Meet Lauren Ash, One of the Most Important Voices In the Wellness Industry

With Black Girl In Om, Lauren Ash is spreading a powerful message to women of color.

Though an ancient practice, yoga has become more and more accessible in the modern era—you can stream live classes, follow yogis’ personal lives on social media platforms, and download mindfulness apps to guide your solo meditation. But for some people, yoga—and the holistic lifestyle it promotes—remains as out of reach as ever, especially considering the fact that the set of modern women that has co-opted it has been predominately white, thin, and decked out in Lululemon. (A sentiment echoed here: Jessamyn Stanley’s Uncensored Take On “Fat Yoga” and the Body Positive Movement)

That’s where Lauren Ash comes in. In November 2014, the Chicago-based yoga instructor started Black Girl In Om, a wellness initiative catering to women of color, after she looked around her yoga class and realized she was usually the only black woman there. “Even though I enjoyed my practice,” she says, “I always thought, how much more amazing would this be if I had other women of color here with me?”

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From its start as a weekly yoga session, BGIO has grown into a multi-platform community where “women of color [can] breathe easy,” Ash says. Through in-person events, Ash has created a space that’s immediately welcoming to people of color. “When you walk into the room, you feel like you’re with family, that you can talk about something that’s happening within our community without having to explain yourself for it.” She still guides the original Self-Care Sunday series, and BGIO hosts various other pop-up meditation and yoga events. Online, Om, the group’s digital publication (created by women of color for women of color) does the same. “There are so many wellness platforms out there in the digital space, some that I love, but the audiences that they’re speaking to aren’t necessarily culturally specific,” says Ash. “Our contributors share all the time how powerful it is knowing that the content that they’re creating is going to someone just like them.” And with her podcast, Ash is able to take her message to literally anyone with a smartphone or computer and internet access.

As BGIO approaches its third anniversary, Ash has become a crucial voice in the wellness world. Plus she recently signed on as a Nike trainer, so she’s poised to take her message to a larger audience than ever. She shares what she’s learned about diversity (or the lack of it) in the wellness world, why bringing health and fitness to women of color is so important, and how changing your life for the better can impact so many others.

Yoga may be for every body, but it’s still not accessible to everybody.

“As a yoga student, I looked around and I saw that there were very, very little women of color in the yoga spaces that I occupied. And I rarely, if ever, within my first two years of practicing, had a black woman guiding a session. When I started BGIO and the Instagram account shortly after, I didn’t see enough representations of black women practicing yoga, or black women in general…

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