Have you ever lived on an island made from plastic bottles? Our Page 1 Woman of the Week has.
She’s a global wanderer and a business owner with a background in IT in banking, insurance, online gambling and some of the big shot corporations. And now she’s a dynamic yoga enthusiast, who takes yoga practice and philosophy into companies for workforce resilience, business growth and increased profits. And that’s not all. She’s a public speaker too and an Ace Mentor in Andy Harrington’s ‘Professional Speakers’ Academy’. She’s after a globe-trotting life of health and happiness with a bit of cash thrown in for good measure. A conventional narrative? Of course not! There’s little sense of conformity in my Page 1 Woman of the Week. She’s someone you‘d call a rebel. She’s rebelled against the restrictions imposed on her gender by a generation that expected women to get ‘female jobs’ settle down and have children. And she rebelled against a family background characterised by a toxic mix of domestic violence and alcoholism. But, she’s emerged ‘together’, confident, self-sufficient, courageous, an achiever –saved perhaps, by her rebellious streak and a huge dollop of self-belief. So let’s hear it for our Page 1 Woman of the Week, Marion Bevington.
So who exactly is Marion Bevington?
She was born and raised in a working class area of Birkenhead. A spirited child, who saw herself as her older brother’s protector, she began challenging her aggressive dad from an early age. And when she was 14, her parents divorced and she was thrown out of the family home by her dad – clearly a threat to his authority. She later made a decision that heralded the start of her journey towards healing – she quit living with her mom. ‘There were so many issues in our relationship that it didn’t last very long’ she said.
School was clearly a haven for Marion. She continued attending despite her chaotic life of living between a series of friends. Then Nora, ‘a fantastic foster carer’ showed up and gave her stability, which helped her to get to university to do maths and computer science. In her 20 year IT career, she’s worked in government departments, Coca Cola, Mercedes and Lloyds to name a few. Eventually, she earned enough to spend 6 months of each year, doing what she loved best, backpacking solo around the planet.
And how did Marion Bevington get into yoga?
You might say that yoga got into her. In 1990 she attended a yoga class when she couldn’t find an aerobics one and was hooked on the peace of mind she began to experience. It helped her to deal with the physical and emotional fall out from her dysfunctional background. And having decided to quit the corporate world because of the impact it was having on her health, she discovered whilst living between Mexico and Belize that her calling was to teach yoga. In 2006 she went on a one month yoga teaching course in India. Two years later she emerged highly qualified having studied with some of the best teachers in the field. Since then, she’s taught in some exotic places and has further developed her skills. If you know about yoga, you’ll be aware that its focus is body, mind and spirit. But Marion Bevington offers yoga with a twist. NLP and EFT are thrown in to overcome negative mind sets – handy for corporate success or even personally.
And what are her plans for the next 5 years?
Marion Bevington wants to continue combining the two loves of her life and offer ‘healing holidays’ (including yoga and healthy living), around the Caribbean, for executives and entrepreneurs and their families. She’s confident that with her Caribbean connections, her professional knowledge and experiences and her systemising skills, she will succeed. She’s transformed her own life so now she’s bent on helping others transform theirs whilst achieving business success. In Marion Bevington’s own words, ‘I’m living proof that you can actually create the life that is going to feed your soul as well as your mouth’. To find out more about Marion’s work in ‘Corporate Yoga London’, visit her web-site here.
Who’s your Page 1 Woman of the Week? Send me her name here and let’s feature her.