I discovered yoga in my teens, together with meditation, and spent many years dabbling in different types of yoga and a variety of free-spirited sports like paragliding, windsurfing and long-distance cycling. Yoga is a great compliment to my current sports of mountain biking and wing foiling. I took up yoga as a dedicated practice after the birth of my first child and I had many wonderful yoga teachers and mentors on my journey. It was when I discovered the philosophies behind the physical practice of yoga, that I realized I had opened up a Pandora’s Box of phenomenal teachings that I knew I would need several lifetimes to master. So, I have been studying and teaching yoga ever since!
I was initiated into Kriya Yoga, an ancient spiritual practice of yoga in 2013 and have been lucky enough have met and practiced meditation in the presence of Master Paramahansa Prajnananda, the current Guru and head of this Yogic lineage. Kriya remains an important part of my own yoga practice.
I am fascinated with the idea that as we age our bodies become our biography and I am constantly borrowing from modern teachings on disease, psychology and movement and sharing this wisdom with my students. As we open the body on the yoga mat, and we learn to still the mind – we start to open, and heal and release a lot of emotional memory stuck in our muscles, our fascia and our organs. It’s a profound, evolutionary journey and I am constantly humbled by the courage of my students as they use yoga to reshape their lives.
A request several years ago by one of my yoga students to teach Trauma Informed Yoga to her schizophrenic brother led to a growing private practice of clients using Trauma Informed Yoga and my fascination with using Somatic Therapies to help my clients release long held trauma patterns in their bodies, then their minds, then their lives.
I discovered Rebirthing Breathwork several years ago and this has proved the most powerful trauma release tool I have ever used. As with all these tools you have to use them in your own life to shift long held emotional blocks before you can share them with your clients. Rebirthing breathwork starts with the first breath you ever took on this planet. That snapshot in time when you, a magical human, took that very first breath, meant that the cosmic forces, the land of your birth, the delivery team, your mother, your father and your family left an indelible imprint on your nervous system. If that imprint does not serve you, and you just have to look at your current life and its challenges to realise where your subconscious response to life’s challenges is failing you, then you can use a tool like Rebirthing Breathwork to unravel those patterns and create a new, default, nervous system response to life. It’s that profound. So, working with me, we look at your current life challenges and using the conscious, connected breath we can go all the way back to unravel that first breath and change it. And hence change your default pattern moving forward. Massively liberating.
Self-Sabotage coaching. Coaching is a great compliment to my offerings of yoga and breathwork which are focussed on healing the past and unravelling patterns, even those along genetic lines. Coaching is present and future orientated. I was already a life coach (a Health and Wellness Coach and a Life Transition Coach) but was intrigued as to how many of my clients, despite all our hard work together and somatic interventions, still self-sabotaged. Somehow there was a mismatch between what the client desperately wanted (better health, love, wealth) and their subconscious behaviour that would undermine these good intentions. So, I dived into the world of media brainwashing, propaganda and manipulation realising that the self-sabotage of the individual was often a reflection of the family, societal mass- mind manipulation, advertising, media and the television. I retrained as a self-sabotage coach and now help my clients identify what type of saboteur they are, and we can change these sabotaging behaviours, and set appropriate goals so that they can achieve the life of their dreams. A big part of this is educating the client as to the societal brainwashing and media manipulation. I also use EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) Tapping and sometime TRE (Trauma Release Exercises) to speed up this process. Amazing somatic tools.
I run residential Yoga Retreats, Breathwork Retreats and Coaching Retreats. Over a weekend, we immerse ourselves in yoga, pranayama, meditation, breathwork, EFT tapping, TRE, Satsang, ceremony, laughter, nature and connection. In glorious natural surrounds, staying in simple, comfortable accommodation and dining on Ayurvedic fare. Our retreats are transformative, powerful and lots of fun!
There’s a pattern here. I’m deeply committed to helping my clients make sense of the past, their childhood trauma and even trauma passed down the lineage through epigenetics. But they have a choice. Instead of obsessing over release, forgiveness and breaking free from the past, many of my clients prefer to integrate these traumas into their lives and make peace with them in their bodies, emerging even more powerful, grounded, joyous and successful. What one might deem as trauma, we change into a superpower. Integration and seeing the past as a gift to create phenomenal futures.
I hope we get to meet on the mat, on retreat or over the airways sometime in the future!
Love and Namaste Margot