Writer, teacher, lover, mother.
Amanda Vella is a writer, teacher, birth doula and creator of Illuminate Yoga, Sydney. She brings you practices for awakening and empowerment so you thrive in parenting, love, health, business, creativity and spirituality.
Amanda teaches practices for self-awareness, healing and empowerment. For ten years she has taught Hatha yoga in the lineage of Krishnamacharya. Her approach to meditation weaves Tantric and Buddhist traditions with modern transpersonal psychology as taught by international teachers Rod Stryker and Sarah Powers.
Amanda has a journalism degree and previously wrote an op-ed column for local newspaper, The Fairfield Champion. She writes candidly about being a woman, parenting, education, love, loss, health and wellness and is currently writing a memoir about growing up in Sydney’s south-west during the 80s.
In 2018 Amanda became one of Australia’s first certified leaders in the Yoga of 12-Step Recovery (Y12SR) by founder Nikki Myers. She has first-hand experience supporting loved ones through addiction and is a recovering co-dependent herself.
A leader of the conscious birth movement in her community, Amanda has supported hundreds of women and their families during pregnancy, birth and beyond. She works to shift attitudes about modern birth practices and maternal mental health and is an advocate of homebirth in Australia. Amanda shares her experiences of twice overcoming postnatal depression in the form of obsessive compulsive, intrusive thoughts and living with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD).
Amanda believes in questioning mainstream narratives, holding broken systems to accountability and empowering others to do the same. In 2019, she was recognised for her work in the community as a finalist in the Blackmores Women and Wellbeing Awards.
Also a K-6 teacher, Amanda lives with her partner and their five children aged 6 – 18 in Sydney’s south-west.
“I believe we are inherently powerful, brave, wise and creative. I believe there is trauma in everyday living. I believe that we must overcome that trauma by any means available to us if we are to truly live. I believe if we are successful in doing that we must share it and serve others. I believe that we must question everything we’ve been led to believe about who we are and the way the world works. I believe everyone has the capacity to heal, to overcome personal circumstances and to create a life they absolutely love to live. I believe we have everything we need to do all of this already inside us. It’s simply a matter of learning how to uncover it as a truth and accessing that truth daily. That’s what I’m interested in living and teaching. That’s what’s behind the yoga I teach and the words I write.”
Formal qualifications:
- Bachelor of Journalism (History, Politics & Philosophy), UWS
- Bachelor of Teaching (Primary Education), UWS
- Postgraduate Certificate of Creative Writing (current), Macquarie University, Sydney
- Hatha Yoga Teacher, Prana Space, Sydney
- Advanced Diploma of Yoga, The Yoga Institute, Sydney
- Yin Yoga & Insight Meditation with Sarah Powers, Sydney
- Prenatal Yoga for Conscious Birth with Janice Clarfield, Sydney
- Prenatal and Postnatal Yoga with Anna Davis, BabyBliss, Byron Bay
- Birth Doula with Susan Ross, Birth Right, Blue Mountains
- Yoga of 12 Step Recovery, Nikki Myers, Sydney
