Claudia Spahr is a visionary business mentor, best-selling Hay House author (Right Time Baby, The Complete Guide to Later Motherhood), and award-winning entrepreneur. As an internationally recognized pioneer in wellness and retreat leadership, Claudia founded and built a luxury beach retreat in Goa, India, in 2008—with a ten-week-old baby—setting a precedent for yoga beach holidays. She then went on, in 2013, to birth HolyMama, a movement that redefined retreats for mothers—creating spaces for them to gather, reinvent themselves, and manifest new possibilities.
Since 2018, Claudia has mentored retreat leaders in over 45 countries, led hundreds of transformational retreats worldwide, and inspired tens of thousands through her books, immersive experiences, and online programs. Before dedicating two decades to wellness, she worked as a broadcast journalist and international correspondent, reporting for CNN, BBC, Swiss National TV, and independent media outlets. Her work has been featured in Psychologies Magazine, Happinez, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Huffington Post, and now GOSS.
Tell us about yourself, especially the parts that are not so known from your online presence?
I have a sharp, dry sense of humor—a natural trait from growing up in the North of England. This can be an interesting dynamic in the personal development and mentorship space, where humor—especially self-deprecating humor in women—is sometimes misunderstood. Used intentionally, humor is a potent tool. It disrupts patterns, brings levity, and cuts through the noise of an industry that sometimes takes itself too seriously.
I don’t often speak about this on social media, but I have experienced both financial and psychological abuse. It’s insidious, disorienting, and designed to erode autonomy. Abuse isn’t about good vs. bad people or men vs. women—it’s about unresolved trauma and mental health.
What’s awakening on the planet—especially since the global restructuring of 2020/21—is the urgency of mental and emotional well-being. Women, in particular, are at a pivotal moment of financial and leadership sovereignty. The old sick-care model is crumbling, and integrative well-being and conscious wealth creation are rising in its place.
Let’s be honest—millions of women still experience financial control in their relationships. Until 1974, women in the US couldn’t even apply for credit cards without a male co-signer. As we step into our power as entrepreneurs, leaders, and wealth creators, we shift not just our own reality but generations to come.
What brought you into the field of healing, and emotional intelligence / personal development?
It found me. The month I left my role as a foreign correspondent, I met an Indian astrologer who told me I would never work for anyone again. He also said, “You will change lives, but I can’t see how.” I took that as my ticket to ultimate freedom. With the pay-out I negotiated in a final showdown with four male bosses in suits, I booked myself a detox retreat in Thailand and spent three years traveling the world. In 2008, with a 10-week-old baby, I built a yoga beach resort in Goa. By 2013, pregnant with my third child—a daughter—I received a clear vision to create retreats specifically for mothers and children. Since then, I’ve trained retreat leaders in 45+ countries, and HolyMama has transformed the landscape of matrifocal and child-centered wellness.
When it comes to your own personal journey of deep healing and liberation, what has been the catalyst for your growth?
I believe our deepest challenges are directly connected to our highest potential. Breakthroughs come when we stop resisting and start integrating the lessons. Every moment of “I want to throw in the towel” is usually an invitation to break through. Growth isn’t linear—it spirals.
Advice to your younger self? Other women that are “stuck”?
Be audacious. Be bold. Be unapologetic. People aren’t always going to understand you. And that’s the point. If everyone got you, there would be no trail to blaze. You would just fit into the status quo. You would repeat generational cycles and curses. You would’t be able to break out of the victimhood that women have been conditioned to accept for centuries. You are here to lead, not to seek validation. Your ancestors are watching you rise. Your daughters and sons will be celebrating the bold moves you made for their freedom.
Walk us through your offers and enrollments for women who want to join your space?
The foundation of my work is retreat leader training. All of my programmes and courses have a spiritual and personal development approach, whether it’s the retreat leader certification, my marketing and messaging programmes, offer creation courses, or launching and selling signature programmes. There are options at every price point and proximity level. While getting divorced and going through the deepest pain of separation from my children, I have steadily, methodically, and organically built a multi-seven-figure femme-pire. Making the right strategic moves now for increased visibility, it could easily become an 8-figure business.
A good place to start in my offer suite is the Retreat Business Accelerator. Adding retreats and in-person events to your business is the best way to scale via increased visibility, impact, and income. Retreats increase your authority and lead to better results for your clients due to the close proximity they have to you when you meet in person.
MANIFEST WITH US : What are you actively calling in now?
A TEDx talk, an updated version of my book, Right Time Baby, with Hay House; plus a children’s book dedicated to my daughter and a spiritual guide on creating wealth within the wellness industry. With the money generated from these books and my online offers, I want to inject cash into a fund bringing retreats to places where they are most needed; for women and children recovering from trauma, whether it is abuse or war.
Balance : how do you intentionally claim it?
To find balance, I jump in the ocean and dance in the forest. I wail at the moon, watch the sunrise and sunset. It’s about surrounding myself with things that are flowing and beautiful. It’s hugging my children and cooking for them. Food has been one of the medicines I’ve used to create balance over the last years of intense post-separation abuse.
Balance is like finding the midline in a pendulum that is constantly swinging back and forth. It’s standing in a place of real stillness—a zen-like space. I see it as black light creation energy—a void of nothingness. It can feel really uncomfortable because it is so still, but it’s actually from this place, when you are balancing the polarities, that you birth the new. The momentum comes from a spark of inspiration, a breath (in-spire = to breathe in), which fuels the fire that sets things in motion. We are of the same elemental forces that make up the universe.
Photography by Masha Kart
