Elle’s Philosophy:
Living Mangaliso

In July of 2015, I was finishing up my 200-hour yoga teacher training. Sitting next to me was an incredible woman from South Africa. We were concluding our studies with the section of The Business of Yoga. 

The time had come to contemplate what we would be calling our business. 

I value the reality of childlikeness. Whether it is learning from the child who called out the nakedness of the Emperor or the child who defeated the Jabberwocky beast, the attributes found in children are amazing.  

It was with that heart that I turned to my friend, asking her what was the word for childlikeness. The words that she spoke changed my life forever: “There isn’t a word per se for childlikeness,” she said. “But when I look at you, I see the word Mangaliso.” It was when she told me what it meant that I truly thought she was messing with me.

Mangaliso is Zulu for, “You are an amazement.” 

My entire being and work hold fast to the Living Mangaliso idea of YOU ARE AN AMAZEMENT.  I endeavor to forge out safe spaces for others to explore and discover their own expression and expand into it.  

For the first two years of our work, we focused on children. 

I’ll never forget the moment during one after school program with over thirty kids, we would circle up outside. The question asked of them was, “What is amazing about you?” It would be incredibly illuminating to watch and hear their responses but perhaps not for the reason you would expect.

Children as young as five years of age had the hardest time finding the articulation and energy to express that they were good at soccer or art or singing or dancing. They would dig their toes into the dirt, lower their gaze, and barely whisper a response. 

It would be my experiences with the children that would spur me onward. One of the most profound definitions of humility that I have ever heard is to be no more and no less than that which we are. So many of us are very good at being no more, but most of us struggle to become no less. Allowing the excellence of you to be showcased, the amazement of you to course through your being, to fuel your endeavors as the powerful life force that it is, takes time. The time to heal, grow, and emerge as yourself, as you are and how you are as you can and how you can.

Finding the soles of your feet underneath you and the ground underneath the soles of your feet empowers you to feel and be centered and strong. Learning how to inhabit your body, cultivating an interior reservoir full of resiliency and creativity takes time.

You as a person inhabit a body.

In inhabiting a body, you take up space.

Learning how to take up space and not place small is the journey of a lifetime for all of us.

The mission and vision of the Mangaliso Method are to dedicate all that we are to empower you to become all that you are. We create and cultivate space for the emergence of your amazement. Through lenses of creativity and ingenuity, holding the claiming and reclaiming power of the human being to explore and discover expression and expand into it is what we do. 

We accomplish these goals by encouraging the body to move, breathe, and be. It is as simple and profound as that.