Maria Toso, E-RYT 500
Maria Toso is Yoga Teacher, Spiritual Somatic Coach, and writer. Originally from Denmark, she has taught in the United States and Europe for over 30 years. Maria is on the faculty of Minneapolis College where she offers a complete Yoga Alliance accredited Yoga Teacher Training. Maria is also the creator and teacher of The Heal What Hurts Process, A yogic method for healing your emotional triggers.
Maria has guided hundreds of students through the 200-hour yoga teacher training at Saint Paul College and through her own Breath of Life Yoga School.
Maria helps her students and clients achieve solid ground within. When you go through Maria’s programs, you will no longer be relying on anyone else to change for you to stay peaceful and grounded.
When your nervous system is no longer agitated by emotional reactivity, your body can heal from within. Addictions lose their hold on you, and your relationships find harmony — or fall away.
Now your pure life energy is contained within you, and you can go about manifesting your wildest dreams and drawing into your life experience people and places that are in true alignment with your soul.
Q & A with Maria.
Q: What do you mean by releasing samskaras?
A: What I learned, and continue to learn, through this physical and emotional practice of the Heal what Hurts Method is that we really can locate and release the negative energy patterns that continue to play out as painful life circumstances. What I also learned is that if these samskaras are silenced with either shame or numbing agents, they always end up flaring up at the least opportune time. What we resist does persist. But what we are willing to feel can finally and truly heal.
Q: What kind of pain can cause samskaras in our adult relationships?
A: Well, my own experience of deep human pain was introduced early when my dad died suddenly when I was 17. In the years to follow, I started my meditation and yoga practice in the late '80s in Copenhagen, where I was born. My journey since then has been and continues to be a relentless process of penetrating more and more of my human consciousness with the Divine Light that is my True Being. I know firsthand the pain and despair that arise when we welcome every part of who we are to become visible, and I know the discipline, love, and empathy required to continue to do this inner work even when we hit the inevitable inner roadblocks.
Q: What is the Heal what Hurts Method?
A: The Heal what Hurts Method is a systematic practice of the deep awareness and empathy necessary to bring lasting healing to the wounded self. It is a misunderstanding to think that the yogic practices will bring nothing but bliss and peace -- they will also bring that -- but whatever your karmic patterns, your samskaras are, and whatever your pain-body looks like, they will need to be addressed with Deep Presence, acceptance and the medicine that a regular authentic yogic practice truly is.
How it all started
Maria is the founder and owner of Breath of Life Yoga School®. Maria has been practicing and guiding yoga and meditation since 1990. Through meditation, asana practice and pranayama awareness, she leads her students into presence with compassion and wisdom, showing them their own inherent connection to the Divine. Her experience includes teaching meditation and yoga at places ranging from addiction recovery centers, universities, at-risk-youth programs, yoga studios, private businesses as well as in her own therapeutic yoga school and coaching practice. Maria is on the faculty at Saint Paul College where she trains students to become certified yoga teachers. She also trains students to become 200-hour yoga teachers and Meditation Teachers through Breath of Life Therapeutic Yoga School.
How it all started:
Ever since I was a little girl, growing up in Copenhagen, Denmark, I have experienced an inner knowing. Without words, I was aware of a guidance and protection system that surrounded me wherever I went.
I often seemed to know what would happen before it did, and I have regularly had premonitory dreams. When I was 17, I was devastated by my father's sudden death while I was abroad. It was in my search for meaning and answers after this shock to my system that I first discovered meditation at the Tibetan Buddhist Center in Copenhagen. Through a more formalized spiritual practice, I deepened and strengthened my connection to Spirit. In connecting with people, I get images and messages that stream into me.
I know to my core that you too can connect deeply to your Divine support system, whatever name you might give to the Source that sustains us all. That you and I, and everyone on Earth, is made of Divine Light. But modern living practices and negative thinking patterns can cloud our inherent wisdom.
Through lifestyle changes that may include daily yoga, prayer, and breathwork, I have witnessed students access their inner Teacher and Light. This is how I work. I don't want anyone to become dependent on outer guidance; I want to show you how to access your own inner Teacher and Light.