The Yoga Couple
Our Story
Mat & Ash are best known as The Yoga Couple to their 500K+ online community. The influential couple is internationally recognized for their holistic healing work, authentic yoga teachings, and as the creators of The Inner Work method. Through alternative healing practices such as transpersonal psychology, chakra balancing, science of mind, and yoga philosophy, their work empowers people to self-heal.
As Top 10 Amazon bestselling authors of The Inner Work, hosts of The Inner Work podcast and cast members on the first season of Battle of The Fittest Couple on Paramount Network, they have made it their mission to bridge the gap between Western Psychology and Eastern Philosophy, especially when it comes to navigating relationships and healing our inner child wounds. The basis of their teachings, The Inner Work, focuses on understanding the varying levels of human consciousness and the power to self-heal any aspect of the human condition including relationship issues, overcoming addictions, inner child healing, and trauma recovery. Mat and Ash boldly give a voice to taboo topics such as pornography addiction and the importance of women’s menstrual cycle awareness and their fresh outlook is down to earth and accessible for all.
As individuals, both Mat and Ash were on different journeys prior to becoming The Yoga Couple.
Mat had a very religious upbringing and started using pornography, alcohol, and marijuana at the age of fourteen in a rebellion against the shame and guilt he felt was projected onto him. His experimentation with porn and substances developed into a 15-year addiction cycle which he finally broke free after getting married and committing to do ‘The Inner Work’ within his relationship. Mat resonates deeply with the archetype of the Wounded Healer and believes that from our suffering can emerge our greatest gifts to humanity.
Graduating from high school at age 15 to begin his college studies and receiving a bachelor's degree in Psychology at 19 years old, he worked in inpatient psychiatry for a year before heading into naturopathic medical school in Arizona. It was there that he met the three colleagues who would change the course of his life forever: a Yogi, a former Buddhist monk, and a Hindu. Through them, he was introduced to the eastern philosophies of Self-Realization.
Mat was inspired to then leave medical school to further his studies of consciousness and the mind. He enrolled into a Master's program to become a family therapist, but still unsatisfied with the limited attention academics gave to understanding consciousness, Mat immersed himself into full time study of research on consciousness and enlightenment conducted by Dr. Hawkins, M.D, PH.D. Mat’s current “Hero’s Journey” program is an alternative approach to traditional therapy. Drawing from his own personal experiences, he counsels both individuals and couples all over the world using ‘The Inner Work’ to approach healing from a spiritual lens.
Mat is also trained in the YogaWorks method under Alexandra Crow and has gone on to teach at studios and festivals across the United States with his wife, Ash.
Ash’s journey began by practicing jivamukti yoga at age 16 when a friend introduced her to Hinduism. Growing up with a mother severely addicted to narcotics, Ash was inspired to investigate spirituality and alternative healing early on in her life. By the age of 20, Ash began studying to become a yoga educator with her mentor Kathleen Santor. She continued her search for truth and wisdom at UNLV studying Eastern philosophy and Eastern religion, while simultaneously teaching yoga therapy to patients under the direct guidance of Dr. Alissa Wampole, OMD. She moved on to study authentic yoga with many different groups including the Vedanta Society of Ramakrishna.
Besides being one half of The Yoga Couple™ with her husband Mat, Ash is also the co-author of The Blood Book, Co-Founder of Spirit Woman; an organization dedicated to helping women live more in harmony with the natural rhythm of their cycles, and founder of Sacred Yoga Institute; a Yoga Alliance Registered school focused on traditional and authentic yoga studies. Ash attributes yoga to helping her with many aspects of her life from helping heal her mother’s substance abuse (she is 10 years sober) to her own sensory sensitivities and social phobia from her recent diagnosis of Asperger’s.
Wanting to bring the light of yoga to "Sin City", Ash opened her first yoga studio with the Modo Yoga franchise at age 25, and her second yoga studio, Evolution Yoga a year later. She has since trained under teachers such as Ted Grand, founder of Moksha Yoga, Annie Carpenter, founder of SmartFlow, and Aileen Epstein Ignadiou, founder of the Iyengar Yoga Center, and has taken special interest to studying the work of George Feuerstein PH.D Indologist - Founder of Traditional Yoga Studies. After 10 years of "yoga hopping" she finally found her path and accepted initiation into Kriya Yoga under her Master Paramahansa Yogananda.
Together The Yoga Couple reside on Big Island, Hawaii where they host healing retreats, yoga teacher trainings, and offer one-one-one life counseling specializing in utilizing The Inner Work. Mat and Ash are devotees of Paramahansa Yogananda, supporters of the Self-Realization Fellowship and Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, and are committed to sustainable living and the dharmic path in all areas of their lives.
