, and every age group and community, from women in their nineties to homeless women to young children. And I love years later when they tell me:  yoga nidra changed my life. (or "noga nidra" as a five year old named Henry calls it!).

Professional Bio:

Karen Brody is a woman’s health and leadership speaker and the founder of a yoga nidra meditation company, training people around the world in her Daring to Rest model. She is certified in the Amrit Method of yoga nidra and trained in level two of iRest yoga nidra. Karen is also a writer and the playwright of Birth, a theater-for-social-change play seen in over seventy-five cities around the world. She has a B.A. in sociology from Vassar and an M.A. in Women and International Development from the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands. She is the mother of two boys, met her husband in the Peace Corps and considers the world home.

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