Missy Balsam

Missy Balsam is a yoga teacher, singer, songwriter, musician and kirtan artist based in Naples, Florida. She began teaching yoga in September 2007, after a difficult period in her life when yoga helped her heal and find more peace. She had spent her twenties and early thirties in a high-level sales and marketing career in New York City and Los Angeles. She left that world to build work that felt meaningful, helping others feel their best physically, mentally and spiritually.

She trained and certified with Baron Baptiste and has studied with teachers including Erich Schiffman, Steve Ross, Yogi Amrit Desai, Mark Whitwell, Sean Johnson and Saul David Raye. She teaches gentle yoga, flow yoga, yoga stretch, meditation, yoga nidra, kirtan, mantras and affirmations, in groups and one-on-one. She often brings singing into her classes to add devotion to the practice.

Since 2018 she has co-facilitated Wise Aging classes with Rabbi Adam Miller at Temple Shalom in Naples. She trained for the work at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and she now also teaches Jewish Spirituality and Jewish Yoga there. In both, she blends her background in yoga and meditation with her Jewish heritage.

Missy came to Bhakti Yoga and kirtan in 2011. She taught herself harmonium, having never played an instrument, and found that songs and lyrics of her own began to flow. She released the chant album "Kirtan" in 2014 and the studio album "Revealed" in 2016. Yoga Chicago magazine called "Revealed" a "spiritual rocker", and it fuses traditional Sanskrit mantras with her own lyrics. She has led kirtan and performed at festivals across the country, including Bhakti Fest, Bhakti Fest Midwest, Hamptons Yoga Fest and Lovelight Yoga & Arts Festival. In 2014 she travelled to India, where she led kirtan.

She has also sung lead with the psychedelic rock band B432, recorded "The Love Frequency Band" in 2019, and started an '80s new wave cover band, The Love Cats. Since 2022 she has written and released singles, co-writing with singer-songwriter Tim McGeary in a retro 80s yet modern style. Her stated wish is to serve, inspire and light up the world with love.