Redefining What It Means to Be a Yoga Teacher
Jul 21, 2025
I’m still a yoga teacher — but what that means to me now is worlds apart from what it meant when I first began.
In my earlier years, I poured myself into running a thriving yoga and Pilates studio on the Gold Coast. I led thousands of classes and teacher trainings, built a beautiful community, and found deep purpose in sharing what I loved. For 19 years, I believed this was the heart of my calling: to hold space, guide movement, and inspire others through the discipline and devotion of practice.
And while I’m still doing those things — offering yoga and Pilates in local community spaces and mentoring the teachers of tomorrow — something essential has shifted.
What I share today is still informed by years of study — but more than ever, it rises from the forest floor, from the cracks of lived experience, from seasons of change that no textbook or teacher could ever fully prepare me for. Because while formal training offers the map, it’s direct experience and awakened awareness that truly shape the journey.
From Studio Walls to Forest Wisdom
When I became a mother, life asked me to soften. When perimenopause arrived, it asked me to surrender even more. These transitions peeled back layers I didn’t know I was ready to shed. Though I still loved guiding movement, I longed to be more present — not just for my children, but for myself.
And then something unexpected began to happen.
Every time I looked out the window onto the land my young family and I lived on, I could feel Mother Earth calling me — not in a metaphorical way, but a deep, soul-stirring invitation. She asked me to sit with her. To help heal her. And slowly, I began to listen.
Like a tree shedding its leaves in autumn, I let go of running the studio and all its responsibilities. I didn’t know what would take its place — but something in me knew I was being realigned. And I trusted.
Regeneration Inside and Out
Two years on, I find myself immersed in the regeneration of our native Gold Coast bushlands. Thanks to Land for Wildlife and NCAP funding, I’m now deeply involved in healing the land — learning from it, working with it, and walking alongside others who care for our waterways, forests, and wildlife corridors.
These days spent planting trees and pulling weeds don’t feel like work. They feel like worship. I’ve come to understand that this is yoga — union — just in a different form.
And the wisdom that nature shares with me out there? That’s what I now bring back into my classes.
Forest Bathing as a New Kind of Teaching
Alongside my community yoga and Pilates classes, I’ve also continued to offer weekly Forest Bathing sessions — slow, sensory immersions in nature designed to reconnect us with the land and with ourselves.
Every Friday, I guide a group of neurodivergent women through the forest at the Gold Coast Botanical Gardens, thanks to support from Gold Coast Sport & Recreation. My dear friend Gabriella joins each week, weaving sound healing into the experience as the birds and breeze harmonise around us.
Thanks to the continued support of the Gold Coast Active & Healthy program, my monthly Forest Bathing sessions continue across the city — offered during school holidays for families and on weekends for those juggling busy work lives.
I’m delighted to share that the next 12 months of Forest Bathing sessions are now live on my website — including private and corporate offerings if your team or sisterhood is seeking something different.
Teaching from Lived Experience, Not Just Philosophy
Although I still guide yoga and Pilates, my teachings no longer come solely from books or traditional sequences. They come from the forest — from walking barefoot on the land, from watching the way dew gathers on leaves, from witnessing the healing power of stillness and the honest poetry of decay and rebirth.
What I now teach is shaped by what I’ve lived:
- The way the earth gives without asking for recognition.
- How silence can be the most powerful teacher of all.
- That healing doesn’t always look like doing — sometimes it’s simply being.
Teacher Trainings Held by the Forest
And yes — I still offer yoga and Pilates teacher trainings. But they’re no longer confined to a studio. These days, our trainings unfold in a retreat-style sanctuary, nestled among the trees and serenaded by songbirds. We move, learn, and grow enveloped by nature, allowing each moment to be infused with fresh air, birdsong, and the quiet power of presence.
The setting itself becomes the teacher — reminding us that true wisdom doesn’t come from striving, but from stillness. From listening. From remembering.
A New Kind of Guide
I no longer see myself as a “yoga teacher” in the traditional sense. I feel more like an embodied teacher, shaped by seasons, stillness and soil moving gently through life with roots in the earth, an open heart, and a quiet reverence for the sacredness of everyday moments.
I still teach movement. But now, my mat is the forest floor.
And my most trusted guru?
The land — and life itself, in all its rawness and radiance.
Feeling called to take the next step?
Let’s connect for a free, heartfelt chat about your journey, your goals, and what path is right for you.
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