A yoga teacher and massage therapist at Lotus Blossom Clinic in Fort Myers, Kandy Love credits awakening to feeling her life from the inside-out, rather than thinking and analyzing it in her head, and being, rather than getting caught up in the doing, as well as noticing the power of now. She also gained an awareness of being able to choose how she wanted to feel.

Love’s work history prior to choosing a yogic lifestyle began after college, when she earned a degree in English at St. Lawrence University, in upstate New York. Her first a job as a management trainee at AT&T with an apartment in Manhattan, then teaching high school in Ft. Myers, followed by working as a Miami newspaper editor. In-between were sporadic yoga classes as a student and teacher. Then, a weeklong yoga retreat on Sanibel Island changed everything.

“The feeling was amazing,” she says. “The last day of the yoga retreat on Sanibel, I was doing my own yoga on the beach, breathing, learning to be in my body and be present. My first, ‘Aha.’ I couldn’t name the feeling, but I knew I wanted to feel like that all the time. There was something about yoga movements and the yoga approach to life that grabbed my attention and slowed me down.

“Within a short time, I quit my job in Miami. New York and Miami were alike. Male-dominated, 48-hour days and eight-day weeks. I wasn’t married and had no children. I loved my job. I was working hard, yet crashing and burning and repeating the cycle again for as long as that lasted.

“I decided to get my teaching certificate for yoga and go to massage school for a massage license to learn about the body. A new career was evolving. I also moved back to Ft. Myers to live with my mom. I taught yoga at five different locations and did in-home massage daily. I’d leave the house in the morning with my massage table and yoga props in the back seat of my station wagon and my food and yoga clothes in the front seat.

“It was a great life. My mom became a yogi and started teaching her own class. We converted to vegetarians. Within 18 months, I opened Healthy & Harmony Center. Another ‘Aha!’ When I’m connected and aligned with my higher consciousness and purpose, things move quickly. After 25 years, I sold Health & Harmony. My ‘Aha!’ that time was that I didn’t belong there anymore. I was in my 60s and in a different stage of my life.

“So many ‘Aha!’ moments. They come daily now. Life is about balance and living in your body as a vehicle. You get an inside feeling about who you are, what you are and where you are to be. And the yoga practice, whether it's the breathing, the movement, the whole philosophy of life, nurtures that. The innate, energetic intelligence we call prana transforms your life. Now I wake up awake. How do I interact? What is next? But not what am I going to do. The ‘doing' has been replaced with ‘being’.”

Lotus Blossom Clinic is located at 6710 Winkler Rd. Ste. 2, in Ft. Myers. Call 239-277-1399. Visit Facebook.com/Kandy.t.Love.