The Place:  Thai Fresh

The Cup: Hot tea for both Jyl and I.

The Background: A few cups back, you’ll recall Cup 90, Kim Love, founder of the LoveLife Program. She told me about this incredible woman who used to own a terrific clothing boutique called Therapy, who had started Community Yoga in Austin, and who was now launching a business called Chocolate Pharmacy. Kim raved about the chocolate, and at that moment said, “You’ve got to meet Jyl! She’d be perfect for the project!”

“Yes! Please introduce us!” I said. She did, Jyl accepted and here we are.

Jyl is a woman with many talents and many passions. Her journey is full of twists and turns, always leading to somewhere new and interesting. She follows her heart and doing so had led her to many wonderful opportunities. Before we get into Jyl’s story, let’s cover some:

Common Grounds:

1. What’s a food you can’t live without? Chocolate.
2. How did you make your first buck? Where we lived in Houston when I was a kid, we were close to the golf course where they had the (Shell) Houston Open. My dad would go to Sam’s Club and buy cans of soda and maybe bottled water, though I don’t know if that was popular back then, and me and my brother would fill up our little red wagon with ice and drinks, schlep to to the golf course and sell drinks to the people watching the tournament. My dad made us pay him back for his investment, but that’s how I made my first dollar.
3. What is the best place to eat in Austin? Koriente. There food is real simple, not super expensive, interesting and super fresh.
4. What is the best gift you ever got? My parents. I know my path has been so different from theirs. So, it’s their unconditional support through all my crazy ideas and adventures. They could have really given me grief at times, but they didn’t. I think there was a lot of fear on their part, but they didn’t throw that at me.
5. What is your guilty pleasure? One morning a week, I get my dog and we go out to the land (Jyl has recently purchased some bare land just west of Austin). I don’t put a limit on the time. Sometimes I’m there for 45 minutes, sometimes it’s three hours. It’s like I’m introducing myself to the land.
6. What’s the last thing you fixed? My car was making weird noises, and I put power steering fluid in it and it was fixed.
7. What is something you wish you owned? A yoga rope wall. It’s on my dream yoga studio wish list.
8. What’s something you’ll regret not doing if you don’t do it? I need to keep pursuing this yoga path even though there’s a lot of doubt right now. And in 2015 I want to travel to San Ignacio, Mexico – this tiny little village where there is a lagoon and once a year gray whales migrate there – it’s basically a nursery, and they make their babies strong before they head back to California and further north. The amazing thing is that less than a 100 years ago, it used to essentially be a slaughterhouse. The whalers knew about this location and they’d come and kill them. The water was red. In the last century, the locals have fought the whalers and created this safe haven.

Midwestern Roots

Jyl was born in Wisconsin, but when she was 10 years old, her family moved to Houston. Jyl made it to Austin for college, and with the exception of a few, relatively brief adventures in LA, Dallas, Nashville and New York, she’s called Austin home ever since.

An interest in fashion, but a desire to keep the family peace might be a good way of describing how Jyl earned a degree in Marketing, International Business and Fashion. She loved fashion and knew her parents wanted to see her get a “real” degree, so she opted to do it all.

Strike A Pose

After college, Los Angeles seemed the perfect place to get started in the fashion business. At the time, Austin was much more about being weird than being stylish. Jyl went to work for a fashion designer and did a lot of work as a stylist, mostly for rock and roll musicians. Jyl says that wasn’t exactly her scene, so it was a fun experience and broadened her horizons. She tells me, “LA was intense.” Like most who leave Austin, Jyl was eager to get back, so when an opportunity to open Urban Outfitters in Austin came up, it was the perfect chance to get back home.

A few years after making the move, the excitement and challenge of opening the store began to wear off. Then the company went public and things changed even more. She missed designing, and retail had really worn her down. By this time, Jyl could see that Austin was now ready for more fashion, so she rented some space just off of South Congress, created a studio and opened it to the public. Soon, she was bringing in pieces from other designers and before long, the store had really taken off. Eventually, she moved the store further north up South Congress and added space for another one of her passions: chocolate.

Om

Since college, Jyl had been experimenting with various styles of yoga and developed a strong practice. She was very flexible and the poses came fairly easy for her. But she often found herself in pain. Her hips and back would ache and she couldn’t understand why – considering how well she was caring for herself. She began exploring various master teachers and one person in particular really spoke to her. Tias Little was often featured as a columnist in Yoga Journal and Jyl found his teachings to be practical and profound. When she learned he and his wife were leading a course in Santa Fe, Jyl signed up. She says, “I thought it was going to be like a yoga vacation.” In reality, it was yoga teacher training.

Early in the workshop, Tias observed Jyl’s yoga technique and told her she was causing harm to herself. From that point, she tells me, she essentially had to relearn yoga, admitting, “It was quite the blow to my ego.”

Shifting

The entire workshop experience caused a shift in Jyl and she began to reevaluate many things in her life, namely, her business. She realized that day to day, she was less focused on design and more focused on running a business. That had never been her desire. In fact, she says in large part, it was naiveté and ignorance that led to the business she had. She never intended the business to grow into what it had become. She was happy for the success, but she admits that she’s always sort of lived by the philosophy, “Jump in and then figure things out.” Now though, she had to find a way to jump back out.

Jyl had begun teaching yoga for her friends. Evntually, she branched out and taught middle school girls and elderly – because she felt those were safe groups. She was still learning and didn’t yet feel confident as a teacher. But teaching yoga filled her soul with joy. Could she make a switch?, she wondered. Was there a way to leave fashion behind and reinvent herself? Only one way to find out.

Doors Closing

After 12 years, Jyl closed the doors of Therapy and headed to India for a month to hatch her plan. Jyl shares with me some of her fears and self-doubt. She say, “My identity was gone.” She was worried that if she stayed in Austin and began teaching yoga that people would think she was crazy for closing the store and then suddenly shifting to become a yoga instructor.

I can completely understand her fears. I joke that when you look at my resume, there is a very thin thread connecting everything I’ve done, but often the only person who can see that thread is me. I know the story of how this led to that, and of opportunities that came from unexpected places. Very few people stay in the same profession forever, and some of us are always open to something new. That’s not to say we’re flaky or unreliable. For me, at least, I know what my purpose is for being somewhere, and once I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, I am open to the next challenge.

Jyl listens to her heart and is in tune with her needs. She recognizes burnout when it’s coming toward her and knows it’s in her best interest to cross the street and move on to something else. Without people like Jyl, this world would be bland and drab. It would be filled with resentful and unhappy people with abandoned dreams. Jyl says, “Sometimes you just need to step into your fear, and what comes out of that is so powerful.”

After India, Jyl headed to New York to get some experience teaching yoga and, she hoped, to get a chance to meet the women responsible for creating Bent On Learning – a yoga outreach program for kids that Jyl had long admired. Before leaving, Jyl and a friend had noodled on the idea of creating a community yoga program in Austin, so she was interested in finding out more about the non-profit world of yoga.

Doors Opening

Fatefully, she got her chance. One day, sitting on a bench waiting for her yoga class to start, she struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to her. After months of asking around, trying to find a connection to the founder of Bent On Learning, there she was, right next to her.

Jyl ended up working for the organization and spent nearly a year in NYC before heading back to Austin. Once here, she knew what she need to do. She called up her friend and they revisited the idea of bringing yoga to those who couldn’t afford it or who may never be exposed to it otherwise. And thus, the non-profit Community Yoga was born! Soon they were teaching over 40 classes a week at recovery centers, prisons, low-income communities, to kids, to the elderly, to the abused and to the forgotten. Yoga was no longer something only for rich, white women with designer yoga pants and $100 mats. It was for everyone, everywhere. Hell, yeah!

Jyl stepped down from Community Yoga a few years ago, and the organization Jyl helped launch is still going strong. Jyl remains a strong advocate for the organization and supports it every chance she gets. Jyl moved along to an opportunity to have her own yoga studio space in a South Congress gym – very close to her first retail store. The most significant thing that’s happened for Jyl in the last 30 days is the closing of that chapter of her life. The gym was sold, and as of May 1st, her studio space was no longer available to her. It hasn’t been an easy transition and she says there was some depression early on, and some mourning for the space she loved so. She says,”I lost my grounding.”

Reinvention

Only temporarily, though. Jyl found a beautiful private studio space where she is holding a few classes, as well as occasionally teaching in local parks – which I just love! What better place to practice than in the middle of nature? So perfect!

The other big thing Jyl is busy with is her new business, which she and her two partners launched a year ago, called Chocolate Pharmacy. From their website:

“Chocolate Pharmacy combines the curative power of raw cacao with the healing benefits of spices to create products that are both tasty and therapeutic. Our rich chocolate blends will delight your senses as they nourish your body and soul.”

They have just recently begun selling their delicious chocolates and, unsurprisingly, they are getting rave reviews. Lucky me, I got to sample some and let me tell you – the stuff is awesome! Unlike any chocolate you’ve ever had! The spices are subtle, balanced and glorious. Eating a truffle is a luxurious experience and because the chocolates have no sugar, dairy or soy, they are perfect for pretty much anyone – regardless of any food issues. YAY!

How does Jyl stay balanced and chill, with all the change and excitement? Well, you guessed it, yoga. Jyl tells me even if it’s a simple child’s pose or some mediation, she starts every day with some bit of yoga.

Finding Connection

I am curious what Jyl feels is the biggest issue facing society today. She says, “It’s disconnection via our overuse of social media. It’s so easy to get sucked in. It’s a vortex and very easily you can lose all track of time. Also, the anonymity that the internet provides is a problem. People hide behind social media and put some horrible things out there, and it just builds and builds. It scares me & creates this sense of disconnect. It doesn’t have to be that way – there’s so much potential for good, as well. You just have to be conscious of what you’re putting out there & what you’re letting in.”

Try Softer

If she had 30 seconds to make a speech to the world, Jyl’s message is this: “We’re all in this together and we all want the same things. Slow down, pause and look one another in the eyes. Everybody has felt pain. Everybody has felt love. No one wants to be in pain. It’s worth it to develop our consciousness. We can get so caught up in our own minds. Try softer. Someone told me that once and I love it. Try softer. If you can apply that to how you treat yourself and others, that will really change things.”

Jyl’s story reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

“20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain

Changing course takes courage. In hindsight, or from the outside looking in, it looks so obvious and right. But sitting in the moment of decision is one of the most fearfully exhilarating places to be. Like Seneca said and Semisonic quoted in the most popular end-of-the-night bar song, Closing Time, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Saying goodbye is hard, no matter whose idea it was. But you can’t get to home plate keeping one foot on third base. You have to muster the courage and just go for it. Knowing you will make mistakes, realizing you might fail, but trusting that mistakes and failure are proof that you did it. You are bold, courageous and you’ve got everything you need to be a success.

Jyl’s story is also a reminder that no one succeeds alone. In this hyper “connected” world where disconnection is the reality, resist the temptation to isolate. Connect with people, look each other in the eye, talk to the person sitting next to you on the bench. You just never know where that connection will lead you.

As Semisonic points out, the inevitable truth is that “closing time” is coming. “Gather up your jackets, move it to the exits. I hope you have found a friend.”

To learn more about Jyl’s latest venture, check out the Chocolate Pharmacy website.  In case you’re wondering, Comfy Sweater, Finish Line and Jumper Cables are my favorites! Mmm!