Dr Vijoleta Braach-Maksvytis

About Me

My multifaceted pioneering

across a range of fields is driven by curiosity, joy of learning, and my heart, and the belief that we all contribute to the positive outweighing the negative in this world. This underpins my Yoga teaching, training, mentoring, and research.

Co-Founder of Yoga School:

Together with Balinese partner, I Ketut Sukra, we co-founded the Senses and Stillness Yoga School for Wellbeing RYS200, over 8 years ago. I teach weekly classes in Sydney and private sessions with my Mind-Body Integrated Therapies Clinic, and in Bali, Ketut and I train teachers, run workshops, and retreats.

All profits are donated:

All profits from Yoga are donated to disadvantaged Balinese families to support children’s education. 

Because we share similar values, our Yoga School has an Organizational Membership level of Yoga Service Council, a US based organisation committed to making yoga, mindfulness and wellbeing accessible to all people (see https://yogaservicecouncil.org/membership-profile?pu=senses)

Building depth of  knowledge to give:

I am a  Senior Yoga Teacher YA and E-RYT500 Yoga Alliance, Yoga Therapist (International Yoga Therapy Association), Functional Medicine Practitioner, and Certified Clinical Neuropsychotherapy Practitioner (certified Member International Association for Nueropsychotherapy), and an independent researcher of Eastern and Western Sciences of wellbeing, and created my Mind-Body Integrated Therapy Clinic, which aims to catalyse what I believe is people’s inherent ability to connect with their state of integrated wellbeing. 

Building on previous science career:

I arrived at Yoga through the lens of my life-time fascination of different world views on philosophy, psychology, nature, art, and spirituality, with has melded with my 20 year career as a distinguished international scientist, leader, and innovator (my past roles include Deputy Chief Scientist of Australia, Deputy Vice Chancellor University of Melbourne, Australia’s UNESCO Commissioner for Science, and more). I remain a founding Board Director for the Institute for the Economics of Peace, the creator of the Global Peace Index (http://economicsandpeace.org/about/).

Yoga for Wellbeing for All:

My understanding of Yoga is drawn from feeling and knowledge, from the East and West sciences, leading to a style of Yoga which is applicable to all with the prime aim of reducing stress levels, which research is showing underpins almost all states of physical and mental disorders.

Rather than following the western method of categorising disorders that people experience with labels that put them in separate boxes that then requires separate multiple kinds of Yoga approaches, I have evolved a simplicity of approach from the eastern perspective of treating people and what they experience as a unique wholeness, and hence there's an applicability of a set of Yoga principles that can apply to all.

I teach, and train teachers, to apply Yoga to a range of people experiencing a range of imbalances - like we all have! This has been built over time with the experience, first-hand, of sharing Yoga with people who all come with their own variations in physical and mental health, and learning that keeping people safe is the utmost priority. Some of the groups and individuals that  teach/taught include

• over 55s people,
• people 80 years old plus (she dislikes the label 'Seniors!'),
• people in drug and alcohol recovery,
• or with diagnosed depression and acute anxiety,
• back pain,
• digestive disorders,
• multiple sclerosis,
• muscular dystrophy,
• asthma,
• and more.

Would love to connect and share our learning and experiences with you!