Meet the woman who shares health and healing after TBI—through yoga
In Other News #9 // Celebrating the stories of everyday heroes among us.
Two random accidents turned Alli Crowell’s life upside-down. But her recovery took flight as she founded RISE Yoga Gettysburg, where she now shares healing and gratitude with others.
Photo by Melissa Ring
Alli Crowell welcomes me to her yoga studio with a warm smile. She’s wearing a black tank top featuring a bright rainbow—the words, “Be kind,” underneath.
She’s sitting cross-legged, radiating warmth across the room, as several additional women arrive for the first class of the morning. Colorful pillows surround her, and overhead, the ceiling is painted sky-blue with puffy clouds.
For the next hour, Crowell guides the class through a gentle yoga practice. She often uses the word “rise.” Several times, her arms reach slowly upward, rising as if holding a beach ball. The class mirrors her movements.
You might think she’s been practicing or teaching yoga for years. But the truth is, Crowell opened her yoga-based small business a little more than a year ago—almost exactly three years after a life-altering injury.
Today, sunlight streaming through the yoga studio’s windows, Crowell too seems to glow. Smiling, she ends the class by encouraging everyone to “have gratitude for all that our minds and bodies do for us.”
That’s because, while the yoga exercises are visibly moving and stretching bodies, there are countless unseen, yet equally healthy benefits happening from head to toe.
In a way, yoga brought Crowell back to life again—and now she wants to lift others through yoga too. That’s why she named her small business RISE Yoga Gettysburg. Her logo depicts a woman rising into a dancer’s pose, surrounded by the wings of a phoenix.
“I wanted to make the connection to the Phoenix Wellness Center,” Crowell explains, referencing her studio’s location. “The phoenix is a creature that rises from the ashes, and so we have a quote on the main page of our website that I love, because we all have a new opportunity every day to start again.”
The anonymous quote Crowell mentions is this: “No matter how many times we burst into flames, we can always rise from the ashes.”
From a place of trauma
Growing up near Gettysburg, in Adams County, Pa., Crowell always wanted to be a teacher. A self-confessed “over-achiever,” she declared three majors in college, and went on to realize her dream as a high school Spanish teacher as well as an elementary English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher.
“I was in education for 15 years,” Crowell says. “I loved teaching—it’s how I identify.”
In the fall of 2020, she experienced what seemed like an innocent injury. She bent over to pick something up, and when she stood up, she bumped her head on an open cabinet door.
“I really didn’t think much of it, but I went to the hospital because I was being cautious,” says Crowell.
She was diagnosed with a concussion; a traumatic brain injury (TBI). The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) defines TBI as “an injury that affects how the brain works.”
Doctors told Crowell that 80 to 90% of people recover in about 10 days. They advised her to rest and take time off from teaching.
But after two or three weeks, “things got gradually worse and worse,” Crowell remembers. “The message shifted toward, ‘Some people take longer to recover.’”
Almost a year later, she was “on track” to return to teaching, when she experienced a second random accident.
“I was sitting down to eat, on a bench that had rotted through, and I hit my head on the table,” Crowell says. “It really turned my life upside-down, in a way that I didn’t know how I was going to come out of it.”
It caused a second concussion; a second TBI.
“It debilitated me in so many ways,” Crowell says. “As a mom, I couldn’t drive my daughters anywhere more than 10 or 15 minutes away. I couldn’t walk into the grocery store—no busy environments. I had total cognitive processing issues, and I couldn’t read to my kids for two years, or watch movies with them. These were little things that took a lot away.”
She continued to seek medical advice, but doctors couldn’t provide many answers to explain her condition or aid recovery. Crowell decided to travel to the Baltimore area for one more opinion, at the Brain and Spine Institute at Sinai Hospital.
“In addition to the concussions, I had a neck injury that hadn’t been identified, which doctors said was very common,” Crowell says. “Concussions are so complex—there are still so many unknowns. And the story is much more common than we realize.”
Turning the corner
During her journey back to health and wellness, the former school teacher became a student—when she discovered yoga.
“I’ve always been one to trust medical opinions, but I really had to feel my own body—and feel at a different level—what I needed to get better. And yoga was able to do that,” Crowell explains. “Bringing attention to the breath, connecting breath to movement, finding ways to calm the mind, feeling sensations in the body as my neck was building strength—it’s still something I’m working on, but that’s when I started turning a corner.”
She made vital community connections: Crowell began practicing yoga at a local studio. She also discovered the Love Your Brain Foundation—a nonprofit dedicated to helping those with TBIs to improve quality of life through yoga and mindfulness.
In a desire to deepen her knowledge of yoga—always in pursuit of education—Crowell decided to enroll in yoga teacher training through the nonprofit Yoga Alliance. Her new path in life became clearer.
Crowell’s cousin, an art therapist, connected her to Gettysburg’s Phoenix Wellness Center. Their yoga studio had been vacant for several years, and clients were clamoring for it to reopen. It was a case of perfect timing, as the yoga studio where Crowell first practiced had since closed. While the owners moved away, instructors remained.
Crowell realized if she opened a yoga studio, she’d only have the stamina to teach a handful of classes herself. She would need a team—and those former instructors “jumped at the opportunity” to join her, and RISE.
Today, RISE offers a wide variety of yoga classes for adults, children, teens and families. Some are insurance-based options. There’s a free monthly community class every first Friday.
“Yoga, for me, has become much more than a physical practice. It’s necessary,” explains Crowell. “What I have learned through my own healing journey is very applicable to a lot of other experiences focused on healing and post-traumatic growth. We all, in some way, are in the process of healing of mind, body or spirit.”
Crowell is a trained facilitator of accessible yoga for those with brain injuries, through the Love Your Brain Foundation. Additionally, she completed a certification in accessible yoga, as a student of Jivana Heyman, founder of the Accessible Yoga School.
Just a few days ago, Crowell received perhaps the most exciting news of all: RISE has been named an official Love Your Brain partner studio.
“I think yoga, as a supplement to other medical care, has a real power to help us feel whole. I felt really broken, like I had lost myself,” Crowell says. “I had been told so many times through my recovery what I couldn’t do or what I shouldn’t do. But,” she says, quoting Heyman, “if you can breathe, you can do yoga.”
In Greek mythology, the phoenix is a bird that rises from the ashes, reborn, to live again.
“I had no intention of becoming a yoga teacher,” Crowell says with a smile, “But it’s given new meaning to my life, for the first time in three years. I’m so grateful I can share that with others.”
Phoenix image by CoreyFord for Getty Images Pro
Nature Nugget
A quick travel tip and photo, sharing incredible views, trails, or parks
Acadia National Park, Maine
Last September, my husband and I loved exploring Acadia. Although we included many of the popular “must-see” attractions (i.e. touristy and busy), we also discovered lots of hidden off-the-beaten-path gems—including Seawall, pictured above.
Over time, the Atlantic Ocean has smoothed and deposited rocks along this section of coastline. While smaller rocks are strewn across the beach and often return to the sea, the larger rocks remain, forming a natural “sea wall.”
What a beautiful depiction of the power of nature, created by the ocean. And also a good reminder that within our national parks, there are an infinite number of inspiring scenes well beyond the handful of “top spots.”
Luna Lens
Sharing a photo of my fluffy floofy dog Luna… because there’s plenty of fluff to go around.
This is the icy stare I received, when I called Luna to come in, on a recent snowy day. As an Alaskian Malamute, she LIVES for days like this.
(She eventually did come in….)
Comfort Corner
A great recipe, or a Spotify song. Comfort food or chill tunes. Maybe both.
January, to me, always feels like an opportunity to set new goals and priorities, to get organized, tidy and clean. For example, on my list of things to do this weekend is to run a cleansing round of vinegar through my coffeepot. I’m also restocking my kitchen, which took a hit through the holiday season. That includes one of the busiest shelves in my pantry—the spice shelf. Here’s a staple I can’t live without… and I hope you enjoy making up this blend as well!
Everything Bagel Seasoning Mix
1/4 c. sesame seeds
1/4 c. poppy seeds
3 T. dried onion flakes
3 T. dried garlic flakes
2 T. sea salt
1 T. freshly-ground black pepper
Toss ingredients together in a jar. Makes 1 cup. Sprinkle on sourdough toast, avocado toast, scrambled eggs, hummus, salmon, chicken breasts, steaks, atop a baked potato with sour cream… the possibilities are endless!
Wishing you a wonderful week ahead,
Karen