Former project manager finds fulfillment teaching yoga

Yoga is what happened to Bryant Mascarenhas while he was busy making other plans.

"I have a degree in chemistry and a master's in business and IT systems. And what am I doing? I am teaching yoga for a living," said Mascarenhas, father of three children under age 5 and owner of Santosh Yoga.

A Bombay native, Mascarenhas left his native India to study in the United States. He was well on his way to a financially comfortable life, working as a radiology department project manager at Froedtert Hospital, when he realized that years of work had left him accomplished, but unfulfilled.

"I realized that sense of fulfillment was not going to come from things, by owning a bigger car or a bigger home," Mascarenhas said. "That's what Santosh means; it means coming from a space of inner contentment, and it's what I teach."

By 2005, Mascarenhas left Froedtert to teach yoga full time. He opened a studio at 74th and Center about five years ago. In 2011, he moved that studio to its current location on State Street, where a simple sandwich board sign points the way not only to his classes, but also what Mascarenhas hopes will be a new way of thinking about life.

"The yoga I teach is alignment-based, therapeutic yoga," Mascarenhas said.

His oldest students are 80 and 94, although he teaches all ages, including children, as part of his collaboration on therapeutic yoga with the medical research team at Children's Hospital.

Many people take his classes to manage everyday aches and pains, even medical conditions ranging from autism and addiction to migraines and multiple sclerosis.

"But," he said, "yoga also helps you identify an underlying question: Are you taking steps to identify what we love in our lives? … If we just find out what we love to do and do what we love, we will find balance in our lives. I realized that because I did it!"

"It's not just a philosophy," Mascarenhas continued. "I try to make you love it."

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JUST THE FACTS

BUSINESS: Santosh Yoga, 7420 W. State St.

WEB:www.SantoshYoga.com

PHONE: (414) 774-9642

OWNER: Bryant Mascarenhas

INCORPORATED: 2007

TYPE OF BUSINESS: yoga studio

PEARLS OF WISDOM: "I find in yoga not only am I able to reach a person, but also it's a way of really giving people knowledge and see there are easy tools they can use to help themselves."