Meet Our Female Founder

Rowena

Digital Nomads and retreat guests can enjoy Ashtanga Flow and Kundalini Yoga classes with the founder of the RisingSoul Yoga Community. Known as Row she also has her Ayurvedic massage qualification and holds sharmanic journeying Cacao Ceremony. She is currently in South America furthering her skills and practices in Plant medicine.

Before becoming a yoga teacher and founder of our sustainable community Rowena gained 10 years experience working with young people and adults who suffered trauma and or addictions and harm within the home or family. Individual Sessions can be arranged to support you with healing and self awareness.

Rowena’s Yoga Journey…

My first experiences of Yoga were through my mother who went to classes when we were children. Aged 17 I was hit with the tragic loss of my father who was sadly killed during the troubles in Northern Ireland. It was a very confusing and difficult time for me. Aged 20 I travelled to Nepal to trek up the Himalayas for charity where I was exposed to the deeply spiritual nature of the Buddhist mountain people, Our Sherpa guides taught us their self-practice of Thai Chi and moving meditation. Through the humbling experience of being so small and insignificant in comparrison to the enormity of the mountians. I sence of presence cleansed me and i became empty of all my clutter and truama and a reassuring feeling that everything is just as it should be settled in the emptyness,

It was a life-changing experience and this allowed me to accept my father’s death in a way I had been unable to do before. It ignited a curiosity to find out more about the religious and spiritual practices of the East and their implications which I later studied. Having suffered a serious horse riding accident 10 years later I found myself becoming a daily yoga student for entirely different reasons.

Following surgeries and courses of western steroid injections to enable me to continue my career as a profession Equestrian Rider, I was now practising daily meditation and using my hatha yoga routine as a back pain management system.

In 2017 I retired from competitive riding and began to consider what came next. This lead me to Rishikesh India where I was accepted on a scholarship to complete my Yoga Teacher Training and qualify to practice in Ayurvedic Massage. I realised the depth of the teachings of Yoga and began to understand that this was not something that was practiced once a week in the village hall to get fit. it is a way of life and a belief system with the potential to lead you to self awareness and spiritual salvation.

In 2019 I travelled to China for a work project during this time events in my personal life lead me to reassess everything I knew and believed. I began down a path of self discovery and spiritual awareness building self practices and listening to teachings that would enable me to begin to break down and dissolve ego and mind and my identification with pain in the body. Having left China I travelled solo around Thailand and Cambodia and became acquainted with the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. His work has inspired me and resonated with me in a way that has influenced me in all dimensions of my life. During my time in Cambodia I befriended a girl who initiated my journey across Cambodia to the town of Kep where I enrolled on a Yoga retreat which inspired me to create this project. I have the greatest gratitude to all who have been part of my journey to date and I look forward to sharing my experiences and understanding of spiritual awareness with all that seek it at the RisingSoul Retreat.

Coming Soon…

Next season Row will be offering additional plant medicine and healing ceremonies.