Meghan Huehn has always had a passion for the human body and helping others through wellness.
With a degree in physical health education as well as a degree in science from Queen's University, Huehn had initially envisioned a career in medicine, with intentions to attend medical school after graduating.
However, her life took an unexpected turn in her last year of university. That small twist of fate has ultimately led her to where she is today as the owner of Namaste North in Barrie, a hot yoga and fitness studio that combines traditional yoga practices with a modern movement philosophy. It focuses on movement, mindset and nutrition to help create a solid foundation for overall health.
“I was young and I didn’t know very many professions where you dealt with health, the human body and helping people," she tells BarrieToday. "Medicine was sort of the natural thought to go toward that."
During her last year of school, she was invited to a hot yoga class. It was a decision that changed her life forever.
“I was always up for exploring different things and different ways to move my body. Being in the phys ed program, we had studied so many different forms of movement, health and wellness. However, we’d never learned or talked about yoga,” she says.
“I remember coming out of that class and I had never experienced anything like it physically or mental… and I wondered why we hadn’t learned about this.”
Huehn continued to attend and when she finished school in 2006, she started searching for ways to learn more about the style of yoga, which consists of 26 postures.
“It’s not like it is today. You couldn’t just go and do a yoga weekend somewhere. As I was scouring the internet, the only thing I found was to go to a teacher training," she says.
Being done with university and not having the plan to go on to medical school, Huehn decided to give it a shot and signed up for the intensive nine-week training course.
“I wanted to learn more and I wanted to do it every day. I had no intention of becoming an instructor, I just wanted to learn more about what was happening and why it was happening and why I felt so great,” she says.
During her training, she learned more about how the series of postures to help people, from aiding with arthritis, anxiety and depression to aiding with digestion and thyroid issues.
“I realized there was a reason I had felt so good doing it and I had to share that with other people," she says. "I thought it would be selfish not to.”
Upon completion of her training, Huehn decided to start teaching part-time, but still didn’t see yoga as a full-time career. She applied to nursing school, but ultimately decided she wanted to help others feel the way she felt.
“Other styles of yoga didn’t have the same impact. I didn’t have any kind of big experience. The instruction was a little less direct and scientific," she says. "Coming from a sports and science background, I really thrived in an environment where the instruction is direct and the teacher is helping me improve. There’s a logic to how the class is being done.
“I believe that has a lot to do with how the class is sequenced. I still haven’t experienced anything like it all these years later.”
She ultimately settled on Barrie, opening the doors nearly 10 years ago.
“My family lives in Ontario and we always came through Barrie growing up to go to the family cottage," Huehn says. "I wanted to be somewhere that had great outdoor amenities, so Barrie made sense to me being on the water, being close to northern Ontario and Toronto."
Huehn understands some people may be skeptical or even afraid to try something new.
“There is so much on the other side of that fear if you can make it through that,” she says. “I find sometimes as adults we come in and think we should know how to do something right away, but we need to be willing to take it step-by-step."
Namaste North is located at 110 Bradford St., near downtown Barrie. For more information, click here.
