Myra paci 

I am a yoga teacher who loves to work with people of all ages, especially those who are going through changes in their bodies due to pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, illness, disability, or aging. 

I am a breast cancer survivor. 

I am a mother of two daughters in their twenties, a wife, daughter, sister, cousin, niece, friend. 

I am the daughter of an immigrant. 

I am a Buddhist practitioner, attend a primarily Black Catholic church in Oakland, and I am in training as an interreligious chaplain.

I have been a writer, filmmaker and camerawoman for over three decades with work recognized by the Sundance Institute, the San Francisco Film Society, the National Endowment for the Arts, Showtime, and the MacDowell Colony. 

I have co-owned two video production and marketing businesses and have taught and consulted in screenwriting and directing for years. 

Yoga teaching

Myra Paci is an Anusara Yoga-trained teacher who enjoys working with all ages, shapes, and capacities in the people she serves. In her classes she incorporates music, meditation, chanting, pranayama, asana, and light massage to help her students find a sense of joy, peace, groundedness and connection to themselves, others, and the natural world. 

Myra has been practicing yoga since the mid-1990s when she lived in New York City and worked in film, theatre, and advertising. Yoga helped her have two easeful pregnancies and deliveries, supported her through breast cancer surgery and chemotherapy, and continues to benefit her through the ups and downs in  life. Myra has practiced many kinds of yoga including Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Anusara, Iyengar, Forrest, Kundalini,  Bikram, and even Core Power yoga. She received  Prenatal Yoga teacher-training through the Integral Yoga Institute in New York and her Anusara teacher-training at Yoga Kula in Berkeley. She has also studied Chi Gong and Capoeira, makes frequent use of acupuncture and chiropractic, enjoys a many-year practice in Buddhist meditation, loves open-water swimming, and is grateful for the gift of family, friends, and her dogs.

Storytelling:

Film & Ad work

Myra Paci received an M.F.A. in Film and Television Production from New York University in 1994, graduating with the Tisch School of the Arts Excellence in Screenwriting Award. She received a B.A. in History from Yale University in 1988, graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She has taught screenwriting at San Francisco State University and California College of Arts and Crafts and has lectured on her work at Yale University, Washington University, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Her award-winning films Butch Patrol, Transeltown, XXXtasy: Two Days in the Life of a Saint, Girls Night Out (starring Rosario Dawson and Daniel Von Bargen), and Searching for Paradise (starring Chris Noth, Susan May Pratt, Laila Robins, Josef Sommer, Mary Louise Wilson, and Jeremy Davies) have screened widely and received distribution on Showtime, Sundance Channel, and Criterion. They are available to rent as is her newest film, the feature documentary Adventures in Peterland: A Mystery of Art and Love. Learn more about her film work at http://myrapacifilms.com

With SLAP Agency, the video production and marketing company she and her husband Michael Furlong founded, she has co-created work for Schwab, Kaiser Permanente, AAA, Facebook, Intel, Ariat, and many others.

  • In Process:

    Certificate in Interreligious Chaplaincy, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA

    Clinical Pastoral Education Practicum at Kaiser Permanente San Leandro

    MFA, Film/TV Production, New York University Tisch School of the Arts | 1994

    BA, History, Yale University | 1988

    Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa

  • RYT 500-hour Teacher Training, YogaTherapyGreece | August 2023

    Yoga for Cancer and Chronic Illness (Part 1: 3-month training) with Sandra Susheela Gilbert | January-March 2023

    Yoga for Scoliosis Part 1 (5/2023) and 2 (12/2022) with Elise Miller

    Yoga for the Cancer Patient: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Training

    200-hour Anusara Teacher Training, YogaKula Studio, Berkeley, CA | August 2021-August 2022

    Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training, Integral Yoga Institute/Himalayan Institute | June-July 1999

  • Yoga Nidra: The Yogic Art of Living and Dying with Anne Douglas | May 2023

    Chair Yoga for Dementia with Kathleen Colonello | November 2022

    Teaching Yoga for Dementia with Richard Kravetz | October 2022

  • Earth Wisdom Advanced Studies with Abby Tucker | Feb. 2020-January 2021

    Shamanic Apprenticeship Practitioner Training with Girvani Leerer, PhD March-October 2018

    A Women's Immersion into Earth Wisdom with Abby Tucker October 2016-May 2017

Gratitude

I wish to express my gratitude for the following: the challenges and losses in my life that have opened my heart and mind to greater compassion and awareness; to my yoga teachers Sandra Susheela Gilbert and Yoga for Cancer and Chronic Illness, Saraswati Clere and YogaKula, Abby Tucker, Ashley Sharpe, Naushon Kabot-Zinn, Kali Morse and the Integral Yoga Institute, Jivamukti Yoga; my spiritual teachers Thich Nhat Hanh and Plum Village, Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Saint Francis of Assisi, River Abeje, Carter Burwell, Adrienne Weiss, Sharon Guskin and Kadam Morten @ Kadampa Buddhism; my artistic teachers Ruth Maleczech and Peter Bullough; my parents Mary Paci, Piero Paci, brothers Chris and Stefano Paci and their families; my American grandparents—Roger and Ellen Revelle, Italian Nonni—Cleante and Jole Paci, all my aunts, uncles and cousins; and most centrally, my life partner Michael Furlong and our two treasured daughters Adriana and Nora.