Helen Peterson is the founder of Happy Seal Yoga, a health and wellbeing business bringing yoga into beautiful coastal settings across Yorkshire. What started with a single weekly class by the sea in Whitby has grown into a thriving community, with outdoor and indoor classes, retreats, seasonal events and opportunities for members to connect beyond the yoga mat.
From the mountains to the Yorkshire coast
Before starting Happy Seal Yoga, Helen’s career was shaped by her love of the outdoors. She spent winters working in the Alps in a variety of tourism and hospitality management roles, before returning to the UK during the summers to work as a beach lifeguard and lifeguard supervisor for the local council and later the RNLI.
In late 2018, Helen travelled to Goa, India, to complete her yoga teacher training. Inspired to turn her passion into a business, she founded Happy Seal Yoga in 2019, beginning with just one weekly yoga class by the sea in Whitby.
From those early sessions, Happy Seal Yoga has steadily grown. Helen now runs yoga by the sea in Sandsend, Whitby, Scarborough, Cayton Bay and Filey, alongside indoor classes at Scarborough Buddhist Centre and Flowergate Hall in Whitby.
She also hosts day retreats at a glamping site near Stainsacre on the North York Moors and runs special events celebrating full moons and the summer and winter solstices.
Overcoming challenges
Just a year after launching Happy Seal Yoga, Helen faced one of her biggest challenges when the Covid pandemic brought in-person classes to a halt.
As a relatively new business, she did not have enough years of accounts to qualify for financial support and relied on savings while quickly adapting her business.
Helen moved her teaching online and used the time to develop her website and introduce systems for taking online payments. When restrictions began to ease and small groups were allowed to meet outdoors, she restarted her classes with just five participants and gradually began rebuilding from there.
What could have stopped a young business in its tracks instead helped Helen put some of the foundations in place for its future growth.
Building confidence
Like many people starting out in a new profession, Helen also had to overcome imposter syndrome.
Delivering those first classes could be nerve-racking. The night before her very first session, Helen even dreamed that she would be sick while teaching.
Thankfully, it remained just a dream, and with every class her confidence grew. By continuing to show up, teach and build relationships with her members, Helen has created a loyal community around Happy Seal Yoga.
Growing a community
Today, Helen is at maximum capacity in terms of the number of classes she can personally teach, with several sessions regularly selling out.
Rather than simply adding more classes, her focus is now on deepening the community around the business and helping members connect beyond their regular yoga sessions.
This has led to the introduction of Happy Seal Hangouts, informal coffee meet-ups where members can spend time together away from the yoga mat. A conversation over one of these coffees even inspired a whale-watching trip to celebrate the end of the summer season of Sandsend classes.
For Helen, this sense of connection is an important part of Happy Seal Yoga’s next chapter, creating not only a place to practise yoga, but a community where friendships and shared experiences can grow.
Business role models
Helen’s biggest business role model is her older brother, Mike, who is now running his second successful international business after selling his first several years ago.
Having worked for him at different points in her career, Helen has been able to learn from his experience and entrepreneurial drive, taking those lessons into the development of her own business.
Words of advice
Helen’s biggest lesson has been not to try to grow too quickly.
“Slow down and try one thing at a time. Particularly when teaching yoga, build your community one class at a time.”
In the early years, Helen sometimes found herself running lots of classes with only a small number of people attending, which could be disheartening. Her experience has taught her that building a strong community takes time and that sustainable growth can come from focusing on what works, nurturing relationships and allowing the business to develop naturally.
Find out more about Happy Seal Yoga: www.happysealyoga.com
