More than exercise

Radiant Wellness Solutions is back to uptown Creston, now in a permanent location. This yoga studio and healing space, located at 122 N. Maple St. and owned by Michelle Wilson, is not the first to host Radiant Wellness Solutions. In fact, her yoga journey started in 2000.

“I had been working in the nonprofit world when I lived in North Carolina and was just a ball of stress. This was before yoga was really very mainstream,” Wilson said. A friend recommended the activity to her. “At the time, I kind of looked at her funny and thought, I don’t know if this is going to work for me, but I tried it because I really had used all my tools and I was still not sleeping at night and thinking about the clients I was working with.”

It didn’t take long for Wilson to realize yoga would be a big help to her.

“I went to my first yoga class and noticed a significant change in my wellbeing,” Wilson said. “I noticed that I felt a lot better, both mentally and emotionally. I could sleep better, I could manage stress. There was something physically that had happened in my body beyond just stretching my hamstrings. I kept going to classes and studying with different teachers.”

Teaching

In 2007, Wilson moved from North Carolina back to Iowa, taking with her a dream of sharing yoga with others. She started taking more classes to be able to teach yoga herself. In 2013, she graduated from nutrition school and owned a yoga studio in Corning called Prairieland Yoga.

Along with having her own studio, Wilson continued taking courses in teaching yoga.

“I have done quite a bit of integrated nutrition health coaching with folks and have gone on to get different specializations,” Wilson said. “I’ve got specializations in accessible yoga and restorative yoga and nervous system yoga, a whole bunch of continuing education classes that I do just because I’m a nerd and I think it’s interesting. I want to keep bringing the best, most cutting edge information to my students.”

Wilson eventually sold her property in Corning. From 2018 to 2022, Wilson held classes at a rented studio on Montgomery Street as Radiant Wellness Solutions.

“I rented and we fixed up a studio space there 2018 to 2022, so most of that was during COVID time,” Wilson said. “We had a little window before COVID and a little window after COVID, but then the property sold, so I wasn’t able to continue my lease there.”

Without a studio space, Wilson continued her classes online and in other community spaces in town. In July, when giving a tour of the town to members of the Iowa Rural Development Council, Wilson spotted the open space on Maple Street. It didn’t take long for her to decide she needed a physical studio again, signing the lease on Sept. 1.

Wilson said she’s excited to create a community at her new space.

“One of my goals this time is to build more of a community. I feel like I had a community before, but just to bring in other teachers more frequently,” Wilson said. “Keri’s going to be doing the intro to meditation class, Jessi Grose is a vinyasa flow teacher from Mount Ayr, and she’s going to start coming up and teaching a flow class on Saturday mornings starting Oct. 21.”

Other future partnerships include Dr. Linda Holbrook from Carroll Family Chiropractic and a birth charts and breath work course with Mount Ayr’s Crystals and Wood.

Providing peace

While some might view yoga as just another form of exercise, Wilson explained there’s a lot more to it than that.

“Over 60% of people come to yoga specifically for stress management and/or supporting their mental health,” Wilson said. “That’s the focus I like to bring. I still like exercise. I like to walk and hike and all those types of things. Exercise is great, but I like to call this inner-cise, where the focus is on that nervous system regulation, meeting yourself where you are, moving with kindness, not worrying about what it looks like on the outside.”

Practicing yoga can help people be more aware of what some call their sixth sense, or their interoceptive awareness.

“Interoceptive awareness is knowing how your body feels on the inside. Your interoceptive awareness could notice, I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m feeling a little tense. It’s noticing what I feel like on the inside,” Wilson said. “Most of us, because we’re so busy, we’re externally going all the time. We don’t stop to notice how we’re feeling until the end of the day or we crash, or we come to yoga class and someone says, notice how you’re feeling. Yoga is a very conscious, gentle way, can really invite the interoceptive awareness.”

Wilson also wanted to make sure everyone felt welcome to practice yoga.

“Don’t judge yoga by what you see on social media. There’s a lot of people who are dancers or contortionists who are doing these yoga-like shapes, this focus on sort of a hyper-mobile type of body where you have to be able to touch your toes or stand on your hands or do all these wild things like be a pretzel,” Wilson said. “The style of yoga that I focus on, the primary focus is on nervous system regulation. The secondary benefits are balance and stability and strength, but I really sequence everything so it’s helping with mood more than anything.”

Wilson said anyone can do yoga.

“I hear a lot, ‘I can’t do yoga, I’m not flexible.’ That’s like saying, I can’t take a shower, I’m too dirty,” Wilson said.

With the style of yoga Wilson teaches, it is accessible to all types of people.

“Somebody might be completely in a wheelchair if they weren’t able to get up to standing, and that would be great,” Wilson said. “If somebody wants to amp up their practice, do a little bit more intense version of it, they can do that. There’s lots of right ways to do yoga.”

While Radiant Wellness Solutions doesn’t have long, regular hours like a shop, Wilson encourages people to contact her or drop in to get started on their yoga journey.

“We’re open during the classes, we’re open during special events, we’re open by those appointments,” Wilson said. “It’s a little bit different than just popping into the store to kind of browse around. If I’m here, people are welcome to come in, unless it’s during a class.”

Those interested in learning more can go to Wilson’s website, radiantwellnesssolutions.com, or her social media pages.