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: Grace | Portugal Training
Her Experience in Our Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher Training in Portugal
Where do I even begin… I guess, the beginning…
After spending my first few days arriving in Portugal in the bustling city of Lisbon, I hopped on a train heading South. Embarking on my first School of Yoga Institute journey was full of both excitement and nerves, unknown interlaced with the familiarity of healing through yoga. Getting off the train at a tiny train station in Santa Clara-Seboia felt like a breath of fresh air. I wouldn’t consider myself a city girl, so arriving in my first small village location in Portugal instantly brought this wave of calm throughout my entire body. A shepherd and his flock of sheep jingling their way into an orange grove was my first greeting, a gentle foreshadowing of what the next week would bring. Next, a quick taxi drive to Monte De Orada yoga retreat center in the rolling hills just North of the Algarve. To say this location is stunning and carries with it a deep healing energy only barely encapsulates the feeling. Monte De Orada felt like coming home. The land, the cozy bungalows, the people, the food- I instantly felt my mind and body take a deep breath after a long travel day.
Now, to get into the real core of the experience. As gorgeous as the land was, as welcoming as the caretakers were, as delicious as the meals were, it was the group of incredible individuals I was about to share this deeply impactful journey with that really solidified the experience for me. Toward the end of our first group circle, after getting logistics and name-learning out of the way, I looked around me at the 11 individuals who took the leap to come join this experience alongside me. Yoga teachers, somatic therapists, occupational therapists, wildland fire fighters, those simply on their own healing journey… this unique collection of beings that, through all the twists and turns of life, ended up at Monte De Orada all together to learn and expand alongside eachother. And that is just what we did.
Our instructors, Jeanine and Brook, curated a curriculum that rode the line of professional space-holding guidance, learning how to facilitate moments of healing in nervous-system regulation, while at the same time guiding us through some of our own personal moments of healing. In this work, I learned these experiences go hand in hand. In this safe and loving container, the twelve of us students explored meditation practices, breathwork practices, titration asana practices, and expanded our understanding of nervous-system regulation and disregulation as a response to trauma.
A space of learning to recognize where trauma might be stored our bodies and how to move along the path of finding and working through triggers, requires trust, safety, open acceptance and patience. Jeanine and Brook did an incredible job guiding us through the waves of emotion, the multitude of thoughts and stories and patterns that arise through this work, all while keeping this tone of professional space-holding at the forefront. These topics can get heavy, they can be triggering and even a little scary. So, riding this line where we are all individually unpacking yet simultaneously finding our unique paths to equilibrium and homeostasis, is a delicate one. But, something in the universe lead us all to this experience at the same time. A sense of family quickly bonding us all and creating this newfound family.
The layout of SYI’s 50hr Trauma Informed Yoga Teacher training, a curriculum put together intentionally and meticulously by Jeanine and Brook, interwove classic practices of yoga (breathwork, meditation, asana) with ideas for healing trauma within the yogic space- including concepts of explicitly reminding individuals of their freedom of choice, clarity in instruction, practices in deep grounding, learning to up-regulate and down-reguate our nervous systems in a space that is safe to remind our bodies that we are in control. Recognizing trauma, learning to locate it within the body, and then starting down the path of healing is absolutely a unique experience for everyone. We all experience such different expressions of trauma responses, we all hold trauma in different areas of the body, and we all require different pathways to find security in the healing process.
Throughout this training, I was able to break through barriers that have been keeping me back in my own path of healing, while at the same time learning how to guide others and hold space for others in their own processes. This being one of my biggest take-aways from the whole experience- both of these can be true at once. Many things can be true at once. I can be on my own healing journey while simultaneously holding professional space for others to heal. I can experience sadness and heaviness, while at the same time experiencing joy, fulfillment and expansion. Many things can be true at once and one experience or feeling you might have, does not take away from another experience or feeling. For my personal journey, it’s been about ending the shame cycle and just letting myself feel how I feel, something that was celebrated in this training process. Celebrating feeling. Celebrating healing. Celebrating the journey. The journey back to our ventral vagal nervous system regulation, however we might get there. Celebrating coming back to ourselves, coming together, supporting community and giving ourselves grace along the way. Grounding, breathing, moving, stretching, nourishing.
This 50-hour training in the gorgeous land of Portugal brought me a lot of confidence. Jeanine and Brooke, and the eleven incredible souls that shared in this journey with me, helped me heal trust and continue on the path of reconnecting with my truest self so that I can continue to share knowledge and support people moving forward in this line of work. To say this experience was deeply impactful and nourishing of my soul and my heart, is the biggest understatement ever. It was a message from the universe that we can heal and feeling deeply and fully is a blessing. And as I continue to reflect from this experience, especially with everything unfolding around the world in the realm of politics and deep societal unrest, as so many people around the world are continuously experiencing new trauma responses, I am further reminded of the importance of this work and this type of community that the School of Yoga Institute is working to cultivate. I am so grateful that I made the choice to join this amazing group in Portugal for a week, so grateful for the group it brought together since I now have eleven new lifelong friendships and so grateful for Jeanine, Brook, the SYI behind the scenes crew, and the people who put so much love and intention into the land and the nourishment at Monte De Orada. What i life-changing experience that I will hold dearly to my heart for the rest of my life.