Why EMPOWER Is NOT Your Standard Yoga Teacher Training


  • Our EMPOWER Yoga Teacher Training Programme isn’t for yoga snobs, and it isn’t filled with intimidating terminology designed to make yoga feel more complicated than it needs to be. You can leave your memories of exams, deadlines and being judged at the door. This is practical, accessible training created to help you become a knowledgeable, confident and genuinely effective teacher.
  • EMPOWER is delivered entirely online through pre-recorded training, classes, teaching demonstrations, critiques and supporting resources. There are no live sessions, fixed timetables or set start dates. You can begin when it suits you, study at your own pace and take up to 12 months to complete the programme.
  • This isn’t a contest to see who can perform the best headstand, and it certainly isn’t an Instagram showcase. The best yoga teachers aren’t necessarily the most flexible people in the room. They’re the ones who can teach clearly, adapt postures appropriately and support the person in front of them—taking account of what is happening in her body, mind and life.
  • EMPOWER isn’t based on traditional yoga practices created predominantly by men, for men. Our training focuses specifically on the female body, psyche and emotional experience, helping you understand how yoga can support women through their cycles, transitions and changing needs at every stage of life.
  • We also don’t believe in cramming an entire teacher training into an exhausting three-week retreat or making you wait two years before you can begin using what you’ve learnt. EMPOWER allows you to work through the training in a way that fits around your family, career, health and other commitments. You’ll have up to 12 months to complete it, without being pressured to keep pace with anybody else.
  • This isn’t a cookie-cutter hatha yoga course where you disappear into a class of fifty students and emerge as another identikit teacher. You’ll begin by creating your own EMPOWER Plan, helping you approach the programme in a way that reflects your goals, experience and the women you want to support.
  • And this is about far more than physical exercise on a yoga mat. You’ll explore how women can live and practise in greater harmony with their cycles, seasons and life stages. We look at the bigger picture: how yoga can become a practical, supportive part of everyday life and create meaningful change for the women you teach.
  • We’re not interested in being overly serious, mysterious or judgemental about who is “yogic” enough. We’re interested in supporting women, developing genuine expertise in women’s health and creating exceptional teachers who are knowledgeable, compassionate, adaptable and completely themselves.


If you’re ready for online yoga teacher training that breaks the mould, fits around your life and prepares you to support women properly, welcome to the YogaBellies EMPOWER Teacher Training and Empowerment Programme.

Why EMPOWER™?


EMPOWER™: A Life-Changing Journey for the Whole Woman

EMPOWER™ is the culmination of over 25 years of my personal yoga practice and two decades of teaching women’s yoga worldwide. For the past 15 years, I’ve trained teachers in the YogaBellies® method, helping thousands of women across the globe to reconnect with their bodies, balance their hormones, and feel like themselves again.

Now, I’m beyond excited to offer this specialist 300-Hour Women’s Yoga Therapy Qualification — a unique blend of yoga, psychotherapy and feminine embodiment — because I truly believe every woman can benefit from it.

You don’t need to be a yoga teacher to join us.
You just need to be ready to evolve — physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Whether you’re a yoga teacher, health professional, coach, mum, or simply a woman wanting more from life, EMPOWER™ will meet you exactly where you are and take you to where you’re meant to be.

What You Can Expect

This programme is about your personal transformation first.
As you learn to support other women, you’ll grow in ways you can’t yet imagine. You’ll rediscover your confidence, your joy, your energy — and learn to live and work in alignment with your body, your hormones, and your purpose.

You’ll gain the skills and tools to work therapeutically with women through all stages of life — from menstruation to menopause and beyond — but you’ll also live these teachings yourself.

Through EMPOWER™, you’ll:

  • Understand your own body and emotional patterns like never before

  • Experience deep self-enquiry and mindset growth

  • Learn to guide other women through the same transformation

  • Build a fulfilling career doing meaningful, heart-led work

This isn’t about learning sequences — it’s about learning yourself, so you can help other women do the same.


 The Women’s Yoga Therapy Pathway

EMPOWER™ gives you the depth, tools and professional credibility to work therapeutically with women — not just teach them yoga.

You’ll graduate as a 300-Hour Certified Women’s Yoga Therapist, with practical expertise in:
🩷 Yoga therapy for women’s health, hormones and mental wellbeing
🤰 Pregnancy, postnatal and baby yoga (plus baby massage)
🌙 Menstrual and menopausal balance practices
🧠 Somatic and psychotherapeutic approaches to women’s emotional health
🥗 Hormone-friendly lifestyle and nutrition
💬 Coaching and communication skills for one-to-one client work

You’ll gain the insight to help women understand their cycles, emotions and physical needs — and guide them to live in rhythm with their natural flow.

Building Your Life’s Work

I don’t just want to train great teachers — I want to see women thriving in life and business.

You’ll get hands-on mentorship from me on creating your personal and professional brand, identifying your niche, and building a sustainable, soulful business that fits your lifestyle.

You’ll also gain access to the YogaBellies® global community, a sisterhood of women supporting women — because we rise higher together. You’ll find encouragement, friendship and collaboration that lasts long after your training ends.

You’ll have access to the YogaBellies® resource library, packed with class plans, templates and tools to help you run workshops, private sessions or online programmes with confidence.


A Holistic Reconnection to Your Whole Self


Over 12 months, EMPOWER™ will gently guide you through every layer of your life — mind, body and soul.

You’ll learn to:
✨ Eat and live in tune with your hormonal and energetic cycles
✨ Create self-care rituals that support your nervous system
✨ Reclaim your vitality, creativity and sensuality
✨ Build a business that feels like an authentic extension of who you are

This isn’t just a qualification — it’s a journey back to yourself.


Is EMPOWER™ for You?

Keep reading if you…
✅ Want an internationally recognised 300-hour Yoga Alliance International qualification
✅ Crave transformation in your personal health, mindset and life
✅ Want to support women therapeutically — not just physically
✅ Are ready to build or grow a successful yoga, wellness or therapy business
✅ Want to teach pregnancy, postnatal, menopause, menstrual and baby yoga — all in one integrated training
✅ Feel stuck or burnt out and need to rediscover your purpose
✅ Love yoga but want to go deeper — body, mind and soul
✅ Want to weave feminine yoga and embodiment into your coaching or therapeutic work
✅ Desire more confidence, clarity and community
✅ Are ready to be seen as an expert in women’s wellbeing
✅ Want to belong to a global sisterhood that truly supports you

Women Supporting Women

When you join YogaBellies® EMPOWER™, you’re not just signing up for a training.
You’re becoming part of a living, breathing sisterhood of women who want more for themselves and for each other.

This is the village we all need — one that celebrates women supporting women, sharing wisdom, and creating change from the inside out.

Together, we’ll rewrite what it means to live, teach and thrive as modern women — grounded, confident, cyclical and free.


Being part of YogaBellies® means that you're connected with an amazing global network of like-minded women, who want to support you and won’t judge you – because they’re right where you are too. It’s about waking up to the value of women supporting women, bringing back sisterhood and ‘the village’ as something that is absolutely essential for our wellbeing.

Video

EMPOWER Is For You If:

  • You're passionate about empowering other women with yoga and want to learn evidence-based practices and gain a time-tested and Yoga Alliance International accredited women's yoga teaching qualification to teach yoga to women at every stage of life along the way!
  • You want to know EXACTLY what woman need to look and feel their best at every stage of life - we're talking yoga (on and off the mat,) nutrition, mindset, holistic self-care and a deep understanding of the key female life transitions and hormonal fluctuations that can make or break your happiness!
  • You'd love the idea of running your own yoga business but you've no idea how to set up or run a business and frankly, the idea terrifies you! We've got you: YogaBellies founder Cheryl, a Dragons’ Den Winner and Multiple Business award winner, will personally show you everything that she did herself to create and grow YogaBellies and provide you with tools, templates and systems to get you there every step of the way.
  • You want to join an established (15 years!), world-recognized teacher training and empowerment programme that starts with working on YOUR personal blocks and yoga practice, and THEN qualifies you to empower other women with yoga through pregnancy, post-partum with baby, menopause, and the menstrual cycle. You'll be joining a global community of women supporting women, as a yoga teacher and practitioner.You're stuck in the corporate rat race or feel that your life lacks real purpose and know you need to do something more meaningful with your life right now or you'll completely lose your mind.
  • You're worried you don't have enough experience, time or money to become a yoga teacher, but you still want to pursue it. EMPOWER programme is designed to accommodate all levels of yoga experience and can be completed at your own pace from home (with ongoing guidance,) We offer installments and timescales to suit everyone.
  • You want to save thousands on a "one-stop" specialist programme that's been designed for women that will be the only yoga and empowerment training you'll ever need - for you and to teach other women! You want to join a programme where you'll earn the price of the programme back within 12 months by teaching just 2 classes per week!! (and double that by teaching 2 more.)
  • You're overwhelmed, exhausted, unfulfilled or feel like you're failing at everything (hello mum guilt) and you need to get your mojo back, like yesterday. You're ready to completely transform your health and fitness levels; change your mindset; regain your confidence and finally, feel proud of YOU again.
  • You'd love to have a fulfilling career that actually 'makes a difference,' but also be able to do the school run; have time for date night; take holidays whenever you like and enjoy the occasional guilt-free daytime trip to the hairdresser. 
  • You know that you need to start looking after your physical and mental well-being, but with everything and everyone else you have to look after, what you need is bottom of the pile. You have no time and no idea where you would even start.
  • You want to spend time (guilt-free) working on the blocks that have been holding you back for years, that you haven't quite got around to but always meant to deal with... but therapy takes time and is expensive and you can't fit ANOTHER thing into your already over-flowing list of commitments.

If any of these describe you, then Empower is the perfect programme for you. We have helped countless women transform their lives, and we know we can help you too.

Don't wait any longer to start living the life you deserve.

What Makes EMPOWER™ So Unique

EMPOWER™ isn’t another yoga teacher training.
It’s a therapeutic, evidence-based qualification that combines yoga, psychology, hormonal health, and feminine embodiment.

As both a psychotherapist and the founder of YogaBellies®, I’ve spent over twenty years helping women understand themselves — body, mind, and soul. I designed EMPOWER™ to bring together everything I know about female physiology, emotional wellbeing, and the psychology of change into one powerful training and personal journey.

When you complete EMPOWER™, you’ll be certified as a 300-Hour Women’s Yoga Therapist, qualified to work therapeutically with women one-to-one and in groups — supporting menstrual health, fertility, pregnancy, postnatal recovery, perimenopause, menopause, and mental wellbeing.


EMPOWER™ Is About More Than Yoga

YogaBellies has never been about pulling shapes on a mat.
It’s about living yoga — and using it as a way to feel grounded, energised, and hormonally balanced all month long.

Most yoga was created centuries ago for young men — not women with cycles, hormones, hips, breasts and babies! EMPOWER™ reclaims yoga for women’s bodies, showing you how to adapt, honour and embrace your natural rhythms instead of fighting against them.

You’ll learn how to integrate:
🧘‍♀️ Therapeutic yoga for hormonal balance and women’s health
🧠 Psychotherapeutic insight into women’s emotional patterns and relationships
🥗 Nutrition, self-care and lifestyle tools to support long-term wellbeing
🌿 Ayurvedic wisdom and somatic practices for the female body
💬 Communication and coaching techniques to empower clients deeply and safely


A Personal and Professional Transformation

I created EMPOWER™ for women who feel called to something more.
Maybe you’re at a crossroads — ready for change, wanting more purpose, or craving deeper meaning in your work.

This journey begins by empowering you first.
You’ll experience your own transformation through the EMPOWER™ practices before learning how to guide other women to do the same.

You don’t need to have it all together — nobody does.
We come to yoga to find balance, not because we already have it.

My Story — Why I Created EMPOWER™

When I first started teaching yoga, I was a stressed-out business analyst with irregular cycles, PMS and burnout. My hardcore Ashtanga practice had stopped my periods altogether — I looked “fit,” but I was far from healthy.

As I prepared for pregnancy, I realised yoga wasn’t serving my female body the way it should. So I began studying how yoga could support, not sabotage, women’s health — and that’s how YogaBellies® was born.

Over the years, I developed therapeutic practices for each stage of a woman’s life: menstrual health, fertility, pregnancy, postnatal recovery, menopause, and beyond. As my own work evolved into psychotherapy, I began weaving in evidence-based approaches to help women not just move differently — but live differently.

That’s why EMPOWER™ is so much more than a yoga course.
It’s a complete mind-body therapeutic framework for women — a way to teach, guide and heal others through every stage of life.


What You’ll Learn

Inside EMPOWER™, you’ll gain:
✅ A deep understanding of female anatomy, hormones and life cycles
✅ Practical tools for yoga therapy, breathwork and somatic awareness
✅ Psychotherapeutic approaches to support mental and emotional health
✅ Specialist training in pregnancy, postnatal and baby yoga
✅ The skills to work one-to-one therapeutically with women
✅ Guidance on building your women’s wellness business

Check out below just some of the publications that Cheryl and YogaBellies have been featured in over the years.

This is Katieannne

One Year Post Graduation

Meet Cheryl

Cheryl MacDonald, MA BA (Hons), PgDip Psy., E-RYT 500 Founder of YogaBellies® | Psychotherapist | Women’s Yoga Therapist Trainer


I’ve spent over two decades helping women understand themselves — their bodies, hormones, emotions and cycles — through yoga, psychology and lived experience.

I know first-hand that yoga isn’t about bending yourself into impossible shapes or chasing perfection. It’s about coming home to yourself. Everything I teach, I practise. It’s the difference between feeling flat and disconnected… and living with energy, confidence and joy.

I want women to stop forcing themselves into outdated yoga practices designed for young men — and instead, learn how to move, breathe and live in a way that honours your feminine body and nervous system.

Whether you’re navigating periods, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause or beyond, I’ll show you how to find the right yoga and therapeutic practices to help you feel balanced, strong and truly at ease in your own skin.

Over the years, I’ve taught and mentored thousands of women worldwide — and more than 100,000 women in the UK have attended YogaBellies® classes to balance hormones, relieve stress, prepare for birth, connect with their babies, and embrace menopause with confidence. I’ve also trained hundreds of teachers globally in my integrative, therapeutic approach to feminine yoga — creating a movement that’s changed how women experience yoga forever.

YogaBellies® has always been about more than poses. It’s about self-worth, body confidence, emotional wellbeing, and self-love — both on and off the mat.


Awards & Recognition

🏆 LuxLife Most Inspirational Women’s Yoga Teacher – 2021
🏆 Great British Entrepreneur Award – 2019
🏆 Scottish EDGE Award for Enterprise – 2013
🏆 Woman of the Year Award – 2014
🏆 Mumpreneur UK Award – 2012
🏆 3× What’s On for Little Ones Awards – 2014
🏆 Working Mums Top Employer Award – 2015
🏆 MumsClub Top 100 Businesses – 2012



You may also have seen me featured in:

The Huffington Post - talking about my yoga journey and YogaBellies® beginnings

As a winner of BBC Dragon's Den (watch us in the video below!) - the Dragons loved the concept of YogaBellies®

Appeared on ITV's This Morning - teaching yoga to women and children at various life stages

All of the magazines, TV channels and publications you can see on this page, talking about yoga for women throughout life

Been personal yoga teacher to celebrities such as Kimberley Walsh (Girls Aloud), Fearne Cotton and Catherine Tyldsley (check out some of the featured press below)



EMPOWER Guest Experts and Senior Yoga Teacher Team

Our EMPOWER Teacher Training also has a number of Guest Experts and Senior Yoga Teacher Mentors from across the globe (United Kingdom, Singapore, Dubai, and Thailand!) These women's yoga and health experts will lead sessions throughout the programme.





Meet Sharon

YogaBellies Teacher Over 13 Years

EMPOWER Yoga Teacher Training Includes 6 x 50 Hour Qualifications

Here are all of the yoga teacher training qualifications that are part of EMPOWER:

View all

Meet Cheryl

"Feeling swamped trying to balance work, family, and everything else life throws at you? Trust me, I get it! As a busy mum myself, I know firsthand the challenges of carving out time for self-care and maintaining physical and mental well-being. That's why I created the Empower Programme - to help amazing women like you unlock the life-changing benefits of yoga 🧘‍♀️.

Over 100,000 women worldwide have experienced the transformative power of YogaBellies classes. I'm confident that the Empower Programme can help you too! I practice what I preach, applying everything I teach in the programme to my own life. I've trained hundreds of YogaBellies teachers, worked with celebs, and even won some pretty cool awards for my work as a women's yoga teacher 🏆. You might have seen me featured in The Huffington Post, BBC Dragon's Den, or ITV's This Morning.


If you're tired of trying to twist yourself into pretzel-like poses designed for men, let me show you a better way – the YogaBellies way 💜. With my proven track record, you can trust that the Empower Programme will help you feel amazing, energized, and ready to create a life you love. But hey, don't just take my word for it! Here are a few awards I've won: LuxLife Most Inspirational Women's Yoga Teacher 2021, The Great British Entrepreneur Award 2019, and Woman of the Year Award 2014.

Join the thousands of women who have already transformed their lives with the Empower Programme. Sign up today and start experiencing the unique benefits yoga can bring to your life. 🌟"

Cheryl xo


Meet Georgie

EMPOWER Graduate, New To Teaching Yoga