Sally Bassett knows how to stay centered.
A Zionsville resident, Bassett began her professional career at age 20 with ATA Airlines in Indianapolis as a flight attendant, then working her way up over the course of 30 years to become CEO of the former airline’s Ambassadair Travel Club.
With the club, she led tour groups to more than 120 countries. But she knew there was more she wanted to do.
“After Sept. 11 (2001), during that crazy time period, I decided to do yoga training just for fun and just to balance me out,” she said. “I opened my own studio.”
Bassett opened a yoga studio in Eagle Creek Park. She earned her doctorate in tourism from Purdue University in 2005. That same year, she created the Peace Through Yoga Foundation, a nonprofit with the mission to make an impact through international yoga, adventure and service retreats focusing on empowering girls and women in the destinations they visit and serve.
“My favorite part at the end of my airline career was setting up trips where (participants) did yoga, adventure and service,” Bassett said. “So, for example, we’d go to Costa Rica and do zip lining and river rafting, but we’d also do yoga in the rainforest and then we’d help the local people. We actually built a school in Costa Rica.”
Bassett leads four to six trips each year with the foundation. Her experience inspired her to write a book, ‘Spiritual Transformational Yoga,’ published by Christian Faith Publishing.
“I love yoga and I love what it does for you,” Bassett said. “People come to the mat for physical reasons, to tone or for flexibility. But if they stick with it, they find out it’s so much more. It’s calming, it’s peaceful.”
Bassett said the book includes everything she knows and wants to share about yoga, from the physical benefits to, as the title suggests, spiritual transformation from the centuries-old practice.
“The eight limbs of yoga — like a tree — only one of them is about the physical,” she said. “The others are ethics, socially and personally, and then you get on the mat and you do the physical postures. Then you get into the breath work and then it’s about going within and connecting to a higher source.”
Bassett said yoga can provide a path for inner peace, a concept she shares in her book. Her book breaks down yoga poses and postures, but also explores meditation, spirituality, balance and healing.
“In the end, yoga is for everyone,” she said. “It enhances your faith, whatever that is for you. (Yoga) is not a religion — it supports your religion. It gets you to a place to be closer to God. People who come to my classes have an intention, whether it’s joy or spiritual IQ.”
Bassett teaches at Blooming Life Yoga and Pilates in Zionsville.
“I love this community,” she said. “I’m really living my best life. I love taking small groups and changing lives.”
‘Spiritual Transformational Yoga’ is available in paperback at Black Dog Books and on Amazon.
Learn more about the Peace Through Yoga Foundation at peacethroughyoga.org.
