Meet Melanee
HEAL. TRANSFORM. EMPOWER.
To come as I am, without apology has been the journey of ten thousand yoga classes.
Yoga started me on a new path 25 years ago. It was love at first meditation, when I began to explore what it meant to connect to my inner landscape. I found yoga, like most things in my life, through synchronicity. Or that’s how yoga found me. I had a major life event that would change the course of my life. As I started to practice yoga, I started to orient from the inside out. I found I was in a new relationship—with myself. I rediscovered who I was through using the tools of mind, body and breath.
My first lesson was karma; every action has a reaction. What you put out there will come back to you—seven times or more. This is the universal law of cause and effect. Once you know it you can’t unknow it. It changes the way you move through the world.
As a passionate student, I wanted to explore everything I could about these powerful ancient mind-body practices. Along the way, I branched out to include yoga and Buddhist philosophy, meditation, somatic, therapeutic and trauma-informed yoga; psychology, neuroscience, non-violent communication and holistic health coaching.
When I got divorced in 2019, the rug was pulled out from underneath my feet, forcing me to start a new chapter that I had never imagined. I had been unconsciously uncoupled, broken into a million pieces. Through immense grief and loss of everything I knew, I had to find the strength and courage to painstakingly glue those pieces back together again. Like the Japanese art of kintsugi, golden repair, gold seams now fill in where the cracks once were. Yoga was the one thing that got me out of bed every morning and helped me heal. Now I can see that the loss of everything was ultimately liberating. The word for it in Sanskrit is called moksha, to free oneself.
Through psychic catastrophe I learned that you can call on your spirit and the Universe to guide you. You can find your way back and heal from traumatic events and then, you can help the next person navigate their way through the dark.
In my yoga classes I guide people to get curious about their physical, mental and emotional states. A typical class will include meditation, alignment cues, breathwork, mantras and mudras as well as hard-won life wisdom sprinkled throughout. I’m known for my thoughtful creative sequencing and nurturing yoga classes that invite you to be as you are in an atmosphere of complete acceptance.
– AFFILIATIONS & CERTIFICATIONS –
YOGA PRACTICE & TEACHING
Since my first yoga class, I’ve met the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala and Chicago several times, went to Bhutan with Buddhist scholar Dr. Robert Thurman, trekked to Machu Picchu, and studied tea ceremony in Kyoto.
I am a certified 1000 hr RYT, Yoga Alliance Teacher and Meditation Instructor. I received my certification and training at the Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica from Don Stapleton, PhD and Amba Stapleton. I have a background in Iyengar yoga since 2001. I am a lifelong student and have studied an additional 1500 hours plus in trainings and workshops with dozens of master teachers. I’m compelled by all the rich nuance of the yoga tradition, fascinated by the yoga sutras, the layers of the subtle body, and the ethical principles embedded in the yoga path.
For yoga and meditation, I have studied with Erich Shiffman, Gary Kraftsow, Jason Crandell, Aadil Palkhivala, Sianna Sherman, Sean Corne, Gabriel Halpern, Patricia Sullivan, Richard Rosen, Kia Miller, Elena Brower, Nicolai Bachman, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Annette Knopp, among many others. I am also a certified Holistic Health Coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition.
I’ve studied with luminaries on the new frontiers of mind body medicine and psychology such as Dan Siegel, Esther Perel, Jack Saul, Dr. Shefali Tsabary and life coaching with Jay Shetty.
With almost two decades experience studying heart, mind and body I have fine-tuned a style of teaching that encourages yoga to be a self-reflective and spiritual practice. My yoga classes are a combination of hatha and vinyasa, meditation, breathwork, detailed alignment cues and creative sequences. In addition, I weave in poetry, yogic and Buddhist philosophy to offer substantive, layered classes, that will feed you throughout your day and week. I am dedicated to helping bring positive changes into daily life that can be experienced on and off the mat.
FAMILY & LIFE PHILOSOPHY
I have raised two amazing daughters, survived a mudslide, learned to sail and surf, created, owned and operated three art galleries, three yoga studios and traveled the world for over thirty years.
I believe there is magic in the messiness, beauty in the breakdown, and synchronicity always in the field. I believe that whatever the world gives us is exactly the medicine we need. I believe that the difficult is our best teacher and finding joy is our birthright. I’ve learned what battles are worth fighting and when it’s not my circus nor my monkeys. I have discovered the importance of boundaries to protect what I hold inviolable. And, in a surprising plot twist, I’ve learned that whatever happens to you also happens for you.
PHILANTHROPY & COMMUNITY
One of my core beliefs is seva, the spiritual practice of service. I have taught yoga at the Children’s Memorial Hospital and Sara’s Circle Homeless Shelter for Women in Chicago, Casa Serena in Santa Barbara, and volunteered in China, Africa and India teaching yoga and English to children.
In 2021, I started the Warrior Goddess Project, an organization that supports underserved women through an array of mind-body modalities.