Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Angela “Lei” Sahagun.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Lei. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Mabuhay! I am a born and raised Angelino on the beautiful lands of Tongvaar, daughter of community supportive driven immigrant parents. My work, my being, evolves around healing, empowerment and deep thought and subtle activism in the community. One of the many modalities that have supported my passionate nature is mindfulness and meditation through movement – I am referring to the “not so much the fad kind” nor “I gotta look really good to impress others”, but more as I live-love-breathe-sleep-eat-move-grow in intentionality with myself. Often, I am very hard on myself – unlearning behaviors and patterns that really do not resonate well in my breathing. Therefore, I choose to live on the path of continuous healing and through that, I am always learning. In my relationships (with my self, my family, my partner, my friends, etc.), I take mental notes of the lessons and challenges that arise in my consciousness which remind me of what my focus should be highlighting, lately, it has been about bridging commonality and differences through storytelling. What divine timing to be selected for this interview – thank you!
Years ago, I was introduced to a yoga class, and then that led me to learn about meditation, which guided me further to meeting individuals that influenced my perspective around interactions and experiences. These many mini moments I time capsule in my cells are the regenerating parts of me that are constantly in transformation. One of those transformations occurred at a silent meditation retreat. At that time, I was grieving the loss of my mother – she is my first friend, my first home, my first hero.
A year after my first noble silent meditation retreat, I decided it was time for another. This time it was different – just like the teachings of meditation around impermanence. My second meditation retreat offered more clarity and upon my return home to my family, I fell back in love with life after the immense feelings of loss and disparity. I took my dogs out for a hike in an acorn forest and it was then that the wind became my music. The Earth became my dance floor – a place where I surrendered. And there birthed a new, but not so new, concept – a commUNITY called Download Movement.
Download Movement has many meanings to me. Each person who has experienced this non-conversational movement music meditation space may agree that this is medicine. This medicine is much different than the kind we pick up at the pharmacy and pop in our mouth. In truth, Download Movement is a movement for peace, inner peace to be more specific. As many of us have heard through many wise mindfulness teachers, it always begins with the self. It starts with you. I have learned that the more I practice actions like metta (loving-kindness), the merits I accumulate often ripple out to others and they, in turn, feel called to do the same. That, my kapwa (both, one in the same mutual beings), is Download Movement.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Absolutely not! Did I mention earlier that I am really hard on myself? I know that I am not alone with these sentiments. When I facilitated my very first movement gathering, in Mendocino Community Center in July 2017, my friends who attended were extremely supportive. Most of them were already mind+body+spirit connected with themselves, so providing space for them to move as they felt called to do was easy. One person that evening, who was going for a walk outside the community center had no idea about the class, heard the music and mentioned that he felt called to come in. He read the guidelines at the entry, sat down and immediately became part of the activated download space. His presence reminded me that in all things, to tune into the current, the flow.
My second and third movement gathering was held a couple of months later in Sebastopol before an ecstatic dance bi-monthly class community and at an annual festival in Caspar Community Center. In those spaces is where I tested out this Download Movement formula and in my opinion, failed! I cringed at myself for a long time thinking of memories, replaying exactly what I did and did not do that made it a not so pleasurable experience for me. However, I needed these growing experiences and reminded myself to really pay attention, quiet down my nervousness, and allow the flow to guide me.
Each Download Movement Gathering appears to me in different ways, often through a vision, while I am meditating, having a conversation with someone, feeling completely moved by a song, or simply by watching animals interact – like a hummingbird guarding a nectar feeder so other birds don’t have the opportunity to drinks some yummy nourishment. Every gathering, which is held every quarter around the cycle of seasons, is curated around themes that appear in my personal life, that often reflect what many, if not most, of the community, might also be experiencing in their personal lives.
Fall 2018’s gathering at Live Arts Los Angles in Northeast LA, Eagle Rock/Glassell Park, my childhood stomping grounds, the theme was called “Shadows + Lights.” This Download gathering was about creating safe space and honoring the dark parts of ourselves and bringing light to it, not making light of it. Winter 2019’s gathering theme was “Full Cycle of Forgiveness.” The latest iteration in Spring 2019 was a collaboration with many individuals and specifically with a couple of Voyage LA already featured (Toni Pasion of A Stage of Our Own, and Sarita Dougherty of Room Portraits & DIY Ph.D.) sisters, I call them, “Kapwa Tao: Collective Movement for Peace” held at the Women’s Center for Creative Work.
My favorite Download Movement Gathering and the one I am most proud of was actually the first gathering I facilitated in Los Angeles that occurred in May & June 2018 after being awarded a grant from California Mental Health Services Authority via The Los Angeles County of Mental Health & Filipino Mental Health Well-Being Summit. This workshop series was called “I am…” Identity Exploration. I invited one of my many allies and heroes, Myrla Baldonado and her community from Pilipino Workers Center located in Historic Filipinotown and specifically focus on human trafficking victims and their liberation for transformation. It has been more than a year since those workshops, and I am incredibly happy about the results from those Download Movement Gatherings and cultural shifting happening in my elders who attended. Those moments bring me to tears each time!
As far as advice to offer to other women on their journey? Be kind and loving to yourself. Breathe from all areas of your belly and let it hang out. Allow the “freak out” once in a while. Lastly, stay on the path of your healing journey – often I forget, but I am reminded of my path when I choose to live from the protected space behind my heart.
What should we know about Download Movement? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I enjoy being part of a community and that means connecting with my community daily – that is my specialty! My offerings arrive in forms of accounting consultations, entrepreneurial & transformational coaching, reiki healing sessions, facilitating self-care workshops, dancing in cultural movement performances, pop-ups with my healing products, curating & producing events and on rare occasions vending homemade food and creating music.
I am most proud of the connections I am interwoven in, many of them I mentioned earlier in the interview – and in those collaborations breathe in and out new creations that are in alignment with the pillars that all my entities (Emerald Matriarch Agency, 1 Mindful Breath), collaborations (Haláman Medicine) and co-op which I use as a navigating guiding lovelight: Education, Empowerment, and Balance Restoration. A couple of new collaborative creations will be unveiling soon when they are ready to be seen.
One very special organization that has really catapulted my healing path is Spirit House Center for Attitudinal Healing in Fort Bragg, CA. My pendulum swing to always feel the need to give taught me some very important lessons of what it’s like to be a human being in these rEVOLutionary times.
As far as what sets me apart from others, I suppose that’s really for the reader to notice. In truth-speaking, I am a human on this beautiful planet Earth who has chosen to be of service. I am not better or less than the person next to me. I hold grace close to my heart and I am fuckin’ relentless when it comes to my passions.
For good reason, society often focuses more on the problems rather than the opportunities that exist, because the problems need to be solved. However, we’d probably also benefit from looking for and recognizing the opportunities that women are better positioned to capitalize on. Have you discovered such opportunities?
Women and all those who identify with feminine energies are on these amazing waves of empowerment – it is a thrilling ride to be on. More opportunities open because we are creating them and sharing the wealth of knowledge, safe spaces, prosperity which has a beautiful effect of restoring balance on the true divine feminine, her name is Earth. Several ally organizations who have assisted me and many others in opportunity sharing and strengthening are A Stage of Our Own/Pamana Kali, Women’s Center for Creative Work and Entrepinayship.
As I mentioned earlier in this interview, my mother, Letty is a lead pillar in the long list of matriarchs that I call upon when I need. I feel her, my three grandmothers, and many influential women including a very special one whom I called Mama Belo, behind me and literally holding and having my back.
Many of the hands in, shoulder to shoulder contributions are offered by the community – some of them pictured in the photos here. Download Movement would not be what it is without them and I give thanks!
Pricing:
- Reiki healing sessions $80/hr
- accounting consultations $125/hr
- I Love My Body workshops $25/person
Contact Info:
- Website: www.1mindfulbreath.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/downloadmovement
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ukuleilei
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/leileilovelight
- Other: bit.ly/wearedownloadmovement
Image Credit:
Jonathan Godoy, Christian Bugay, Mike Sahagun, Sarah Jane Bugay
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
