About Way Show Er Sanctuary

Way Show Er Sanctuary grew out of my own search for healing, but the story really started long before I ever imagined opening a wellness studio.

I grew up in the Midwest carrying a lot of childhood trauma, and as I got older, that emotional weight was joined by physical injuries and chronic pain. Eventually, a devastating skydiving accident left me with a severely damaged spine. I reached a point where I couldn't simply ignore my body anymore. I had to understand it. I had to learn how pain, movement, stress, trauma, breath, and the nervous system all worked together — because I needed to find a way forward for myself.

Teaching, however, had already been part of my life for decades. I spent 17 years as a professional chef, training countless people in fast, demanding kitchens. Later, during roughly 14 years as a skydiving instructor and videographer, I helped people face fear in an environment where staying present, finding your breath, and understanding your body really mattered. Indoor wind-tunnel flying took that even further and taught me just how dramatically tiny changes in body position, tension, balance, and awareness can affect the way we move.

When I began my own healing journey, all of those experiences suddenly started connecting. I dove into yoga, injury recovery, trauma release, somatic movement, breathwork, meditation, sound, nervous-system regulation and other approaches to understanding ourselves. As I found things that helped me move better, hurt less, regulate myself and reconnect with my body, my natural instinct was the same one I'd had throughout my life: I wanted to teach what I was learning and help other people discover what might be possible for them.

By then, El Sobrante had become my home after moving here from the Midwest, and I kept noticing something that bothered me. Why should the people who live here have to drive through traffic to Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond or Walnut Creek every time we want access to interesting wellness experiences? Why couldn't we build something here, for ourselves, in our own community and do it our own way?

That's why I created Way Show Er Sanctuary.

This isn't meant to be just another place to take a yoga class. It's a place to explore. Depending on what you need, that might mean yoga, Pilates, injury-recovery movement, trauma release, sound healing, meditation, nervous-system work, somatic practices, SYNC, community events or something you've never experienced before. Our self-discovery workbook takes that same philosophy beyond the studio, helping people explore their own patterns, ask deeper questions and continue learning about themselves.

I don't believe there is one path that works for everyone, and I don't believe wellness should be something that is handed down to us from somewhere else. We can create it here. We can learn from one another. We can make it our own.

Most of us spend enough of our lives working, commuting, taking care of responsibilities and repeating the same routines. Way Show Er Sanctuary is a place to step outside of that for a while — to move, breathe, learn, laugh, challenge yourself, get quiet, meet your neighbors and maybe discover something about yourself you didn't know before.

You don't need to be flexible, athletic or spiritual. You don't need to know anything about yoga, meditation, trauma work or nervous-system regulation. You just need to be curious enough to try.

Way Show Er Sanctuary is our little sanctuary in El Sobrante — created here, for the people who live here, because we shouldn't have to leave our own community to find something that helps us feel more alive.

Jason