About Me
Starting in Tahiti
I’m Maeva.
Born on the tropical islands of the South Pacific, I was raised in a world rich with beauty, mystery, and subtlety, an environment that naturally attuned me to the invisible, the energetic, and the deeply felt layers of life.
At 18, I left the ocean behind and began a journey across Europe, the United States, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. While these outer travels shaped me, the most profound journey began in 2003: an inner one.
That was when yoga found me—and quietly, irrevocably, set me on a lifelong path of exploration, embodiment, and healing. Since then, I have studied and practiced diverse yoga and healing traditions across the world, each deepening my understanding of what it means to inhabit the body, listen inwardly, and live with awareness.
Facilitating yoga explorations
In 2009, while posted in the Middle East with the United Nations, I began teaching yoga to fellow aid workers and local practitioners as a way to cultivate grounding, nervous-system regulation, and inner steadiness in a challenging environment. Teaching emerged organically then, shaped by life happening around me, and within me.
Now based in Geneva, Switzerland, I continue to teach or rather facilitate Embodied Hatha Yoga Flow and Yin practices in studios and intimate community settings.
Over the years, somatic and trauma-informed approaches have deeply influenced my work. My teaching has gently shifted from instructing to suggesting, from alignment-driven forms to practices rooted in sensing, listening, and exploration. I hold a strong commitment to diversity—in bodies, experiences, histories, and perceptions. Your experience always comes first.
Experience, presence and transmission
At this stage of my journey, I no longer measure my teaching by the number of certificates I hold. More essential are my 16+ years of teaching, 25 years of personal practice, and the lived maturity that comes with time (I turned 50 in 2024). These form the essence of what I share.
That said, a few trainings have profoundly shaped my path:
Yoga Alliance® 600 hour advanced certified teacher in Hatha Yoga & Embodied Flow. My path begun with the Anusara™ lineage and naturally unfolded into Embodied Flow™. Deeply rooted in Tantra philosophy, Embodied Flow™ has become both a living practice and a transmission, offering a space of authenticity, freedom, and embodied inquiry. I attune to sensation and perception, weaving together body, heart, and mind through yoga, somatic movement, and Body–Mind Centering®. I feel deeply grateful to be part of the Embodied Flow™ Inspired Teachers community. I feel grateful to be part of the Embodied Flow ™ Inspired Teachers.
Alongside dynamic movement, I am equally devoted to slower, more mindful expressions. Madly in love with Yin Yoga and Yoga Nidra I hold a Yin & Nidra Yoga Alliance® 200 hours certification. In more recent years, I have been exploring the dialogue between Flow and stillness, giving rise to an Embodied Yin practice—supported by an additional Yoga Alliance® 100-hour certification—where depth, presence, and freedom gently meet.
For me, yoga is an invitation to sense the multidimensional nature of Being. I continue to explore diverse somatic and movement-based approaches—some less conventional—guided by the belief that any mindful movement is yoga. I am drawn to questioning fixed knowledge when it becomes limiting, dissolving what I think I know to meet what I truly feel. This ongoing inquiry, which can be called “shaking the dust,” supports a more intimate meeting with the authentic Self and is embodied through my Yoga Alliance® 50-hour certification in somatic body–mind inquiry “Shaking the dust”.
My training also includes Somatic Yoga Cueing (50 hours) and Trauma-Informed Women’s Yoga (50 hours)—two deeply convergent approaches that inform my teaching with sensitivity and care.
Finally, I am increasingly weaving live music and mantra chanting into my classes. I am currently immersed in a one-year journey in Bhakti Yoga and Kirtan under the guidance of Audrey Sarquilla.
Beyond Yoga
Beyond teaching yoga, I work full-time as a development and public health professional in low-income and conflict-affected settings. This work has taken me across many countries and cultures, offering a deep, lived understanding of human nature—its resilience and beauty, as well as its fragility. These experiences profoundly inform my yoga practice and teaching, which I strive to ground in humility, generosity, warmth, and an ever-present sense of curiosity.
When time allows, I also express my creativity through jewelry design, crafting malas and intention-based pieces meant to be worn as gentle reminders of personal prayers and aspirations. You can discover this work on my other website: http://www.fareeva.com.
In gratitude, I bow to my teachers, who continue to guide me toward the unveiling of the authentic Self beyond illusion. I also bow to my students—my constant source of inspiration, learning, and joy.
Maeva ♥
WHAT PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY…
“Maeva is a fantastic yoga teacher; if you want to practice real yoga, dive inside yourself, connect your physical body to your spirit, this is the place. Maeva is super equipped to explain in details the postures so that you won’t hurt yourself, creating classes that are both deep and funky, helping students have fun while explore their boundaries on all levels.”
“Maeva is a fabulous yoga teacher, kind, funny, and loving. She will help with postures and self-love. Her yoga classes are the best known remedy to fight stress, unwind, have a good time, push your boundaries (gently), accept your humanity and connect body and mind. She really is the best!”