Leading Ladies

JEN FRASHER
“I didn’t feel pretty enough, or healthy enough, or good enough,” explains Jen Frasher of her life prior to finding her calling as a yoga instructor and healer. “I had no real guidance, and I was searching for something that was real and true,” she says. Today, the Sag Harbor native leads a multitude of yoga and meditation classes often enhanced by her healing gong vibrations. “I wouldn’t necessarily say I have a passion for wellness—more like a passion for consciousness,” she says.

“For me, my personal Kundalini yoga and meditation practice is key,” explains Frasher. “That alone has taught me to chill out way more about life and rules and taboos around wellness, not to mention that it balances my glandular and nervous systems like nothing else can.”

Frasher’s feel-good offerings range from full moon and new moon classes that include a Kundalini yoga and meditation practice as well as gong sound baths. “Helping others is really the only way to help yourself and feel good,” she offers. “Isn’t that what wellness is all about—feeling good?”

Photo by Eric Striffler; Necklace courtesy of Satamber.com

TARYN TOOMEY, THE CLASS
From her teen years, wellness wonder Taryn Toomey was drawn toward the transformative nature of a great workout. “I noticed how much better I felt after I ran—and I haven’t stopped since,” she says.

Today, Toomey’s ultracathartic The Class is a mind-body experience that speaks to wellness seekers on a level that is deeper than mere muscles. Her newly debuted The Class Stress Release is a 20-minute no-sweat session to offer a daily quick release, and highlights Toomey’s integral focus on spiritual and emotional fitness being as important as physical fitness. “I use myself as a case study for what to eat and how to move, so I embody the effect as opposed to someone telling me what works or doesn’t work,” she says. “I view my personal practice 100 percent holistically as opposed to saying, ‘This is my diet’; ‘this is my exercise’; ‘this is my spiritual practice’; ‘this is my mental health practice.’ All of those things are part of the big picture.”

This season, The Class fans can scream, shake, stomp and strength train their stress away in East Hampton and Montauk, as well as sign up for upcoming “Retreatments” in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.; Rhode Island; and Whistler, British Columbia. “I like to think outside the box,” says Toomey. “I am a melting pot of years of reading, talking and working with different types of people who believe in mind-body connection.”

Photo by Madeleine Rose