By Yasmin Mostafa
Walking into her first yoga class in 2006 was a foundation for Zaina’s love for the fitness world, exposing her mind to asanas, movements, breathwork, and the body temple. She had no idea what that class in Oklahoma would bring in terms of blessings.
Little did she know that doing private ashtanga yoga with said ashtanga yogi @andrew_eppler_yoga would find her 10+ years later in one of her darkest moments in grief and inspire her to become a full-time yogi, yoga teacher and women’s integrative nutrition coach.
Zaina Al Ghabra’s initial life calling was to empower women through dance and fitness. Years ago in Oklahoma, she found some ladies dancing to a Zumba class in 2007. Months after she started training in ashtanga yoga, a dynamic form of the spiritual Hatha style, she took a side turn and landed on Zumba. While Ashtanga forfeited Zaina’s single-minded obsession and settled for a “backseat”, the first few minutes of Zaina’s first Zumba class made her feel at “home” with her body like never before. The Latin-inspired fitness/dance duo epitomized her love for a women’s community, empowerment, like mindedness and free expression.
After being Zumba certified, Zaina started teaching her own classes at Gold’s Gym Oklahoma and continued teaching after moving back to Kuwait. Balancing evening classes alongside her corporate day jobs in Kuwait was the reality for many years until her famed classes would quickly fill up with students. “I felt I had something going on there and it later gave way to dropping my 9-5 and going full time.” In 2016 she hosted the very memorable and successful masterclass, guest starring international Zumba instructors @ecemozcanes and @didem.zeybek and two popular events in 2015 at the BBS Alumni Club and at The Palms Hotel in Kuwait. In 2019 Zaina decided to join Tiger Muay Thai, Phuket, in Thailand, a world-renowned Center and professional Mixed Martial Arts Training Camp, to train in Muay Thai; a time when the Zumba Academy launched Strong Nation, a martial arts-based workout that allows women to grow muscle and shred safely. Zaina became licensed to teach Strong Nation and continued teaching it until 2023.
Expanding on her career, Zaina added Holistic Coaching to her offerings, with an aim to support her Zumba and Strong Nation clients at first. In 2019 she enrolled into an integrative holistic nutrition coaching course from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Towards the end of her program she learned of her father’s unfortunate terminal diagnosis. It was an incredibly hard time for her as she tried to support him during his treatments and with her newfound information. Her tough experience gave new meaning to her studies and her understanding of the growing mound of evidence to back the science of healthy nutrition. As she graduated from the program, she understood how nutrition can be used to fill the shortcomings of conventional medicine and change the consensus/wisdom on approaching health. A clear meaning of holistic living and wellness began to take form in Zaina’s mind and her subsequent life chapter to come.
After the passing of Dr. Shafiq Al-Ghabra in 2021, Zaina deeply mourned her closeness and intimate relationship with her father. Two months into her loss, after observing her lack of motivation to continue with coaching and her classes, she shelved her work schedule and went on a healing journey in Guatemala. Meditating amid nature was everything she needed to begin to heal from her loss. A trip filled with permaculture principles, yoga, meditation, multiple trekkings through waterfalls, all while eating vegan/organic food were newfound blessings for her. Halfway into her trip she turned to an ancient Mayan cave, the “Temazcal”, and embraced the time-tested ancient method of sauna healing. Crying everyday gave her the gift of releasing as she shared her loss with the group and welcomed their support, love and understanding.
Still feeling heavy hearted, Zaina couldn’t still sail through her imminent grief and continue with coaching and her Zumba classes without the constant reminder of her father. She found herself falling back on yoga and applying for a yoga training in Thailand with faith that it would bring her more of what she needed. She quickly discovered how impactful her new trip was, being a student during her grief and embracing new learnings. “When I saw how powerful yoga was for me in terms of healing and what it was able to do for me, I instantly felt I had to share this.” Zaina says. Combining Hatha yoga with Vinyasa during her training was very spiritual and added ancient yoga philosophy to her physical practices. Even though her background was in ashtanga yoga with Andrew Eppler, she didn’t choose to train in ashtanga. Regretting that choice, one morning in class a breakthrough came for her as she discovered how her body could “hold” a single pose for a lot longer than she imagined her limits to be. Aside from the physical challenges, she was met with holistic practices which facilitated the space she needed to heal further and connect with her feelings and grief. After completing her training, she left Koh Samui for Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand for 6 weeks to delve deeper into yoga. The island opened her up to a second layer of grief, which tied deeper with her Palestinian roots. Though challenged during those few weeks she released more feelings she didn’t know her body held onto for years.
As Zaina started teaching yoga in Kuwait in her private home studio and in several health clubs/gyms she made sure she always transferred ancient yoga philosophies and her learnings into her classes and to always come from the heart. “Being connected with what your students are going through and holding space for them is very important when teaching yoga”. And as she always seeks life mentors, Zaina drew on her new yogi mentors after her yoga training during her early days, connecting with Nikki @nikimariahelena, leading yoga teacher at Vikasa Yoga in Thailand, and Paul Teodo @teodoyogaguitar at The Yoga Barn in Bali.
While Zaina was in Thailand for three months of her Holistic Wellness course, it brought to her attention the elements in her immediate environments that can impact how she felt and the food choices she made. Applying her new learnings, she infused holistic changes to her environment by traveling frequently to places with lots of nature and sunlight which fed into her healing, or introducing simple changes inside her home to model examples of wellness living to her Instagram followers and wellness clients. Because the program also questioned what she was eating she introduced a diet change for herself. She decided to try a plant-based diet for a week and after discovering how energetic it made her feel she continues to be mostly plant based till today and speaks about the importance of incorporating more vegetables and fruits daily on many of her Instagram posts.
Zaina’s formula for healing herself was Yoga together with holistic health and wellness. It fueled her mission to share that magical duo with others together through her yoga classes and wellness coaching. After her loss in 2021, Zaina felt coaching brought her closer to her clients and was able to listen and understand more from them. It connected her with people’s different levels of struggles whether it be daily habit changes to make necessary diet/lifestyle changes, to mental health struggles like self-expression, self-prioritization and returning to the authentic self, to relationship/family problems. “After grief you are able to hold space for people in a much more different way”. As she passed her one-year anniversary into teaching yoga, her ambitions are driving her to delve deeper into the healing world, grief, and the body of literature on Somatic healing.
Zaina is a holistic wellness coach and certified Yoga teacher. For inquiries on either, or booking a discovery call to your wellness journey visit www.zainaghabra.com or reach out to her on her Instagram page @zaina.ghabra.
