About me
Co-founders Sara Harward and Ashley Gangloff each fell in love with the way yoga made them feel–physically and emotionally. They felt free to be human, messy. Yoga provided them respite and reminded them to pay attention.
They both were following the natural course of things. Both married and both with three kids, both leading successful, accomplished careers by typical standards, Sara in research, Ashley in academia. They volunteered, served on community boards, hosted events, and did all of the things that would sum up a “full” life. They were excellent at streamlining, multitasking, juggling, layering and strategizing on how to fit it all in. They had it all and yet were quietly struggling with a notion that there was something else, something missing.
Sara and Ashley were living parallel lives–their kids even attended the same school–and yet they had not met, which is not surprising considering the schedules they kept and the difficulty they had creating enough margin in their lives for new people or experiences. Finally, a mutual friend insisted: You two have too much in common. You have to meet.
Sara and Ashley connected in early 2023. They started taking long walks, meeting for coffee, and sharing scones before and after yoga classes as they navigated mid-life awakenings that felt more like punches to the gut. Balancing the demands of kids and careers, they talked about disappointments and failings, feelings of “missing the moment” and fears of not actually connecting with themselves or the people around them, worries of taking up space in a career that was maybe meant for someone else, and dreaming about what standing in their own space might feel and look like. This collective sense of longing for something deeper drew them closer into friendship.
On one of their many walks and talks, Sara wondered out loud: The quiet, the strength, the connectedness I feel and find through yoga, what if I could create something, a space, for people to share similar experiences? What if this is the next season of my career? What would that even look like? Ashley responded with What if?
Heading into a holiday season, the women decided to let these thoughts and this conversation rest. They’d each just sit with it for a few weeks and they’d reconvene after the holidays.
Ashley texted Sara 24 hours later: Let’s partner.
Texts flew back and forth during this time of “rest and reflection” and by the first of the year Sara and Ashley had scheduled their first official meeting.
The agenda: what are we doing?
Meetings began to increase in frequency and duration as they hashed out all of their ideas about turning yoga into a career. It was more than a studio. It was more than retreats. It was more than workshops. Sara and Ashley imagined a company that embodied all of the things that yoga was to them. It was not a fitness routine or something to squeeze in between the cracks of a busy life. They imagined a brand that offered them and others a way of life that was fully connected.
Sara and Ashley began drawing from decades of experience in business, team building, training and development, education, hospitality, fitness, and athletics and crafted a vision for what would become Bloom Yoga Company.
