Meet Mars
Mars Gossi is the Founder and Principal Teacher of Shala Yoga. Mars has been a student of yoga since 2007, and a yoga teacher and massage therapist since 2014.
Mars’ personal yoga and spiritual journey has empowered her to shift away from the clouds of depression and anxiety to build a more positive compassionate relationship with herself. The practice has allowed her to move through life with greater presence, confidence and trust. She’s passionate about sharing her unique gifts with the world and serving her soul purpose.
That’s why she founded Shala Yoga.
Mars returned home to Bunbury at the beginning of Covid after years of travel, study and work in beautiful places like Portugal, India and Thailand.
During these years away, no matter where she was, Mars always found herself ‘right at home’ amongst the breath, sweat and dedication of other yogis when practicing in a Yoga Shala, a ‘home for yoga’.
Shala Yoga is an ode to Mars’ ‘coming home’ and to your ‘coming home’ through a practice that’s done so much for Mars’ personal growth and healing.
At Shala Yoga, Mars aims to inspire everyone to live a harmonious life that’s mindful, inspired, kind and joyful.
BE HERE NOW
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BE HERE NOW -
Bunbury Brighter
Thanks to the City of Bunbury for this short film featuring Mars and Shala Yoga, as part of the 2023 Bunbury Brighter Campaign.
Yoga with Mars
Mars believes that yoga can help bring about transformational change and connection for individuals and the community.
Mars is a playful, charismatic and heart-felt teacher who shares the path of yoga from her own personal experience, study and intuition. Her teaching is inclusive, compassionate and thoughtful.
Mars can be both technical, metaphorical and analytical in how she guides students to connect body mind. She has the ability to bring joy and laughter to the practice, even during times of challenge.
When you work with Mars, you’re invited to explore your unique potential with love, courage, strength and confidence. Unfurl into your authentic self, and feel deeply connected with the world around you.
Mars acknowledges all of her teachers and the teachings themselves, for helping her to connect back to source.
Massage with Mars
Mars believes that massage and the healing power of touch can help bring the body, mind and heart into balance.
As a massage therapist, Mars holds space for her clients to tune into their innate wisdom to heal, so they can live a more radiant, joyful and healthy life. Mars is guided by her intuitive, compassionate and meditative touch to allow clients to deeply surrender and let go.
When you work with Mars, your treatment will be tailored to meet your own unique needs. She draws from a variety of modalities including Ayurveda, Thai Yoga Massage, Swedish, Deep Tissue, Trigger Point, and Reiki.
Mars continues to explore, expand and integrate her understanding of the body and healing into her treatments to offer something truly unique.
Experience for yourself a deeply healing and nourishing treatment with Mars. Choose from her signature treatments of Intuitive Oil Massage or Thai Yoga Massage.
OTHER GIFTSMars runs yoga and massage workshops, retreats, kirtans and ecstatic dance events for her community.
OTHER GIFTSShe’s also a contributor on Down Dog App, the #1 rated app for practicing yoga at home.
Her Story
Mars was born in Bunbury to migrant parents, and like many teens, experienced terrible depression and anxiety .
When she was living in Perth during her early 20s, Mars came across the yoga practice when she was searching for ways to manage her physical, emotional and mental trauma. She remembers those first few times on the yoga mat, when she had no idea what she was doing, but understood how disconnected she’d become from her body, mind and heart.
Recognising that the practice allows you to ‘come home to yourself’ was one of the first insights Mars recalls when she began her yoga journey. This was the medicine she had been looking for.
As she worked her physical body into better alignment, greater strength and improved flexibility, Mars began to awaken to those things in her life that weren’t aligned to her true nature. She started asking herself big philosophical questions like, who am I, what’s my purpose and where am I going?
Feeling lost and confused, Mars quit her job and went on a solo backpacking adventure through Europe to take her out of her comfort zone, connect with her Italian heritage, and experience new cultures and ideas.
This led to her moving to London for five years, where she found herself working an intense corporate gig that gave her little joy, but a big salary to party, travel and do whatever she wanted! Long hours and fuzzy mornings did little for Mars’ practice, and for a few years she lost her connection to yoga and herself.
2012 was a year to shake things up. Mars went to India for the first time. A trip that reconnected her to the yogic path, she also started to deeply question her soul path. That same year she went to Burning Man, and found herself in the middle of the desert feeling disconnected and unaligned with how she was serving the world.
By the end of 2012, Mars left London and took a year long sabbatical to dedicate herself to yoga. She returned to India and immersed herself in daily practice, philosophy, pranayama, ayurveda, meditation, bhakti, massage and more. Here Mars connected with the international yoga community who showed her that it’s possible to live differently in a way that feels more authentic and meaningful.
Mars was invited to volunteer at two Yoga Retreats in Italy and Thailand, which changed the course of her life. These experiences allowed Mars to unashamedly see her potential to teach yoga and make her passion her life purpose. In November 2013, she went to Guatemala to experience her first yoga teacher training.
She then returned to Thailand to follow the love she had met, and for many years they dedicated their lives together as ‘yogi gypsys’ practicing, studying and travelling the world. In 2017 they found themselves in Portugal, where they began working at another Yoga Retreat called ‘Vale De Moses’. This centre would go on to be where Mars dedicated the next three years of her life, teaching week long retreats and working as a massage therapist.
When Covid began to change the world, Mars was studying in India and Thailand. As the world was forced to come to a standstill, Mars decided to return home to Bunbury. Here she began to dream a new life for herself. Mars started teaching yoga around town, offering treatments and sharing small women’s retreats in the South West. She quickly realised she was meant to ‘be here’, and finally her ‘gypsy spirit’ felt content to reestablish roots in her hometown.
In August 2021 Mars became co/owner of Hot Yoga Bunbury. When the opportunity came to take on the business solo, Mars seized the moment to bring the studio into its new incarnation with Shala Yoga.
Mars is grateful for this journey, which has now brought her full circle to serve others and raise the vibration in Bunbury.
Listen to Spotify Interviews & Meditations
Listen Deeply to Your Heart - Mars, Wake Up, Shake Up →
20 Minute Yoga Nidra Meditation with Mars, Wake Up, Shake Up →
6 Minute Flow Meditation with Mars, Wake Up, Shake Up →
