Today we’d like to introduce you to Joanna Mackay.
Hi Joanna, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
For a long time, I was living a life that looked like a life I should be grateful for, but somewhere along the way, I had completely lost myself inside of it.
I became a mother to three boys, and during those years I also found myself in a marriage where, little by little, I stopped trusting my own voice. I became very good at looking outside of myself for answers, for permission, reassurance, even confirmation that what I was feeling was valid. My world became increasingly centered around who I needed to be for everyone else, and I didn’t realize how far I had drifted from myself until I could barely recognize the woman underneath all of those roles.
Eventually, my life reached a point where I couldn’t keep abandoning myself and calling it survival.
What came next wasn’t one dramatic reinvention. It was a thousand small acts of returning.
I got sober. I began rebuilding my relationship with my body. I had fallen in love with studying the nervous system, somatics, breathwork, movement, yoga and Pilates throughout the years because these were the things that were helping me feel alive again. The more I learned, the more I realized that healing wasn’t only about understanding my story intellectually. I had spent years living almost entirely from my head. I needed to learn how to inhabit my body again, listen to myself again and trust what I knew.
Movement became a huge part of that. Yoga brought me into deeper relationship with myself spiritually. Pilates made me feel strong and present inside my own body. Somatic work gave me language for experiences I had previously only known as reactions, sensations and patterns. Breathwork taught me that sometimes the way through something isn’t another thought. It’s allowing the body to finally experience what it has been holding.
And motherhood became part of the awakening too. I love being a mother more than I can explain, but I started questioning the idea that becoming a mother meant the rest of me was supposed to disappear. I didn’t want my sons to grow up watching their mother abandon herself in the name of loving them. I wanted them to see a woman who loved them fiercely and also remained curious, creative, passionate, spiritual, ambitious, weird, playful and fully alive.
That realization became the heartbeat behind so much of what I do now. And somewhere in there, my career path fell into my lap and made the most sense.
Today, my work lives at the intersection of movement, nervous system education, somatic practice, breathwork and coaching. I teach yoga and Pilates, work with people around the beliefs and patterns that keep them disconnected from themselves, and create spaces that invite people back into their bodies and their own inner authority. I’m also building Barefoot + Mother around a message that has become deeply personal to me: motherhood can expand your identity without erasing it.
I’m still a student of all of this. I don’t think there is some finish line where we become perfectly finished products who never lose ourselves again or need healing. For me, the work has become noticing when I’ve left myself and knowing how to return.
I think that’s ultimately what my story is about.
I spent a long time becoming who I thought I needed to be in order to be loved, safe and enough. What I’m building now came from learning that the person underneath all of that was never someone I needed to reinvent.
I needed to remember her.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, it definitely hasn’t been a smooth road.
One of the hardest parts has been learning how to rebuild trust with myself after spending so much time disconnected from my own intuition. For years, I became accustomed to questioning what I felt, what I wanted and whether my own perception could be trusted. Even after circumstances changed, that pattern didn’t automatically disappear. I had to learn how to make decisions without constantly looking outside of myself for reassurance.
Sobriety has also been a huge part of my story, surprisingly. Choosing to get sober forced me to become much more present with myself. I could no longer numb discomfort or avoid what was underneath it. That was incredibly uncomfortable, but it also became one of the greatest catalysts for my growth because I had to learn new ways of being with difficult emotions, stress and uncertainty.
Motherhood has brought its own complexity. I’ve had to confront how easy it is, especially as a mother, to put yourself at the very bottom of your own life. There is so much pressure to give endlessly, and I had to learn that caring for myself, pursuing meaningful work and having an identity outside of motherhood did not make me less devoted to my children. In many ways, it has made me more present with them.
Starting over professionally has required a lot of humility too. I entered this chapter as a student again. I pursued trainings, certifications and hours of education while raising three children and rebui r parts of my life at the same time. There have been moments where I have questioned whether I was too late, whether I was qualified enough, or whether all of the different things I’m passionate about could actually belong together.
I’ve also had to become comfortable being seen while I’m still becoming. That may be one of the biggest challenges. It’s tempting to wait until everything is perfectly packaged before sharing your work, but so much of my growth has come from taking the step before I felt completely ready.
The road has included grief, major life changes, uncertainty, starting over and a lot of uncomfortable self reflection. But I don’t think I would remove those parts from the story. They are the reason the work I do means what it means to me.
I used to think strength meant being able to endure almost anything. Now I think strength is knowing when something is costing you yourself and having the courage to choose differently, even if it means letting others down.
We’ve been impressed with Brahmama, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Brahmama is the home for my work in nervous system education, somatic practice, breathwork, movement and coaching.
The name itself is really personal to me. It’s inspired by Brahman, the divine or ultimate reality in Hindu philosophy, and that idea of being connected to something greater has deeply shaped the way I see healing and self discovery. For me, so much of this work is about remembering who we are underneath all the roles, expectations and conditioning we pick up along the way. It’s about remembering we are divinity.
My work is a little bit of a mix, because honestly, that’s how my own healing has looked too. I use somatic practices, nervous system regulation, breathwork, yoga, Pilates, movement and coaching to help people notice the beliefs and patterns that keep them stuck or disconnected from themselves. I really care about making these tools feel approachable and usable in real life, not intimidating or overly clinical.
A big part of what I believe is that we don’t always need to become a brand new person. Sometimes we just need to come back to the parts of ourselves we stopped listening to.
Barefoot + Mother grew out of that same idea. It’s a community centered around motherhood, identity, freedom and self expression. Becoming a mother changed me in every possible way, but it also made me realize how easy it is for women to disappear inside the role. I want mothers to know they can be deeply devoted to their children and still have desires, creativity, sensuality, spirituality, ambition and a life that feels like their own.
Everything I’m building really comes back to the same thing: helping people return to themselves.
What’s next?
I’m in a season of saying yes to life in a much bigger way, and that’s probably what I’m most excited about.
There are a few things on the horizon that I’m keeping close to my heart for now, but I’m continuing to expand my work through more one on one sessions, community experiences, retreats, and deeper study in somatics and embodiment.
I also have a book that I’m slowly bringing to life, which feels incredibly meaningful to me. Writing has always felt like one of the clearest ways I process what I’ve lived through, and I’d love for that work to eventually become something that helps other people feel seen in their own process of returning to themselves.
I’m also really drawn to more conversations and storytelling, so I could absolutely see a podcast in the future, along with more travel and opportunities to teach, collaborate and create in different places.
More than anything, I’m trying not to force the future into one exact shape. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to control what came next, and now I’m much more interested in staying open, following what feels aligned, and letting different parts of me have a life. Teaching, writing, movement, community, creativity, travel, even modeling and other things I never would have given myself permission to explore before.
I think that’s the biggest change. I’m not trying to fit myself into one box anymore. I’m building a life that has room for all of me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://brahmama.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/barefootandmother
- Other: https://bio.site/brahmama
