ABOUT MARLINGYOGA

I was born in 1981 in a small town in the country of Sweden. I was always a restless, dreamy, and searchy person, as if there was something out there calling from me. It hurt and still hurts my whole body and soul if I do not go search for it.

This calling has been taking me all over the globe. It has also caused a lot of anxiety, stress, and destructiveness. In 2003, my boss in a Swedish fashion house told me that I should start with yoga. She brought me to a class and it was one of the most uncomfortable experiences I have had. I was a handball player, a fighter, a runner. This damn yoga was more stressful than relaxing for me. But I continued trying because I started to find some kind of peace in all the struggle. It took me till 2006 to start liking it.

I was living in Switzerland and started practicing Hatha yoga with a bunch of housewives. When I returned to Sweden in the fall of 2007 I found Ashtanga yoga and got totally hooked. I loved how it took me into meditation through the repeated series and the flow of the classes. For people with ADHD and anxiety, I highly recommend Ashtanga yoga as an introduction since being still is very challenging. It still can be for me and I spent many years on the mat.

Anyways, I did a teacher training with a Swedish gym in 2007 and have been teaching ever since. For one year I studied to be a health coach and on top of that I found my guru Ratheesh Mani in 2009 and he took me to the next level in my own practice and in how to pass on the beautiful knowledge of yoga. I did 260 h of Raja Yoga teacher training with him. It is approved by Yoga Alliance and since then I have been teaching 1-3 classes a week. I always kept my day job and my dream is to use yoga as a tool to help people manage everyday life. I want to make it accessible for everyone all over the world which makes YouTube great.

My goal is not to be the most flexible, vegan, and acrobatic person you will meet but to integrate the yoga philosophy, breathing, and movement to improve all aspects of life and help you to find ways of doing the same.

In 2015 I did a lot of yoga in New York City and figured that much of the philosophy was lost, that the focus was to get a nice ass and tight body. Any reason to get into practicing yoga is good but it’s so much more to it than keeping in shape so I decided to do something about that.

In 2016 I started a 365 Days of Yoga challenge on YouTube to make yoga accessible for everyone and to see what as little as 20 minutes would do for the quality of my life and others. It changed everything. I realized that I looked almost the same every day, even when I felt like a fat cow just before my period. I realized that it’s very possible to build beautiful relationships online, I realized that you can reach a huge audience by being authentic and open about who you are and not by showing the world what you wish you were.

THE 12-STEP PROGRAM

I am a recovering addict. I used to live a glamorous kind of jetset life and from that, I realized that money, fame, and beauty won’t make you happy. I am working the 12-step recovery program every day and from that, I have learned that it’s not the big changes that make the difference but the small things you do every day.

So I have for the last 3 years combined the things that changed my life more than anything, Yoga and the 12-step program, and made them my daily routine by sharing my everyday gratefulness and the minimum of yoga I practice every day on YouTube. So I have a one-day at the time, challenge where you can do yoga, pranayama, and meditation with me for free every day.