The Yoga Sanctuary is honored to welcome back guest speaker Denise McClennen, owner and founder of Thought Design!
Have you ever noticed how easily we fall into familiar patterns when life gets stressful? Despite our best intentions, we can slip into grooves of behaving and thinking (citta vritti) that shape our inner and outer environments. Over time, these patterns can deepen into samskaras—well-worn pathways that amplify tension, self-doubt, or reactivity. And this often happens without us ever realizing it!
In this workshop, we’ll explore these universal human patterns—how they form, how they get reinforced, and how to gently acknowledge our own participation in them. Rather than trying to “fix” or override the way we tend to react, we’ll practice ways of slowing down, tuning in, and creating more space for choice in moments that usually feel automatic.
With special guest teacher Denise McClennen, this workshop will weave together movement, reflection, and simple experiential practices that support grounding, clarity, and personal agency. You’ll explore how to regulate your inner state, reconnect with your own sense of power, and shift the stories you tell yourself when things feel hard—creating space for more ease, resilience, and joy.
This workshop is experiential, playful, and accessible. Open to everyone. No prior yoga experience necessary.
About Denise:
Denise McClennen is the owner and founder of Thought Design, a brain-based performance development and learning center in Rockford, MI. Her professional experience includes a role as Chief Learning Officer in the financial services industry, and over two decades of executive leadership, consulting, training, speaking and coaching work. Denise has spent the last three decades learning, experimenting and designing experiences in the areas of performance, leadership and culture development, bringing a unique approach through the incorporation of brain science and adult development theory.
Learn more about Denise and Thought Design here:
https://thought-design.com/about/
Cost is $55.