About

Grace Tempany didn’t intentionally set out in life to be a reformer, but it turns out that when you combine vision and conviction with a desire to get straight to the heart of the matter, the result is a trailblazing pioneer, albeit a reluctant one much of the time.

After an initial career in education teaching French and Music, Grace set off in 2013 to train as a yoga teacher in Los Angeles. There followed a 3-year stint in the southern hemisphere during which she taught full-time in Bikram yoga studios in Australia, New Zealand and south-east Asia. In Auckland in 2014, Grace experienced her first Yin class and for the second time in her life, encountered a practice she knew she would practise and teach forever. 

On her return to Dublin in 2016, Grace knew there was something very different about the way she was teaching Yin. For a long time, she put it down to a lack of training and set about remedying that by creating her own. It took a much longer time for her to realise that there was something fundamentally different in the way she was sharing the practice with people. Only much more recently did the penny drop that behind ‘Yin with Grace’ was the Grace Tempany Method. A methodology that has been refined and distilled over the years, and whose efficacy continues to surprise her.

They say the unconscious always surprises; and maybe that is exactly what Yin and its capacity to reveal and unveil has shown. Never one to rest on her laurels for too long, Grace embarked on psychotherapy training in 2022, rerouting into psychoanalysis in 2024. Alongside her career in education and teacher training, Grace is a proponent of talk therapy as a client and psychoanalytic therapist-in-training. A reformer here too, her intuition always guides her to find solutions around the fringes; creating at the intersection points between worlds is where she has found her particular talents put to use for the collective. Grace has married expertise with experience, both vast, and trusts that in the wisdom that emerges when both feeling and thinking align.

Bridging the gap between talk therapy and body-oriented treatments is where her latest endeavours are leading her. Within Functional Yoga Integrated as one of only a couple of 300hr functional yoga schools worldwide, Grace shares purpose-focused and person-centred yoga practices with yoga teachers and holistic therapists. FATE Somatics Body Psychotherapy is her other 300hr training route, targeting psychologists, psychotherapists and coaches who see the current limitations of their clinic, and are seeking enhanced embodiment toolkits to ensure their clients’ empowerment.

Thought Leadership

“Many criticise the intellectuals for lack of embodiment, while the yoga world is desperately lacking critical thinking and discernment. It has always been my philosophy that really great teaching can, and should facilitate people developing both. Within the Grace Tempany Method, no question goes unpondered, no feeling goes unfelt.

12 years ago, my first introduction to functional yoga and Paul Grilley’s model gave me a glimpse of what would develop into the greater Functional Yoga Integrated vision. A glimpse of what yoga as therapy can be when extended beyond knowing the physical purpose of the pose, and having the language to cue students to feel it. 

Yoga is a threshold practice; it lies in the space between worlds, breaths, words. Experiencing the practice in our physical body as it merges with the energetic and the psycho-emotional; dwelling on the edges of the worlds of movement & stillness, functional anatomy & self-inquiry, embodiment & psychotherapy: the practices that help you reconnect with your unique body, and the language of the unconscious. Interwoven through it all, is the privilege of holding the seat of the teacher. 

When we can imagine a better alternative to what currently exists, but we can’t find it, I have come to realise it’s because we have a role to play in creating it. What if it were those who never quite fit in, who were destined to build a more inclusive alternative? What if feeling the need to shrink ones vision were actually an indication of the gift of seeing? Seeing alternative and improved systems to begin with perhaps, but more importantly from a creative vision perspective, seeing the meeting points between worlds that for too long have remained separate.

Somewhere on the paths between teaching and learning, embodiment and language, somatics and the unconscious, functional yoga and psychotherapy, shadow and leadership, discernment and soul, you’ll find me and my work, the work that only I can do. I really believe that leadership grows in proportion to our capacity to be led by the great work of our lives, that only we can do. That work is always seeking us too.”

We speak ourselves into creation.

Your work knows what it wants to become.

Will you let it?

Training Background

I thank all the teachers I have learned and indeed continue to learn from. Since my very first 500hr yoga training in 2013, I have devoted myself to ongoing learning, research and integration work, supportive of the process of generating the Grace Tempany Method. I continue to credit my teachers for what they have taught me, and continue to transmit the best to the graduates within my Teachers Who Lead programme - hand-selected as the most talented teachers and leaders, they are assisting me to share Functional Yin and Yang Yoga, and FATE Somatics (Yin as Body Psychotherapy)

    • MA French and Music, Trinity College, Dublin. 2006

    • MA Literature and Politics, Sorbonne University, Paris. 2008

    • Postgraduate Diploma in Education, Trinity College, Dublin. 2009

    • Higher Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Dublin Business School, Dublin. 2024

    • Professional Masters in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, School of Medicine, St. Vincent’s University Hospital & University College Dublin. Ongoing

    • Bikram Yoga (500hrs, Los Angeles, California) 2013

    • J. Brown 'Gentle is the New Advanced' & Teacher Revival (500hrs, Online) 2023

    • Yin Yoga Trainings Levels 1 & 2 and Assisting with Mysan Sidbo (400hrs, Ubud, Bali) 2015/2017/2019

    • Yoga Psyche Soul YTT with Yoga Psychology (300hrs, Online) 2021

    • Embodied Yoga Therapy with Embodied Philosophy (300hrs, Online) 2024

    • Vinyasa & Restorative YTT with The Elbowroom (200hrs, Dublin) 2018

    • Yoga Nidra with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli (70hrs, Catalonia, Spain) 2024

    • Insight Yoga with Sarah Powers (60hrs, Sydney, Australia) 2015

    • Hatha Flow with Fiona McNamara (60hrs, Online) 2021

    • Myofascial Release with Tiffany Cruickshank (55hrs, Online) 2021

    • Yin Yoga Training with Bernie Clark and Diana Batts (50hrs, Vancouver, Canada) 2018

    • Yin Yang Flow, Yoga Nidra & Shoulder Anatomy with Jo Phee (50hrs, Online) 2022

    • MyoYin with Jo Phee (50hrs, Online) 2024

    • AcuYin with Jo Phee (50hrs, Online) 2026

    • Yin Yoga & Biomechanics with Jennifer O’ Sullivan (50hrs, Online) 2020

    • The Heart of Yin with Kitty Maguire (50hrs, Online) 2021

    • Trauma-Informed Yin Yoga with Annie Au (50hrs, Online) 2023

    • Secondary Training with Sarah Powers (40hrs, Koh Samui, Thailand) 2023

    • Yin Yoga & Taoism with Jennifer O’ Sullivan (35hrs, Online) 2022

    • Yoga for Trauma with Lisa Danylchuk (30hrs, Online) 2020

    • Myofascial Release with Nicky Hadjithoma (30hrs, Online) 2020

    • Yin Mindfulness with Josh Summers (30hrs, Dublin) 2016

    • I-Rest Yoga Nidra with Richard Miller (30hrs, Online) 2019

    • Yoga Biomechanics with Jules Mitchell (18hrs, Online) 2019

    • Yin Meridian Theory with Norman Blair (12hrs, Online) 2020

    • Myofascial Release with Rachel Land (12hrs, Dublin) 2018

    • Jungian Somatics with Jane Clapp (50hrs, Online) 2026

    • Phoenix Breathwork Facilitation (16hrs, Dublin, Ireland) 2026

    • Year long Certificate in Jungian Studies at the C.G. Jung Centre 2020-2021

    • Embodied Individuation with the Applied Jungian Academy

    • IFS Online Circle (Internal Family Systems) with the IFS Institute

    • Meridian Theory & The Art of Acupressure & The Five Qi with Angela Chambers

    • A Somatic Approach to Trauma Therapy with Albert Wong

    • The Functional Approach, Bare Bones of Yoga, Shoulder Stand Deconstruction, Chakra Meditation, Tantric Theory & Patanjali by Paul Grilley

    • Genesis of Yoga Core 26+ with Tony Sanchez

    • Deconstruct to Reconstruct with Alexandria Crow

    • Your Spine, Your Yoga by Bernie Clark

    • The Sublime Quartet with Josh Summers

    • Trauma-Informed Yoga, Working with Grief, Pain Science for Yoga Teachers, Neurobiology of Yoga & Yoga for Addiction Recovery with Yoga Medicine

    • The Anatomy of Emotion with Janet Stone

    • The Wisdom of Trauma and Compassionate Inquiry with Gabor Maté

    • Trauma & Awakening with Gabor Maté and Hameed Ali of the Diamond Approach

    • Compassionate Inquiry Meets Internal Family Systems with Gabor Maté and Richard Schwartz

    • The Diamond Approach Online

    • The Creative Doer with Anna Lovind

    • Vipassana Meditation

    • Personal Yoga Practice

    • Jungian Analysis & Psychotherapy (previously), twice-weekly Psychoanalysis (currently)

    • The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron)

    • Conversational Leadership Training (Invitas) with David Whyte

    • Individual Supervision (twice weekly) within Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training & Clinical Placement

    • Group Supervision (weekly) at The School of Psychotherapy at St. Vincent’s Hospital.