Teacher Training In Yoga
Yoga has been a practice that has helped me in my life for more than 2 decades now.
At the start of this year, I deepened my yoga practice by travelling to Peru to complete my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, which was both enlightening and also solidified what I’d already learned by attending yoga classes. Unlocking the theory and philosophy of yoga and discussing and exploring it with fellow yogis was a breath of fresh air. It made me more excited to experience yoga with people who were new to the practice. To share what had helped me so much in my own life. I very much believe in yoga as a therapeutic tool.
I’ve recently taken this knowledge and depth of understanding of yoga to another level with a specialist intensive Yoga Teacher Training course in Restorative Yoga. These lesser-known forms of yoga are more meditative and about accessing stillness in a world where we are always on the go. Of course, any form of yoga has meditative qualities. Matching the breath with the movement as we move between asanas brings a mindful aspect to your physical practice.
Yoga makes us feel so great because it unifies the body and mind. Yoga = union. The modalities of Restorative Yoga and Yoga Nidra expand this union by taking the practice to subtler layers within the body. It’s like brain training to make us flow through life ultimately easier.
During mindful meditation, you are training yourself to notice thoughts and patterns as they come in. Notice and not judge and then release them. You do this over and over again, allowing each thought to then disappear as you sit in your practice.
It’s not easy. Thoughts do come; the mind never stays clear for long.
But you must notice and allow the thoughts to ‘be’, then leave. Not holding on. The longer you sit, the more physical discomfort you may feel. The practice is to be with that discomfort. Notice it, allow it to be then release it. Gradually you will notice yourself reacting differently in your daily life. You create more space between a thought and an action. You give yourself time to react in a more reasoned way, rather than instinctual reaction driven by emotion. The benefit of this personal growth is that life starts to feel easier. It flows better, because you are not in battle with yourself and fuelling your mind with worse case scenarios that aren’t there and reacting to those. You are acting from a calm place, it’s being supportive to yourself.
Yoga Nidra has overlaps between the two. It is a guided meditation that you do lying down, whereas mindfulness meditation is about focus, Nid is about surrender. The term Yoga Nidra stands for ‘yogic sleep’. It is a practice that journeys through different brain states in a structured and conscious way. So you may start with an active mind, wide awake and alert (Beta brain waves) and during the practice move to a Theta brain state (deep relaxation, memory processing, enhanced creativity) and to a Delta brain state (deep meditation, no dreaming, healing and regeneration, tissue repair, enhances concentration, motor performance and mood). During Yoga Nidra our mind moves around between modes, it is a continuum of states. Nidra is an adaptogenic practice, it adapts to suit the need of the individual engaging in it. Within a class one person may fall into sleep whereas another who is hoping to improve their productivity may feel refreshed and ready when they come out of a Nidra session. It can be used as a tool for transformation as well as deep repair.
I found this training fascinating, and it confirmed things that I’d learned outside of the training. It also gave me the techniques to use with clients to access these states of arousal. Having grown up in a household affected with brain injury and brain damage, I have experienced and observed first-hand what that means in terms of relating to and functioning with the outside world and the impact an impaired brain has on leading a fulfilling life. Taking control of your brain actively and your mindset rather than reacting to what life throws is incredibly empowering and a skill that we all have available to us if we make the time to devote to regular mindfulness practices.
