One of the biggest takeaways was around language and choice in facilitation. In the past, I have invited participants to simply “take a nap” if that's what they need (after all, we are all different), but now I feel like I have more intentional and inclusive language. I can normalize different ways of engaging in our classes—stillness, visualization, breathwork—not just movement. Offering participants the freedom to move, pause, or adapt as needed feels sooooo important. Learning about invitational cueing is especially helpful and aligns with how we want & need to hold space for each other.  Thank you!

I also appreciated the reminder that although this is called the Prison Yoga Project, this work applies to any and all populations. We work with any human who has a nervous system!

This week’s reflection also brought up even more personal awareness. I can see how much of my life I have “white-knuckled” my way through. In this next chapter, I am really practicing balance, Brahmacharya, and gratitude. I am learning how to feel safe in my body and to reduce my stress responses, especially my tendency toward flight or fawn. It feels very meaningful to shift out of survival patterns and into something more sustainable.  This is true yoga, true GROWTH.

Hearing other women and mothers in the cohort share their experiences has been validating and inspiring, too! It reminds me that we are not alone in this work. I also found myself reflecting on my own history and how much has changed over the past decade. Being sober for ten years has given me a different lens to look at my life with more clarity and compassion.

Luke’s open & honest reflection on strength really stayed with me—that strength can look like saying no, saying yes, letting go, being honest, apologizing, and forgiving. That reframed strength in a way that feels much more aligned with my deep beliefs. The practice of yoga is not just physical...it is emotional, mental, and relational. It is the BALANCE between effort and ease on and off the mat.

In my own practice, I'm finding myself drawing more and more to slower, breath-centered, restorative work. This training is helping me slow down, feel more, and stay present. That, in itself, feels like a significant shift.

Brahmacharya is moderation, awareness, and not reaching outside of ourselves for something to fix or "complete" us. It is noticing the pull toward “more, more, MORE” and instead clearly choosing something more balanced, more organic, more simple, more spiritual, more internal.  This is true empowerment!

Namaste, Maggie

I am excited to have the sequencing guide and think it will help tremendously in appropriately creating and building sequences as well as programs for those I teach. It’s great to have structure to work off of especially as we begin our work as teachers so I am excited to use this. It’s also helpful as we work through this new process of healing-centered yoga to see the various parts in action and I think I will use the guide and then modify by adding new poses or variations as I get more comfortable.  

• Strength & Mobility:
  
  

I really enjoyed this practice and it helped me to realize something I have always really appreciated as I’ve built my yoga practice. Coming to yoga as more of an athlete initially, I definitely saw strength as this pushing ourselves to the max idea. However, as I have practiced yoga more and more for many years, I have learned to see how you can both strengthen and soften into a pose and how you can really use that strength edge so differently than in more traditional ideas of exercise and strength.

• Brahmacharya (Non-Excess):

Brahmacharya is so interesting to me because to me it really represents this ideal balance, where you can enjoy things but not need too much. I think for me, it’s something I really seek in my life as a Libra who really loves a balance in so many parts of my life. So for me non-excess is not forcing myself to withhold something but also not having that strong need for something and coming to a balance where you can enjoy something but also be okay without it. In my personal life, I definitely have worked a lot with this in speaking – I am very opinionated and I also grew up younger sibling and youngest in the family. It took a long time for me to really get my voice heard and then I think for many years, I felt this need to be sure my opinions and voice were heard. So over the last several years, I have worked on this balance between holding space to hear other’s and take in what others have to say while also developing my specific voice and opinion and knowing when I feel it’s important to share versus hold back.

I think particularly as a yoga teacher I see Brahmacharya as that idea of not trying to be or do too much as a teacher. You just have to show up as your best and most true self that day and share what you are able to share in the time that arrives with the people who show up. That might not look like what you expected it to look like for so many reasons, but I think by using this in our teaching we can really show up and provide exactly what is needed and what we can give rather than trying to be the perfect teacher.

Bramacharya to me is moderation and using my energy right. I have a very addictive, obsessive compulsive personality and learning about Bramacharya in my former YTT was so eye opening to me and helped me a ton stop obsessing over things I can't control and learning how to curve my mind when it wants to obsess. 

Looking at page 66 of the facilitators guide I notice words and cues from past instructors coming to mind, to explain / guide through the practice and transition from each posture. Jen’s cues were nurturing, encouraging and permissive, allowing me to be in my body and to move slowly and gently with myself. I can say I truly felt my muscles activate or release. For example, I cannot say I have ever paid attention or felt mind muscle connection in warrior two. I may have felt my quad activate (burn) but that was it and today’s practice allowed me the chance to feel all the muscles activating in warrior two. Today’s practice allowed me the chance to feel the true strength in my body. It allowed me to feel accessible ways to my strength (despite my mind judging) I can access strength in simpler, more accessible forms. After this session, I now think to be strong, means to find balance between the simpler more accessible forms and the full expression/more challenging forms. To know my limits of challenging myself because its good for me, versus when I am simply challenging myself and pushing myself because its what I have always done. The latter feels rooted in harm (stealing from myself, not speaking my truth, the opposite of ahimsa).  

I really appreciate everyone's reflections and honesty around the conversation what strength means to them. This conversation unraveled me quite a bit. In hindsight, it actually just allowed me to soften and let go. Thank you all, I look forward to sharing space later today. 

Best, Lizzy

What stood out for me is that even though I mostly teach for stability and endurance since helping mom heal after a bad fall. She had three surgeries on her dominate arm/wrist because the seemingly simple fall did so much damage. Since last year and with this training I have been more encouraged to keep going with strength and safety based movements. When we are able to create more balance and stability in others, it comes back to us. 

After my children moved out and I was left with an apartment of "stuff" I realized it didn't fulfill me as much as the humans that were no longer there to enjoy it with me. I have since become a minimalist and it allows me to feel lighter internally. Only having what I need has improved my life as a travelling yoga teacher and student. 

I´m still a couple of weeks behind and catching up...

Feeling like swimming in abundance of life :-D

Excess, yes it is.

Grateful of all good that has come across my path. Grateful of this training. Even if I´m behind, it´s still with me every day, shaping my relation to the practice of yoga.

Looking forward of studying the facilitating guide more deeply. It seems very deep and practical, both good things :-)

I´m happy of the amount of choice in sequencing with the guide. I haven´t looked in it yet by myself (yet), but it seems like there´s freedom of creating the sequence in my own style. This will give better chances to develop one´s own style of guiding trauma-informed yoga.

It´s also helpful to have all the suitable practices introduced, making it easier to choose the safe poses and to make a bvalances class.

Strength...

I haven´t always believed I had any of it. Been more of a shadow than a real human. But that has changed: I am more able to stand on my own two legs now than some years ago. I feel the connection with the earth through those legs, and she now is a strong support. I used to cry and mourn over the terrible stuff people (me included) do to her. And it made me hate myself and become more distant with the good stuff in humanity, and myself.

Becoming aware of trauma has made me stronger. In the light of that knowledge, all pieces fit. The puzzle isn´t a beauty, but it makes a hell of a story!

To trust people is strength. And the ability to decide, which individuals are good to you.

To believe in the inner voice is strength. To let the little sound be heard with awareness. I´ve been learning so many lessons, and still struggling! But the cosmos seems to be forgiving, giving new possibilities to try. And of course, again, it´s not meant to be only easy.

In yoga practice... it´s important to focus in finding the inner strength. To know oneself. Knowing what´s good and healthy for oneself.

And mobility. How is my body mobile - and how is it not? What is the range of movement that I´m able to reach, and what is naturally out of reach?

Brahmacharya, non-excess...

It is excess to guide a 75 minute yin yoga class with 18 asanas. (I´ve done that. X-D )

A yoga class should be simple: moments of silence / stillness. Moments of emptiness. Even in a dynamic class.

One might be practising too much of asana and too little yamas and niyamas. Is there usually space in a regular yoga class to reflect on yoga philosophy? Do people actuallly study it?

I have been suffering of non-excess all my life, because I was raised up to eat more than enough and had so many toys that I felt guilty: I didn´t have a possibility to play with all of them... I really believed they suffered from it. And of course my children have also excess of toys, sweets, telly. But they are not (hopefully) as lonely as I was, so they don´t have to imagine their toys are actually alive. (Of course it´s a fascinating idea.) 

In this era of excess one needs a strong moral support. Yoga offers one of the best.

I am reflecting on this as it relates to what the group shared about wanting to be the "perfect" facilitator. While there have been times when I do feel in touch with that inner wholeness, I've found myself struggling with the feeling of not-enough-ness lately as I'm really experimenting with being a teacher/group facilitator/leader. As I do this YTT training and in my other work, this is bringing up a feelings of lack and needing to do more/learn more/be more in order to be worthy of the space I take up here and in my professional life. This feeling of lack makes sense, because of not having a lot of resources when I was younger and having struggled to even imagine doing the work that I do or having the opportunities that I have now. It's challenging to feel in touch with that wholeness right now, but I think using my practice as a place to get curious about what that feeling could look like is a good start.