173: Getting Your Yoga Studio Ready For ICE with Lucia Yess from Minneapolis

About this episode

Lucia Yess discusses the impact of a recent ICE surge in Minneapolis and how her yoga studio became a center for community support and mutual aid.

Yess Yoga is a yoga studio in Minneapolis one block from where Alex Pretti was murdered by Border Patrol agents in January of this year. In this episode, I'm joined by Minneapolis-based yoga teacher and studio owner Lucia Yess. Our conversation is both heartbreaking and deeply inspiring as we explore what it means to truly live our yoga off the mat, especially in moments of crisis. Lucia shares her experience running Yess Yoga during a recent ICE surge in Minneapolis, where her neighborhood became a site of fear, violence, and profound uncertainty. As community members were being detained and families were afraid to leave their homes, Lucia and her team stepped into action, transforming their studio into a hub for mutual aid, care, and refuge. What stands out most to me in this conversation is Lucia's clarity: this wasn't a question of whether to help, but how. When our neighbors are suffering, yoga calls us to respond. In this episode, you'll hear: What it was like to be on the ground in a city under siege by the federal government Why yoga must extend beyond personal practice into collective care How staying grounded in our values helps us take meaningful action How to get…

People in this episode

Host: Francesca Cervero

Guest: Lucia Yess

Topics covered

• yoga
• community support
• mutual aid
• crisis response
• collective care
• personal practice

Keywords

• yoga studio
• Minneapolis
• ICE
• mutual aid
• community
• crisis
• support
• collective care
• Yess Yoga

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Yess Yoga, Border Patrol

Places: Minneapolis

More episodes of The Mentor Sessions

• 172: Why So Many Yoga Teachers Burnout (And What Actually Works Instead) · April 7, 2026 · 26 min
• 171: Six Things I Would Do This Week if I Were an Overworked, Underpaid Yoga Teacher on the Edge of Burnout · March 24, 2026 · 21 min
• 170: ​​A Yoga Nidra Deep Dive + Great Advice For Yoga Teachers with Indu Arora · March 10, 2026 · 42 min
• 169: Yoga's Role In Navigating The World with Sarah Capua · February 24, 2026 · 57 min
• 168: The Yoga Teacher's Guide To Fighting Fascism · February 3, 2026 · 46 min
• 167: We Don't Want AI Yoga with Cyndi Lee · January 20, 2026 · 54 min