Vanessa was born and raised in Oconomowoc, WI. After moving away for a number of years she wanted to settle back into Lake Country and now calls Pewaukee home. 

She loves spending time with her family and friends, especially her husband Scott and their fur babies. Her favorite hobbies outside of yoga are spending time outside in the healing space of nature doing various activities. She earned a BFA in metalsmithing and also creates with ceramics in her small studio at home.

Vanessa has been practicing yoga since 2011 and was drawn to hot yoga as a way to actively recover when she was an avid half marathon runner and needed more built in sweaty recovery time. Back then it was all about her body and releasing the stress of pounding pavement. She started to realize the connection between the mind and body and all the positive after effects. The following year, she was diagnosed with an acute form of leukemia and received a bone marrow transplant as part of her treatment. Hatha yoga became very important as she tried to build back strength and trust her body again. Her practice ebbed and flowed as she figured out her new normal post cancer and transplant. In 2018, she found True North Treks, a national cancer non-profit who empowers young adults and their caregivers to find direction through connection. Part of their programming consists of meditation and mindful movement in beautiful backcountry wilderness destinations. This was really the first time she practiced meditation consistently for a week and was hooked. As her interests with TNT grew, she took an Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course, became a Wilderness First Responder and a RYT 200 hr. Since 2021 she’s been a wilderness or meditation guide with TNT and in 2023 became the Trek Logistics Lead. Vanessa is diving deeper into meditation and taking a 2 year long meditation teacher training starting in 2027.