We recently had the chance to connect with Jasmin McGee and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Jasmin, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
In my younger years, I was wandering – searching for direction, seeking to understand who I was and where I belonged. Today, in this present moment, I know I am walking my path with clarity and purpose. It took time, patience, and courage to see my path clearly – to trust it, to trust myself, and to surrender to where it’s leading me. Now, I can say with full confidence that I am truly, boldly, unapologetically, and unabashedly walking my path. Standing fully in my power and embracing my journey, I have never felt more aligned, fulfilled, or at peace.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hi, my name is Jasmin McGee.
I hold a deep belief that my purpose is to be in service to Community. Rooted in this belief, I founded Snow Poppy Yoga, a space dedicated to healing, connection, and compassionate growth.
I am a trauma-informed E-RYT200 and RYT500 Yoga Nidra guide, as well as a Yin Yoga and Restorative Yoga instructor. I am also a certified LoveYourBrain Yoga teacher, and all of my offerings are LoveYourBrain TBI-informed and friendly.
Each week, I guide Yoga Nidra through the Veterans Yoga Project’s Online Studio, and I am honored to serve as both a Yoga Alliance YACEP and a facilitator for the Veterans Yoga Project’s 200-hour Mindful Resilience Yoga Teacher Training program.
I work closely with Houston’s Wounded Warrior Project, where I support Warriors during Physical Health & Wellness Expos as a Veterans Yoga Project guide and instructor. My offerings at these events include Yoga, breath practices, acute stress management techniques, and Yoga Nidra – all shared as holistic tools for self-care and inner resilience.
In addition, I am a trained and certified Death Doula, offering compassionate End-of-Life support and care for both people and their beloved animal companions. I host a monthly virtual Peace with Death Café, a trauma-informed, inclusive, and nonjudgmental gathering that invites open-hearted conversation about death as a pathway to living more fully and intentionally.
Through all that I offer, my intention is to create spaces where Community can heal, expand, grow, grieve, and process the fullness of what it means to be alive. My deepest hope is that each person who enters these spaces finds a moment of peace within their mind, body, heart, and spirit.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: What relationship most shaped how you see yourself?
The relationship that I have with my own personal Yoga practice has helped me see myself most clearly. In the quiet embrace of Yin Yoga, I meet the tender edges of sensation and surrender. Each posture, held in stillness, becomes a mirror – revealing not just the body’s stories, but the subtle landscapes of my inner world. In those long, spacious moments, I witness my own resistance, my ease, and the shifting patterns of thought and feeling. Yin teaches me that clarity often arises not from striving, but from softening – from allowing myself to simply be with what is.
In Restorative Yoga, I discover the sacredness of rest as a form of radical self-compassion. Supported by the earth and by props that hold me in safety and care, I learn to release the need to perform or achieve. Within that cocoon of stillness, I can listen more deeply – to the whisper of breath, the pulse of the heart, the quiet truth that lives beneath all doing. Restorative practice reminds me that I am enough, exactly as I am, and that seeing myself clearly begins with honoring my own need for rest and replenishment.
Through Yoga Nidra, I am guided into the vast expanse of awareness that lies beyond waking and dreaming. Here, I rest in the liminal space between consciousness and sleep – a place where clarity arises like light filtering through still water. In this state of profound rest, the layers of identity, thought, and emotion gently dissolve, revealing a spacious inner presence that has always been there. Yoga Nidra shows me that clarity is not something I must seek; it is something I return to – an inner knowing that emerges when I rest deeply in myself.
Together, these practices have become pathways to self-intimacy. They remind me that the more I allow myself to slow down, to listen, and to be held by the moment, the more I come to see myself clearly – not through the lens of effort or expectation, but through the soft light of presence, acceptance, and love.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
What suffering taught me that success never could is that I am stronger than I could have ever imagined and more resilient than I ever gave myself credit for.
Success often shines brightly, celebrated and seen, yet it rarely asks us to meet ourselves in the shadows. Suffering, however, calls us into the depths – into the quiet, unlit places where our truest strength is born. It humbles and refines us, revealing the rawness of our humanity and the sacred tenderness of our own becoming. Through suffering, I learned that strength is not always loud or visible; sometimes, it is simply the act of breathing through one more moment, of choosing to keep my heart open even when it aches.
Suffering has been a teacher that stripped away illusion and performance, leaving only what is real – my capacity to endure, to adapt, and to rise again. It taught me that resilience does not mean remaining unshaken; it means learning to bend without breaking, to rest when needed, and to trust that healing is not linear but cyclical, like the rhythms of nature herself.
In moments of loss, disappointment, or uncertainty, I found an inner voice – quiet but steady – that reminded me I was still here. That I could begin again. That even in the ashes of what was, there was still a spark of light waiting to be tended. Suffering became the sacred ground where compassion for myself took root, where I learned to meet my pain not with resistance, but with gentleness and curiosity.
Success taught me how to shine; suffering taught me how to survive – how to be tender and powerful all at once. It revealed a deeper truth: that resilience is not just about strength, but about the courage to remain soft, to keep showing up, to trust that I can hold both the breaking and the becoming within the same breath.
And from that place, I have come to see that every moment of hardship was not a detour, but a doorway – one that led me back to myself, stronger, wiser, and more whole than before.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? Is the public version of you the real you?
The public version of me is the real me. I shine the light that is me into the world authentically with compassion, understanding, empathy, and love.
There was a time when I believed that the truest parts of myself were meant to be hidden – that my softness, my sensitivity, my depth were to be guarded or shown only in safe spaces. But over time, I have come to understand that authenticity is not something I must protect from the world; it is the very essence of how I am meant to show up within it. When I stand before others, what I offer is not a performance or a polished version of who I think I should be – it is an honest expression of who I am, moment to moment.
The light I share publicly is not separate from the light within me; it is a reflection of it. It shines through my words, my gestures, my listening, and my care. It shines when I meet others with compassion, when I offer understanding instead of judgment, and when I hold space for truth – both theirs and mine. In choosing to show up authentically, I am not pretending that I am without flaws or struggles; rather, I am honoring my wholeness. I am saying, this is me – tender, strong, evolving, and real.
Authenticity is an act of love – not only toward others, but toward myself. When I allow my inner light to shine freely, I invite others to do the same. My presence becomes a quiet permission slip for honesty, for softness, for being fully human.
There is power in showing up as I am – not dimmed, not edited, but fully illuminated by truth and heart. I no longer need to divide myself between what is private and what is public, because the foundation of who I am remains constant: compassion, empathy, understanding, and love.
The world may see my light, but it is love that fuels it. And in every space I enter, I carry the intention that my presence – just as it is – becomes a gentle offering of warmth and authenticity, a reminder that being real is the most beautiful way to shine.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
What I understand and appreciate deeply each and every day – that many people don’t often hold in their awareness – is that each breath and each heartbeat we are gifted is finite. Each moment in this life, through all the ups and downs we experience, is a miracle and a blessing. And one day, I will die, and it will all end. So, I do my best to live my life intentionally, fully, and without regrets.
There is a profound clarity that comes from remembering the fragility of our time here. Each inhale and exhale, each heartbeat, is a quiet miracle – a rhythm that carries us through the unfolding of our days. To live with this awareness is not to dwell in fear, but to awaken to presence. It invites me to meet life with reverence – to recognize that even the most ordinary moments are sacred, that every sunrise, every connection, every small act of love is a fleeting gift.
When I remember that my days are numbered, I find myself softening into gratitude. The irritations and distractions that once seemed important fade against the vastness of what truly matters: kindness, connection, truth, and love. I become less concerned with perfection and more devoted to presence – to being awake to the texture of life as it moves through me.
This awareness of impermanence reminds me to tell the people I love that I love them, to pause and feel the sun on my skin, to breathe deeply into both joy and sorrow. It teaches me that loss, change, and endings are not enemies to be feared but companions that shape the depth of my humanity. Knowing that all of this will one day end makes each moment shimmer with meaning.
So I live intentionally. I choose to cultivate peace rather than chase perfection. I choose compassion over comparison. I choose to forgive – myself and others – so that my heart remains light. I choose to rest when my body asks, to create when my spirit stirs, and to love even when it feels vulnerable.
To live fully is to live awake – to honor that this breath, right now, is both fleeting and infinite in its beauty. And when the time comes for my final breath, I hope I can meet it with the same gratitude I feel now – knowing that I truly lived, that I truly loved, and that I left nothing of my heart unlived.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.snowpoppyyoga.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/snow.poppy.yoga/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@snowpoppyyoga
- Other: https://veteransyogaproject.org/
