Arielle is a Colorado-based yoga and meditation teacher, wellness coach, outdoor adventure enthusiast and the founder of Dream Life Revolution. After an injury, the former snowboarder decided to pursue a career in yoga.
After her father passed unexpectedly, Arielle had an epiphany. She realized how short and precious life truly is, and that tomorrow is never guaranteed. She decided to start living her “dream life,” and encourage others to do the same.
What inspired you to pursue yoga and meditation, and how has it changed your life?
I don’t really know exactly what inspired me to start; I remember looking through this brochure for community college classes (this was back when I was in high school), and they offered two days a week at a studio close to where I lived. I don’t really know why, but I did it! I really stuck with it. I started with Bikram yoga, and was going religiously two days a week pretty much all through my junior and senior days of high school and into the first couple years of college I was going even more, even every day if I could. I was doing 60-day challenges and events like that.
I looked at it as supporting my snowboarding career and it was helping me have less injuries. I really enjoyed the physical aspect of it. The mental aspect really didn’t come until later, when I decided to do my own teacher training. I did one teacher training in Reno, Nevada, and the second teacher training I found this amazing teacher who introduced me to meditation. I was really resistant at first, because it’s so hard but it really slowly creeped into my life.
I know now when I’m not staying within my practice because the quality of my day changes a lot. It keeps everything running smoothly. I think there’s so much pressure and focus on physical health, which is definitely important, but if your mental health isn’t there then physical health is almost irrelevant. The mental health has to come first to enjoy the physical health.
I don’t even really know how else to explain how it changed my life beyond the fact that it completely changed the way I do my day-to-day. Everything revolves around clearing the mind and being the happiest I can be.
What powerful lessons have you learned along the way that led you to pursuing and living your dream life?
It all started when my dad passed away, which was three and a half years ago. He died on his sixtieth birthday, which was definitely unexpected, to say the least. It’s not that I wasn’t doing things before that I wasn’t enjoying; I was traveling and teaching yoga, and was doing things that were important to me. I wasn’t making it as much of a priority as I do now. That moment was a catalyst for me for the rest of my life. I looked at that situation and thought “I can’t change what happened to him, but I can change what’s going to happen to me and the rest of my life.” I don’t know how much time I have left here, so I’m going to make sure I definitely enjoy every single moment of it. And that was really it; that was the catalyst for pursuing living a life of my favorite things.
Can you tell us more about the “Dream Life Revolution?”
I was thinking of how I could pull of of these seemingly random passions together: I run a health, wellness and nutrition coaching business, I am a yoga and meditation teacher (I teach group classes and private instruction with one-on-one clients) and I have this random social media life that just came out of nowhere. I thought “how do I tie all these together and what do these mean to me?” To me, even though they are all random, they’re all pieces to living a fulfilled and complete life.
I look at health, wellness and nutrition as a really important piece of being the best and brightest version of yourself. I look at yoga and meditation as being the best and brightest version of yourself. My social media really showcases all of my outdoor activities: climbing, hiking, snowboarding and a whole bunch of little random ones that have popped up over the years and those outdoor activities are an important piece of my happiness and my well-being.
I looked at Dream Life Revolution as how do we step up and create the life we want to live? How do we carve out our dream lives? I just wanted to show people that it’s possible. I think a lot of times people look, even now, at my page and think I got lucky. In reality, even though there were some fortunate or lucky events that happened along the way, I really actively carved out this life. I made a lot of choices, I said a lot of goodbyes, I said a lot of nos, I quit a lot of things that weren’t working. A lot of times it was really scary; I had to step into the unknown and just trust. I was just letting the universe guide me.
When I decided to teach yoga full-time, I had like three classes a week, which was less than a hundred dollars. I put that trust that I knew I was doing the right thing, and it came back that I had twelve classes in a week, and at one point fifteen. I want to continue to show people that it’s possible, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. It’s like a revolution: somebody has to rise up and start it.
What are your goals with the “Dream Life Revolution?”
It’s kinda hard to say; there are so many threads and I feel like it’s continually evolving. As far as how is everything going to tie together and make an impact on the world, I know at one point in the future I want to create a Dream Life Revolution fund to help other people on a financial basis achieve their goals and dreams. So that’s definitely something in the back of my mind in the direction I’m heading. It’s hard to say though; every single day it evolves as far as what my life looks like and what the future holds.
Where are some of your favorite local spots for outdoor adventure?
I love going up to Independence Pass for rock climbing; it’s just so beautiful up there and the rock is really great, it’s all granite. Really high quality. Beautiful hiking up past Ashcroft area; I love going up to Cathedral Lake and American Lake.
It’s not the most aesthetically pleasing climbing area, but I really like Thompson Creek down in Carbondale. I just think it’s a fun area and I like the style of climbing there.
And then of course there’s Rifle and Newcastle; those local spots are super fun.
What would your advice be to someone looking to start over and fearlessly pursue their dreams?
I think ultimately it comes back to trust. I think that we’ve been taught from a young age that we can’t trust, is the best way to say it, and that we’re not always in control.
There’s a term in yoga called Abhyasa Vairagya, which means a wholehearted dedication to a specific goal without any attachment to the outcome. I think this is very important. You have to set your GPS to where you’re going and just wholeheartedly put everything you have into hitting that goal. But you can’t be attached to how it ends up turning out or what it looks like. We are not in control of the outcome; we are only in control of the actions to get towards it.
I feel like when we are pursuing our dreams, we can’t get caught up in exactly what it’s going to look like, or even if we’re going to make it towards that specific thing. But we’ve got to go towards it with everything that we’ve got. Sometimes we find that when we do that, opportunities that are even better pop up, and we’re really just thrown aback. My best advice would be to really embrace that quality of Abhyasa Vairagya.
Where is your next big adventure?
There’s a lot of adventures on the books this year. I literally just yesterday went down and purchased a Ford Transit Connect, which is a small cargo van, and I’m going to work with a local guy here to do a buildout.
I’ll be in Montana a bit; I’m assisting in a teacher training out there for about six weeks total throughout the rest of the year. I’ll be in the desert a bit, and things will pop up as we go. Stay tuned on Instagram, as I kind of go with the flow and am open to opportunities as they arrive. That’s one of the perks working for yourself. You have a little bit of freedom to say yes when you want to hit the road. There’s some challenges being an entrepreneur, but the perk is saying yes to opportunity.
Visit her website: www.arielleshipe.com
Follow on Instagram: @arielleshipe
Facebook: /ArielleShipeDreamLifeRevolution
At This Adventure Life we celebrate the lives and stories of the people who live life fearlessly. #livefearlessly