Losing Weight is a Healing Journey

Katrina Love Senn, based in St. Leonards, UK, is a well-known Hatha yoga teacher and author of “Losing Weight is a Healing Journey: A Woman’s Guide to Losing Weight Naturally”. She is the founder of the Yoga Girl Revolution and has been featured on Sky TV, Natural Health magazine and High Spirit magazine. She is also a regular contributor to few popular U.S. lifestyle and wellness blogs. She conducts Yoga and Detox healing retreats around the world.

Interviewed by Stephen M. Thompson, Ph.D.

Welcome to OpenBeast. Tell us about yourself.

I am 34 years old and live by the seaside with my husband, Damien. I like to question, to create, to explore, to travel and to experience meaning and purpose in life. I am an adventurer at heart, a student, a teacher and an artist by nature.

What is Hatha yoga and how did you get involved?

To me yoga is a gentle but powerful tool for healing pain and struggle in our lives. Anyone can use yoga to relax and to reconnect back to our mind and body. I practice yoga as a way to come back to myself and as a way to connect and to express my dreams and my goals, as well as my hopes and my fears.

Talk to us about your book “Losing Weight is a Healing Journey”.

Losing Weight is a Healing Journey is a book that inspires people who want to lose weight (or heal their lives) that they can do what they want. You don’t have to diet to lose weight. In fact, if you are serious about losing weight, dieting is perhaps the worst thing you could do. Learn how to heal your body and excess weight starts to fall away naturally. The same goes for other problems you have. Learn how to heal your life and these problems disappear ‘like magic!’ That is because the problems in our lives are only a symptom of a much bigger issue. I teach that our guru lives within. When you look within, you can get clear on what the root cause is. When you deal with the root cause, the symptoms go away by itself – naturally, gracefully and easily.

So what is “Yoga Girl Revolution” all about?

Yoga Girl Revolution is an online magazine for people who love yoga. On the site, you can read and share articles on yoga, wellness, health and healing. Also for anyone who is working in the yoga, health and wellness industry, connect with us through the site and have the chance to become a featured writer. It allows you to connect with a wider audience and spread your message within the yoga community.

What would you consider as your one big achievement thus far?

(1) One of my achievements was losing over 60 pounds and now I have kept it off for over 13 years. This was one of the biggest challenges I faced in my life. But, looking back I realize, it was a true gift.

Through losing weight, I learnt how to heal my body. My healing journey taught me how to believe in myself and I experienced that even the seemingly impossible can be possible. Losing weight naturally (through healing rather than dieting), set me on the path to living my dreams. Today, I feel so lucky to spend all my time inspiring women to listen to their intuition so that they can have the courage to follow their hearts and go after their own dreams.

(2) Probably, my greatest achievement was leaving work that I didn’t enjoy to follow my heart and to search for work that gave me meaning and purpose; work that was fulfilling. This journey has been my most recent one.

Today I feel truly blessed to spend all my time travelling the world; writing, teaching and sharing a message that I feel truly passionate and inspired about. I enjoy helping people to look within, listen to the message of their heart and find the courage to follow their dreams. I spend my days teaching yoga and having the chance to turn my passion for natural health and inspirational writing into a nourishing career through my classes, workshops, seminars and my book, ‘Losing Weight is a Healing Journey.’

Some of my personal highlights along the way include:

(a) Quitting my corporate job and enrolling in an ‘Art & Creativity’ School, which helped me to trust my intuition and connect more fully with my dream of living fully alive; embracing freedom, healing, vibrant health, kindness and creative self expression J

(b) Taking a bold leap of courage, I signed up for an 8-day Outward Bound trip that totally changed my life. I was scared and excited at the same time and it was on this course that I experienced the power of having a clear focus and then taking baby steps towards it.

(c) Travelling solo through South-East Asia. I had always dreamed of travelling and loved the idea of visiting new countries. After finishing Art School, this desire increased. I found the courage to end my long-term relationship, sold everything I owned (which wasn’t much!) and booked myself a one-way ticket to London, via South-East Asia. From here, I spent weeks having the time of my life travelling through Thailand and Laos.

(d) Whilst living In London, I met the most amazing man in the world and a few short years later we got married in the Greek Islands right on Sunset, overlooking the Aegean sea.

You don’t have to be rich, beautiful or born into the right family to live the life of your dreams. When you use all the challenges and problems of today as doorways for growth you can experience total transformation. Your “guru” always lives within. All you need to do is to get clear at what is causing you pain in your life and use this as a spring-board for your growth to look deeper and find new answers.

Any upcoming initiatives you would like to discuss?

I am teaching a ‘Yoga & Healing’ Retreat, in Southern Turkey, 10-17^th September. It will be a magical week that will focus on relaxation, rejuvenation and getting re-inspired about your life! We’ll be eating fresh healthy food, practicing yoga, laughing, journaling, spending time in nature, in a supportive, kind environment with friendly and like-minded people.

You can find out more about it here… Yoga & Healing Retreat in Turkey, September 2012

What are your leisure time activities?

I like travelling, creating, writing, playing and laughing. I also love making green smoothies and eating healthy food that is good for my body that looks and tastes amazing!

If you could live anywhere where would you build your dream home?

Right now, I am very lucky! I am living my dream! My husband and I are in the process of refurbishing a beautiful old English Victorian house that is well over 100 years old on the seaside. Underneath the house, will be a vegetarian café that serves healthy, wholesome food and above that we are building a large yoga studio. This is where I will be able to teach and hold my yoga, weight loss, and detox classes, workshops and retreats. We are located just minutes from the beach and the East Sussex coast is famed as the sunniest spot in UK.

Thank you.