Meet Our Team
Committed to Guiding you on your Wellness Journey.
Stacey Litzen
OWNER & INSTRUCTOR
Certified yoga therapist Stacey combines extensive clinical training with 25 years of caregiving experience to support individuals facing chronic pain, stress, and complex health challenges as a certified yoga therapist. Her work, including her role in a McMaster University research project, reflects her commitment to evidence-informed, compassionate therapeutic care.
FULL BIO:
Stacey Litzen is a certified yoga therapist and Pain Care Aware certified. She is very passionate about helping others navigate their healing journeys and life afterwards. She dedicated 25 years of her life to homeschooling and supporting her children to reach their full potential. As her children transitioned to their own life paths, she turned her attention to spending the last 4 years, over 1000 hours of training and 250 hours of both group and individual practicum to become a yoga therapist. She is taking the same determination, positive attitude, and caring that she used to help her children succeed to support her clients. Whether it is recovering from cancer treatments, osteoarthritis, chronic pain, mobility challenges, sleep problems, menopause, stress, recovering from grief, PTSD, ADHD, anxiety or some other kind of physical, emotional or mental health issue that you would like help with, Stacey is there to guide you with her vast knowledge and experience, patience and a dash of humour (okay, maybe a little more than a dash). She is very excited to be the therapeutic yoga facilitator for the past year in a research project with McMaster University that is investigating how yoga and transcranial brain stimulation can help reduce chronic pain.
Joanna Chow-Fernandes
STUDENT ART THERAPIST
Joanna is a post-graduate student studying art psychotherapy at the Canadian International Institute of Art Therapy (CiiAT). She’s currently completing her practicum, working under the supervision of a Registered Art Therapist (RCAT) and Registered Psychotherapist (RP).
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Before entering the field of psychotherapy, Joanna spent over two decades working in corporate settings supporting people through high-pressure environments. As a neurodivergent, second-generation, Asian Canadian, and parent to two teenagers, she brings lived experience navigating identity, culture, grief, parenting, and relationships, to her work. My approach is relaxed, client-centred and strength-based, rooted in creative expression, mindfulness, emotional regulation, attachment, and connection.
MARY BAXTER
NIA & MELT INSTRUCTOR
Mary empowers people to feel healthier, happier, and more confident in their bodies by teaching Nia as a joyful, awareness-based movement practice that supports aging with grace and vitality.
FULL BIO:
Mary's mission is to help you feel healthier and happier in your body—to age with grace, power, pleasure, and confidence. She discovered Nia in 2001 as a fun way to move and to avoid knee surgery. Nearly 25 years later, Mary continues to experience—and witness in her longtime students—the deep benefits of moving with awareness and joy. When she’s not teaching, you’ll find Mary hiking local trails, planning and leading retreats and events, spending time with friends and family or attending courses and certifications to support her students.
SHANNON KELLY
PERSONAL TRAINER & FITNESS INSTRUCTOR
With a dynamic background as a former professional dancer and school teacher, Shannon brings both creativity and a passion for connection into every space she leads.
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Shannon is excited to be part of Horizon Yoga and Therapy Studio, where she guides participants to move, groove, and express themselves in fun, engaging ways. Blending artistry with a love of teaching, Shannon strives to create an inclusive environment where everyone feels energized, confident, and inspired to move.
CHRISTINA VAN DER VEEN
YOGA INSTRUCTOR
Christina began practicing yoga 11 years ago and found that yoga provided so many benefits to her life. Christina finds that whenever she comes to the mat, she leaves the mat improved in health and well-being.
FULL BIO:
As a rehabilitation therapist for over 30 years, working with persons with an acquired brain injury, Christina wanted to share the benefits of yoga with the community she holds dear and completed her 200 hour yoga training in 2018. She has also completed her 30 hour training in accessible yoga in 2019 and 14 hours of training in trauma informed yoga in 2022. She is currently enrolled in Yoga Therapist Training at Yoga Therapy Toronto; set to graduate in September 2027. Off the mat, you can find Christina working in her gardens, reading a book, walking her dog in the woods or spending time with the people she loves.