Marinna Robertson

Mana-loa and Me

Thanks for visiting  Mana-loa! My name is Marinna, I am a yoga teacher, holistic health practitioner and private chef from Scotland. I have been working as a chef in the UK and Europe for the past 10 years and have been fortunate to have some great jobs including running my own Latin American Kitchen. However I have now broken free from the shackles of commercial kitchens and am enjoying the creativity and diversity of freelance private catering which has also given me the opportunity to pursue Yoga teaching and Holistic Energy Therapies.
 We are all well aware that chronic pain, stress and many physical and mental health conditions are growing increasingly more prevalent within our societies. I have experienced this first hand and so felt compelled to try and share the healing potential and invaluable guidance that I was lucky enough to find.
This is the story of how yoga and energetic medicine transformed my life....


Throughout my life I have always been very active and thought of myself as a happy and optimistic person. That was until I suffered a back injury from a snowboarding accident in my mid 20’s and everything changed. My back pain became chronic and I was no longer able to do any of my normal hobbies and activities. They became replaced with a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs that dulled not only the pain but also my mind. As almost two years went on so did the pain, medications, and downward spiral of my mental health.  I was desperate to recover and had seemingly endless doctors' consultations hoping to find a solution. As time passed I slumped into a foggy depression.  Having also tried some alternative therapies without relief I was eventually recommended a therapist who practised Bio-energy and Advanced TFT. I had no idea what either of these were at the time but I was willing to try anything! In my first session, the therapist; John Cooper (to whom I will always be grateful) first gifted me the ‘light bulb moment’ when he told me;
“In order for your back to heal, we must first change the messages you are sending it with your mind...”
Yes, my body had suffered a physical injury  but we are made to heal and are constantly regenerating new cells. However I had been in pain and felt the ‘victim’ for so long that every minute I was dwelling on being broken and living in the fear that life would always be this way... so that was the message my body was receiving. This realisation immediately took me from feeling helpless to empowered. With a little guidance, I could recover my back and my mind! The desperation to be fixed melted away, and was replaced by determination to fix myself.
Following a block of four Advanced TFT sessions combined with Bio-Energy Therapy I took myself off all pain killers and was able to start re-introducing gentle activity. I began practising Yoga, and within just a few months I felt my mind and body not just healing, but transforming into something much stronger than I had been before the accident. Within a year I was able to enjoy all of my favourite activities, including snowboarding and was even able to carry a rucksack and enjoy a two week trek through the Himalayas. Years on, I now see this experience as the greatest gift of my life for the lessons I have learned and how much stronger, both mentally and physically I have become for it.

I write this story in such detail simply as my personal example, but whether you experience physical discomfort, mental anguish, general lethargy or even just an underlying feeling of dissatisfaction, with some guidance, we can all access the healing ability we have within to improve our health and wellbeing so that we can enjoy our lives and live them to the full.