Skip to main content
“It’s an event and personal growth space,” says Amanda Yoshida, creator of Southeast Craftsman home-turned-healing center OM House, “and I think, for me on a deeper level, it’s my attempt at creating a safe container for communities, healers, and seekers to find each other.”
There’s a delicate balance to Yoshida’s vision—not just because of her mission’s healing impetus, but because OM House is also the personal residence she shares with her son and business partner, 8-year-old Mo.
Daughter of business magnates Junki and Linda Yoshida, founders of Mr. Yoshida’s Original Gourmet Sauce, Amanda Yoshida found business and philanthropy were baked into her life from a young age. A designer and illustrator by trade, Yoshida speaks of OM House’s parental influences with a kind of melancholy pride. Her father’s mogul status may color her business decisions, but it’s her mother’s impact that truly inspired OM House.
“At the heart of OM House is a direct response to my mom passing away in December 2024. She was the most generous person I’ve ever known. It was just her nature,” Yoshida explains. “She would host a big charity event and open up our home every year when I was growing up. She founded that event to support cancer research. So when she passed, it felt really important to honor the positive values that she taught me.”
Founded after her mother’s death, OM House is located in a snug, tree-lined residential strip of the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood where Yoshida hosts free and low-cost events like sound baths, candlelight yoga, intuitive painting classes, drum circles, and book clubs. Shared spaces include a spacious living room replete with rearrangeable faux fur-covered foam blocks, meditation pillows, lush rugs, and loveseat-style cushions, as well as a smaller office/family room with cushy couches and greenspaces in both the side- and backyards. The requisite kitchen and bathrooms are styled to welcome visitors during events, bolstering OM House’s relaxed, wellness-focused energy. Though it’s Yoshida’s residence, the house delivers the feeling of a curated healing space.
We were introduced to Yoshida’s abstract hosting style while attending one of OM House’s signature events on a night in early April: the No Book Club. True to its name, the monthly gathering eschews book club traditions for something more central to OM House’s mission. This particular gathering included about 10 attendees. Rather than reading the same title and gathering to discuss it, this event focuses on discovery. Attendees are encouraged to come empty-handed (or bring a beloved title or a few random books to share) and rummage through Yoshida’s self-help-, empowerment- and psychology-themed library. In this regard, the book club becomes an exercise in self-exploration—participation requires readers to share a particularly moving passage or impression after about 45 minutes of uninterrupted study. The nature of the material, coupled with the energy of the space, results in something that more closely resembles introductory group therapy than a traditional discussion group, which is the essential mission of OM House.
“Literature has played a major role in my healing process, rewiring my brain and breaking patterns along the way,” Yoshida continues. “And the No Book Club was about removing all the requirements of actually having to read a book ahead of time or buy a book.”
“The events, like me, are very neurodivergent,” Yoshida says. “They seem all over the place, but the unifying thread is peace—just a little bit more resilience, or a little bit of healing to deal with all of the stress and loss that happens in life. Those are the events that I want to share.”
Indeed, Yoshida prefaced her introduction on the night of the No Book Club by encouraging attendees to hold true to whatever notions they had about book clubs—as long as they were content to participate and connect with the group there in the present. The books were merely intermediaries; the true purpose was healing through connection. Each attendee participated wholeheartedly and was visibly affected by the connections made. In this way, it was one of the more successful book clubs I’ve attended—and I’ve attended quite a few.
“The community reception has been incredibly positive,” Yoshida says. “People have started coming back numerous times, and it doesn’t feel anymore like guests attending an event. It feels like a community.”
GO: Somatic Grief & Women’s Healing Circle at OM House, meetup.com/om-house. 6 pm Saturday, May 24. $35.