Marla Dobbs Hawkins has been practicing yoga for 13 years and teaching for five years. For the past decade, she has been focused on facilitating community events and experiences that use creative expression to support emotional health, personal development, and social connection. As a visual arts educator, currently teaching high school students, and a current graduate student in counseling, she connects asana with mindfulness practices and therapeutic expressive arts through her business, Cultivate Creative Retreat LLC, dba Cultivate Creative Cafe based in Durham, NC. She has taught expressive arts and yoga workshops for the North Carolina Museum of Art, The NC Association of Arts Educators, and other community groups. She is a registered 200-hour yoga teacher trained in trauma-informed yoga and holds a certificate in Trauma Informed Expressive Arts Therapy. She is also a fiber artist and designer of artistic clothing and is the mother of an adult son.