Mellara is a well-respected teacher and expert of meditation and yoga. She has been teaching for over two decades, primarily influenced by studies of hatha yoga, mindfulness, 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.
Her bestselling meditation book is out now! It reads like a memoir and is available on Amazon, A Life Worth Living: A Journey of Self-Discovery Through Mindfulness, Yoga, and Living in Awareness.
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.
Qualifications
Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute
1993-1994
Center For Yoga Teacher’s Training
1999-2001
Erich Schiffmann Advanced teachers training
2005
Saul David Raye Aruvedya & Yoga Teachers Training
2005
