Rising Stars: Meet Christy Lynn Hicks

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christy Lynn Hicks.

Hi Christy, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Nashville, TN, and was raised in the home my father built in the 70s just outside the city in Mt. Juliet. I went through the first half of my life on autopilot not knowing how to just be me. As such, I made a lot of choices that led me further and further away from myself and into a very unhealthy life that I didn’t love.

Seeking relief & solutions for chronic low back pain, I discovered Yoga in the early 90s with Betty Larsen of the Yoga Room in Berry Hill and fell in love with the practice. Throughout a 4 year apprenticeship with her, I found ways to relieve my back pain, and I ended up finding so much more.

I began teaching a couple of years into my practice while helping Betty at the Yoga Room, fitting Yoga into every spare moment I could find while working my corporate job, knowing one day, I wanted to open my studio.

Life circumstances led me to Los Angeles, CA in early 2000 and I dove head-first into everything I could find about Yoga and Eastern Wisdom Teachings. Throughout my quest, I discovered Positive Psychology, the scientific approach to what I had been learning for well over a decade through Yoga and what I felt was the missing piece for what I had studied in college through Traditional Psychology.

Through my training in Yoga Therapy, I fell in love with Yoga’s sister Science, Ayurveda. And on and on it went. For years, I learned all that I could to understand myself and the world better and how it all worked together. In March 2005, I opened my Yoga Studio, Yoga Blend, in Burbank, CA which I owned until March 2020 when all Yoga Studios in Los Angeles were required to shut down.

It was a dream come true for those 15 years and exceeded my expectations in every way. As I watched my dream and the world around me crumble in 2020, I decided to move back to my hometown to be near family and focus my energy and attention on more intimate and community-centered work through my boutique wellness retreat and integration center, Elevation Central in Mt. Juliet which launched in March of 2022.

The center offers holistic events, workshops, teacher training, therapeutic work, conscious music, personal retreats community connection, and more. Most recently, when my son’s homeschool program dissolved and the options I found didn’t fit our family’s desires and lifestyle, I decided to launch a homeschooling/unschooling program out of the center called the Academy of Natural Arts in Sept of 2023.

The focus of the academy is on right brain activation and empowering children and adults with a holistic & integrative approach to life, education, and learning. I aim to support homeschooling and unschooling families on their unique journey by offering flexible, holistic, and creative solutions like what we have always sought as a creative, traveling, homeschool/unschool family working in entertainment and the holistic arts for most of our lives.

Although I didn’t see it coming, I feel all of my training and all of my seeking was to prepare me for this time so that I could empower adolescent children through adulthood with all the tools they need to be the best and brightest to shepherd the world into a whole new reality.

Next up is my book which is scheduled for release in June of 2024.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh my gosh. Absolutely not. There have been so many challenges that it is hard to keep track of them all at this point. However, one of the biggest was the forced closure of Yoga Studios for over a year in Los Angeles due to Covid.

The decision to shut down my dream business and leave my friends, community, home & relationship behind shook me to the core. I had to lay off so many of my favorite people and colleagues who had worked with me for well over a decade.

I also suffered a pretty intense identity crisis and death of ego as I tried to find my footing after such a major upheaval. The years that followed were some of the darkest I have experienced in quite some time as I worked to let go of all I created and who I had become to make way for something new.

However, I made it through to the other side and I feel so grateful to now be living a life that is more in alignment with who I have become through the process and what I am called to create moving forward. But it did not come easily which makes it all the sweeter.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I consider myself a holistic or natural artist and my art is in helping people land safely in their bodies and connect to the power of their energetic (or chakra) system so their innate wisdom can flow through unimpeded and they can create a life of their design.

My dharma is in curating safe spaces for people to gather and feel a sense of connection and belonging. I am so proud to carry on the legacy of safety that my parents offered me, my brother, and countless other children and adults throughout their lives.

Having studied everything I could find to understand better how this world works and our place in it, I blend a wide array of Eastern and Western modalities to help guide people into living a life that is in harmony with their inner desires, nature, other people, and the outside world.

At my core, I am a cheerleader. I was one growing up and I still am today. I’m loud and gregarious. I have a lot of energy. I’m super quirky. I love jumping around and turning upside down. And most of all, I love people and I love cheering them on.

I just want EVERYBODY to win.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
So many books!

But here are just a few that have helped me on my path and in my work: The Heart of Yoga by TKV Desikachar, Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Estes, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, Eastern, Body Western Mind and Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith, Shakti Woman, and Motherpeace by Vicki Noble, Breathing by Michael Sky, The Power of Now and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss, The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, Liberating Isolation by Frans Moors, The Buddha & The Badass by Vishen Lakhiani, The Sophia Code by Kaia Ra, The Complete Works of Florence Shinn, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, The Artist Way by Julia Cameron, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Yoga Beyond Belief by Ganga White, and Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.elevationcentral.com
• Instagram: @elevationcentral
• Other: [email protected]/academy

Image Credits
Billy Allen, Christy Lynn, Ben Caron, and Jenn Cutliffe