Today we’d like to introduce you to Keri Marino
Hi Keri, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I found yoga as a 20 year old, struggling with chronic pain, mental health and trying to find my way in the world. In yoga I found a practice that brought me immense relief and peace. I’d never felt that good before…that relaxed, that whole and that at ease. Through steady practice and smart lifestyle choices my chronic pain dissolved, my mental health struggles faded away and I felt empowered to be my SELF and carve my own unique path. In many ways, yoga transformed and saved my life.
In my love story with yoga, I fell hard and fast. I went to yoga teacher training a couple years after picking up the practice and started teaching right away. I soon realized how unprepared I was for the wonderful, diverse and complex students I was teaching. I found myself sitting with questions like, “How do I help people transform their life with yoga, without doing something that could cause harm in the process?” It sparked a passion inside me to become a Yoga Therapist and I went back to school.
I’ve been working as a Yoga Therapist officially since 2013 and have loved the focus on helping my clients and students tap into the healing power within themselves through yoga. Years later, Yoga Therapy become a certified and regulated profession and I was grandfathered in due to my extensive years and hours working in the field.
Throughout my career, I’ve traveled, lived and worked in many states. My yoga business has been a constant in my life through multiple state moves, marriage and the birth of my 3 children. I’ve had so many different variations of my business from teaching private yoga to people in their homes, partnering with hospital systems and mental health clinics, leading training programs in yoga studios and running my own private practice for the past 15 years. It’s been so much fun and I’ve met so many wonderful people around the Southeast.
I moved back home to Greenville, SC with my family in the middle of the pandemic and started up the current version of my business. Which focuses on helping women love themselves more, do the body, mind and spirit healing that transforms their lives, balance their emotions and nervous systems.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Yes and No. Yes, because my love for what I do and the people I serve has been unwavering. I truly feel that my work is my professional calling and it’s a privilege. No because, quite frankly moving has made me start my business over and over again from the ground up multiple times plus entrepreneurship is hard.
Each time we moved, I’ve had to build a network of people who trust me and are willing to partner with me. Create a reputation within the community and brand. For me, I’ve done that 5 times now and it’s been a lot of investment on my part to begin again and again, and again.
Other struggles include building the actual skills of being a business owner. In yoga school and college, I learned about being an expert in my field but I has serious gaps to fill in terms of my knowledge of how to market, set, create automations, systems, negotiate and generally be an entrepreneur.
To this day I still have times where I get caught in a spiral of doubt and overwhelm. But the love of what I do, the freedom of being an entrepreneur always wins out and a I reconnect to WHY I am doing this.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
My business is comprised of Yoga Therapy, Somatic Healing and Inner Work for predominantly for women. I help women feel more healthy, whole, confident and empowered.
I offer 1:1 coaching as a space for deep diving into areas where my clients feel stuck, supporting them as they process what weighs them down and holds them back and giving them to roadmap to feel more alive, joyful, at ease, worthy and truly heal. Often my clients in 1:1 sessions have already done some therapy and are still feeling stuck and know that they need an embodied approach to really move forward.
As well as, a the Soulful Stretch On-Demand, a virtual practice library comprised of yoga, somatic healing, nervous system medicine. It’s like a mystical toolbox that helps my clients shift the baseline within themselves so they feel less stressed, more hopeful and have the ability to actually live the version of their lives that they long for. Often trauma imprints from the past and default nervous settings in the nervous system are what keep people stuck and this program helps resolve that issue. So that the cycle of wanting to change, becomes actual change and progress that they can see on every level.
What sets me apart first off is that I’ve been doing this work for a really long time. Most yoga professionals are relatively new to the scene and inexperienced. Second off, that I focus on hybrid combination that blends the vast and expansive mystical tools of yoga (which is so much more than exercise), emotional wellbeing, trauma recovery, somatic healing, nervous system wisdom and self-worth. My business cuts through the noise in the wellness industry, saves you time and helps you address the things that will truly make a difference. I’m not offering yoga classes, I’m offering a path to unapologetic personal growth, healing and transformation.
I’m most proud of the fact that I’ve grown, healed, learned and evolved to a point that I can offer such deep and powerful work. I’m proud to stand in my power. I’m also proud of how innovative, top notch and high quality the work that I offer is. My clients report significantly positive results and also love how clear, helpful and detailed I am in helping them.
I want them to know that growth and healing work, happen inside of therapy and outside. Psychotherapy is an amazing place to get support, help and guidance. And, true growth and healing needs an integrative approach. We need body, mind and spirit. So if you’re stuck even after doing therapy, unable to make last change or grappling with your self-worth – there is nothing wrong with you…you just need a more holistic route and my brand is here to help them in intensive 1:1 ways or very casual use at your own pace though my on-demand yoga and somatic healing library.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I see the yoga industry continuing to need refinement and sustainability. Currently, there has been a big movement by industry leaders to improve the quality, integrity and efficacy of how we offer yoga to the world as professionals. Making sure that we are trauma informed, making yoga accessible and having good ethics. That will continue. I also see a long history and current reality that the way that yoga teachers and yoga therapists are paid is unsustainable. Very few make a living wage and there is a great uprising within yoga professionals to be able to have a sustainable pay and compensation reflective of the level of training, time and effort.
Within the Yoga Therapy profession, there is much on the horizon to continue expanding the research that we have proving yoga’s potential and navigating how to medicalize yoga. The medicalization is currently quite a mixed bag of emotions, we’re going to see some big decisions being made and conversations happening about that for years to come.
For yoga practitioners, there has been a big wave of people practicing yoga through free videos and missing out on the rich experience of working with an actual teacher or yoga therapist. I hope to see that change as people realize anonymous free videos are nice, but having someone show you what will truly help you is even better.
Pricing:
- $47/month for Soulful Stretch On-Demand (yoga and somatic healing library)
- $215/month and up for 1:1 coaching with me
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.kerimarino.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerirmarino
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KeriRMarino?app=desktop
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/keri-marino-11766761
