Jayne Gottlieb: The Yogi advocating for ‘aliveness’

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series, in honor of International Women’s Month, that shines a spotlight on the dynamic women of Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley.

For yogi and self-proclaimed “positivity spreader” Jayne Gottlieb, the quintessential Aspen philosophy of “Mind, Body and Spirit” is not just an ideal but a lifestyle.

“What Mind, Body, and Spirit is to me is three sheets of awareness that allow for full presence and the richest life-lived experience, so you don’t miss a moment,” she said. “I believe in the Aspen idea. And my proximity to nature – it’s everything for the energy behind what I’m doing. I love our valley.”

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It was this spirit and belief system that brought her to Aspen when she was 22 years old after graduating from college. The Northern California native said that she had grown up skiing in Snowmass and often visited the Crystal Palace as a kid. After studying theater at the University of Virginia, she found herself drawn back to the Roaring Fork Valley.

“I graduated college in May of 2001, and by the time I was thinking about what to do, Sept. 11 happened, which kind of gave permission to do whatever I wanted,” she said.” So I came to Aspen to audition for the Crystal Palace. I got a job, you know, in that dinner theater, and most of the people that I worked with had worked and lived in Aspen for 20 or 30 years. So day one, I was just swept into a family of real deep locals.”

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Twenty-three years later, she is still re-inventing herself, while always keeping the Aspen spirit alive by sharing it with the community through her studio Aspen Shakti.

Aspen Times Arts and Entertainment Editor Sarah Girgis caught up with Gottlieb to discuss her journey from theater to yoga, and why her passion is to spread her message of joy and living in the moment.

The conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Sarah Girgis: Tell me about your early Aspen years.

Jayne Gottlieb: When I first got here and got the job at Crystal Palace, I kind of hit the ground running with friends and a relationship. But the whole ski-bum life was okay, and fun, but I have a real go-getter personality. At the time, there was no children’s theater company in the valley, so I would work at the Crystal Palace at night and then hold auditions for children’s theatre productions. The first one was “The Jungle Book,” and kids showed up, and I ended up having like 10 years of really successful children’s theater company that included kids from Aspen to Carbondale. And we did up to seven shows a year, like full-blown musicals.

SG: What was the name of your company?

JG: Jayne Gottlieb Productions. It’s sweet to just be talking to you as the arts editor because I was close with Stewart Oksenhorn (former Aspen Times A&E editor). He was a great person of character and helped me catapult my career by covering what I was doing in those early days; it was so cool.

I did that from 22 to age 32. I got so involved with raising the youth of this community and just being part of the community at such a deep level without necessarily having kids and a family of my own.

SG: How did you transition from children’s theater to yoga and opening your studio?

JG: I worked with a ton with this mother who was running the sundeck for a long time, and she pulled me up there to do yoga on the sundeck in the winter and the summer but very specifically in the winter. And we had a successful program.

I was in transition with my theater company and in a little bit of a conundrum of what to do next. So as I started teaching yoga, up at the top of the sundeck and then people would be like, “J, we need your energy up here.” It was sort of like the perfect storm for me to say like “Okay, I think it’s time for me to go all in. Let me see what I can create for the community.”

That was right around the time I was getting divorced, too. So I leaned into yoga as my sanctuary space for my mental stability, and it just sort of opened my perspective as to a bigger reason as to why we do what we do and why things happen the way they do. I leaned into the philosophical aspects of yoga. And then as I was leaning into that and also being a very physical teacher, it was a natural transition to move from children’s theater into real life with adults.

SG: What was your vision for Aspen Shakti?

JG: The truth of the studio is it was built and started as Aspen’s heart cave like a community studio. I am so committed to the power that a business can have on positively impacting a community. The actual studio itself is the most welcoming, warm, no-scene, real place.

Once you get into that room, one of my best gifts and skill sets is holding people in a way that you’re okay even though you’re maybe a little outside of your comfort zone. Because that’s where we grow right.

SG: How has it evolved?

JG: So we started as a community studio with a diverse amount of classes and teachers, and I opened that way, and we were that way right up until 2019, which was our four-year mark. And I was starting to thrive and then COVID happened, which was devastating for in-studio fitness.

And with that transition, we had to get clever about going online. So I had to put something in front of them that was unique to their experience and Aspen and to me; I couldn’t put just online yoga because it just wasn’t working.

At that time, I started to look at what I’ve been doing well and shape it to Aspen because and the idea of aliveness in my spirit.

So every class that we teach takes you through a journey of triumphs, brings you in, brings you to a threshold, and then brings you into that integration. There’s a real Mind, Body, and Spirit experience every single time in every class.

SG: What are your goals going forward?

JG: I believe in this Mind, Body, Spirit trilogy, and I want to share it with the world. I want to share this heartbeat of Aspen, so that the world doesn’t just see Aspen as this place for the rich and famous. It is a place that has soul and heart, and it’s about hard work and aliveness. I think the thing that draws people to Aspen is this idea of feeling fully alive.

For more information: aspenshakti.com