About Fern Olivia
MY STORY
From striving to a different way of living
For many years, I lived in a world that celebrated achievement, productivity, and constantly striving for more.
I earned my degree in Biomedical Engineering, built a career on Wall Street in New York City, and followed the path I believed I was supposed to want.
But my body was asking for something different.
Chronic stress, burnout, and my own health challenges eventually led me away from New York and to Los Angeles, where I immersed myself in yoga, meditation, holistic health, intuitive development, Breathwork, and a very different way of understanding healing.
My own healing eventually became my first body of work.
After experiencing thyroid and autoimmune health challenges, I created Thyroid Yoga®, bringing together my background in science with yoga, breath, movement, intuition, and holistic practices. What began as something deeply personal grew into workshops, retreats, trainings, and a community of women around the world.
That chapter taught me something that continues to shape my work today:
Our bodies aren't problems to conquer. They are intelligent messengers we can learn to listen to.
As my work evolved, I became increasingly interested in the deeper conditions that allow meaningful transformation to happen: safety, nervous system regulation, breath, embodiment, authentic expression, connection, and trust in our own inner wisdom.
In 2017, I followed that path to Nosara, Costa Rica, where life closer to nature, community, and the ocean began changing the rhythm of my life and work.
Almost. a decade later, I found my way to Costa Rica's Caribbean coast and knew I had found home. Today I live here surrounded by rainforest and sea, creating the retreats, trainings, and experiences that have grown from more than fifteen years of exploration, teaching, and practice.
In many ways, the journey has continually brought me back to the same realization:
Transformation doesn't always ask us to become more. Sometimes it asks us to soften enough to remember who we already are.
MY PHILOSOPHY
Healing isn't about becoming someone new.
I believe meaningful transformation happens when we feel safe enough to become more fully ourselves.
My background in science taught me to respect the extraordinary intelligence of the body. Years of spiritual practice taught me to listen beyond what can always be measured. Nature taught me that healing has its own rhythm and cannot be rushed.
And the thousands of people I’ve had the privilege of working with have shown me that lasting change rarely comes from forcing ourselves into another version of who we think we should be.
It comes from creating the conditions to soften, listen, and reconnect with what is already within us.
I don’t teach people to become like me. I help them become more fully themselves.
That belief is at the heart of everything I create.
Whether we meet through a retreat, Breathwork, facilitator training, or mentorship, my intention is to create a space where you can hear yourself more clearly, trust your own wisdom, and leave with something that belongs to you, not something you borrowed from me.
MY APPROACH
Personal, intuitive, grounded, and deeply human
Every person arrives with a different story, nervous system, sensitivity, intuition, and way of experiencing the world. So I meet you there.
My work draws from more than fifteen years of teaching and personal practice, weaving together Conscious Connected Breathwork, somatic and nervous system awareness, yoga and movement, meditation, voice, sound, intuitive development, and time in nature.
But I don’t see these as separate modalities.
They are simply different doorways.
Sometimes the doorway is breath. Sometimes it is movement, sound, stillness, conversation, laughter, the ocean, or simply having enough space to feel what has been waiting underneath everything else.
Especially when I train and mentor facilitators, my intention isn’t to teach people to replicate a method or become another version of me. It is to help them develop the confidence, intuition, presence, and integrity to make the work truly their own.
Because the most powerful thing we bring into any healing space isn’t a perfectly executed technique.
It’s who we are when we show up.
WHY COSTA RICA
Because where we heal matters.
Costa Rica isn’t simply the backdrop for my work. It has become one of my greatest teachers.
Here on the Caribbean coast, rainforest meets the sea and life moves at a different rhythm. Mornings begin with birds and howler monkeys. Bare feet, warm rain, ocean swims, tropical fruit, music, community, and time outside become part of everyday life.
There is something about being immersed in nature that invites us to slow down, listen, and return to what is essential.
I believe our environment profoundly influences how we feel, how deeply we can rest, and how available we become for change. It’s one of the reasons I choose to host intimate retreats and trainings here rather than experiences that could happen in any hotel or conference room anywhere in the world.
The setting isn’t separate from the experience. It’s part of the medicine.
Between sessions, there is space to walk the beach, swim in the Caribbean, connect with local community, listen to the jungle, or simply do nothing at all.
TODAY
This is the work I love.
For more than fifteen years, I’ve guided retreats, taught facilitator trainings, mentored practitioners, and worked with thousands of people from around the world. Along the way, I’ve certified more than one hundred yoga teachers and Breathwork facilitators, while continuing to learn, evolve, and let my work evolve with me.
Today, that work lives through three expressions: Pure Bliss, my intimate solo retreats in Costa Rica; Embodied Voice Breathwork®, my approach to Breathwork, facilitator training, and mentorship; and Pranamor, the work Maxim and I share around conscious love, intimacy, and partnership.
They may look like different worlds, but they all come from the same place: a desire to help people feel more connected, more trusting of themselves, and more fully alive inside their own lives.
What moves me most is witnessing those moments when something shifts: someone discovers confidence in their own voice, reconnects with their body, softens into love, remembers what they want, or leaves Costa Rica carrying a little more freedom and possibility home with them.
I don’t believe a good teacher needs to have all the answers. What I can offer is experience, presence, curiosity, intuition, genuine care, and a space where you don’t have to become anyone other than yourself.
If something here feels familiar, maybe our paths are meant to cross.
Professional Biography
Fern Olivia is an internationally recognized Breathwork educator, retreat leader, facilitator trainer, mentor, and creator of Embodied Voice Breathwork®, Thyroid Yoga®, and Pranamor.
With more than fifteen years of experience, she has guided thousands of people through retreats, facilitator trainings, mentorships, and transformational experiences around the world. Her work weaves Conscious Connected Breathwork, nervous system awareness, somatic healing, yoga and movement, meditation, voice, sound, and intuitive development into a deeply personalized approach bridging science, embodiment, and spirituality.
Fern holds a degree in Biomedical Engineering, and her own healing journey inspired the creation of Thyroid Yoga®, one of the earliest expressions of her work integrating modern science with breath, movement, intuition, and holistic healing. Her work has continued to evolve through Embodied Voice Breathwork®, her approach to Breathwork education and facilitator development, and Pranamor, created with her partner Maxim to explore conscious love, intimacy, and partnership.
Since 2015, Fern has certified more than one hundred yoga teachers and Breathwork facilitators and has mentored coaches, therapists, yoga teachers, healthcare professionals, and emerging facilitators from around the world. Today, she lives on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, where she leads intimate retreats, private mentorships, and immersive facilitator trainings rooted in presence, authenticity, and the belief that the most meaningful transformation brings us closer to who we already are.
Certifications & Professional Training
Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering, Syracuse University
Professional Breathwork Facilitator Certification, Global Professional Breathwork Alliance (400+ hours)
Heart Breath Method Breathwork Teacher Training (200 hours)
Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT 500)
Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training (200 hours)
Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training (200 hours)
Yoga Nidra Teacher Training
Yin Yoga Teacher Training
Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training
Qi Gong Instructor Certification
Sound Therapy Certification
Reiki Master
Akashic Records Reader
Holistic Health Practitioner (AADP) certified by the Institute for Integrative Nutrition
Certified Intuitive Healer by the Den Center for Meditation in Los Angeles
Founder of Embodied Voice Breathwork®
Founder of Thyroid Yoga®
International retreat leader, facilitator trainer, speaker, and mentor since 2011.
PERHAPS OUR PATHS WILL CROSS
If something in my story or work speaks to you, discover the different ways we can connect, learn, breathe, retreat, and grow together.