Hilaire began her yoga journey in the 1990s at the original YogaWorks in Santa Monica, where she trained in the alignment-based discipline of Maty Ezraty. Blending this rigorous foundation with her own intuitive approach, she developed a practice rooted in honesty, self-inquiry, and healing. In 2004, a powerful meditation experience revealed something was deeply wrong with her body—an intuition that doctors initially dismissed. Trusting what her practice had taught her to see within herself, she persisted until she was diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma. Her journey through multiple surgeries and treatments, including a full thyroidectomy and lymph node removal, placed her among the most severe cases. During this time, she also endured the devastating loss of her younger brother. Through every challenge, her yoga and meditation practice became the tools that helped her navigate illness, grief, and survival.

With more than three decades of yoga practice and teaching, she now approaches yoga as a path toward deep healing and self-awareness. She spent over twenty years building community through Hilltop Yoga in Michigan and Chicago, guiding students with an intuitive teaching style that meets people where they are. Having lived through profound trauma and recovery—including eleven surgeries and sixteen years of living with cancer before reaching remission—she teaches from lived experience. Her work centers on helping students see themselves clearly, process life’s challenges, and reconnect with their authentic selves. She believes yoga is not about perfection, but about creating the awareness and compassion needed to heal and experience joy.