Sabrina Cowden
Executive Director
Sabrina Cowden is passionate about the intersection of personal and professional leadership, helping individuals forge their leadership path, whether they are new to the concept of leadership or have decades of experience under their belt. Her passion for leadership development has been a constant throughout her over two decades of work as a business owner, CEO, environmental and sustainability advocate, and program director. She is an experienced engagement strategist, coach, and collaborator who helps individuals and organizations adapt and thrive in increasingly complex business environments while remaining true to their core values and leadership principles.
Before founding SC Consulting, Sabrina served as CEO of Milepost Consulting, where she oversaw the firm’s expansion from the Pacific Northwest into the Southeast, while growing its utility, government, and built environment practices. She has also served as program director for Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project Leadership Corps, where she was responsible for strategic development, managing both domestic and international staff, and forging relationships to strengthen and spread the Climate Reality Project’s message.
In addition to her consulting work, Sabrina is an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development, where she teaches a class designed to help undergraduates define their leadership style and approach as they transition into their own lives beyond the academic world. Sabrina holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and an MBA from Lipscomb University in Nashville.
Sabrina’s yoga journey has been a winding path. She began casually practicing yoga when her children were small. At the time, she had a full-time career and was a single mom, and yoga helped soften what were often hard edges in her life. In 2021, Sabrina began practicing and studying yoga in a more serious and dedicated way. She has completed 200-hour trainings with Cindy Lunsford at Yoga Soul and with Linda Fenelon at NuPower Yoga + Barre. Her journey is far from over and, in many ways, is just now entering its most exciting phase. Outside of yoga, Sabrina spends as much time as possible outside.
Liz Veyhl
Founder & Studio Manager
A native Nashvillian, Liz is passionate about both the local and global yoga communities.
In 2013 she was moved by the idea that “yoga can happen anywhere” while in Kenya with the Africa Yoga Project. Upon her return she believed that the Nashville community deserved the same access to yoga and its benefits that she saw under the hot Kenyan sun.
A do-er by nature, Liz founded Small World Yoga in 2014 with the vision to grow yoga in outreach locations across Middle Tennessee. A year later she co-founded Baptiste Power Yoga Nashville, which is now the official teacher training school of Small World Yoga, and has made a sustainable model of bringing yoga to the community by training more than 100 new teachers in the Nashville area and beyond.
Liz is a certified Baptiste Power Vinyasa yoga instructor (E-RYT 500). She has completed both her 200- and 500-hour trainings under Baron Baptiste and now travels to assist Baptiste trainings and programs around the world.
Liz was a high school and college athlete and didn’t expect yoga was going to be the sport for her, but more than a decade later she still loves both the challenge of the physical practice and the deeper emotional benefits. In 2017, she returned in Kenya and is now a sponsor of Africa Yoga Project. She funds a new teachers’ career in Africa and she also helps host/sponsor teachers from Africa to come to America and teach.
When not on the mat or in the SWY studio you can find Liz on a paddleboard, in the cookie kitchen with her husband, or looking for the best Mexican food in town.
Mikka Parrish
Outreach Manager
Born and raised in Nashville TN, Mikka has always had a heart for community and movement. With a love for dance, gymnastics, and many other sports. Mikka was naturally drawn to yoga. She began her yoga Journey in 2017 and took her first group yoga class with Small World Yoga in 2018 at an outreach class at Mill Ridge Park. She now teaches at this exact outreach location, which is quite the full circle story. Mikka continued to practice with SWY for years and went on to take her 200-hour teacher training through SWY and Baptiste Power Yoga Nashville in March 2020.
Before yoga, Mikka worked in childcare and owned a daycare for two years. She went on to work in the insurance industry before finding a love for yoga. Now she teaches at SWY and other local studios as well as privately. Mikka began working as an Outreach Manager for SWY in October 2022. As an outreach Manager she is part of an amazing outreach team within the leadership group that manages all of our teachers and community partners. In this role she connects with our partners to bring yoga into the community and outside the studio. With a passion for non-profit work, Mikka held a board position with the Atlanta based non-profit Blossoming Brown Girls from 2017–2019. She also currently holds a board seat with the Edgehill Neighborhood Partnership.
When not serving the community or teaching and practicing yoga, you can find Mikka somewhere outside exploring with her three daughters.
Ashley Haley
Community Partnerships Manager
Ashley Haley is a 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher based in Nashville, TN. She teaches vinyasa, gentle, yin, and children’s yoga with a focus on accessibility and helping students develop a practice that feels steady and sustainable. Ashley completed her teacher trainings through Fahrenheit Yoga and Small World Yoga, along with additional studies in yin and Spanish for yoga teachers. With a background in education and social work, she brings a trauma-informed lens to her classes and aims to create spaces where people feel comfortable and empowered showing up as they are, paired with the invitation to courageously try something new.
Outside of yoga, Ashley loves planning retreats and language immersion trips that blend travel, culture, and movement. She’s happiest reading a good book, spending time outside, or exploring somewhere new with her husband and two pups. At the heart of it all, she values community, curiosity, and the chance to keep learning—both on and off the mat.
Meghan Midgett
Development Coordinator
Before becoming a yoga instructor, Meghan worked in retail for a while in high school and college and has spent most of her professional life teaching small children. She worked in a couple of preschools, spent two years teaching Kindergarten, and nannied for several families. Now her major responsibilities include scheduling continuing education workshops for instructors, offering monthly challenges to the studio team and outreach teachers, and providing regular support and feedback. Meghan also co-facilitates our 200-hour teacher training program and works closely with students throughout the application process. She started teaching in the Small World Community studio in the summer of 2018, facilitating programs in January of 2020, took on instructor development responsibilities in November of 2021.
Like many of our instructors, Meghan finds yoga to be supportive, grounding, and ultimately transformative. She chose to work with Small World because she’s committed to sharing the practice with any and every body, especially in her hometown of Nashville. She started practicing consistently when her personal life felt too tumultuous to handle on her own. She found a lot of space in being able to feel uncomfortable sensations without judgment or attachment. Meghan teaches heated power flow and would describe her class as challenging with space to modify and create variations as it serves students. She tries to incorporate a bit of lightness and will always leave time at the end for rest.
Meghan’s husband works as a chef, and they have a daughter and an extremely ornery cat. When they aren’t practicing yoga, they love to be outside—working or playing and enjoy traveling, eating, and being around friends and family.
Sarah Ellis
Marketing Coordinator
Sarah began practicing yoga at the fitness center in college after a background of dance and cheerleading, thinking she would be “good” at it. She learned very quickly that there is no “good at yoga.” And that’s what made Sarah fall in love with the practice—she was no longer performing for others but instead focusing on her own wellbeing. Originally from North Carolina, Sarah moved to Nashville in 2017 and found her new home with the Small World Yoga community. She received her 200-hour teacher training certification in 2018 and her 500-hour certification in 2020, both through Small World Yoga. Over the years, Sarah has taught a wide variety of students, from kindergartners to 90-year-old seniors, and in a variety of styles, including power, gentle, chair, and kids’ yoga, supporting Small World’s mission that yoga is for every body.
Outside of yoga, Sarah writes young adult novels and plays too many video games.
Traci Buck
Business Consultant
Originally from Virginia where she got her undergrad at James Madison University and her MBA at Virginia Commonwealth University, Traci made Nashville her home in 2019 with her husband Justin, their young daughter, and senior Shitzu dog, Duke. Before landing in Nashville, she spent time working in North Carolina, New York City, and Los Angeles and traveling across the globe. She worked many years in the corporate world of sales, helped launch several startup technology companies, and dedicated her spare time with several nonprofit organizations in the areas of fundraising, consulting, and training young community volunteers. In her youth, Traci was a dancer starting at the age of three, a cheerleader in her high school years, a runner after college when she ran lots of half-marathons (before her grand finale of the New York marathon) and then a yogi just to balance it all out. She has been practicing yoga for over 20 years and finally found the time between her crazy work schedule to get a yoga teacher training certificate in 2024 while she managed a yoga studio.
When Traci is not practicing yoga, you can find her volunteering at her child’s school, exploring the world of wine, or just trying to find ways to make this world a best place.