Lauren Dollie Duke is an author, educator, speaker, entrepreneur, and somatic practitioner whose work lives at the intersection of movement, trauma, resilience, and human connection.

With a master’s degree in psychology and more than twenty years of experience teaching yoga, Pilates, somatics, functional movement, fascia science, and mind body medicine, Lauren has spent her career helping people understand the body as a source of memory, repair, and transformation. Her work blends nervous system education, movement science, trauma theory, and embodied practice in a way that is both deeply researched and radically human.

Lauren is the founder of Gather Encinitas, a yoga studio and community space built around movement, social support, and social change. Her teaching brings together somatics, psychology, fascia work, functional movement, and nervous system repair to help people inhabit their bodies more fully, interrupt old patterns, and create new ways of being with themselves and each other.

Her first memoir, Sh!thouse, explored family dysfunction, intergenerational trauma, and the chaos we inherit and survive. Her upcoming book, This Walk Will Change You: Walking, Family, and the Healing Power of Movement, launches in November 2026. The book follows Lauren’s 535 mile walk across Spain on the Camino del Norte with her siblings and mother, weaving personal story, movement science, psychology, and the messy, meaningful work of family repair.

Lauren’s research on long distance walking and resilience became the foundation for her graduate work, her 2025 TEDx talk, “What Are You Willing to Walk 500 Miles For,” and the body of work behind This Walk Will Change You. Her writing and teaching ask a central question: what becomes possible when healing moves out of the mind alone and into the body, the family, the road, and the way we keep walking.

Lauren lives in California with her husband, their dogs, and a deep belief that movement is one of the oldest medicines we have.