By Mary Ann Lopez
Laura Jane Mellencamp was a successful yoga teacher with celebrity clients in Los Angeles when, in 1995, she decided she wanted to make a change in her life.
At a time when yoga in the suburbs was still a rarity, Mellencamp left the West Coast, her friends and her celebrity clients for the Midwest and Chicago’s suburbs. Her reason for leaving LA? As Mellencamp explained, “Yoga was losing its heart and becoming a business.”
Before she decided to move, Mellencamp repeatedly meditated on what she should do and she heard, “go to the heart.” A close friend told her to “build a bridge of love and expand your life.” She couldn’t very well leave and not have a way to support herself. Through her meditation, she discovered she was the job. While she had taught at other studios, she realized now was the time to step out on her own. Trusting the voice within gave her the courage she needed to make the move. She found herself in Naperville, Illinois.
At the time, she moved to Naperville because the demographics showed it was an up-and- coming area with many corporations, but not much else. So in 1995, she started teaching yoga in Naperville, eventually moving her classes to nearby Downers Grove, a suburb about 23 miles from Chicago, two years later.
Then, in 1998, she opened Yoga Among Friends in downtown Downers Grove. The name for the studio came naturally. Because Mellencamp knew so few people when she first opened, everyone who came into the studio soon became a friend, she said. The studio celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2013.
When she decided to pick up and move, she had no idea what the outcome might be. “I never knew I’d have a center or be in Downers Grove,” she said.
What she did when she founded Yoga Among Friends and continues to do is to meet people where they are. “A great teacher walks with you,” she said.
At the beginning, walking with her students meant understanding that chanting or speaking in Sanskrit made some of them uncomfortable. However, as yoga has expanded in the city and the suburbs, views have changed.
Once one of the few studios in the suburbs, Yoga Among Friends now joins many more studios throughout the area. Mellencamp’s studio has become a hub for yogis, many long- time students and some who have transitioned to teach at the studio.
“Everyone is heartfelt,” Mellencamp said. “If you come to Yoga Among Friends, you get a hug. Many students won’t leave without their hug.” That feeling of touch grounds people and they leave feeling connected, she said.
Student and teacher Julie Stewart is one of the many connected yogis at the studio. She has been practicing about 20 years and teaching yoga for close to a decade. She has watched and learned from Mellencamp, emulating her ability to maintain balance in all things. “We stand on the shoulders of our teachers and they hold us up,” Stewart said.
Yoga Among Friends is not a typical studio, Stewart explains. The yoga center is welcoming to students of all levels and offers a variety of classes. “I see the same people coming who have been coming here since I started,” Stewart notes. “People may come and go, but they always come back.”
Mellencamp made a commitment to the community when she opened Yoga Among Friends to create a healing yoga center. She has gained a number of clients who come to her for private yoga therapy sessions.
Early on in her yoga career, when she made a commitment to her own practice and teaching, Mellencamp knew she wanted to have a Western degree to back up her practice, so she studied and earned a master’s degree in psychology. She created her own program that combines Eastern philosophy and Western psychology.
“I never wanted to be a therapist in the traditional sense,” she said, adding that she began calling herself a yoga therapist.
After meeting T.K.V. Desikachar, Mellencamp learned he wanted to start a yoga therapy program. She applied and was accepted, and over the course of six years and trips back and forth to Chennai, India, Mellencamp completed the program.
She uses what she knows to help others who may be struggling with any number of issues, such as anxiety, addiction or depression. “This is my whole work, using these tools,” she explains.
In addition to building a yoga community, Mellencamp, now 59, also found love and a family in the suburbs. She married husband Patrick Murphy in 2000. In 2001, the couple adopted their daughter, Colby, now 12.
Raising a daughter made Mellencamp limit her teaching and yoga therapy to maintain balance between the studio and her family life. But in time she hopes to share more of her knowledge. She continues to mentor young teachers and students who she hopes will keep the integrity of yoga alive.
“I love people,” Mellencamp said. “I love getting to the light.”
Yoga Among Friends is located at 4949 Forest Ave., Downers Grove, IL. Learn more at YogaAmongFriends.com.
Mary Ann Lopez is a writer and yoga instructor living in the Chicago suburbs. When she’s not practicing or teaching yoga, she enjoys attempting to be creative in the kitchen and trail running with her Australian Shepherd Sadie.
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