THE ANIMAL WITHIN

What a safari, a yoga mat, and the ancient principle of living truthfully have in common.

On a recent safari, Cilla Stoll, founder of Forever Om, found herself observing animals the way a yogi watches breath.

“I was struck by something simple but profound: animals live entirely by instinct,” she explains. “They rise with the sun, rest when the heat comes, move when the air cools, and respond naturally to their environment. There is no overthinking. No resistance. No pushing past what is natural.”

Their lives are not managed; they are felt. For Stoll, the safari wasn’t just a travel experience. It was a mirror. Watching the quiet rhythm of the wild revealed something humans often forget: life moves with a pulse, and instinct knows how to follow it.

Somewhere between civilization and convenience, humans lost that thread. “We override many of our natural signals,” she observes. “We ignore hunger, push past fatigue, silence our inner voice, and disconnect from nature’s rhythms.” In a culture that rewards constant motion and productivity, listening inward can feel radical. Yoga, she believes, helps guide people back.

Instructor Dianne Banta knows this erosion intimately. “Returning to instinct feels like returning closer to myself,” she says. “After years of hearing how I should look, act, and respond to the world, I was further from myself than ever.” Through practice and meditation, she slowly found her way back.

In yogic philosophy, this is satya: truth.

That steadiness rarely arrives all at once. For studio manager Anne Hill, it often appears in Savasana. “After the asana work, the noise in my mind quiets,” she says. “In that space I can hear what my body and soul really need.”

Another teacher at the studio, Ella Flusser describes a similar shift. “When I get lost in the flow and focus on the teacher’s voice, everything else gets quiet,” she says.

Fellow instructor Cariann Rice sees that moment unfold in class. “Watching students move with their breath, I find myself smiling.”

Teacher Amy Marsch says one of yoga’s deepest lessons is learning to let go. “Yoga teaches us acceptance of ourselves, others, and things we cannot change,” she says. Changing her perspective toward what cannot be controlled, she adds, brings peace both on and off the mat.

Kiersten Smith, another gifted instructor at Forever Om, sees the practice as a place where people reconnect with themselves beneath the noise of daily life, rediscovering clarity and inner trust.

And the practice doesn’t end when class does. Teacher Sandi Rupprecht believes connection itself is instinctive. “Yoga creates connection within ourselves and with others,” she says.

The community Stoll has built at Forever Om over more than 15 years reflects that instinct. Like the animals she watched on safari, moving in rhythm with something larger than themselves, the studio has become a place where people remember how to listen again to breath, body, and each other.

Forever Om Yoga is located at 828 N. Western Avenue in Lake Forest, foreveromyoga.com, @foreveromyoga.