Hello ♡
Welcome to this space. I am so grateful to have you here.
I would love to connect with you more and support you on your wellness journey. I just know that you have so much to offer this world.
However, before you let me into your world and share your precious journey with me, you may be interested to hear a little bit more about me, my wellness journey and how I got to this place right here.
So get comfy, perhaps make a cup of tea, and we will dive in!
♡
To being with, I grew up in a small country town in New Zealand with an artist dad, a school teacher mum and three lovely sisters (although we didn’t always think each other was lovely at the time!).
My family had several acres of land with a creek that ran through it. As a teenager I would visit the creek every day. In one place by the water, beneath an old tree, a little cave formed and I made this my ‘meditation spot’. I really had no idea what ‘meditation’ was at this age, and had never been introduced to yoga or mindfulness. However, every day I would sit in my spot, gaze at the water, allow the busy thoughts in my head to settle, and make some sense and meaning out of my 17-year old life. Sometimes I would sip a mug of green-tea that I had precariously carried down the hill with me, sometimes I would write. I would always walk back to my house feeling a little calmer, connected and more centered. And if anybody asked what I had been doing, I would say “meditating”.
I knew when I left high-school that I wanted to help people, and I was very interested in philosophy, psychology and the arts. As a young person myself, I decided that I was most interested in helping children and adolescents, and I enrolled to study a bachelors degree in psychology and education. In my second year of university I applied, and was selected, to be trained as a counsellor for a local charity organisation where the focus was on supporting young people in crisis. For six years I worked for this charity as a counsellor, mentor, training facilitator and supervisor. I graduated from university with an abundance of experience and qualifications and I took on roles in the education sector for several government and non-profit organisations.
By the age of 22 I was a busy city-girl working several, primarily office-based, jobs and trying to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Life was good, but also exhausting and stressful and the demands of my life sometimes took a toll on my well-being. It was at this time that my flatmate dragged me along to my first yoga class. The yoga class was run by the Hare Krishna’s at their center called The Bhakti Lounge. My teacher taught a beautiful, uplifting and energising class and held a loving presence throughout. At the end of the class she asked me if I would like a blanket, and when I quietly nodded, she wrapped me up. As an independent, single, young woman trying to navigate life and adult-hood and all the hustle-bustle that comes with that, it felt very special to be held and cared for in that space; to be given permission to let go. Yoga classes at the Bhakti Lounge always finish with a delicious vegetarian meal and as yogi’s gather together to dine after their shared experience, a wonderful sense of community unfolds.
I started attending yoga at the Bhakti Lounge every week, and each week I felt I was getting a little closer to an inner sense of connection, love and joy. Soon, once a week wasn’t enough and I began searching out different classes and styles of yoga, and reading everything I could on yoga, spirituality and mindfulness.
The moment I realised I wanted to teach yoga was on a sunny Saturday morning, walking home from a yoga class, along the Wellington water-front. In this moment of inspiration I knew that I wanted to share yoga, mindfulness and well-being with others and I felt a deep heart-calling to help people in this way.
In 2013 I booked flights to Australia and attended my first yoga retreat at the Byron Yoga Center (BYC) in Byron Bay. BYC offers a holistic style of yoga, called ‘Purna’ yoga and I had the chance to explore on a deeper level what it meant to incorporate the yoga postures with philosophy and breath-work. On this retreat I met some wonderful teachers who encouraged and inspired my yoga journey. I remember talking to the founder of BYC, John Ogilivie, discussing yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, spirituality and philosophy. I expressed to John that I wanted to train as a yoga teacher, “But obviously I’m not ready yet, I still have a lot to learn” I quickly added. John looked at me sincerely and said “I think you are ready now you know”.
Despite, the heartening vote of confidence that I received when at BYC, I didn’t rush right into yoga teacher training. However, a year later, I took a secondment from my work and moved to Hawaii for three months to live at a place called Kalani, an intentional eco-village yoga community on the Big Island. My time at Kalani was an amazing experience of immersing myself in yoga and being part of a beautiful community of like-minded people. During my time there I attended yoga and meditation classes everyday and learnt from some of the best teachers in the world. One of my favourite teachers, Jared Sam, taught vinyasa flow as well as nourishing yin classes. I felt a deep resonance with Jared’s gentle and uplifting teaching style and when he said he was offering a yin yoga teacher training with a special price for Ohana (family) I put my name down.
And so there I took my first yoga teacher training and taught my first classes at Kalani, in the middle of the Hawaiian jungle. Part-way through the training, feeling connected and in alignment with my heart-felt-calling I resigned from my job in Wellington and applied, and was accepted, to study my 800 hour Certificate IV (the most advanced yoga teacher training available) at the Byron Yoga Center.
The Byron Yoga Center was a fantastic place to complete my yoga teacher training. There, I had the opportunity to learn from many different teachers who were all experts in their field. During my training I really had the chance to explore my own unique teaching style and my ‘way of being’ as a yoga teacher. For me, yoga has never been about achieving goals or working towards outcomes. My view is that there are more than enough exercise classes and opportunities in life to ‘push yourself’ and ‘work hard’ and strive for something ‘other’. My intention with my yoga classes has always been to support people to connect with themselves, enhance their well-being and practice self-love and radical acceptance. My style of teaching is gentle, mindful and uplifting, and my strengths as a yoga teacher often shine brightest during the warm-up and cool-down sequences as I find these moments offer themselves up so beautifully for deep nourishment and connection. I will always remember when, following a teaching assessment, my training assessor expressed that he had never felt quite so moved during a trainees warm-up sequence than he did during the one I had just taught.
My teacher training was challenging. There were no weekends included on our schedule and I woke up every morning at 4:30am so that I could complete my homework before teaching or attending the 6am yoga class. We practiced and studied all day, breaking for meals of delicious vegan food and cups of herbal tea or kombucha. Evenings were my favourite as we had our philosophy classes and meditation. Our philosophy teacher was an ex-clinical psychologist turned swami and I felt completely in my element discussing the teachings of vedic philosophy and non-dualism with him and my class-mates.
I graduated from Byron Yoga Center with my 800 hour + Certificate IV yoga teacher training certificate in March 2015. From here I moved back to Wellington, New Zealand and started teaching my own yoga classes almost straight away. I was blessed to be gifted many opportunities to teach, and by the end of 2015 I was teaching around 11 classes a week as well as private one-to-one classes, all at different studios around the city. I established a beautiful community and following and I became particularly well-known for my gentle, nourishing yin classes and my soulful, uplifting morning flow sequences. Students came to me because they wanted to feel good and I always held the space with unconditional love and positive regard.
Yoga was my way of life, and sharing the yoga practice was my heart-felt calling. However, I knew that I needed to go deeper. Teaching primarily asana (posture) focused classes in a studio several times a week was only just touching the sides of what I knew that I wanted to share.
I first heard about positive psychology during my undergraduate psychology degree. A guest lecturer, a positive psychologist from the University of Pennsylvania, presented an introduction to positive psychology to my class. I absolutely loved every minute of the lecture and hung onto every word that he shared. He announced that he would be teaching a paper on positive psychology the following year and I excitedly looked forward to signing up. However, to my disappointment, when I received my prospectus for the following year there was no mention of any papers on positive psychology, and I had to assume that it had fallen through.
Nevertheless, a positive psychology seed had been planted, and I continued to do my own research on the science of well-being. When I found yoga, one of the things I loved about it was that it was basically positive psychology. One of the first books on yoga that I read was ‘The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga’ by Marvin Levine.
The year, 2016, was a challenging one for me and I was facing several personal obstacles. On top of this, in an attempt to save money, I had taken on a new job that was full-time and I was squeezing in teaching yoga classes around this. I was feeling like I didn’t have much time for my own self-practice and I wanted to give more to myself and to my students. One morning, I was dancing in my bedroom as I got ready for work. The song ‘Younger’ by Seinabo Sey came on, and for a moment I really lost myself in the music. The lyrics “You aint getting any younger” lovingly made me think of a dear friend of mine who often used these same words as a tough-love method of encouraging me to pursue my dreams. Dancing around my room, feeling joyful and spontaneous, connecting with the music and my body, I was hit with a flash of inspiration; “I am going to study my masters in applied positive psychology and coaching psychology ” the voice, my inner guide, was clear, I knew what I had to do, and within the month I had completed my application to the University of East London.
Initially, it was my intention to complete my MSc from New Zealand as a distance student, and I completed my first semester in Wellington. However, I also had dreams to travel, and I wanted to experience Europe and connect with the many friends I have living there. One evening I was video-calling my friend from the Czech Republic, and she was speaking of her wedding that was taking place in the Summer. Feeling inspired, I decided that 2017 was the year I would travel. The next morning I woke up and received an email from Air NZ. They were having a sale on flights to the UK. I booked a one-way ticket to London that same day.
In June, 2017 I boarded a plane to travel to the other side of the world. I had the address of a friend I would stay with initially, who I had met in Hawaii, and who lived just outside of London. I also knew that I would attend a wedding in Brno, Czech Republic in August. Other than that I had no plans. I ended up traveling through Europe for close to three months. During this time I visited England, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Ireland, Holland and Edinburgh. I had wonderful experiences, practiced yoga in both beautiful places (the beaches in Cornwall, the lawns in Vienna) and unusual places (tiny hostel dorm rooms and a mouldy houseboat in Amsterdam!) and also had the opportunity to teach on several occasions.
I was seeking adventure, beauty, awe, new experiences and connections, and I felt called to stay in Europe a while longer. I had no intention to return to NZ for the foreseeable future. I had many options to choose from to settle down in and call home. However, my heart was sold when I visited Brighton; a gorgeous beach-side town with a bohemian vibe, oodles of culture and lots of open-minded, free-spirited people who value yoga and well-being.
Establishing myself as a yoga teacher was more difficult than I expected. In the past, I had always worked with studios who actively supported and promoted my classes and I was paid a standard fee for my service. I quickly realised that in Brighton, I would be expected to generate my own classes, do my own marketing and attract my own students. I knew zero people when I moved to Brighton, and had no connections, I had zero experience in marketing and I had next to zero presence online and on social media. On top of this, after enjoying a three-month summer holiday gallivanting through Europe I was quickly running out of money and I had to knuckle down and work on my masters.
During my first few months in Brighton I experienced my fair-share of challenges. On a couple of occasions I came very close to leaving Brighton and moving to either Edinburgh or Amsterdam, with the hope of finding more opportunities in a bigger city. However, with perseverance, enthusiasm, passion and commitment I was able to establish a yoga community and following in Brighton, as well as set aside time to work on my masters, and receive the grades I desired.
I graduated from the University of East London in July 2019 and was awarded a ‘Distinction’ for my MSc Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology. I was also invited to present my research on the relationship between yoga and positive psychology at the 2020 European Conference for Positive Psychology (postponed until 2022). I spent the latter half of 2019 in Brighton, fine-tuning my offers and establishing myself as a self-employed positive psychologist, coach and yoga teacher.
At the beginning of 2020 I had hundreds of hours coaching experience, and my list of private clients was growing. I also had developed my own series of meditation workshops called ‘Cultivating Calm’ which had proven to be hugely popular, and I was teaching multiple yoga and meditation classes a week. However, like many others, my business and personal life was affected by covid-19. While I experienced many challenges, the push that this pandemic gave me to show up online was a great blessing.
In July 2020 I made the decision to leave the UK and travel home to New Zealand.
Despite the unexpected circumstances and challenges that the current year has presented so far, I feel that my own commitment to well-being and my enthusiasm and dedication for supporting others has only increased.
One of the most beautiful and exciting things about embarking on a yoga and wellness journey is that there is no final destination. I continue to show up for my practice daily and I stay open to new opportunities, experiences and ideas. Sharing the practice of yoga, meditation and positive psychology is my passion and my calling, and I feel truly grateful to be able to support others to live with more joy, love and mindfulness. If you feel called to work with me, reach out here. I would love to connect with you, hear your story, support you, and be your guide.
With love,
Mary-Rose xx