Description

This Yoga Alliance® certified training is ideal for 200/300/500 hr registered yoga teachers and yoga therapists are designed to immerse you in a retreat environment while upgrading your skills. So you can work safely and therapeutically with those suffering from anxiety, depression, grief, PTSD, CPTSD and unresolved trauma from abuse, surgery, injury, accidents or difficult birth and support students' healing in classes, retreats, or as private clients. We also welcome participants who are not yet yoga teachers, but who would like to understand how to be more trauma-informed in their practice and personal development.

Led by social activist and senior teacher Atira Tan, MA, SEP, 500 E-RYT, TED speaker and #1 Best Selling Author, founder of Art to Healing, a charity dedicated to providing psychological support and recovery to sex traffic survivors, and Yoga for Freedom, together with other guest teachers,  this teacher training is both a profound and powerful journey of professional and personal development.

"This is a very, very high quality, professional training. Atira and her team offer heartfelt, powerful teaching that really changes the lives of the marginalized communities they serve. 

I don’t think you will see yoga in the same way after this training."

- Merle Joseph, Yoga Teacher,  United Kingdom

Over the course of the 10-day training, we'll explore the following 6 modules with psycho-education, somatic psychology, yoga asanas, pranayama, yogic philosophy,  mentorship, and more:

1. What is trauma: how it interrupts and impacts our ability to relax, react, and respond

2. Signs of trauma: how the body holds and shows signs of trauma

3. Touch and trauma: how it can harm or heal

4. Trauma-sensitive language: what to say, what not to say, and why

5. Cross-cultural sensitivity & community yoga: taking your trauma-informed yoga to the world

6.  Supervised classes and evaluation: practice teaching of trauma-informed yoga as well as learning clinical skills of observation.

Daily yoga, pranayama, somatic experiential exercises, combined with hands-on-dyad's, classes, and lectures to provide a deep understanding of the impact unresolved trauma has on the mind, body, nervous system, ability to voice one’s needs and effect on our capacity for compassion.

You’ll learn to spot patterns of physical and physiological withholding to identify bodies that are at risk of being traumatized.

You'll discover how certain asana, pranayama, and meditation practices can actually cause further suffering or injury, and how the language used in class can trigger constriction and fear rather than trust and relaxation.

As teachers or therapists, you’ll improve your ability to be a therapeutic presence to cultivate a safe, supportive space and to promote deeper healing and peace in the world.

This training will equip you with the skills to attune your classes or private sessions to work safely and therapeutically with those suffering from anxiety, depression, grief, PTSD, CPTSD, and unresolved trauma from abuse, surgery, injury, accidents, or difficult pregnancy and birth. 

In addition, you'll learn how to address the general population of students who are unaware of how trauma is impacting their mental and physical well-being and ability to deepen their own practice.

More on our curriculum can be found here.

More information on the program can be found at www.atiratan.com

Please note that this training will also be complemented with reading and homework assignments, observation classes, and practice teaching classes in your community. 

Words from Previous Students

“Since the training, it’s been really exciting. I‘ve been teaching a trauma-informed yoga class at a private counseling center for rape survivors, and I just got hired to teach at an outpatient treatment facility.  I’ve also partnered with a local counselor and we’re offering CEU classes for mental health professionals to learn how they can incorporate trauma-informed yoga techniques into their sessions.”

- Lisa Orozco, Equine Therapist & Yoga Teacher, USA

“Both Gemini and Atira are not only great yoga teachers, they know so much about trauma and how to teach yoga accordingly. I’ve learned so much more than I could have ever expected. They both have amazing personalities, lovely laughter, and a great sense of humor, and their standards and ethics are really high. I’d really recommend this trauma-informed yoga teacher training to anyone interested in healing traumas of their own and others.”

– Hanne Lyngholm, Social Worker & Yoga Teacher, Denmark

“What a life-changing experience. This training is a true treasure of knowledge and wisdom and shared with a caring and loving presence. The depth of insights into a variety of tools to create safer spaces is the most I have ever experienced in any training. But besides the theoretical teachings, what touched me the most was how space was held and naturally became the soil for our personal softening into the journey. And with that, we were able to truly experience the effect of a teacher who fully embodies what she teaches. And that is a priceless gift I will benefit from for the rest of my life.”

– Florianne Wohlfahrt, Psychologist, Trauma-Informed Life, and Integration Coach, Holland.