Community Helps Us Heal
Twenty Years of Yoga, Courage, and Burn Camp
Last week, I celebrated my 20th year teaching yoga with the University of Utah’s Burn Camp Nah, Nah, Mah.
Twenty years.
There are some milestones that make you stop and consider not simply how much time has passed, but how many people have passed through your life during that time.
For two decades, I have had the privilege of teaching yoga to young burn survivors alongside the very talented—and very humorous—Jillian Clark, a former co-director of Burn Camp and physical therapist with the University of Utah Burn Unit.
Jillian is one of the kindest humans I know.
She is also a two-time breast cancer survivor.
Over the years, Jillian and I have talked about something we understand in our own ways: sometimes the scars from the frightening things that happen to us are hidden underneath our clothing.
And sometimes, they are underneath our skin.
Cancer can be like that—a cellular malfunction invisible to the people standing beside us.
At Burn Camp, many of our young yoginis carry scars that are visible.
But those scars tell only a small part of their stories.
Underneath the Tree
On my second day at camp this year, I watched a young camper I have worked with for the past two years being interviewed by a media crew.
She is perhaps nine years old.
She sat underneath a tree in her summer yoga skort, her hair pulled back into two French-braided pigtails, neatly braided that morning by her volunteer counselor.
And then, with a remarkably calm voice coming from such a tiny body, she began explaining her burn injury.
She spoke about what had happened to her.
She spoke about her sister.
She shared details with a composure that made me wonder how many times she had already been asked to tell this story.
Perhaps she had told it a hundred times before.
Perhaps it felt like the hundredth time just that morning.
But as I watched her, what struck me most wasn't simply her bravery.
It was her resilience.
Here was this little girl sitting underneath a tree, telling the story of something she never would have chosen for herself.
And then she got on with being a kid at summer camp.
There is something extraordinary about that.
What Our Campers Teach Us
I have spent much of my life teaching.
But some of my greatest teachers have been children.
Burn Camp reminds me of that every year.
We arrive intending to teach them breathing, movement, balance, stretching, mindfulness and perhaps a little silliness.
And then they teach us.
They teach us courage.
They teach us adaptation.
They teach us that a body can carry a history and still experience joy.
They teach us that healing doesn't always mean erasing what happened.
Sometimes healing means discovering that what happened does not get to become the entirety of who we are.
And perhaps most importantly, they remind us that we don't heal alone.
Community Helps Us Heal
This year's Burn Camp yoga classes were the largest we have ever taught.
We taught three classes back-to-back.
Two classes included 34 campers and staff each.
Our final class held 53 campers and staff.
And surrounding those children was an extraordinary community:
Volunteer firefighters. Nurses. Physical therapists. Counselors. Staff members. Adult burn survivors who once attended this very program as children.
And two yoga teachers who have accumulated a few scars and stories of their own.
That's the part I keep thinking about.
The little girl beneath the tree wasn't there alone.
Someone had braided her hair that morning.
Someone was helping run her camp.
Someone prepared her meals.
Someone organized activities.
Someone volunteered.
Someone raised money.
Someone showed up.
And somewhere along the way, former campers grew up and returned to help the children coming behind them.
That is community.
Learning to Show Up for Others
That idea—learning how to care for ourselves so that we can more fully show up for another person—is also at the heart of the work I am moving into this fall.
We are offering a small, intentional Usui Reiki Level 1 & Level 2 Certification Program in Salt Lake City.
Reiki has become another way for me to explore something yoga has taught me for more than two decades: healing is not simply about what we do to someone.
It is about how we learn to be present with them.
Usui Reiki Level 1 & 2 Certification — Fall 2026
The full $300 certification program includes:
Level 1 — Foundation: Reiki history and principles, understanding energy, self-treatment and incorporating energy awareness into daily life.
Level 2 — Expanding Your Practice: offering Reiki to others, ethics, intuition, confidence and learning how to hold space with intention.
Bonus Introduction to Reiki with Animals: taught by Eileen Naughton, certified animal Reiki instructor—an introduction to sharing Reiki respectfully with pets, horses and other animals.
The training will be in person in Salt Lake City with an intentionally small cohort so there is time for individual attention, conversation and practice.
You do not need previous healing experience.
You don't need to have everything figured out.
You simply need curiosity—and a willingness to show up.
We may each carry our own scars.
But we were never meant to carry them alone.
With love,
Amy
