I took private lessons with Heather for almost 3 years weekly to teach me Kundalini Yoga protocols that I found through my research.
Heather helped me IMMEASURABLY. Kundalini Yoga/ meditation helped me the most after my massive stroke in 2011. For the first year, she was WONDERFUL. She was a wonderful teacher when I was a beginner. When I was very very very very sick, and I mean VERY sick -I was walking with a cane, I could barely speak, was recently out of a month long stay in the hospital, had a nearly bald head from it having been completely shaved due to my brain surgery - I needed a teacher who was incredibly patient with me and kind and loving. She was all these things - at first. She was very attentive to detail and posture and form. She was great. And suffice it to say I was off the charts in vulnerability. OFF THE CHARTS.
That's why I think what I'm about to say is utterly DESPICABLE and makes me incredibly sad.
Why only 1 star? Because a review of a business should reflect the entire business experience, not just the effectiveness of the product itself. If this was based solely on effectiveness, this would be a 5-star review. But it's not. It ultimately became an EXTREMELY negative experience for me due to what I think is her extremely bad business sense and complete lack of boundaries. I feel that she took SEVERE advantage of me after having helped me so incredibly much. She very often took credit for 'saving my life' and QUITE often when I was present would point to me and say to others, "look at her, I rewired her after a massive stroke." How DARE this woman take full credit for MY recovery and tell others she was responsible for it after what I've been through and how hard I have worked to get back to my life after it was devastated.
One of many examples of her taking advantage of me is an experience of mine during a class of hers full of about 20 people. She called me out, told the class that she 'saved my life," waited for me to get emotional before she spoke again, THEN she asked me to speak even though I have a speech disorder because of the stroke and I am EXTREMELY self-conscious and EXTREMELY sensitive when it comes to speaking at all, let alone in front of a large group of strangers. Heather was WELL, WELL aware of this sensitivity of mine.
Kundalini Yoga helped me greatly, NOT this teacher. She thinks she is a great healer of stroke victims which she told me many times and said to me once "I had stroke symptoms last night." It's disgusting that my teacher who I was paying a lot of money to help me out of my disability check, said that to me. It should've made me very angry at the time but I feel that I was badly manipulated and I had her on a pedestal due to the way she presented herself at the beginning and how much what she taught me helped me that first year.
I rewired my own brain and I saved my own life. Me and me alone. Heather Ferri gave me the tools and was a resource of information in order for me to achieve my goal. I hope that she understands this differentiation someday because she really is a wonderful teacher. The last person on the planet I thought would hurt me, lie to me, and take advantage of me was Heather, someone who I completely trusted and put my full faith in. It broke my heart into a million pieces and devastated me for months. And I have witnessed this manipulation and subsequent devastation happen to MULTIPLE other clients of hers.
A few months after I realized how badly manipulated my incredibly vulnerable brain was and stopped taking lessons from her, she tried to bully and scare me by sending me an email threatening to file a lawsuit against me if her name ever appeared on my blog, a blog that helps hundreds of people. Her name -the name of her business- is nowhere to be found on my blog and was not at the time. It was a completely empty threat meant to scare me, a tactic representative of the absolute antithesis of the ideals of Kundalini Yoga. She threatened to sue me - using money and legal threats as a means of intimidation is the highest caliber of bullying in my opinion. It's very Western and extremely hypocritical of her to be so litigious.
In my experience, Heather does not practice what she preaches, does not have a sense of ethics or responsibility with regards to helping people and does not AT ALL live by the major Eastern philosophy of giving help without expecting anything in return. She has no ability to empathize whatsoever which is a VITAL quality of a Kundalini Yoga teacher.
I STRONGLY recommend this practice. It's powerful & beautiful. But with great power comes great responsibility which Heather has none of. In fact, she SEVERELY abuses this power and is extremely unsafe with it. I'll be recommending this practice to my patients for the rest of my life, but I even more strongly DO NOT recommend this narcissistic teacher so if Kundalini/meditation interests you, and it very much should, find another teacher.
by Amy
xxx.xxx.221.79
July 19, 2016
