Our Mission as Teachers
Our team of yogis are certified yoga teachers by accreditable schools, highly qualified and experienced in order to offer our community the highest standard of classes. Our goal is to teach from a place of love and compassion, to help you learn how to listen to your body and how to experience the other aspects of yoga besides the physical activity.
These teachers enjoy sharing the practice of yoga in a joyful, authentic and kind way with a strong emphasis on Pranayama (breathwork), proper alignment and the importance of mindfulness.
Founder & Teacher
Stephanie Adames ~ Founder & E-CYT500
Before teaching yoga, Stephanie spent 15+ years guiding children and families through emotional challenges. Along the way, she discovered that true healing begins within — and yoga became the bridge between her inner work and her calling to serve others.
As the founder of Soulful Yoga Connections and The Soulful Shala, Stephanie has created nurturing spaces where movement, breath, and presence become medicine for the body and soul. Completing 200-hour yoga certification in 2017 and graduating from Advanced 300-hour Teacher Training Program at Lotus Pond Yoga School in Tampa, FL, in 2023, Stephanie is a Certified 500-hour Yoga Teacher. She has also completed 30 hours in Aerial Yoga, 60 hours of Yin Yoga, Trauma Informed Yoga and has accumulated over 2,000 hours of teaching experience.
A graduate of the University of Florida, Stephanie brings her background in counseling and holistic wellness into every class, weaving together mindful movement, emotional awareness, and soulful connection. Her approach is both grounding and liberating — an invitation to soften, to listen, and to rediscover the quiet strength that lives within.
In Stephanie’s classes, yoga becomes more than a practice — it becomes a homecoming to yourself.
Teacher
Sunny Barbee ~ E-RYT500
Jacquie “Sunny” Barbee is an E-RYT 500hr yoga teacher recently relocated to Inverness, Florida. Sunny finished YTT in 2016 after turning to an asana practice to help with her chronic illness and depression. While in YTT she realized there was a need for more teachers that didn’t fit the stereotypical “yoga body” image like her and that she could make a difference in helping people see that yoga is for every body. She is able to share with others how to customize their practice to fit their own body, whether that body is larger, aging, or living with illness or injury, much like she does with her own practice.
Sunny guides her classes in a way that helps you to find the pose that fits your body rather than forcing your body into a pose. Sunny has cofacilitated several yoga teacher trainings and has mentored and taught students all over the world. She is also certified in Accessible Yoga; Yoga for All Bodies; Mind Body Solutions; Chair Yoga; Gentle Yoga; and Yin Yoga.
Guest Teacher
Lynn Mendicino ~ RYT500
Lynn has worked as a Physical Therapist for 30 years in various healthcare settings in both the US and Norway. She has had a lifelong interest in health, exercise, and how lifestyle affects the body-mind-spirit. In 2021 she graduated with her 200-hr yoga teacher training. The journey was so inspiring and life-changing, she continued to deepen her studies and received her 500-hrs in May 2023 both from The Lotus Pond in Tampa. Lynn draws inspiration form her many master teachers to include Karin Stephan who studied with B.K.S. Iyengar and Larissa Hall Carlson, former Dean of the Kripalu School of Ayurveda among many other accomplishments.
"The yoga journey is a most wonderfully inspiring journey. It has profoundly changed my life. That ever elusive contentment that I have been chasing after my entire life is paradoxically already in me (us). Yoga for me, is the key that unlocked the door to inner peace"