SOMATIC YOGA TEACHER TRAINING Student Testimonials
Read our student’s reflections. Each voice reflects a lived experience of embodied learning, inquiry, and trauma-informed practice.
Student Testimonial: Farah | Mexico Training
Her Experience in Our Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher Training in Mexico
Before
I’m not exactly sure how to begin this. Somehow I found myself in the jungle of Tulum for ten days with a group of strangers who would soon become a kind of mirror. I had planned this training retreat months ago, thinking that by the time it came around, I’d be “done” with my major “issues”, “healed”, whole, and ready to teach yoga. But as I often tell my clients (and apparently need to remind myself), healing doesn’t work that way. It’s never a finish line. It’s always in the becoming.
Outside of my love for yoga in the physical form and what the practice brought to my life, a big part of what brought me to this training was my relationship with my body, and specifically, with smoking. For years, I secretly smoked as a way to regulate, to numb, to escape. I justified it culturally, ritualized it emotionally, and didn’t realize how dependent I’d become. Even when I did, I couldn’t stop. It felt like I deserved that escape, like I needed it to get through the pain.
Until one day, it stopped working. The numbness wore off. I started to feel like I was harming myself. My body was showing signs of stress. Even my Oura ring confirmed it (ah), but I kept going. I would quit for months, relapse, quit again, and spiral in shame.
Eventually, I met my own helplessness. That dark, quiet place where everything in you wants to stop trying. But from that place, I chose life again. I chose this training. And I arrived in Tulum with one month of being nicotine-free, a tender heart, and a body in process. I didn’t come for a certification. I came for a reset I didn’t even realize I was ready for.
During
When I arrived, I was greeted with a dreamcatcher, a symbol I hadn’t seen since childhood. I used to believe in them deeply. Maybe I still do. Maybe the dreams are different now. I met my roommates and quickly remembered how much my body needs stillness and silence, things that aren’t always available in shared spaces. I encountered heat, bugs, scorpions, and my own discomfort. And somehow, I stayed. I softened. I began practicing what we preach in trauma-informed yoga: choice, awareness, and compassion.
Toward the end of the training, when it was time for peer teaching, I chose to lead a yin yoga class. With yin yoga specifically led by the two amazing instructors for SYI, something cracked open. The stillness held me in a way I hadn’t been holding myself. I started to feel again, not just emotionally, but physically. I noticed where I clench, where I grip, where I abandon myself without realizing it. We practiced sequencing, breathwork, alignment, philosophy, and accessibility. But more than anything, what hit me was the permission – to move slowly, to not perform and to feel.
The training followed a daily rhythm: personal practice, lecture on yoga philosophy or trauma-informed principles, asana labs where we applied what we learned, nourishing meals, and evening practices. We were given space to rest, time to integrate, and opportunities to lead. Even the way our days were structured reflected trauma-informed values.
After
I’m back now, and I can feel that something in me has shifted. I’m not trying to rush into a new version of myself. I’m trying to honor this one. I don’t need to explain or justify my healing to anyone. And I don’t need to chase connection to feel seen. This training wasn’t just about teaching yoga. It was about remembering that my body is worthy of devotion. That rest is not lazy. That silence is not absence. That discomfort is not failure. And that wholeness is a practice. I’m integrating slowly…still tender. Still stretching into a life that feels good to live in. But I’m here with myself. I cannot wait to share this informed yoga approach with my private clients and sexual assault victims from the rape crisis center I work at.
This training offered tools, language, and space. More than that, it offered reflection. It mirrored back to me the places I had outgrown, the parts I was still protecting, and the power I carry when I root into presence. Some people see yoga as purely physical, just a workout or sweat – but for those of us whose souls are calling for more, for those who’ve lived through silence, shame, and survival, trauma-informed yoga isn’t just a modality. It’s a homecoming.