What started as a personal quest to improve their own health and wellbeing turned into a mission to bring that knowledge and skills to others for a local husband and wife team.

Carrie and Matthew Maggard recently opened The Yoga Farm as a whole body holistic center offering yoga, meditation, Reiki and more. Matthew, a licensed massage therapist, is working to obtain his facility license so massage can be added to the list of services provided by The Yoga Farm. In addition to providing improved health and wellness to clients, Carrie and Matthew want to provide those services at a reasonable and fair price so everyone can benefit from what their Farm has to offer.

The services available at The Yoga Farm can be truly life-changing, just ask Carrie or Matthew.

“We had been interior painters for about 17 years,” Carrie said, adding their professions led to a variety of injuries, aches, and pains. “Our chiropractor was doing the best he could, and he pretty much told us we needed something else.”

“I heard about a 30-day challenge, and we had heard about yoga, so we decided we would try it together,” she added. “Within about a week we both really kind of liked it. It helped me tremendously with my back issues.”

Within about a month, Carrie said they were both hungry for more knowledge on how they could improve their health. They both decided to get additional training — Carrie as a yoga instructor and Matthew as a massage therapist.

“I decided if I was going to do this I at least needed to know how to do this without hurting myself,” Carrie said. “I never intended to teach, but after I taught one class, I just fell in love with it.”

“He was kind of the same way with massage. He was going to learn the muscles and just learn the body so that we could help each other, really, and ended up realizing how much we could help people,” she added. “That’s all we’ve ever really wanted to do.”

Yoga, which is quickly growing in popularity as a method of improving health, focuses on breath control, simple meditation, and the adoption of specific bodily postures to improve flexibility and other aspects of wellbeing.

After her initial yoga instructor training, Carrie went through a specialized therapeutic yoga course to learn how she could better help others. Matthew heard about Reiki and self-healing and decided to explore that along with his massage therapy.

Reiki is a healing technique based on the principle that a Reiki therapist can channel healing energies into the patient utilizing touch to activate the natural healing processes of the patient’s body as well as restoring their physical and emotional wellbeing.

“Basically it’s just allowing the body to relax and then once the body is relaxed it tends to heal itself,” Matthew said. “Once your parasympathetic system kicks in, and you are not in your fight-or-flight go-go-go-go, you rest and digest.”

“When you get that rest your body gets to digest everything it’s been doing and push all of those toxins out of the body and allow the body to heal itself,” he continued. “In a Reiki session, you’re relaxing and getting the body and mind as well as your emotions to relax and intertwine and get on the same level to operate smoothly.”

Whenever the couple discovers something new that can help improve health and lives, they research it and learn more about it so they can pass that knowledge along to others.

“Every time we find something new, we’re trying to just expand what knowledge we can offer,” Carrie said. “We’re not doctors in any shape, form, or fashion. We don’t try to be.”

“We just want to give people options to include into their lifestyle so they can live happier, healthier lives and feel good about what they do, and maybe live longer,” she added. “That’s how it started for us, wanting to be happier and healthier and to give that to other people.”

The Yoga Farm currently features one meditation trail, but Carrie said she and Matthew have plans to expand the number of trails in the future, as well as offering trails of varying difficulty so anyone can go for a hike at the Farm.

The Yoga Farm offers a variety of classes and services, and as the farm grows the Maggards say they will be expanding offerings.

For more information on The Yoga Farm, or to see a schedule of available classes and services, visit them online at www.yogafarmtn.com or check out their Facebook Page.