Sheena Sood
Sheena Sood (she/her) is a femme yogini, holistic healer, writer, educator, and activist scholar of South Asian descent. Born and raised in the U.S. South, she currently lives in West Philadelphia. Sheena earned her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and International Studies from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007; She is now completing her Doctoral Degree in Sociology at Temple University. Her research engages how South Asian American organizations define political agendas and build alliances to build political power.
Sheena first remembers learning yoga and mantras from her grandmother, Biji, when she was 13 years old. She has trained more formally as a yogini at Kailash Tribal School of Yoga and Holistic Healing in Dharamshala, India. Beyond becoming certified as an advanced yoga teacher by traveling to study the practice from Yogi Sivadas in her homeland in 2011 and again in 2013, these trainings have allowed Sheena to deepen her practice and pedagogy on physical, philosophical and spiritual dimensions; and to also study Sound Healing, Reiki, Ayurveda and Kundalini Massage therapies with Yogi Sivadas.
As an artistic healer, sociologist and engaged activist, Sheena fuses her commitment to social justice and collective transformation by grounding yoga in healing justice frameworks that address structural oppression and trauma, empower hope, sustain community groups, build resilience amongst change-makers, and connect movements to a praxis of collective care. In a recent autobiographical piece published in the Race & Yoga journal, Sheena reflects on what it meant to grow up practicing yoga in spaces that promote white supremacist, Hindu fundamentalist, and Brahmanical casteist values; distance herself from spiritually hypocritical and oppressive spaces; and subsequently, co-create a more embodied and purposeful yogic theology praxis that commits itself to the collective liberation of marginalized communities. Sheena is a 2017 recipient of the Leeway Transformation Award. Upon completing her PhD, Sheena is looking forward to building a community-centered healing space in Philly and developing more healing justice yoga trainings. She teaches a people of color yoga class at Studio 34 Yoga Healing Arts. Feel free to contact her at: sheena.sood1@gmail.com
Awarded Grants
2019
Window of Opportunity Grant (WOO)
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Overview
Sheena will be attending the Mystic Soul Conference in Chicago next month. The mission of this conference is to engage the wisdom, teaching, resources, and voices of People of Color at the intersections of spirituality, activism, and healing. Sheena is an artist who grounds her social change practice in folk and literary arts. As a politicized healer who traces her roots to South Asia, she uses yoga to facilitate healing for social movements and justice. She will use this workshop to engage other POC healers and activists around yoga's colonial history, not merely as it relates to white supremacy and global capitalism, but also as it relates to Brahmanical casteism and Hindu nationalism. Attending the conference will be instrumental in allowing her to work towards a long-term plan of building a community-centered healing justice space and school in Philadelphia.
2017
Leeway Transformation Award (LTA)
Related grantees
Overview
Sheena Sood is a femme yogini, holistic healer, writer, educator, and activist scholar of South Asian descent, living in West Philadelphia. As an artist, Sheena uses yoga, yogic philosophy, sound healing and Ayurvedic therapy to preserve and share healing practices in accessible ways, namely with marginalized communities. She offers these holistic practices through a critical healing justice framework by grounding them in principles of decolonization, anti-oppression and intersectional social justice. Central to Sheena’s practice is the recognition that oppression, as a form of trauma, inflicts harm on marginalized communities; core to her solution is radical healing—a process that builds people's capacity to work for justice by strengthening their sense of resilience and well-being. As a sociologist, engaged activist and healer who believes in transformative change, Sheena curates yoga and healing offerings that preserve and connect our local movements in Philadelphia to a praxis of collective care.
2013
Art and Change Grant (ACG)
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Overview
Shanti’s art for social change project will preserve the artistic elements of yoga—an ancient folk art and practice that is rooted in cultural mythologies of African and Indo-Asian people. Through the workshop Decolonizing Yoga as an Ancestral, Artistic and Life-Affirming Practice, this project seeks to connect young women of color living in Philadelphia to a physical, cultural and spiritual practice that allows them to see themselves as agents that can facilitate healing, transformation, and self-love within themselves as well as in their families and communities.
