Meet the Teacher: Alma Olaveson

Beyond Midwife and Hospital Care: Pause-partum™ Safe Haven

At The HeART Collective, our teachers aren’t just instructors — they’re members of this community who show up every week to share something they deeply believe in. Today we’d like you to meet Alma Olaveson, who teaches Pause-partum™ Safe Haven here at The HeART Collective in Payson, UT — a class designed to gently support mothers in the postpartum season. We interviewed her and this is what she shared.

What I Teach and Why It Matters

I teach Beyond Midwife and Hospital Care: Pause-partum™ Safe Haven. We offer a gentle, integrative, and holistic approach to navigating the post-birth journey — especially after a first birth — drawing on innate knowledge, practical tools, infinite inner wisdom, and the intuition we all carry within ourselves, as well as the agency to choose wisdom above all else as our guide.

I support postpartum mothers so they can feel as nurtured as they nurture their babies. I offer them an emotionally and psychologically safe space to simply be — to connect with their bodies and emotions with love, free from judgment. Through this support, mothers feel uplifted, seen, and heard. I help mothers feel held in the same way they hold their babies, because when a mother is truly held, a child blossoms.

I do this through a 60-minute class that includes breathwork, mindfulness, heart coherence exercises that reconnect and strengthen the heart’s innate and limitless capacity for love, practicing presence within our own bodies, and exploring ancient history and wisdom about how women have nurtured and cared for themselves since the beginning of time. The intention is to create a space and time for moments of connection to your own joy, ease, and the healing connection that authentic love can provide. Becoming the love we seek is one of the greatest and most healing gifts.

How I Got Here

I began taking this teaching seriously in 2012 when I sought to teach myself yoga and meditation while studying psychology at Brigham Young University–Idaho. During that time, I worked in Career Services and Human Resources, where I conducted needs assessments and research, especially based on the work and teachings of Stephen Covey. I also trained part-time and full-time employees, as well as students working for the university.

After the birth of my first child in 2020, I completed a 200-hour yoga and meditation training at The Underground Yoga Studio and began teaching friends and young women in my community. Later, I discovered HeartMath Institute, where I studied for more than three years and have since shared these skills with family and friends as well.

Within three days after the birth of my first child, I felt deeply inspired to understand how Mary, the mother of Christ, navigated motherhood. This led me to the work of Margaret Barker, whose research has greatly influenced my understanding and the way I support women. As women learn these teachings and begin connecting the dots within their own lives, I have witnessed greater freedom from anxiety and depression in both mind and body. There is profound power in women healing alongside other women.

What I Love Most About Teaching

Seeing women connect to their core self — the self they were before taking on a physical body — and having the courage to live from that state of being.

My teaching style is open-hearted, wholehearted, and relationship-oriented. I love people deeply, and that is the foundation of everything I bring into the room.

One of my most treasured moments as a teacher was guiding my own sister through a meditation based on the work of Daniel P. Brown, Ph.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. The exercise is called Ideal Parent Figure. I love teaching because I love seeing the lenses of distortion lift and true knowing become fully present.

What I Want Every Student to Know

Know that your spirit, before it entered your physical body, was and still is your core and essence — full of wisdom and knowledge. If you choose to have the courage to stay in touch with it, your health and life will be an enjoyable experience.

Outside of teaching, I love reading, writing essays and poems, and taking care of my home’s interior design. Creativity, to me, is divine — and I believe our purpose on this earth is to practice the power of creation.

If You’re Nervous or on the FencE

“Love is a state of being. Your love is not outside you; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you.” — Eckhart Tolle

Allow your own heart to be open toward yourself, and allow yourself to follow your desire to come to this class and experience it with love, free from judgment, at least a few times.

I am an enthusiastic person with a great zeal for life, who loves people deeply, is relationship-oriented, is courageous in being one with my own soul, and loves soul-based life adventures. I would love to meet you.

“I believe creativity is divine, and that our purpose on this earth is to practice the power of creation.” - Alma Olaveson

Check out classes offered by Alma at The HeART Collective and give your child the chance to build confidence, think creatively, and bring their ideas to life.