Shanti is my spiritual name that an enlightened Indian guru called Osho gave me when I was 4 years old and Taleta is my birth name. My friends and family call me Taleta.
I had a rather unconventional childhood, my parents were sannyasins who followed Osho’s teachings and I was home schooled for the majority of my school age years.
From the age of 10 we travelled around the North Island of New Zealand, I lived in tents and community houses and I grew up outdoors riding horses, joining in on Osho meditations, wearing mala beads and immersed in the sannyas community.
At the age of 17, I had a natural drug-free home-birth, which put me on the path to becoming a single mum. Having a baby urged me to settle and I lived in Auckland City up until a few years ago, when yoga put me on an entirely different path!
From a young age my daughter developed a range of health issues so I devoted my time to heal her. This experience inadvertently ignited within me an inner soul calling and I went on to study Naturopathy and Reiki.
I managed to complete my second Freelance Journalism Diploma while juggling being a full-time mum and my own experience of raising a daughter who suffered from mental illness compelled me to write my first feature titled New Zealand’s Mental Health System- is it Failing Our Youth? which was published in the Dec-Jan 2014 edition of Investigate Magazine.
In search of a hobby outside of my role as being a mother, I attended my first yoga class in my 20’s, but it wasn’t until 2013 that I adopted a regular home practice, which sparked a profound transformational effect in my life.
Two years later my passion for yoga led me to India where I completed my yoga teaching certification. After one month of intense introspection and a physically demanding practice, I embarked on a pilgrimage throughout 7 states and 21 towns in India, before moving to Nepal and living with a Nepalese family during a humanitarian crisis.
Since becoming a certified yoga teacher, I have been fortunate enough to combine my love for travel and teach in countries such as India, Nepal, Bali, Australia and New Zealand!
Yoga has given me so much that words here cannot describe. It has helped me transition through a lot of difficult life situations, it’s played an important part in my own self-healing and it has connected me to my true self.
I am a mother, a tarot reader, a writer, a healer, a yoga teacher and a certified holistic health coach that specializes in Medical Medium protocols from New Zealand.
I’m a free spirit dancing barefoot through life, learning, growing, laughing and crying along the way.
I believe we all have unique gifts to share with the world and it is through reconnecting with our authentic self that we can find our soul calling.
After listening to the whisperings of my heart, I threw caution to the wind, I gave up my house in Auckland City and traded in a life of comfort for the Unknown. I sold, gifted and donated all of my life’s possessions to charity and I broke up with my fiancé to follow my heart, which was in search of true happiness.
This blog is a personal documentation of my journey through self-discovery and the adventures along the way. I’m sharing my story with the hope of inspiring others to fearlessly follow their dreams and to live a life filled with passion and purpose.
~Namaste~
Memoirs of a Gypsy 