Meet Katherine Freeland of Franklin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Katherine Freeland

Katherine, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I lived until I moved to New York in 2011. I was very creative and a little bit wild in high school – perhaps could have been voted least likely to settle down and become a yoga teacher but miracles happen and here we are!

During my first years at the Pratt Institute studying photography, I remember a little voice telling me that I “should” attend the lunch hour yoga class instead of whatever else I was getting in to, perhaps it would calm me down. Like many artists (and young adults), I struggled with my inner world and what I would generally call angst. I wasn’t exactly spiritual at that time.

It wasn’t until I spent a summer at home with my parents in 2013 that I actually did attend a yoga class. It was at a wellness club in Indiana, a class called “Yoga for Fitness” and once I tried it, I didn’t miss an opportunity to practice for the rest of the summer. There was something profound about the way the movement and the breath made me feel, unlike anything else. I was at ease.

I moved back to Brooklyn that fall, eager to find a proper yoga studio. I lived pretty far out in Crown Heights at the time, but a quick train ride to Brooklyn Yoga Collective, where there were several teachers offering “Jivamukti Yoga”. I had no idea that it was a world renowned method with its flagship school in Manhattan – but I was blown away by every aspect of the practice, which was far more dynamic than “Yoga for Fitness” with it’s chanting, meditation, yoga philosophy teachings, and very challenging but amazing sequences.

My body and mind were transforming. I was more positive, regulated, intentional, and sought out yoga & meditation classes as a part of my fall schedule. The lunch hour class became very important to me, and my art work began to explore themes of seeking light within darkness.

Yoga became less prominent in the next few years when the financial demands of living in New York City led me to a busy and exhausting marketing job in the city where happy hours with colleagues and nightlife networking were the norm. My circle of friends were not that interested in wellness and I found myself quite unhappy after a few years as a result.

On January 1, 2017, I woke up in the morning quite literally desperate for a yoga class. I found a small community studio had popped up a short walk from where I was living. The class they were having that day was 108 Sun Salutations. I had really gained weight and lost strength so this proved extremely difficult, but I made it. That spark was relit. I remember meeting my teacher Christina Rufin that day, who owned the studio.

“I used to want to be a yoga teacher,” I told her, ashamed by my lack of commitment in the last years.

“That’s OK,” she said, “You’re here now.” She encouraged me to volunteer at her front desk in exchange for classes and sign up for the yoga teacher training starting that spring. I didn’t intend to teach, but I wanted to learn more about the practice in order to create a more dedicated approach.

During those training weekends in the studio, I completely fell in love with my renewed enthusiasm to yoga, and discovered a joy in teaching classes. Jivamukti Yoga came up in our study and I was sent to that big Manhattan school as my assignment one week. That first packed Thursday night class made such a big impression on me – it was another world, mystical and serene. It was walking distance from my office, where I was feeling more and more tension to leave. Many evenings, instead of happy hour, I found myself making a beeline to the studio for the 5pm class.

Eventually I quit that job, which was a really big deal at the time. But my commitment to healing was greater. Yoga was my saving grace in that year. I was teaching as much as possible, taking classes as much as I could afford on a freelancer’s pay.

After a year, I got an email that the Jivamukti Yoga School was hiring a front desk assistant. It was the only job I ever actually wanted. The interview was funny – they looked at my CV and asked if I wanted to work in the office. I said no, I just want to smile at people and hand out the towels. Little did I know that eventually, I’d be corresponding with yogis from all over the world, as a key team member in their international teacher trainings and working on their website, among many other things. I was immersed in the world of Jivamukti from 2018 on – that school was like my second home. I started teaching Jivamukti Yoga in 2019.

2019 was a very interesting year for many reasons. Since my senior year of college I was living with a boyfriend who can only be described as Not The Right One. We finally broke things off in the summer. It was an extremely turbulent transition. While struggling over who would keep the dog and apartment, it was agreed upon that I would get to spend a month traveling abroad since he was keeping the apartment. He would watch the dog, then she and I could move out.

I booked a one way ticket to India to stay in an ashram. People kept comparing me to Eat Pray Love, which I resisted until I watched the film, in a puddle of wine and tears, while packing. That month in India continued to expand the deep, spiritual love and faith i was cultivating through my yoga practice. It was there I really began to practice and understand Bhakti Yoga: the yoga of devotion, the true soul of the practice. I came back unsure of what the future held, but ready to set up a new life.

The beginning of 2020 brought more positive, yet unexpected shifts: my new neighbor and then boyfriend, now husband and I started joking about moving to Tennessee for greener pastures, his songwriting career, and to be closer to family. We moved to Franklin in September of 2020.

My first years in Franklin were busy enjoying a new kind of life (we felt like we were on vacation after living in NYC for so long!) working from home, but also traveling around the world as a part of my work with Jivamukti: I’ve taken several journeys of several weeks to destinations in Europe and India to study with my teachers.

Eventually, Franklin really began to feel like home. I still practice with my NYC teachers online, but I also have met some very dear friends in the yoga scene here in Nashville. I was so happy and grateful to join the yoga team and embrace being a community member at Lifetime since summer of 2021. In 2022-23, I was very fortunate to have the joyful opportunity to teach kids yoga classes at a very special school in East Nashville.

I also connected with Cindy Lunsford, who is a wonderful yoga teacher and fellow Bhakti yogi. She opened the community oriented Yoga Soul Bhakti Center in Wedgewood-Houston where I have met some amazing people, and had the pleasure of teaching some classes. One of the highlights of every week is attending the weekly Yoga Soul kirtan, which is open to everyone. Kirtan is a devotional practice of call and response chanting of mantras. It might seem very foreign as a practice at first, but I have found such peace and joy and connection through the vibrational Sanskrit words, which I know as Holy Names. It’s beyond any one religion – it’s meant to connect us to the very source of All That Is.

In 2023, my husband Jonathan and I got married at Allenbrooke Farm in Spring Hill and it was so wonderful to be able to share our blossoming new life with family and friends here in Tennessee. We took a 5 week honeymoon literally around the world, much of which was spent in Bali, truly the only fitting way to conclude my Eat Pray Love journey. The last year has been one of really getting aligned with my goals and the next phase of life, and expanding my offerings after leaving my full time job in spring 2024 to focus solely on teaching for the first time.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Life is full of challenges and I’m no stranger to that! A yoga journey is really a life journey, the two cannot be separated. I’ve faced inner struggles with mental health, career difficulties and disappointment, housing insecurity in NYC, breakups, financial stress, the global pandemic, even pregnancy loss in the last 10 years. Of course, there is no magic cure all for these things but Yoga was the thing that always made sense and offered a refuge, a lifeline to solid ground, again and again. A way to shift from despair to hope. A space to catch my breath.

That is because the purpose of all yoga and meditation practices is to realize our inner connection to God and create a secure experience of that in our consciousness, so when the waves rise up, or when we fall down, we can actually feel the presence of the one who is the Anchor of everything. It’s not easy, but that’s why you don’t only practice yoga once. It’s true from the point of view of the student as well as the teacher. Showing up for others to offer them a space to move, breathe, reconnect, and practice grace has been profoundly uplifting for me in my lowest personal moments.

It has also not been so easy creating a career out of something as spiritual, personal, and precious as yoga. Not every arrangement works out, which can be hard because of the love that goes in to each and every class, studio, and student relationship. It has taken a long time to have enough experience to really have something valuable to share, I can only credit my teachers for the gift of their teachings that I can pass along to others. Moving to a new city in my late 20s and finding my people was also not so easy. Again, yoga offered a point of connection around something truly good and the confidence to always keep going.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a full time yoga & meditation teacher. Maybe that’s unique on its own, that sharing yoga has become my daily focus, rather than a side job.

I try to highlight the deep spiritual aspects of the practice, without losing touch of the practical and physical parts of yoga, which are often our in road and the easiest to access. I want to craft an experience on the yoga mat where someone will have a depth of opportunity to learn about themselves, face challenges, and grow by overcoming them. I do my best to convey something mystical, yet relatable. I hope people will experience their own wholeness- their own inherent holiness- when studying yoga with me. It’s such an honor that people choose to show up week after week to practice with me, and that I can help them feel stronger, more flexible, and more at ease, body, mind, and spirit. It’s a very special language to speak, one that truly integrates all parts of our being.

I have become adept at teaching beginners, as well as very seasoned practitioners, often at the same time. I love to give hands on assists while I’m teaching, which people really tend to enjoy. I teach the Jivamukti Yoga Method, which incorporates five tenets of Ahimsa (compassion), Bhakti (devotion), Dhyana (meditation), Nada (yoga of sound vibration) and Shastra (scripture study) along with a practice of yoga poses (asana) that is dynamic, exciting, works the whole body plus great music and spiritual inspiration. I can describe it as best I can but really, it’s something to be felt. Come and see!

Kids yoga is also a special offering that I feel fortunate to have developed – it’s high energy, games, poses, laughter, falling down, getting up, being silly. Things we all need and so much fun. I wish I had practiced yoga as a kid!

My friend once shared that she described me to someone as, “What you would expect a yogi to be like… someone in their own world, that you want to be a part of.” I really resonated with that. I connect to my own joy often, therefore try to shine that out as actively as I can. I smile at others often, and bring a calm, kind, grounding, healing energy to spaces and situations I find myself in as best I can.

I loved Bali so much that I’m leading my very first yoga retreat there in March 2025 and cannot wait. I am also looking forward to offering yoga classes for kids and adults at the brand new Groundfloor Yoga & Wellbeing Studio at the Factory in Franklin starting June 2024.

Really, I’m excited about everything the future holds. As my teacher Sharon Gannon says – “The Best is Yet To Come!”

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
When we really feel we are in our mountain climb moments, if we can remember to pause and breathe, we might experience the most beautiful view. That light will be found even in the darkest spaces. That God truly does arrange everything perfectly, which is easiest to perceive when we surrender and trust.

Pricing:

• Yoga Soul Bhakti Center in South Nashville | Drop in Class $15
• Groundfloor Yoga & Wellbeing at the Factory in Franklin | Drop in Class $38
• Bali Yoga Retreat March 2025 | 7 nights all inclusive $2075

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.katherinefreeland.com
• Instagram: @katherine.sadhana