Hi! I'm Rachel Brathen

I'm a Swedish-native, New York Times best-selling author, non-profit founder, serial entrepreneur, and an international yoga teacher with sold out classes and festivals around the world. I'm also the founder and CEO of Yoga Girl®, and the host of two #1 podcast shows, From The Heart with Rachel Brathen and The Daily Practice with Rachel Brathen.

With over 2 million followers on social media, 15 years of professional experience, and a global audience in over 170 countries, I have been featured in Women's Health, Yoga Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Tedx Talks, and more.

After graduating from school in Stockholm, I traveled to Costa Rica where I found the joy of incorporating yoga into my everyday life. Deepening my yoga practice and beginning teaching, I moved to Central America where I spent years exploring the intricate studies of yoga and spirituality.

After moving to Aruba early 2010, I began teaching yoga full time with my classes being dynamic Vinyasa Flow and focused on integrating alignment, core work, and breathing techniques with basic poses and creative sequencing. My main lesson I aim to teach though, is that asana is only a small piece of the work done in the yoga shala.

I incorporate holistic therapeutic tools like sharing, active listening, and journaling, and there is a deep level of heart healing at the center of every class I teach. My classes serve the purpose of deepening a connection not only to ourselves, but with the people around us.

Giving back to the community has always been at the center of all of my initiatives – with the help of awesome staff and volunteers, I run two non-profit organizations: Sgt. Pepper’s Friends; an animal rescue foundation based in Aruba, and Yoga Girl® Foundation, an organization benefitting women and children in need. In 2017, my husband Dennis and I also opened Island Yoga - the largest yoga studio in the Caribbean, where we've hosted yoga teacher trainings, retreats, workshops, and year-round classes.

Along with these initiatives, I am the founder of one of the first online yoga platforms, the now-retired oneOeight.com, which was the most successful crowd-funded yoga project of all time. That platform has since grown and transformed into the Yoga Girl® site you're experiencing today, and is now made up of a vast community of dedicated practitioners from all over the world looking to cultivate balance, create space for inner healing, and to deepen their yoga practice.

Now I'm back living in my home country of Sweden with my family, and when I'm not actively trying to help make a change in the world, I enjoy cooking, baking, foraging, drinking tea, communing with nature, and spending my days with my husband, Dennis, our daughter, Lea, and our three dogs Ringo, Laika, and Quila.