The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino
A space for women on a growth and healing journey — who want to live. joyfully and feel at home in within themselves body, mind and spirit.
Hosted by Keri Marino, somatic yoga therapist, mentor, and mama, this podcast features soulful stories, embodied wisdom, and truth bombs that land soft but go deep.
Each week, you’ll find short, heartfelt episodes designed for listening on the go — from somatic healing and inner work, to nervous system guidance and the real-life ways yoga philosophy can transform your days. On occassion, Keri welcomes guests who share transformative insights on everything from gut health to psychology.
Whether you’re driving to work, washing the dishes, or taking a quiet walk, these conversations will nourish your mind, body, and spirit — and remind you that your life is a love story you get to live every day.
If you like what you're hearing here, learn more about ways Keri can support you at: www.KeriMarino.com on at instagram @the_nourished_woman
The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino
The Hidden Dangers of Yoga Cults: How to Protect Yourself and Find Authentic Teachers
The sacred practice of yoga holds tremendous power for healing, integration, and transformation—but with that power comes the responsibility to navigate the yoga world with awareness and discernment. Drawing from personal experience and years of professional observation, I pull back the curtain on the sometimes uncomfortable reality of yoga cults and high-control groups that have caused harm to vulnerable practitioners.
From fallen leaders like John Friend of Anusara Yoga to the well-documented abuses within Bikram Yoga and Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, we explore why these dynamics develop and how to protect yourself. The vulnerability inherent in deep yoga practice creates openings that require careful boundaries around who we allow to guide us through these tender spaces.
Your yoga journey should always strengthen your connection to your own inner wisdom rather than create dependency on a teacher. I share three crucial elements to look for in yoga spaces: teachers who actively engage in their own mental health work, who continuously invite you to listen to your inner knowing rather than positioning themselves as having all the answers, and who respond to feedback with openness and validation rather than defensiveness or gaslighting.
These insights aren't just for yoga—they apply to any healing or personal growth environment. The ultimate message isn't to fear yoga but to approach it with eyes wide open, choosing trauma-informed practitioners who honor your agency while providing supportive community. For those who have experienced harm yet still yearn for yoga's benefits, know that healing is possible and that rediscovering yoga on your own terms can be part of your recovery journey.
Whether you're a yoga practitioner, teacher, or someone curious about the practice, this conversation offers essential guidance for navigating the sometimes murky waters of modern yoga while preserving access to its profound gifts. Choose wisely, trust your instincts, and remember that true yoga always returns you to your own wholeness and power.
If you enjoyed this episode, I love hearing from you let me know on Instagram @the_nourished_woman and if you're curious about ways I can support you or my work, visit my website: www.KeriMarino.com
For Resources on Yoga and Other Cult Documentaries, Cults and Cult Recovery:
Yoga Documentaries:
Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator (Bikram Yoga), Breath of Fire TV Series and True Believers (Kundalini Yoga), Wild, Wild Country (Osho)
Other Cult Documentaries:
Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, Holy Hell, Source Family, One Taste, Escaping Twin Flames and so many more.
Organizations that Can Help: People Leave Cults and International Association of Cultic Studies both have great resources on their blog.
If you love the sound of short daily somatic yoga rituals that help you become a more radiant woman, with bottomless pleasure and aliveness.
Get instant access to 150+ nervous system practices made for women on everyday topics like: digestive health, back care, period relief, core strength and emotional well-being.
Try a 7 day free trial of The Nourished Woman Sanctuary here.
Welcome to the Nourished Woman podcast, a space for women on a growth and healing journey who want to experience more joy, play and pleasure while feeling deeply rooted within themselves. Body play and pleasure while feeling deeply rooted within themselves body, mind and spirit. I'm your host, keri Marino, somatic yoga therapist, mentor and mama of three. Let's dive in love. Back in 2020, I took a yoga teacher training program that was a little unconventional. Part of that training program's curriculum included a whole segment on yoga cults, and it was really important to this teacher, the lead teachers of this program, to this teacher, the lead teachers of this program that myself and all of the other people be educated on yoga cults that exist out there, on how to spot a cult, how to avoid getting entangled with one, and I can tell you that I had already heard about this just from being in the yoga world for a long time, and I want you to know that this exists too, because, as a somatic yoga therapist, I am out there every single day explicitly telling wonderful women like you that yoga is a powerful tool for your well-being and that it is something that you can use therapeutically and in a more mystical way to improve your mental health, to recover from trauma and to feel more good and whole inside, and it feels like it would be a little disingenuous of me to not share that also in this sort of culture of yoga. There is some dark sides that exist out there and I want you to know a little bit of the history behind that so that you can educate yourself as much or as little as you want to. I know that some of you listening to this podcast are yoga therapists and are yoga teachers, and some of you are long-term yoga students. Some of you are just getting into yoga. I know that we've got a little bit of everything peppered in here, but if you do feel like, huh, I'm kind of curious about this, I want to give you a little bit of backstory about it and I'll speak to it from my own personal experience.
Speaker 1:So in my original teacher training, I was taught a lot about Anusara yoga, which was headed up by a man named John Friend, and then, within a couple of years after that first training, john Friend fell from grace and all kinds of different things came out different abusive relationships that were going on, different things related to drugs, related to just like over asking of students, and ultimately, anusara is no longer a lineage of yoga that exists outside of a very small subsection now and before it was this really large, at least where I live here in the southeastern United States. It was something that you heard a lot about on a regular basis. Personally, I really liked a lot of the teaching principles that were inside En-Yusara, but I say that because that was somebody who fell from grace. It was this sort of I'm at the top of the pyramid, I have all these trained teachers that are underneath me, and there are these power dynamics that come out and there's histories of abuse abuse of power, emotion, financial, sexual, many different kinds of abuse, physical abuse. There's also these sort of high control groups that you'll see in the yoga world, and so some other examples of this are Chojoy, who is the founder of Bikram Yoga. There's a documentary on Netflix about that and then there's Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. There's a new documentary that just came out called Breath of Fire. That one's on HBO and basically in each of those instances with Bikram, there was this high control environment. All these different layers of abuse were happening. And with Yogi Bhajan it's even worse, like very, very, very much a cult to the most extreme extent, to the point that there were even boarding schools that existed overseas, where the children of the cult members were taking their children and sending them overseas to places where they were not safe or treated well. So I share all of this to give you a little bit of knowing that we are dealing, in some ways, with a baby in the bathwater situation. Right Like yoga as a whole, is this incredibly beautiful, wonderful, life-giving, life-changing practice of returning to your wholeness.
Speaker 1:It is like the word yoga means to yoke, to connect, and so as you practice yoga, as you go deeper in your practice and you're really living as an expression of yoga every single day, in and day out. This is about the integration of your whole self coming together, your body and your mind and your life, yoked in with your spirit and your soul, and that that spirit and soul that lives inside of you is actually connected to something infinite and bigger than you, and so I do stand by how amazing yoga is and I will continue to be here. I have, my entire career, felt this call to be a person who carries the torch down the line and educates and shares these teachings with other people, because I've seen how they've changed my own life and thousands of other women just like you, and men and children. And so, amidst all of the incredible goodness of yoga, there are leaders, there are groups, there are people who are perpetuating harm, and it's important to know that Not every yoga space, not every yoga teacher or yoga therapist that you come across can support you in the ways that you probably need, because I also want you to know that there's actually an inherent vulnerability that comes with yoga, because we are accessing all these different layers of ourselves, and so there's this sort of openness that exists inside of you, and so it's really good for you to know, like, hey, I want to practice discernment around who I say yes to, who I spend my time with, who I let into this inner nucleus of who I am and this tender stuff that I'm working with. Because it matters, it really matters for you to have that discernment online, because there is absolutely no substitute for people doing their own mental health work.
Speaker 1:The inner work, in my opinion, is non-negotiable. It's not. Will I go to therapy at some point in my life? It's, therapy is a part of life and we go, and maybe we're not always going to therapy, but we're leaning back in and tapping back into that whenever we like spaces for you, because in each one of these stories of leaders in the yoga world who abused and harmed and had these high control environments and they still exist you have a person who has bad mental health, they are not tending to their mental health and that I am not excusing their behavior and saying like, oh, hurt people hurt people. Yes, that's true, hurt people do hurt people. Also, it is not an excuse, it is a responsibility. If somebody, if you are hurt and you are hurting other people, it is your responsibility. I consider it a sacred responsibility that you tend to that. I consider it a sacred responsibility that you tend to that and especially if you are in a position of leading and facilitating or if you're in a position of receiving that.
Speaker 1:This foundation is what I believe to be one of the most important parts. So, if you're listening to this and you're somebody who's on the receiving end Like if you are somebody who listens to yoga practices, yoga videos, does yoga in person with somebody, or maybe you want to here are some things that I want for you to look. I want you to look for. These are going to be like green lights and some things for you to look out for, and these are going to be red flags. And if, as you listen to this next part, you are somebody who is offering yoga into the world in any capacity I want you to be listening to this and discerning within yourself am not doing these things, how can I? How can I get creative about stepping into this role so that I can be a trauma-informed provider? Because the reality is, there is so much greatness within yoga and yoga can provide a deep sense of regulation and inner peace. Provide a deep sense of regulation and inner peace.
Speaker 1:And if we have mental health issues that are not being addressed, yoga and sometimes can be like a bandaid or a cover up over those things. For example, I was in an environment where one of the lead teachers said, in the yoga class that I was taking, I was a student in this class. She said I don't need to go to therapy anymore because I do yoga now and that's replaced therapy. And then also the same person. I have heard several stories from fellow teachers about how they were abused by this lead teacher, mentally and emotionally. So it's this sort of dynamic that can exist in the yoga space.
Speaker 1:I feel better, so I don't need to do the inner work. I don't need to be processing my emotions, I don't need to be acknowledging like how am I actually behaving and treating other people? I don't need to look under the hood and examine myself. And that is red flag number one. If you are working with somebody or thinking about working with somebody, make sure that they are doing their own inner work. It's obviously like part of the requirement of being a yoga therapist or yoga teachers that we have our own practice. Like part of the requirement of being a yoga therapist or yoga teacher is that we have our own practice. Yes, for sure, have your own practice. But also bring teachers and leaders and facilitators and yoga therapists into your world who are doing their own inner work actively. This is something that they're committed to. They believe in this as a useful investment of their time and energy so that they can be the clear channel for you.
Speaker 1:Look for people who are doing the inner work. Contrast to that, like look for those red flags. Are they saying that they don't need to do that? Are they saying that it's unimportant? Do they not talk about that? And I want to be clear, like this is not just a framework that you can use in a yoga environment. I have seen these abuses of power and cult dynamics and many other. Greenville, south Carolina, and I heard about a trauma practitioner in the area and this woman that I'm at coffee with. She's describing what that experience was like for her and I'm just like I can tell you all the red flags are ding ding, ding ding dinging inside of me as I'm listening to this story. Or ding ding, ding, ding dinging inside of me as I'm listening to this story, because she's advertising herself as a trauma-informed practitioner and yet the description of what she was doing was the opposite of somebody who has that training. So in any number of spaces you can use the same framework. Are they actively engaging in their own inner work? Are they speaking about the importance of that on some level, or are they speaking against it and are they really saying that that's not something that they need to do?
Speaker 1:The next thing that I want you to look for is that the people you hire to help you, or you as the facilitator, are constantly inviting the people on the receiving end that's you, if you're the student to listen inwardly to your own inner knowing. So this is instead of somebody giving you all the answers. This is somebody helping you to find the answers that live inside of you. This is somebody who wants you to listen to your own body and its wisdom. Somebody that wants you to honor your own intuition. Somebody that wants you to make choices for yourself on a consistent basis, you choosing this small thing or that small thing. Do I want to use a blanket in Shavasana or not? Do I want to wear this outfit or that? Like? How? How much choice do you have in a relationship? And is this person that is facilitating for you or leading you or guiding you? Are they resourcing you back into your own power over and over again and your own agency and your own choice? And if they are not, then that is red flag number two. If you have somebody who is constantly telling you what to do, telling you that they know what's best for you, that they have all the answers for you, that they can do this secret code on you and it will like help, you have exactly what you want to have. If it's taking you outside of your power, that is a red flag.
Speaker 1:In the kundalini yoga tradition, as taught by yogi bhajan, there is a lot of that that you'll see. So he has and this stuff like it's. People are still out there teaching kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan. So I want you to know that, like I'm talking about these things as in the container of in the yoga world, like we know that these are cult groups and abuse of power groups, and yet people are still out there spreading the messages, still out there spreading the messages. So Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, had in it all of these made up prescriptive things Like if you do this particular practice in this particular way, then, for example, you'll cut ties with all your past lovers and make room for your twin flame to come in, like your soulmate to come in. And so there are people out there who outsource their power to this and they believed, like, if I do all of these things, if I check all of these boxes, then I will get my twin flame and I will get my soulmate. No, this is a journey of self, like, truly of highest self. That's what yoga is. It is not some prescriptive antidote. It is not somebody else leading you through everything.
Speaker 1:We have in the yoga world, this sort of guru culture and it's this idea that the guru brings the light and it teaches us, and we've seen a step away from that in modern yoga and I think it's got goods and bads. The good is that there's much less abuse of power that's happening because there is more boundaries that exist within us and more agency that exists on the student's end. And I think the downside of that is that we've lost a lot of the spiritual community and the satsang and the gatherings and the people who are walking this path with us, and that's what people like me and your local yoga studio owner we're trying to rectify that we want you to have those spaces where you can come together in community.
Speaker 1:The third red flag and green light is how does the person you're working with handle your feedback? Are they able to listen to you whenever you share something, whenever you talk about your emotions? Do they validate your emotions? Are they willing to see your perspective? Are they willing to hear you out? Are they willing to hear you out? Or, in contrast, do they become angry and irritated with you when you share your thoughts and feelings? Do they invalidate your emotions? Do they gaslight you? Do they tell you that you're wrong? Do they tell you that it's your fault? Do they turn whatever it is that you've shared and twist it around and put it back on you as if it's your fault and they don't take responsibility for their part in it and they don't give you room to feel what you're feeling. This sort of manipulative underlayer is a part of the slippery slope that I want you to be aware of. So you've got a little bit of a yoga history lesson under your belt and you also know that you working on your own mental health and your own inner work and you attracting people who are doing that work like there's no substitute for that.
Speaker 1:Yoga is a form of complimentary care. I provide inner work mentoring with my clients and I do talk with my clients about the same kind of things that you work with a mental health therapist on, but I approach them with the tools that we have within the somatic yoga therapy world. So I don't want it to look like clinical mental health practitioners are the only ones that can help you with inner work and mental health, because I believe, as a somatic yoga therapist, obviously, that there are many different ways that you can work on your mental health and that they provide different tools and different resources. Right Like I don't offer EMDR. I believe especially that attachment-focused EMDR is incredibly helpful for people. We know in the trauma science world that attachment-based EMDR is an amazing tool for people.
Speaker 1:I don't provide that in my practice, so I want you to know there's no substitute for you doing the inner work in your own mental health. Yoga is not a substitute for that. There are things for you to look for and things for you to look out for, and now you have a good idea of what those are. And then, lastly, I want to leave you with the deep knowing that there can be both dark sides and light sides to yoga. As a lover of yoga and a lifelong devoted practitioner, professionally and personally, in the yoga world, I can tell you that it was a sad week this week because it came out that another prominent teacher had been abusing their students behind closed doors, and every time I hear this it breaks my heart a little bit, because I know how good these. I know how good and great and wholesome yoga really is when we're practicing it in the way that it's designed to practice.
Speaker 1:And so if your heart is a little bit broken as you listen to this, I want you to know like, babe, I'm totally there with you. And all the more reason for us to go out there and do the good work and hire the right people or facilitate from the right vantage point. Right Like the world needs you. If you are that trauma-informed yoga practitioner, we need you. So please go out and spread your beautiful energy into the world. Please go out and hire the right kind of people who can really help you.
Speaker 1:And if you're listening to this and you happen to be one of those people who's been hurt by a yoga teacher, then I just want you to know that I see you and that your experience was valid and that I know that you can heal. I've had people come through my practice over the years that have been hurt by a yoga teacher and they've wanted in their heart of hearts to have a relationship with yoga, but they needed to figure out how to do that in a way that honored the suffering that they'd experienced at the hands of another person and helped them rediscover their love of yoga. So I want you to know that is possible for anyone here that is listening that has been hurt by all of this. I'm going to put a little bit of resources down in the show notes in case your interest is piqued and you want to learn a little bit more about any of these topics, because I think it's good for you to know about them, learn a little bit about them, understand a little bit about them, so that then you could recognize it.
Speaker 1:If it ever came across your view, if it ever came into your life, you would know how to identify it and say no, that's totally not for me. I'm going to go put myself over here. Let me know if this resonated with you. Much love. If this podcast episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Send me a message on Instagram, at the Nourished Woman or through my website, kerrymarinocom. And if you're looking for a space for deeper support, mentorship or simply a space to feel held, I'd love to have you join us inside the Nourished Woman Sanctuary. The beautiful music you're hearing is from Shawn Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band, and you can find them on all streaming platforms.