Felicia Robey: Bondi yoga expert’s life-changing moment after mistaking stroke for panic attack

It “felt like a lightning strike” which altered a Bondi yogi’s life forever, after mistaking a stroke for a panic attack.

Bondi yoga expert Felicia Robey.

It “felt like a lightning strike” which altered a Bondi yogi’s life forever.

Felicia Robey was laying in her hospital bed, calling out for a sign, after she suffered a stroke while making food for her mother’s birthday in 2017.

She had no idea she was having a stroke at the time – instead, she mistook it a panic attack.

Ms Robey was 33 and the “surreal” moment came amid a state of confusion.

“(I) started to feel nauseous,” she told the Wentworth Courier.

“My partner at the time was about to head out and I just remember this overwhelming fear, as if I couldn’t be left alone.”

Still believing she was having a panic attack, Ms Robey knew “something wasn’t right”.

“I got really hot and tried to have a cold shower … but I kept insisting I needed a doctor,” she said.

Bondi Yoga expert Felicia Robey.

“We went to the GP and while I was in her office answering questions, it hit me.”

Ms Robey was taken to the hospital.

Having studied and worked in fashion design for various high-end Australian brands and companies, including Quiksilver, Ms Robey remembered looking down at her leg in hospital.

“(I was) thinking if I could get it to move again, I had to pivot my life towards what I truly wanted to do – yoga and owning a traditional health business,” she said.

“It felt like a lightning strike, that if I could regain full function – and knowing yoga would be the path to do it – I had to take it as a learning experience and new direction.”

Ms Robey said she became “disillusioned” with the fashion industry and “how unsustainable” it was.

Given her second chance, Ms Robey is adamant about passing on her knowledge and experience on to yoga students. With World Mental Health Day fast-approaching on Thursday, she said she believed yoga helps people mentally, emotionally and physically.

“Being able to surrender control, attachment, and ego, along with embracing the other practices of yoga, is what gives it its true essence, supporting anyone’s life, as it did mine,” Ms Robey said.

“Self-awareness is paramount — knowing something was wrong before it worsened is what helped me.”

Ms Robey, who teaches yoga at Bondi Junction’s Elixr Health Club, tells her students yoga is “the nectar” that kept her going through challenges, and it’s essential to “learn” and understand themselves.