Mellara Gold

Mellara is a well-respected teacher and expert of meditation and yoga. She has been practicing and teaching for over 23 years, primarily influenced by studies of hatha yoga, bhakti, and buddhism.

She has an inspirational style of teaching that incorporates both the physical and spiritual aspects of the practice of yoga. 

Mellara teaches from the radiance of her own journey through honest self-inquiry and discovery.

She was born in Queensland, Australia, and at the age of seventeen moved to Los Angeles to attend the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. 

After roles in Don’t Look Back, with Peter Fonda (1996) and Love Boat: The Next Wave (1998), a depleting injury led her to embark on a healing journey, and she began focusing on yoga. At the Center for Yoga and other LA studios, she immersed herself in Hatha, Iyengar, Viniyoga, Ashtanga, and other yoga, including teacher training with Erich Schiffmann and Saul David Raye. 

In 2015, after eighteen years teaching yoga, Mellara studied for two years at the Dassanayaka Yoga Centre in Melbourne, Australia, under the guidance of Sri Lankan yoga teacher, chef, healer, intuitive, former Buddhist monastic, and the founder of Living in Awareness practice, Channa Dassanayaka. After apprenticing with him in Australia, she opened Dassanayaka Yoga Center in the U.S, Northern California.

Today she teaches in California, leading online and in-person workshops, retreats, and trainings in the U.S and internationally. She is a regular contributor at Elephant Journal and other lifestyle and spiritual magazines. Mellara lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Mike, and children Leela and Charlie. 

photo credit http://www.vessaventz.com

If you haven’t encountered this beacon of positivity and acceptance then it might be time...she’s hidden in downtown Walnut Creek, California in an incredible backyard yoga studio aka spiritual oasis.

Her yoga classes are unlike any other - a safe space to settle in, move your body and heal your spirit.

Every now and then she wanders out of her yoga studio and guides us mere mortals in a retreat that leaves us rejuvenated and ready to return to the world. And for a lucky few, she offers private yoga sessions and spiritual counseling. She’s an old soul with a loving heart.

She is a key part of my recent joy, success, new home and general upleveling in life, biz and family. Her private one-on-one sessions was exactly what I needed.

Wherever you are on your journey, you want to make Mellara a part of your path. www.bodylovecafe.com

Mellara’s yoga classes are more like a restorative journey for the soul. When I walk away from one of her classes I feel renewed holistically -  body, mind, and soul. It is a unique gift that she possesses to harness the vibe of the class on a given day and really be able to tune in and address the need with sound, movement, and through meditation.

Mellara is a skilled yoga teacher, so even if you are a newbie, there is no fear of not knowing what to do. She will talk you through it. The entire community that she has cultivated is also so supportive.

I am so grateful I found Mellara and the community that she has built with the studio.

Divine intervention brought me to Mellara’s classes by route of our children's art class. From the first time I took her class I knew that it was not the same old yoga I had been doing for years. Mellara offers calm, peace and presence in her class that far outweighs the benefits of traditionally more western “athletic” yoga classes. 

Mellara channels wisdom and connects with her students. She helps them awaken to their own INNER wisdom. Mellara provides the space for her students to hear the stirrings of their heart. 

After having experienced Mellara’s classes now for two years (private sessions, retreats and community classes) I can honestly say that I truly feel more at peace. The practice of Mellara’s yoga continues to open my heart towards myself and others. 

Mellara is a gifted yoga teacher.  She creates a environment of respect, beauty, and love through her teaching. Even more, Mellara is a gifted and profound spiritual teacher.  

She teaches her students how to listen deeply to their own bodies through the poses, cultivating a deep respect for the self that then ripples outward as respect and love for others.  

At times, I feel I am in the presence of Love, capital L, itself. Mellara glows with that Love and she teaches those of us lucky enough to have found our way to her studio how to tap into that same Source ourselves.  

Mellara is a highly skilled teacher and has adapted to our new ways of connecting during this pandemic. Through her multiple platforms, zoom classes, social media posts, you tube meditations, and monthly memberships, she truly meets us where we are at. 

Her heart centered practice is all about arriving home to yourself. It is a deep healing practice that is open to all beings. Her private one-on-on sessions are a deep and meaningful experience that has helped me anchor inside my heart.

I love Mellara's yoga and meditation classes. With her kind spirit, she gently encourages us to let go of our every-day strivings and be in the moment. 

By doing this, I find a place inside of me where I experience greater freedom and a deeper sense of who I am..... spiritual yoga.

Mellara is one of the best yoga teachers out there. She has a special way of teaching that is filled with heart and soul. You can tell she has years of experience and has honed her craft to an advanced level.

I highly recommend Mellara! An amazing presence in-person, her warm glow even emanates via satellite and through your screen. 

Mellara gives clear, cohesive and complete instructions in her yoga classes, suggesting adaptations and prioritizing awareness and self-care over perfect posture and classic form. Following every class, I feel soul-satisfaction after making the time to drop into embodied movement. Mellara makes the practice so mindful that the essential and eternal come to life during yoga.

 Besides teaching yoga, Mellara has a special gift for guiding meditations, offering wise and soothing guidance she makes amazingly accessible on her short videos. 

If that isn't enough, Mellara has a talent for writing inspired and timely passages straight from her heart that speak to the Universal and Transcendent aspects of our humanness helping us be the best we can be and supporting us being just who we are. She is a gift!

I just want you to know how fortunate I feel to have found Mellara! I have been practicing yoga for a short time and somehow stumbled onto her classes! My lucky blessed day! It was the answer to my prayers!

Mellara is such an amazing yoga teacher, but beyond that, her sincerity, grace, and true openness to accept students for who they are is felt by everyone! She is a gift!

She has helped me with my lower back issues and still some days feeling down but with her classes I stay on a positive healing track. 

I can’t thank Mellara enough for her positive energy, care and nurture she provides me, and so far in just three lessons! Mellara is truly a gifted teacher! 

Her warmth and healing is felt in her voice, the tenor and pace of her class flows with her spiritual guiding presence.