Yogahari Healing
Acknowledgement of Country
I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Aboriginal people as the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I live and work. I pay my deepest respect to all elders, past, present and emerging as well as my deepest gratitude for sharing their land and waterways with me. I express my sorrow for the ongoing trauma that colonisation continues to have on Aboriginal people, families and communities and for the impact on their spiritual and cultural life. I acknowledge that this land has never been ceeded and I walk beside Aboriginal people in power, strength, resilience and healing.
About Me and Yogahari Healing
My name is Eleni and I created Yogahari Healing in 2012, but back then, it was only Yogahari. ‘Healing’ was added in 2015, when I decided to step into private practice as a therapist, and make my therapeutic work more central.
Essentially, Yogahari Healing was born from a purposeful desire to combine my own life path and discoveries about healing and spirituality, with my career. As far back as I can remember, I have always been interested in discovering the deepest truths about life. One of them has been, that, healing our psycho-emotional and physical wounding is a necessary part for progressing along the spiritual path!
My truest intention for Yogahari Healing is to meet you where you are at, and provide a safe, supportive and sacred space to explore your own healing and spirituality, for empowerment and purposeful living.
My Yoga Journey
In 1996 I attended my first yoga class. It was a class that changed the direction of my life.
Working as a Social Worker and Counsellor, I began to practice daily and soon discovered yoga’s healing powers. Since my first class all that time ago, yoga has been part of my daily life and I have maintained a dedicated, consistent and loving practice ever since.
I began an Iyengar Yoga teacher apprenticeship in 2001 and have completed certification in this method. I have studied with the Iyengar family both in India and Australia and have undertaken further teacher training at the Himalayan Institute in the U.S.A. in 2012. I am also a certified I AM Yoga Nidra teacher.
My interest in healing has led me to complete further professional development in trauma aware yoga, yoga for breast cancer and in 2018 completed the Therapeutic Wisdom of Yoga training with world renowned yoga teacher Doug Keller. I have current registration as a Senior Yoga Teacher, Yoga Teacher Trainer and Yoga Teacher Mentor with Yoga Australia.
Yoga wisdom and practice has supported me through many difficult times in my life and particularly guided me through the profound loss and stillbirth of my first son Ifeanyi.
Yoga and healing have helped me be a good person and have increased my ability for self-reflection without getting caught up in the self-hate that usually accompanies it. My spiritual practice has increased my awareness and trustful surrender to the greatness of existence. Now that my healing has happened, my deepest desire is to truly recognise and realise my own essential nature. And the yoga tradition that has brought me the closest to somewhat realising this thus far, is the ancient spiritual tradition of non-dual Tantra. I’m a committed Tantrika (practitioner of Tantra) and through my dedicated practice I am open to receiving the blessing power of realisation through this life affirming spiritual lineage. I am currently studying under the guidance of my heart teacher/Guru Dharma Bodhi of Trika Mahasiddha Yoga. One thousand pranams to you all!
Gratitudes
In loving gratitude I would like to acknowledge the ancient yoginis (female masters) and yogis (male masters) who immersed themselves in yoga practices so that others could also benefit. I would also like to acknowledge my past and current teachers both in Australia and abroad that I have learnt from, either in person or through their teachings and resources:
Baba Muktananda and Gurumayi- Siddha Yoga Lineage, Guruji- otherwise known as B.K.S. Iyengar, Geetaji- Gita Iyengar, Yogi Amrit Desai, Kamini Desai , Tony Rothberg, Glenn Ceresoli, Mark Gibson, Shari Freidrichson, Sandra Anderson, Rolf Sovik, Sally Kempton, Christopher (Hareesh Wallis), Doug Keller, Paul Mueller- Ortega, and Kavitha Chinnayian.
And with the deepest, respect and gratitude to my heart teacher, Dharma Bodhi, whom I am currently receiving guidance from, and whom, in a short amount of time has helped me understand all those yoga practice I have been doing for years, at a much, much, much deeper level.
If you are beginning or continuing this profound healing or inner journey to truly know your own essence nature, I acknowledge your courageous heart.
Tat Astu Shivo Ham
May it be so! I am that Essence
My Therapist Journey
I completed a Post Graduate degree in Social Work in 1998, but actually began working in Social work during my studies. My first ever job was working in men’s crisis accommodation in 1997, in inner city Melbourne. In my early career, I worked in various counselling and group work facilitator roles supporting young people, women, men and families. I have also worked in leadership and in various project management roles, both in mental and physical health promotion, women’s health and the sexual assault/family violence field.
In 2015 I bravely decided to leave a management role in the community sector because I discovered I really wasn’t on my true path. Finding myself unemployed, I decided to draw on my previous years of experience in therapeutic counselling and ventured into private practice. It was the best and most fulfilling decision I have ever made regarding my Social Work career!
In 2017 I trained as a certified Family Constellation Facilitator, with Yildiz Sethi, and in 2018 I completed Radical Exposure Tapping®, Level I (Deactivating the Buttons) with Laurie MacKinnon. I am currently training as an Emotionally Focused Couple’s Therapist and in 2022 completed the first level Externship with Jenny Fitzgerald. In 2023 I will be completing Core Skills A and Core Skills B with Jenny Fitzgerald.
So, if you are feeling overwhelmed and ready to begin healing emotional wounds that keep you from growing and feeling whole and complete, please get in touch. I work with individuals, couple’s and families.
At Yogahari Healing I’m committed and passionate about supporting people open up to new ways of thinking and being and genuinely believe that healing is possible!