Parents, surely you’re tired of telling your kids to put down the smartphone and be more present. Well, one young lady is taking mindfulness to another level. Not only does she practice yoga, she teaches it.
At just 11 years old, Meka Leach is wise beyond her years.
“Think more mindfully before you speak. Not just blurt everything out at once,” says Meka.
Today in her ‘Mindfulness with Meka’ class she instructs both children and adults on how to calm their minds and live in the present.
It took 200 hours for her to complete her Bhakti yoga certification, making her the youngest instructor in the U.S.
“Being the youngest is like no different than being the oldest. It's just about how you teach,” she says.
A national fencing champion, Meka’s coach first suggested she try yoga to increase flexibility. After one class, her mother Shannon says she was hooked.
“She felt that this was her calling. She would tell us she would stay up late writing yoga flows. She would have her little friends over, and she would play like yoga teacher,” says Shannon Leach.
When her parents asked if she could take the yoga teacher training course, Meka’s instructors made an exception for the promising young study.
“So many times we see kids her age and their faces are in their phones and she's that other side of the spectrum that's now like, hey, wait a minute, we don't have to have our face in our phones. We could be doing all this stuff to heal ourselves and heal the world,” explains Misty Soderholm, a yoga instructor and co-founder of Soderworld Wellness
And that’s what Meka says she wants to do.
As a trained Reiki master, she’s passionate about holistic therapy and is also a certified harmonic waves healing practitioner.
“So, I used my healing instruments that I have here, and it's meant to help heal you,” says Meka. “And it just helps relax you. And sometimes it's really intense that people just fall asleep.”
Soderholm says Meka’s transformation from student to teacher is now complete.
“She really is like this old soul that was put in this little body to come and help change the world. And it's been really magnificent to watch,” Soderholm said.