Missy Balsam

Missy Balsam is a yoga teacher, singer, songwriter, musician and kirtan artist based in Naples, Florida. She describes her passion as helping people feel their best in body, mind and spirit, and she weaves singing into her classes to bring a deeper level of love and devotion to the practice.

She began teaching yoga in September 2007, after a difficult period in which 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, and she left it to follow a more meaningful path. 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. Her teaching includes gentle yoga, flow yoga, yoga stretch, meditation, yoga nidra, kirtan, mantras and affirmations. Since 2018 she has co-facilitated Wise Aging classes with Rabbi Adam Miller of Temple Shalom in Naples. Her role there has grown to include classes in Jewish Spirituality and Jewish Yoga, which blend her yoga and meditation background with her Jewish heritage.

Her music began in 2011 with the path of Bhakti Yoga and kirtan. She taught herself harmonium, having never played an instrument, and found that songs and lyrics of her own were waiting to come out. She released the chant and song collection "Kirtan" in 2014 and her debut studio album "Revealed" in 2016. Yoga Chicago magazine called "Revealed" a "spiritual rocker", and it sets traditional Sanskrit mantras beside her own heartfelt lyrics. She led kirtan monthly in Naples and toured to teach and perform at festivals across the country, including Bhakti Fest, Bhakti Fest Midwest, Hamptons Yoga Fest and Lovelight Yoga & Arts Festival.

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 been writing again and releasing singles with a retro-80s, freshly modern sound, co-writing with singer-songwriter Tim McGeary. She describes her deepest wish as serving, inspiring and lighting up the world with love.