A woman with shoulder-length wavy blonde hair and blue eyes, smiling, wearing a black blazer over a white top, standing in front of a window with a green outdoor background.

Mindful Life Expert: Prof Christine Rivers

My story so far …

Over the past fifteen years, I have built a rich background in learning and teaching through various senior leadership positions in higher education. Yet, despite my professional achievements, I often felt empty and adrift. I used to think meditation and yoga were dull and unengaging. I believed I should give them a try, but found it difficult to keep up a regular practice, sit still, concentrate, and carve out time for them. My life moved at breakneck speed every single day.

I had an outstanding academic career, a loving family, and athletic goals. I once believed success was all about climbing the career ladder, collecting awards, beating personal bests, adhering to a certain weight, or projecting a particular lifestyle. Still, I felt unhappy. My deepest desire was simply to relax, be compassionate, and find inner peace. Achieving that required me to release old beliefs, break habits, relinquish control, and surrender.

When the Covid-19 pandemic brought life to a sudden halt, I took the opportunity to pause and signed up for a 30-day yoga challenge. Since then, I haven’t looked back.

Yoga is my choice.

Yoga, meditation, and breathwork have become my trusted allies in navigating stress, anxiety, and the challenges life brings. But it wasn’t always this way—my body made that clear. Burnout, low moods, and destructive thoughts were constant companions as I pushed to succeed in my roles as an academic, mother, wife, and friend. Life felt heavy and joy was scarce. Still, I longed to live fully—to laugh, to feel happiness, to embrace joy, and to experience love both for myself and others. Then yoga entered my life…

If I can, you can.

Through this journey, I’ve discovered that my true gift lies in teaching and supporting others in their own paths, drawing from my academic background, diverse knowledge systems, and passion for learning and sharing. My practices—yoga, meditation, breathwork, and coaching—have been essential tools that helped me navigate depression, anxiety, panic attacks, stress, vulnerability, and repair my relationship with myself. To me, success means impacting at least one person each day. Could that person be you today?

Being on this journey showed me that my gift is to teach and help others on their journey in various ways and to use my academic background, different knowledge systems and love for learning and sharing. Yoga, meditation, breathwork and coaching are my tools. They have helped me to cope with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, stress, vulnerability and heal my relationship with myself. for me Success means to touch one person a day. Might it be you today? There is only one way to find out, get in touch and start your transformation.

Published books

Mindfulness and Business Education - Developing Self-Aware Future Leaders. A practical guide. Published by Taylor and Francis, Nov 2024

My qualifications & CPD

Doctorate in Philosophy | University of Surrey | Oct 2006 - June 2010.

Diploma in Executive Coaching | Academy of Executive coaching (AoEC), London, UK | March - September 2018.

Diploma Meditation Teaching | British School of Meditation | July - November 2022.

Certified Yoga Teacher | House of Yoga London | September 2021 - January 2022.

Certified Yin Yoga Teacher | House of Yoga London | May 2023.

Certified Breathwork Instructor | Yogalap, Michael Bijker | February - April 2024.

Certified Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner | European lifestyle medicine organisation (ELMO) | January - June 2024

Student with National College for Hypnosis and Psychotherapy | April 2024 ongoing.

Qualified Hypnotherapist and UKCP Trainee Psychotherapy | May 2025 ongoing.

Feel free to have a look at my academic LinkedIn profile Prof Christine Rivers.