About Neva

Hello, I’m Neva Ingalls, Founder of Inner Domain Sacred Ministries

I have been meditating for 44 years, practicing and teaching yoga for 26 years, and training teachers for the past 14 years. My life has been forever altered by the healing and transformative powers of eastern philosophies, and it is my passion to help others through their unique challenges to find their soul’s deepest purpose and a life of joyful self-expression.

I believe that it is the birthright of every human being to feel a deep sense of belonging, an intimate connection to one’s truest self, and the pleasure of knowing and sharing one’s gifts with the world.

Yet for most people this natural heritage is hard to access. Our essence gets buried under the pressure to make our way in the world and the need to conform to what society asks of us.

I know this because my rootedness in peace and inner strength began from a place of being lost and wounded. As a teen and young adult, I developed anorexia, suffered from depression, and got involved in unhealthy relationships — all symptoms, I would eventually learn, of a loss of connection to my true self.

You will now find me in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where I am nourished by the rivers, forests and mountains. I live and work in an EMF free sanctuary called The Center Within. Visit me and experience the deep healing possible here.

My Story

When I was little, I grew up surrounded by nature. I could spend hours climbing trees, wading through streams, conversing with rocks and birds and stars. Among the many places I lived as the daughter of a naval officer, my favorite was England where my father was stationed at the American embassy in London as a doctor. My sister and I attended a school of theater, art, classical ballet, and other dance forms.

Dance was my great love. It gave me a language to channel emotions, a way to be unselfconsciously connected to the timeless dimension of spirit and beauty.

When it was time for my family to move stateside to Washington, D.C., I was enrolled in a dance academy that was more focused on rigid standards and bodily perfection than on creative expression. I slowly lost touch with my natural confidence and feeling of interconnectedness with the world. This was when I developed an eating disorder and became depressed, and eventually abandoned all my interests and even my greatest love, dance.

It was in 1975, amidst an atmosphere in college of mind-opening drugs and alternative-seeking to the dominant materialist culture, that my life changed forever. 

A spiritual teacher from India was traveling around the U.S. telling people about a way to turn within to find a constant source of peace. The first time I heard Maharaji (Prem Rawat) speak, I felt like I’d found home. Or it had found me. The inner journey to the self was what I had been seeking, and this became more and more clear as I learned the techniques of Knowledge, as Prem called his meditation.

Even though we had no money, my friends and I (my future husband among them) would pile into pickup trucks and take road trips to see Maharaji whenever we could. Through the practice of meditation, I began to dance again and to feel the ease of joyful self-expression, and the world began to bloom once more.

Discovering Yoga

Over the years, my interest in dance led me to yoga. Like dance, I found yoga to be a powerful emotional, mental, and physical healer, as well as a spontaneous and natural way to express myself. I first experienced yoga within the context of dance therapy, then in the mid ‘90s, I discovered vinyasa (or flow) yoga. I had the good fortune of learning this practice of breath-synchronized yoga from a teacher who was trained by the founder of vinyasa yoga, Krishnamacharya.

Then I moved to southern California and trained with the early L.A. yogis such as Shiva Rae, Micheline Berry, Mark Stephens, Max Strom, Annie Carpenter, Chuck Miller, May Ezraty, and Lauren Peterson. The L.A. style of vinyasa or flow yoga fused everything I loved into one — dance and music, breath and bandas, traditional yoga poses flowing one into another — all part of a dynamic moving meditation, a beautiful artistic expression of the joy of being alive. When I returned to the Washington, D.C. area, I was part of the first wave of teachers to bring the vinyasa method to the East Coast.

Through my early education in dance, I knew the value of discipline and how technique could become the vehicle of transformation. When I practiced yoga and meditation, I saw how every dimension of my life was affected: I felt compassion for myself and others, I found clarity about how and when to act, I was able to tap into a boundless source of creativity.

Seeing how life-changing this practice had become to me, I became devoted to helping others find its benefits and I began to delve deeper into all yoga had to offer, including its sister sciences, Aryuveda, Jyotisha, and energy medicine.

A Flowering of Learning

Healing has always been a focus in my teaching, perhaps because my father was a wonderful doctor, guiding his patients to health with diet and exercise. I instead felt called to address emotional expression and was attracted to the field of natural and holistic healing.

I practiced massage therapy for years, but I was always more drawn to energy medicine, and in 1994 I began to learn Jin Shin Jyutsu, a hands-on healing method that harmonizes the life energy in the body. I completed over 20 trainings with the primary teachers of Mary Burmeister, the first of the original Japanese lineage to teach the art to the West, and in 1997 I became certified. I have been offering this healing modality to private clients for 23 years, because I find it to be the most powerful tool to release tensions, unblock energy pathways, and bring harmony to the body, mind, and spirit.

The vast stores of Vedic knowledge on longevity and well-being are collected in yoga’s medical system, Ayurveda. In 2012 I was certified in Ayurveda through the American Vedic Institute, founded by the esteemed Dr. David Frawley, scholar and author of extensive writings on the philosophy of the Vedic sciences. Ayurveda addresses the whole person — lifestyle, cuisine, sleep, abode, and nature — to support inner peace, groundedness, and belonging.

Maturing into a Master Teacher

I had been teaching yoga classes and yoga teachers for 26 years when in 2006 I developed a teacher training curriculum — Inner Domain 5 Element Yoga — that fused everything I had learned about yoga, Ayurveda, and the wisdom that undergirds all of the Vedic traditions.

This wisdom is based on the understanding, which has been confirmed by modern quantum physics, that the essence of the physical world is energy. This energy has consciousness and this consciousness is loving, all pervasive, and endlessly creative.

My Inner Domain curriculum was approved by the Yoga Alliance, the largest certifying association of yoga schools, and for the last 14 years, I have been leading trainings of yoga teachers and Ayurveda counselors in Washington, D.C. and Europe.

I lead workshops and retreats, day camps and meditation circles. In 2016 I began teaching yoga as a professorial lecturer at American University, and I continue to see private clients with challenges ranging from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder to M.S., Parkinson’s, joint problems, and cancer.

One thing that has characterized my life is a drive to understand the world and evolve my own development. I am always learning because I have seen that knowing oneself within the mystery of the universe is a never-ending journey.

Every Spoke Leads to the Center

In the last few years, I developed a new healing curriculum called Life Flow Integrated Yoga Therapy. Aware of the deep trauma many people hold inside, I was inspired to become a certified Yoga Therapist and my curriculum was approved by the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

Most recently I completed a training in Jyotisha, the Vedic astrological system. Studying natal charts helps me understand how each individual is connected to the universe and has equipped me with yet another way to help clients navigate their unique challenges and gifts so they may fulfill their life’s highest purpose.