Founder’s Journey for Marla Pelletier
of Inward Office

Marla Pelletier is an entrepreneur, mindfulness expert, and advocate for improving mental and physical health through stress management and work-life integration. She is the Owner of Inward Office, a company that supports organizational wellbeing through classes in mindfulness, yoga, and fitness.

Established in 2006, Inward Office has served more than 50 companies in New York state with on-site and remote wellness classes at the workplace. Inward Office’s classes teach tangible techniques that fit a company’s culture, with the goal of improving morale and increasing employee engagement. The exercises are a method through which employees learn stress resilience, body movement, and mindfulness. 

Despite their community reach, Pelletier admits that Inward Office is not a big company. This makes Inward Office highly adaptable. They pride themselves on being approachable, accessible, and open to collaboration with all of their stakeholders.We partner with insurance brokers, wellness consultants, and HR directors to establish the company’s goals. “In many cases, for the participants, we are the first step off of the couch. For our instructors and I, it’s all about supporting the individual person,” she explains. 

Her company’s main goals are to teach techniques that improve inner resilience, manage physical and mental stress, and foster healthy lifestyles. Marla does this in a way that is integrative: looking at the person as a whole not just in terms of work or home life. 

Inward Office offers live classes, workshops and special events that are both virtual and in-person. The class schedule is customized for each organization. 

“The virtual experience is for busy parents or people who want to do this every day but can’t commute or are more hesitant to go back in person,” says Pelletier. “It’s the convenience factor and our mid-day yoga classes are doable in only half an hour.” 

In-person, Pelletier says, is a “whole different level of engagement” supporting participants in their exploration of diverse movement and expanding their established practice. Accountability is a big benefit of in-person classes, as communities of wellness develop right in class. 

Pelletier enjoys collaborating with new clients, educating on the myriad techniques, and, like an agent, matching organizations' needs with one of the 30+ instructors that are a part of the Inward Office network. 

Her vision for the future is one where we each have an arsenal of self-care techniques that helps us integrate our daily experiences. She is motivated to educate others on the transformative power of yoga, knowing full well all of the ups and downs we go through in life.

Pelletier has had many ups and downs over the years. Her journey includes taking care of three parents as they were dying, having four kids within 8 years, raising four children, while her husband regularly deployed and coping with the stressors that those deployments can have on the individual and a marriage. 

“There were 10 very tumultuous years where I went through the ringer and had to test all of these tools,” says Pelletier. “ And that’s what I did. The awareness that developed through difficulty has created a depth in my practice and the ability to empathize with a variety of people and life situations.”

The “jewel” within those negative experiences was that the tools worked!  She learned to lean on the yoga-based tools to actively manage her mental and physical health. Pelletier teaches from a place of honesty, authenticity, experience, and respect for the practice. “All of these times I had to use yoga-based tools actively to manage my mental and physical health,” says Pelletier, “and it helped me stay off of prescription drugs and avoid ending up in the hospital myself.” 

For Pelletier, her process of developing self-awareness and learning the language of our emotions and physical body is what she now teaches to her students. 

She focuses on listening, interoceptive awareness, and noticing what's alive in the present moment to keep herself grounded daily. Pelletier’s philosophy of gently bringing people into their own senses to perceive what is going on inside, takes courage and kindness to notice everything that is inside the inner experience. 

“As we develop awareness, we begin to notice the decision points we have,” Pelletier says. “That thoughts create choice and actions don’t immediately have to follow thoughts. This can be highly impactful: it can influence how we handle a job interview, how we react in an argument, and how we choose to connect in our close relationships.”

“Work-life integration speaks to how we digest and live our lives. Stress from home and work is not separated… we need times of micro-resetting and micro-digesting of life so we can release that stress.” 

“My feeling is that most people are living in their heads: believing all the thoughts in their stream of consciousness,” she says. “ Reconnecting with our senses, for instance, has a powerful effect on coming into contact with what’s real in our life. Not just the reality of our thoughts.” 

By recognizing that our home life impacts our work life and work life impacts our home life, Pelletier believes that we can learn to integrate all of that and then let it go. “This all came to the forefront with the Covid-19 pandemic: work lives in our home, children, dogs, house repairs, weather, anything is now immediately a part of our work life. Integration is a holistic approach to managing all of that.”

Pelletier originally studied yoga at an Ashram in Kerala, India, received her yoga certification in Mysore, India, and has more than 1,000 hours of yoga teacher training. She continues to deepen her study by regularly returning to her ancestral homeland, India, where her grandparents and father grew up. Pelletier has also spent time studying yoga at the foot of the Himalayas on the Ganges River in Rishikesh, India. 

Pelletier strives to continue honoring her Indian heritage and bringing more diversity and inclusion into the wellness space as a woman entrepreneur. 

For more information, connect with Marla Pelletier on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/inwardofficeyoga/ and visit www.inwardoffice.com.