Yoga Teacher Activation Lab

FOR THE YOGA TEACHER WHO KNOWS THERE'S MORE

You didn't become a yoga teacher just to teach poses

You fell in love with the depth of this practice. Now it's time to feel confident teaching it.

You know there's so much more to yoga than asana.

So why does that disappear when you teach?

You want your students to leave with more than a "good stretch." You want to say something that makes the whole room collectively exhale. Something that helps the woman in the back row understand what she’s going through differently. You want your students to feel even a fraction of what this practice has given you.

But every time you sit down to plan that part of class, you feel that familiar little knot in your stomach.

Because now you're thinking about everything you don't know.

What if the teacher in the front row thinks I got this wrong?

What if I sound too preachy?

What if the room just wants a workout?

The irony is that all you want in the world is to share the life changing magic of yoga — and somehow you just can't deliver.

You care so much about honoring this practice that the thought of getting it wrong feels almost unbearable.

So you start editing yourself

You scrap the part that feels too vulnerable. You mute the part that feels "too spiritual." You decide your story is probably too long. You replace the scriptural verse (shloka) with a quote that's easier to explain. You reach for a theme you've taught before because at least you know it works.

And suddenly, the thing you were so inspired to teach has been watered down into another reminder to "let go of what no longer serves you" that you've already taught twelve times.

It's safe.

It's perfectly... fine?

And it doesn't sound anything like what you actually wanted to teach.

Maybe your imposter syndrome isn't lying to you.

There is a gap.

But I think we've been trying to solve the wrong one.

Most yoga teachers assume the problem is knowledge.

And as a result, they stay stuck in study mode.

You buy another book.

You save another Instagram post.

You sign up for another training.

You listen to another podcast.

You attempt to memorize more Sanskrit.

And don't get me wrong: seeking, studying, and learning matters. Deeply.

But the more you study The Bhagavad Gita, the more aware you become of how much there is to know.

Thousands of years of traditions. Different commentaries. Historical, spiritual, philosophical, and cultural context that deserves respect.

Suddenly the 5 minute dharma talk you were trying to prepare feels even more intimidating.

The truth is, studying yoga philosophy and teaching yoga philosophy are two different skills.

Knowing more does not automatically teach you how to stand in front of twenty people and make ancient wisdom feel alive.

That requires something else...

Activating the teacher within

(Re)discover your dharma.

You don't become confident teaching yoga philosophy by imitating someone else.

You are most impactful when you are operating within your own unique strengths.

WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE

You remember exactly why you're called to do this sacred work, and how to do it in a way that is unmistakably you.

You know your top 5 character strengths, how to deploy them in repeatable and interesting ways, and teach from the most powerful part of yourself.

Authorize your inner knowing.

There is no final exam for becoming a great yoga teacher. No scorecard that tells you you've earned the right to have something meaningful to say.

Your life has been teaching you all along. The work is learning to trust what it has taught you.

WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE

You stop measuring yourself against he teacher who seems "more spiritual" than you.

You teach from what you know to be true, and trust that your experience may be exactly what helps someone else understand theirs.

Teach with conviction.

You walk into the room knowing what you want your students to understand, and you know how to bring that teaching into their bodies.

The philosophy becomes the practice when you give students a way to experience it in their bodies.

WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE

You stop hiding behind fluffy quotes and recycled themes. You stop trying to "sound like a yoga teacher" and become one your students believe.

Your classes sound like you, feel like yoga, and leave your students carrying something meaningful with them long after savasana.

Introducing

YOGA TEACHER ACTIVATION LAB

For the teacher who wants the depth of her teaching to finally reflect the depth of her practice

The entire course mirrors The Bhagavad Gita.

The entire eight-week group program mirrors Arjuna’s journey through The Bhagavad Gita, collapsing the distance between an ancient warrior’s questions and the ones you’re living right now. You won’t just learn from the Gita, you’ll recognize yourself in it, live it, and learn to teach from that place.

Week 1:

Character

Dharma over imitation

Using the latest research in positive psychology, discover your individual top character strengths and begin separating your actual teaching voice from the teacher you think you're supposed to sound like.

BG 3.35

Week 2:

Hope

Faith, agency, + the future

Explore the real science of hope, as a learnable skill, and begin defining the teacher you are becoming.

BG 4.39

Week 3:

Surrender

What do I hold vs. what do I hand over?

Unpack the art of surrender, the neuroscience of spiritual awareness, and identify open and closed doors in your own life that become teachable moments for others.

BG 18.66

Week 4:

Skill

Yoga is skill in action

Connect karma yoga with modern research on grit, effort and perseverance. Recommit to the burden and the blessing of the teacher.

BG 2.50

Week 5:

Calling

Your unique gifts are needed

Examine the difference between a job, a career and a calling, and reconnect your teaching to your character, strengths, purpose and service. Amplify your efforts with clarity.

BG 4.13

Week 6:

Courage

Integrity over ease

Discover the psychological relationship between hope, trust, purpose and courage and mine these moments from your own life for extraordinary teaching material. Develop the habits of the most hopeful and happiest people.

BG 4.7-8

Week 7:

Oneness

The practice of seeing ourselves in one another

Explore compassion, connection, reciprocity, glimmers, and the experiences that remind us that yoga has always been relational. Plan for partner classes and workshops.

BG 6.32

Week 8:

Action

Do the work. Release the outcome

Teach. Practice with your peers. Take the seat of the teacher. Apply all you've learned.

BG 2.47

The course content has been developed consciously and is all evidence based:

#1 criteria for feeling good at work = working with a friend

#1 trait most people want in leaders worldwide = hope

#1 method to trusting yourself = building on your own character strengths

Enroll today | $997

JOIN THE PROGRAM

By the end of the program you'll have...

Not more information.

Evidence you can do this.

✓ 7 ready-to-teach dharma talks inspired by The Bhagavad Gita
Not generic scripts written in someone else's voice. Talks built from scripture and your own lived experience.

✓ Your personal commitment and purpose statement
A North Star for the kind of teacher you are choosing to become.

✓ Your top five character strengths + New Uses Plan
So your confidence begins with evidence of who you already are instead of comparison with another teacher.

✓ Your own written teaching methodology
A repeatable answer to: Where do I find my source material? How do I mine my life for a story? How long should this take? How do I know when it's good enough?

✓ The GITA Method™
A framework you can return to every time you want to build a new dharma talk from The Bhagavad Gita.

✓ A grounding and embodiment practice
Something you actually use before you teach, especially when the nerves show up.

✓ A daily gratitude practice
A wellbeing practice that also trains you to notice the moments, relationships, and experiences that become future teaching material.

✓ 8 live cohort coaching sessions
A place to practice, reflect, ask questions, and do this work with other teachers instead of piecing everything together alone.

✓ 8 guided journal practices
Prompts designed to move each teaching out of the abstract and into your actual life.

✓ A community of yoga teachers who care as much as you do
People who want to teach with depth. People who understand why getting this right matters to you. People who can become colleagues, sounding boards, collaborators, and friends long after one Zoom call ends.

Enroll today | $997

JOIN THE PROGRAM

Why this works

Confidence doesn't come from convincing yourself you're qualified.

It comes from evidence.

This program gives you 8 weeks of it.

Evidence that your character contains strengths are worth leading from.

Evidence that your life contains stories worth teaching from.

Evidence that you can study scripture respectfully

without needing to know everything before you say anything.

Evidence that you can speak about philosophy without becoming preachy.

Evidence that you can sit in a room with other trained yoga teachers, share what you believe, receive feedback, and survive.

Evidence that your voice gets stronger through use.

We will study.

But we will also reflect, write, discuss, embody,

practice, teach, listen, and try again.

Because the seat of the teacher cannot be learned

from the sidelines.

You have to practice it.

Let's set expectations

❌ This is not a script library

❌ This is not a memorization approach

❌ This is not an academic review of the Gita

Because that's not what we're building. We're building something far more valuable — a yoga teacher who knows:

How to find the teaching.

How to sit with it.

How to recognize it in her own life.

How to translate it.

How to put it back into the body.

And how to stand up and share it without pretending to be someone she's not.

That's a skill that will serve you forever.

This is for you if...

You became a yoga teacher because yoga changed your life

and you want your students to experience more than a workout.

You...

✓ Worry another yoga teacher might judge your interpretation.

✓ Edit the interesting part out of a dharma talk because you are afraid it sounds too spiritual, religious, preachy, or weird.

✓ Are frustrated by the dilution of yoga into fitness, but you're not always sure how to become part of the solution.

✓ Care deeply about respecting yoga's Indian roots and that care sometimes makes you afraid to speak at all.

✓ Love philosophy but freeze when you have to actually teach it.

✓ Have a stack of yoga books and somehow still feel like you don't know enough.

✓ Caught yourself recycling the same few themes because they're safe.

✓ Have thought, But I don't know Sanskrit.

You want a way to teach ancient wisdom that feels grounded, embodied, human, and genuinely yours.

I'M MARISSA

I studied in Sri Lanka. I traveled to India and completed a 500hr teacher training in Rishikesh and studied beside the Ganges. The Gita has been a loyal companion across all my travels.

Eventually my study of yoga led me into graduate work at Columbia University, where I studied psychology and spirituality and became fascinated by what modern research can teach us about hope, character, meaning, wellbeing, and the way human beings make sense of their lives.

But what changed my teaching was learning how to locate the teachings in my own life.

I started asking:

Where has The Bhagavad Gita already happened to me?

That changed everything.

Because I finally understood that respecting the lineage did not require erasing myself from the teaching.

My responsibility was to return to the source, understand the teaching as carefully as I could, and then tell the truth about where I had encountered it in my own human life.

That is the work I want to teach you.

"Marissa is a true gem. She is the one you hunt high and low for, and perhaps doubt you'll ever be able to find, only to have her radiance shine so bright it could never be missed. Her light calls to you like a beacon, and her warmth will illuminate every corner of your heart and soul. I am so incredibly grateful for the friendship that flourished between us at Columbia University, and her work ethic completely inspired me even in the darkest of moments. She is an eternal flame of passion, purpose, and presence. If you are fortunate enough to have her guide you on your path, your life will not only transform, but be truly blessed."

Kristin Ashley, Columbia University '26

"I had the privilege of studying alongside Marissa in India, and she quickly became someone I deeply respected and looked up to, both professionally and personally. She has a rare breadth of experience that spans the corporate world, yoga, spirituality and Vedic philosophy, allowing her to bring both grounded professionalism and genuine wisdom into the spaces she holds. I would describe Marissa as deeply studied, honest, thoughtful, genuine, and straight up "keeps it real!" She embodies what she teaches rather than simply speaking about it. Her energy is akin to that of a big sister... someone you can trust, admire, and feel inspired by. I would wholeheartedly recommend Marissa to anyone seeking an experienced and authentic professional in the yoga an wellness space!"