Hi, I am Kathryn (she/her), living in Springfield, IL, I wouldn't call it home, as I have lived in various states throughout my life, but home for now. I have been practicing yoga off and on for 15 years, and have always felt called to become an instructor. I think Prison Yoga Project found me when the time was right in my life. I have been a Social Worker for 16 years, and have worked in various settings domestic violence shelters, hospice, hospitals and palliative care. I am currently working in several county jails in central IL, as a mental health provider. My brother had been in and out of jail for years and unfortunately his addiction took hold, and he overdosed in 2021 after two years of sobriety. Yoga provided me some stability as I was grieving his loss and 3 months postpartum. I have two children ages 7 and 4, and as single mom navigating life right now is hard in the US. Yoga has always given me peace and comfort to connect my mind and body while going through the ups and downs in life. Working in the county jails, I want to be able to provide that same peace and comfort to the persons incarcerated, even if only 30-60 minutes a week. I am really looking forward to this training, (I am a nerd and love to learn new things) and learning more to be able to provide these services to others.
Hello from beautiful Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas!
My name is Sea, and I'm a nurse/paramedic student. I'm also someone who works with the unsheltered folks in my community and have recently started a nonprofit based around building community resources and education and destigmatizing existence. I'm here in large part because, although my practice has been sporadic through the years, yoga has really been a healing force in my life and I have often thought that it needs to come out from behind the paywall of yoga studios and out into my community where it is sorely needed. I learned about PYP from their work near me in the Pulaski County jail and have been so inspired by this work. The social action and - as someone else mentioned - radical compassion of this program has called to me in a big way, and I am so grateful for PYP and to be a part of this program.
Hi everyone,
I´m participating to this training from Finland, in the North Europe. I´m a mother of two sons, a yoga instructor, pictorial artist and an art educator for children. My yoga practice began last millennium (- always love to express it this way 😀 ) I´m very interested in energy work and love to play Tibetan bowls.
I got to know about PYP through Josefin Wikström, whose foundational training on trauma adapted yoga i participated in 2024. It was for me personally a place of growth and a great help with healing my active trauma, which I had been carring and accumulating since my childhood, and which is mainly a relational trauma. The psychological depth of the training was deepening my basic 200h YTT that I was doing the same time. So I became a bit more trauma aware yoga instructor from the very beginning of my career, than the average Finnish "skinny white female yoga teacher". And that has been with me all the way since then.
The reason why i wanted to do YTT in the first place was to deepen my own practice - to be able to plan my own sequence in a sustainable way, and not get physically crippled in a long term while practicing by myself. I became aware of this possibility through the lenses of another fellow human being, which was my trauma therapist. She told me that "I could imagine you as a yoga teacher". That turned my point of view around, and I started to grow towards this possibility. At that moment I was in the deepest hole in my life, and from that point I slowly started to climb back to ground level. (Not without strange choices and turnings on the path, though, and occasionally driving myself even deeper down the cliff, so this becoming reality took another year before I actually did it.) Eventually found the right trainings and begin to think I could actually have something to give and started to instruct yoga.
For the last 1,5 years I have been mainly instructing open yoga classes but my deeper goal is to offer even deeper help and support in healing to any groups of people who can use it, with yogic techniques that have been so healing for myself throughout the last 25 years or so. And of course to find out and learn more about them and how to use them in a sustainable way. To me my practise of yoga has been both healing but also facing how it can be used to manipulate and break one´s borders when one is vulnerable - like probably all somatic techniques at worst. So to me it´s always priority to guide people to listen and respect their own borders and what their own inner voice is whispering or shouting to them. This has been at the core of my own practice, which has transformed throughout the years. Yoga is more that a physical exercise, it´s a practice that can change your inner landscape and therefore the life of oneself and those around. Therefore this community feels important also for making this not only a personal growth but for building and strengthening communities.
In Finland we have quite different system in society than in US, and it is luckily not as usual to be incarcarated. This is a small country, and after the WW2 the society was built up to be a proud example of how the society can provide welfare to everyone. Free education and equality was an important value and available to all people to some degree. Yet we have had our blind spots and there has been also discrimination of minorities. But overall conditions have been good and we have a good society, which now I´m afraid is gone in a wrong track and more unequality and homelessness than for a hundred years, due to many reasons. Yet the conditions in prisons are challenges and too few people working with prisoners. Too much isolation and bad things happening are been reported in jails.
Finland has been in three wars within the last century and my grandparents generetion participated in the WW2. I think the society is still suffering from the collective trauma that I feel under my skin. We have difficult to be open and to connect with strangers, and we collectively suffer from this feeling of "us and them" and hence isolation and loneliness. This has been crippling for me all the way, since I was a child, and I see it all the time through my partner that is a foreigner. How it is difficult to get excepted as a member of society. How people can create clicks with like-minded and turn against those that they feel are different. I realize I´m very priviledged and have always had food in the table and possibilities for personal development easily available. Me and my family get the healthcare we need. But with awareness of social patterns we must start building a better community, where everyone feels accepted and safe just as they are. Hope to be part of this change of direction for humanity in my country and globally! Everything starts in the mind, and a small act can lead to big changes.
It touched my heart to hear everybody´s stories last night, thank you for sharing! I still feel the residue and feel so grateful to be part of this, thank you Jen for choosing me in <3 Hope to be able to be as open and honest during this process as you guys.
So thankful to be in this cohort with each of you and sad I could not make our live class yesterday; looking forward to the many to come. My name is Sadie Taylor and I recently moved from Nashville, TN back home to Iowa in Des Moines this summer.
I teach at the YMCA and have always loved exercise. Exercise has brought me through many difficult times. My life came to the intersection of trauma-informed exercise and criminal justice after becoming a foster parent in 2018. Seeing how much trauma, the need for informed healing spaces, and incarceration overlapped with the families of our fostered loves, intersected led me to this path.
I have two forever kids that came to our home in 2020 and have mothered many. We have 1 cat named Dragon and 1 pup named Ember. My kids attend an elementary school that is outdoors at an arboretum, which has been amazing to witness how healing this mode of learning has been for them. Nature has been so regulating to them to learn without that "fight or flight" response being triggered, like it unfortunately was in the typical classroom. We're very thankful for that opportunity for them and how many creative ways different people and different spaces are becoming trauma-informed.
I am a teacher for folks becoming licensed foster parents in the Des Moines area. Recently, I became an exercise instructor for a women's transitional prison center. This center has 3-4 dozen women that are finishing the last year of their sentences in a work-release program. Getting to help women connect more with their bodies after (often) drug-dependencies and years in prison has been truly sacred and I deeply want more tools to continually facilitate better. I am really looking forward to knowing more about yoga; especially because the women at the center love meditation.
My goal after becoming certified is to have the tools to facilitate a yoga class for the women at the center I work at. I would also love to offer a "caretaker and me" yoga class for children that were in foster care and then reunified with their family; as well as a yoga class for teenagers experiencing foster care.
Hello! I am Crystal. I am born and raised in Utah in the midwest USA. I am a mom, student, teacher, caregiver, seeker of knowledge, I love to learn about the body and all the parts that make it up from senses to diet to experience. HUMAN BODIES ARE SO COOL! I am 200 YTT certified and currently teach at my local gym, one studio and volunteer here and there for an event I help put on. Yoga is for every-body, yes the words separate! I believe that every-body can practice but needs to accept and honor where they are because it's so great to meet yourself there. Some of my family members have been incarcerated and some of my friends, I myself have never been and I always wished there was more I could do or I could crack their human code to try and get them to be well and stay well. Turns out it all starts with the person themself and I cannot do anything other than be present and support. I hope to bring people through the fog, out of their fight flight or freeze. I hope to learn more about the true healing that pugs brings to the body. Our body holds so much of our past and our outward reactions which are keys to unlocking something that's trapped within, something that needs to be recognized, validated, released and healed. that's where the true transformation comes in. If there's anything I need to unlearn I hope I am able to recognize it so that I can learn and transform. I envision myself in programs such as rehabilitation, incarceration, schools and daycares with the age range days or weeks told through end of life. Every-body deserves to feel good, every-body deserves yoga, the simple movement of embodying their body. Embodiment to remind yourself of your wholeness, how we were brought into this world is how I believe we are meant to end in this world, WHOLE!
Love this program, excited to finally be a part of it and make some serious changes to this world. Because I am so busy with school work and momming, I won't always be on the live recordings but I will do my best and I will catch up whenever I am unable to attend live (: AH this beautiful thing we call life. love it.
LOVE YA,
Crystal
Hi All,
I am so excited to read all about everyone and looking forward to connecting with everyone. My name is Alenna (she/her/hers), and I am currently in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but not for much longer. I have many years of cross-cultural community engagement and education experience in sexual and reproductive health with disadvantaged communities. I am a medical student and soon to be ObGyn resident, and I am passionate about trauma-informed healthcare and reproductive justice. I have now been practicing yoga for over 15 years, and this training seemed like the perfect fit to continue engaging in social-justice oriented work and expanding my own yoga practice with the hope of being able to share what I learn with my community and my future patients!
Hi everyone,
It’s really nice to meet you all.
My name is Joëlle (she/her), and I’m joining from Switzerland. I have both Swiss and Ivorian roots, and French is my first language. I’m continuing my journey with PYP, as I began the training with the last cohort, and I’m looking forward to another passionate and groundbreaking learning journey with you.
I discovered yoga during high school and love the connection it creates with myself. It allows me to pause and listen. I like processing my emotions through movement. I’ve practiced various sports over the years, including circus, and I’m always deeply drawn to artistic and embodied projects, especially when they bring together people from diverse backgrounds and realities.
I feel called to this training because it brings together so many values and fields that matter deeply to me: diversity, justice, yoga, human rights, and healing. I’m especially grateful for the culture of respect, care, and non-judgment that this space holds.
I do hope that one day I’ll teach yoga, perhaps in a prison context or with people living different realities. But I’ve come to realize that what I need most right now is to deepen the practice for myself, to explore, heal, and continue a conscious inner journey I began last year.
Due to my current schedule, I may not always be able to join the live sessions this time, but I’m really grateful to be here with you all 🙂
@liygalisgmail-com Hi Lisa! So happy to hear you say that! Where your favorite places in Chattanooga?
Hey everyone! My name is Amanda and I am from Ohio (United States). I am going to be 38 this year and I am a homeschooling Mama with a degree in education. I am also a professional photographer. There are so many reasons I feel called to this incredible mission including experiencing my own trauma, watching how it affects myself and others, and seeing the lack of education of self care and nervous system regulation that is lacking in our society. I have experienced first hand how yoga can heal trauma and I strongly believe that until we address that first, our society won't heal. Starting in jails is so needed, but also before it even gets to incarceration, I believe we all deserve the tools and education to be our best selves and have a life aligned with who we really are and not our trauma. I am looking forward to learning, growing and experiencing this journey with you all! It gives me so much hope and comfort knowing there are other like minded souls out there that are passionate about the same things!
Hi Susie, My oldest friend lived in Chattanooga for many years. I always loved visiting her there. Signal and Lookout mountains are extraordinary with their Native American and Civil War history and natural beauty. I've enjoyed the Hunter Museum, walking across the Walnut Street bridge to all the cool shops and cafes, and also Rembrandt's. There is this very soulful vibe in Chattanooga. Very mysterious. Very heavy. Now my friend lives in Florida, so who knows when I'll get there again. Sincerely, Lisa
Hello Everyone, My name is Phern and, I am joining this training from Oregon, US. I have been called to this training after years of seeing it advertised and, suddenly felt ready to dive in with all my energy and abilities. For me, there needed to be some things worked out in my own life before feeling confident enough.
Hi everyone, my name is Hannah, and I am from Glendale, California, but currently residing in Little Rock, Arkansas. I am beyond grateful to be a part of this cohort. I began my yoga journey in March of 2025, and my nervous system has been forever changed because of it.
I currently work at a nonprofit unhoused shelter as a children’s therapist, and I knew that in order to be fully present and immersed in the social work I do for others, I needed my mind and body to be regulated. I felt deeply drawn to the Prison Yoga Project because of its trauma-informed approach, and I believe I was called to be a part of this journey to help families heal their bodies.
Often, individuals in lower socioeconomic communities operate in a constant state of fight or flight and may not even know where to begin when it comes to healing their nervous systems. I’m excited to dive deep into this study and expand my knowledge and insights in ways I didn’t know were possible before.
Thank you so much for holding space. I’m really looking forward to getting to know everyone and going on this journey together with beautiful people from all walks of life. 🌻
@liygalisgmail-com That's so true! I used to work at Rembrandt's 🙂 LOOOVE how you describe the area. If you happen to pass on through, please reach out!
Hi Jen, i have a question about Lesson 9, topic 4, specifically this section copied below. I don't see any stock photos or images. Can you please clarify if I am missing something here. Thanks!
To exemplify the importance of the environment we create, observe the stock photos showing examples of hands-on assists offered in yoga classes. Consider how you would feel in each of these scenarios as the participant, facilitator, and an observer. Please be advised these images may be disturbing.
Hello everyone, I’m Nikky from Michigan I’m glad to be part of something so amazing as this!