Today we’d like to introduce you to Tatiana Gutierrez Galeano.
Hi Tatiana, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Yoga first found me when I was an NCAA beach volleyball player at the University of Tampa. At the time, I had no idea the practice would eventually become such a defining part of my life. My coach was also a yoga teacher, and she would incorporate meditation and pranayama into our training to help us focus, regulate our nervous systems, and stay grounded during competition. Every Friday before sunrise, our team would gather for practice at 6 a.m., and to this day, those mornings remain some of the most meaningful memories of my college experience.
What I didn’t realize then was that yoga was quietly planting seeds that would one day help carry me through unimaginable grief.
During COVID, my mom unexpectedly passed away from Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). I was young, overwhelmed, and trying to navigate the pressure of collegiate athletics while carrying a level of grief I didn’t yet know how to process. That same year, we ended up going to national championships, but behind the scenes I was struggling deeply. After games, I would experience severe anxiety and panic attacks, and I felt disconnected from myself in ways I couldn’t explain.
My coach encouraged me to come practice at her studio and simply be around community. Looking back now, that invitation changed the entire course of my life.
What I found there wasn’t just movement or exercise. I found people who welcomed me with open arms during one of the darkest seasons of my life. I found breath when I felt like I was drowning. I found stillness when my mind felt chaotic. Most importantly, I found a sense of belonging and healing that I didn’t know I needed so deeply.
Over time, yoga stopped being something I did and became a way of living.
Over the last ten years, I’ve immersed myself fully in the practice not only through movement, but through meditation, philosophy, mindfulness, devotion, and service. I became a community leader, participated in trainings and retreats. Later, my path brought me to Hawaii, where my relationship with yoga deepened even more through Bhakti practices, mantra chanting, kirtan, and spiritual study.
That chapter of my life was incredibly transformative. It became a season of healing, self-realization, and remembering who I truly was beneath achievement, grief, and external identity. Yoga became less about performance and more about presence. Less about becoming someone new and more about returning home to myself.
Eventually, that journey led me back home to Miami after years away. Since returning, I’ve continued deepening my studies and finding lineage and mentorship through Become A Yogi while becoming more rooted in the spiritual and traditional aspects of the practice. Today, I lead teacher trainings, retreats, meditation experiences, and spaces centered around mindfulness, embodiment, healing, and authentic connection.
This year, I was also honored to become a lululemon ambassador, which feels deeply full circle to me. Not because of the title itself, but because it represents years of devotion, growth, community, and service. The practice has taught me that when you continue showing up with sincerity and an open heart, life has a way of guiding you exactly where you’re meant to be.
Yoga truly saved my life in many ways. And now, being able to hold space for others through their own healing, transformation, and self-discovery feels like the greatest privilege of all.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I answered this previous side. But I would say I’m a space holder, I get to create sacred spaces for people to show up as they are and simply express. I’m a yoga teacher in Miami and I specialize in creative Vinyasa, meditation teachings, I am most proud of to swear this journey continues to take me and an amazing individuals. I get to meet along the way. apart from not enough the shoes I looked. I’m just here make impact and share these teachings and everything else made by front and I just wanna share Yoga.
