I was born and raised in the Comox Valley. My great-grandparents owned and operated the historic Lorne Hotel in Comox from 1921 until 1959; the tale told in our family goes that a regular who couldn’t pay his bar tab settled his debt with a parcel of land. That land was passed down to my grandmother and became our family’s home for three generations.
Before I could walk, my life centred around the rhythm of the ocean and land that had held my family for years. When I was just three months old, my parents, commercial fishers, took me to sea with them. I grew up frolicking in our yard, making up dances and plays with my three siblings and the neighbourhood kids. My mum and our home were the cornerstone for an entire generation of Comox Valley kids. Mum welcomed everyone with warmth, food, and the feeling that there was always room for one more.
That sense of belonging shaped me long before I had words for it. Community wasn’t something I would eventually build through yoga. It was something I inherited.
What began as childhood dance performances on the front lawn eventually carried me onto professional stages across Canada. Those years taught me discipline, artistry, and how deeply movement can connect us to ourselves. But injury redirected my path.
When I started practicing yoga it opened a door I never closed. What began as rehabilitation slowly became my new way of being. I devoted myself to my practice and studies, and in 2013, Mocean Yoga was born. It felt like more than a business: it was expression of myself and everything I had experienced and cultivated through movement, healing, and community.
Eventually, through the journey of another injury, I created my own method: Mocean Yoga Flow, a system rooted in heart, accessibility, and intentional sequencing. It weaves continuous breath, the philosophy of yoga, wave-inspired movement, and intelligent transitions into a real, relatable, and uplifting practice that can be carried from the mat into the rest of your life.
Over the years, Mocean grew—holding retreats around the world and in our own back yard (literally). I taught classes in studios and living rooms, on front lawns, docks, and the back deck of a salmon troller.
In 2016, Mocean became a registered yoga school and we started hosting yoga teacher trainings. My sister and I bought a house in Royston off Craigslist and opened a studio together in our new home. Summers were spent teaching yoga on the dock at Mum’s, overlooking the same ocean that had shaped my childhood.
Eventually, life asked more of me. Over the past four years, I’ve experienced both the greatest joys and the deepest losses of my life. After a long fertility journey, my husband and I became parents to twins. In late 2023, our twins had just turned one when my mum passed away suddenly.
Becoming a mother and losing my own mother have been the most re-defining experiences of my life. Through it all, I kept Mocean Yoga alive, at half-mast, in my home in Royston; our community would show up whenever I had it in me to open the doors. I will be eternally grateful for their unwavering dedication and support.
Motherhood, too, has humbled me. It has been my greatest miracle and hardest blessing in life. I think the most difficult part has been being a mother without my own mum by my side—something I never expected.
“When I look back now, I see all the little ripples that brought me here”
After Mum’s passing, my siblings and I began the process of letting go of our family home. The Town of Comox acquired the property to create a public park.
I realized that the house, the land, and my parents’ support were the foundation of everything I had built—my identity, my family, my business. Letting go of what felt like everything I knew, I found myself asking: Who am I without this place? Who am I becoming? And how will I keep going?
The twins were three years old, and sharing our home with the studio didn’t feel sustainable anymore. At the same time, my siblings and I were moving out of Mum’s. My grandparents’ giant china cabinet came home with me. (No one wanted it, but we couldn’t let it go.) It landed awkwardly in the only spot available in our house. Beside myself, I called a visionary friend. She came over, looked around, and asked one simple question: “Would all this be different if the studio wasn’t in your house?”
Her mom had also recently passed away, and she had just moved into her mom’s home, leaving her own studio apartment in Tin Town empty. It felt like our moms were conspiring in our favour. So, we held hands … and we took the leap.
Sometimes all it takes is one question to change everything.
In the spring of 2026, Mocean Yoga opened the doors to its beautiful new home in Tin Town. Every detail of the space was created with intention. It is warm, welcoming, and rooted in the belief that movement is about so much more than exercise. It is about remembering ourselves. Healing. Finding courage to begin again. Loving who you are. Most of all, it is about belonging.
When I look back now, I see all the little ripples that brought me here: a family story passed down over generations. A little girl dancing barefoot by the ocean. An injury that became a new beginning. A practice that became my purpose. A community that refused to let go. Parents whose love became a legacy.
Every one of those moments carried me here. Every joy, heartbreak, ending, and new beginning carried me to this moment and continue to shape the person and teacher I’m becoming, and the community I’m co-creating.
My hope is that when people walk through the doors of Mocean Yoga, they don’t simply find a yoga class. I hope they find what I was fortunate enough to grow up with: a place where everyone belongs.
