The Woman Behind Wild Ground
I did not begin in the world of self-compassion.
I began in the cockpit of an F/A-18E Super Hornet.
For twenty-two years, I have served as a United States Navy Officer and fighter pilot — trained for precision, performance, discipline, and control. My life was built in the masculine world on structure, strategy, and strength.
And yet, somewhere between takeoffs and landings, I began to feel another story pressing at the edges.
I began teaching yoga in 2008 while deployed aboard an aircraft carrier — guiding fellow pilots and friends through breath and movement in the belly of a warship.
Steel outside.
Stillness inside.
What began as shared practice became a reckoning.
Yoga was not an escape from intensity.
It was an initiation into regeneration.
Rewriting the Story
There comes a moment when the roles that once defined you no longer contain you.
The high achiever.
The leader.
The strong one.
The composed one.
For me, rewriting my story meant allowing both worlds to exist — strength and softness, structure and wildness.
It meant walking directly into shadow work.
Into identity unraveling.
Into vulnerability that could not be performed.
The work was not poetic.
It was blood, sweat, tears, and humbling.
But it was real.
I will not promise a quick fix or an escape here. But everything I offer at Wild Ground is simply an opportunity to be in community with others - staring at an unburdened blank page and feeling the quiet anticipation to write a new story.
From Walkabout Yoga to Wild Ground
I created Walkabout Yoga in 2012 to share retreats, online courses, and teacher trainings across the world.
Over time, that work evolved.
What I saw — again and again — were women standing at the same threshold I had stood at:
Successful. Capable. Strong.
And quietly questioning the script they had inherited.
Wild Ground was born from that recognition.
This is not a departure from my past.
It is an integration of it.
The discipline of the military.
The devotion of yoga.
The art of storytelling.
The fire of transformation.
All of it lives here.
What I Believe
I believe women do not need reinvention.
They need permission to rewrite.
I believe leadership begins in the body.
I believe refinement does not cage wildness.
I believe discipline and depth are not opposites.
I believe strength can be soft and still be unshakable.
Most of all, I believe that when a woman stops outsourcing authority, everything changes.
Wild Ground exists for that moment.
“I now come to peace through and in the chaos of the moment.”
- Annette Hulefeld
My Work
I am proud to stand in the wake of debris from former lives and prior versions of self - knowing each one led right to this placement today. To teach yoga worldwide, sharing retreats, storytelling, poetry, inner exploration and creating trainings from lessons hard won.
My teaching is dynamic, visceral, and intuitive — rooted in intelligent physical transitions and deep inner work. I believe in alchemy: in transforming lead into gold through shadow exploration and radical self-honesty.
My work integrates:
Advanced embodied practice
Emotional and psychological depth work
Sustaining oneself financially and energetically
Regeneration and nurturing creativity
Nervous system awareness
Wild Woman Archetype (work by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés)
Honest vulnerability
Leadership development and collaboration
Retreat facilitation and group holding
I have been featured in The New York Times and Yoga Journal, and have collaborated with individuals and organizations including Robert Sturman, Gaiam, The Give Back Yoga Foundation, Warriors for Healing, and Team RWB. I’ve contributed to initiatives like Yoga for Military Warriors, the woman owned brand KiraGrace, and served as a cover model for Yoga for Warriors by Beryl Bender Birch.
But credentials are not what built Wild Ground.
Hope and seasoning did.
