Bhavana is first and foremost an invitation to cultivate: to cultivate an inner state, a quality of attention, a way of inhabiting one’s body and one’s life. It also carries the sense of a dwelling, a place one can return to.
At Yoga Bhavana, this has taken shape since 2012 as an intimate practice space in the Villeray neighbourhood, where we favour slow, supportive, adaptive and therapeutic approaches. People come here to settle, to find their way back to themselves, to feel more finely what is happening inside, to gently meet tension, fatigue, anxiety or confusion, and to allow a bit more clarity, kindness and freedom to emerge.
The spirit of the place is one of non-performative practice, where every body, every story and every rhythm has its place. Postures, rest, movement, breath and meditation become tools to accompany life’s passages and help us inhabit our lives more fully.
Over the years, Bhavana has been woven through meetings, groups, retreats, trainings and the relationships that continue beyond the studio. It is this spirit of presence, steadiness, thoughtful rigor and gentleness that Marie-Daphné seeks to preserve and keep alive in this new chapter of the space.
Marie-Daphné Roy
E-RYT500, C-IAYT, SEP
I am the founder of Yoga Bhavana and co-founder of Bhavana la clinique, in Villeray, Montreal.
For more than 25 years, I’ve been drawn to questions of meaning, personal development, spirituality, complementary health, the lived experience of the body and meditation – in short, to what we often call “mind–body” approaches. I have been teaching yoga since 1999, leading retreats since the mid-2000s, and began teaching and co-teaching teacher trainings (Kripalu, hatha, therapeutic approaches) in 2008. I am best known for my work in restorative yoga, yin yoga, therapeutic yoga and yoga for hormonal and pelvic health. I am also a certified yoga therapist (C-IAYT) and Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner.
My encounter with yoga dates back to the mid-1990s. I spent two years in residence at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in the United States, in an ashram context devoted to the integral practice of yoga. There, I immersed myself in hatha, bhakti, jnana, karma and raja yoga, as well as in foundational texts such as the Yoga Sūtra, the Bhagavad-Gītā and the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā. I completed a 500-hour professional Kripalu Yoga Teacher Training, began teaching, and had the privilege of assisting my first mentor, Yoganand Michael Carroll, along with other senior teachers. This immersion shaped the “lifelong student” in me and deeply rooted my respect for rigorous and ethical transmission.
When I returned to Montreal, I continued teaching in studios, clinical settings and retreats, while pursuing further studies with teachers such as Hart Lazer, Ramanand Patel, Ken McLeod, Sarah and Ty Powers, Paul Grilley, Nischala Joy Devi, Todd Norian and many others. I have taught and co-taught trainings in Kripalu yoga, hatha, therapeutic yoga, restorative yoga and yin yoga, and I am currently an endorsed teacher with the Insight Yoga Institute. Over the years, I have also completed certifications in yin yoga, restorative yoga, therapeutic yoga, Iyengar-inspired yoga, chakra-based yoga, as well as yoga for cancer and cardiac health. I feel deeply grateful to have been trained and mentored by these teachers.
Wanting to better understand the body and offer another place of connection and inner balance, I trained as a massage therapist in 2001 (Thai yoga massage, Swedish and myofascial approaches) and practiced for more than fifteen years. In parallel, a particularly difficult period in my own health – marked by chronic pain, fatigue and psychological distress – forced me to adapt my practice in a profound way. That experience nourished a very concrete compassion for the suffering of others and a nuanced understanding of how yoga and meditation can be profoundly supportive… or, at times, aggravating. It was in this context that my shift toward therapeutic yoga took shape, along with the desire to create spaces truly adapted to people’s bodies, histories and realities. Yoga Bhavana was born in 2012 out of this intention, followed a few years later by Bhavana la clinique as an integrative health space.
On the academic side, I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies (UQAM), then graduate-level coursework in Sociology of Religion and a short Master’s program in Religious Studies focusing on Theravāda Buddhism and creative processes. As part of these studies, I took part in two field-study programs in India centered on Hindu pilgrimages – experiences that profoundly transformed my view of yoga and the ways it is appropriated and reinterpreted in contemporary Western contexts. I also completed a Certificate in Mental Health, training in Somatic Experiencing®, and additional training in somatic approaches to developmental trauma (including Transforming the Experience-Based Brain). I have been assisting in Somatic Experiencing® trainings since 2020.
These studies, combined with my clinical experience and my longstanding interest in hormonal health, pelvic health, eating difficulties and traumatic experiences, naturally led me toward sexology. I went on to complete undergraduate and graduate studies in sexology, with a particular interest in emotional regulation, the place of the body, mindful presence, trauma, sexuality, and sexual and gender diversity.
Today, my approach is deeply somatic, slow, inclusive and relational. I invite people into a practice where the lived experience of the body and breath is central, where careful alignment meets felt sense and kind awareness. I weave together influences from Kripalu yoga, Iyengar-inspired approaches, Insight Yoga, restorative and yin yoga, therapeutic yoga, mindfulness practice and Somatic Experiencing®. My intention is to offer practice spaces where each person – each body, each story, each identity – can settle, refine their felt sense, meet what is present with greater clarity and gentleness, and cultivate a more free, embodied relationship to their body, desires and life.
Alongside my work in yoga, somatic approaches and one-on-one support, I also practice as a sexologist and psychotherapist, which further informs how I meet people, their histories and their relationships, always within the appropriate professional frameworks and roles.
I look forward to meeting and working with you through wisdom and yogic teachings.
Practice or learn with me
I offer spaces for practice, exploration, and learning : in the studio, on retreats, and online, both to nourish your own path and to support your role as a teacher or professional.