Join me this fall for six Thursday evenings. You will leave with a four week class you can teach at your local yoga studio, library, health food store, medical or therapy clinic, community centre, or online. You’ll have class plans, handouts, practice scripts, and language that works with people who may have never been in a yoga studio or thought about their nervous system.
People in your community are already asking about this. They hear the words on podcasts and social media, and then they lie awake at three in the morning with a tight chest and no idea what to do about it. You can be the person who shows them.
Who this is for
Yoga teachers, meditation teachers, therapists and counsellors, coaches, nurses, social workers, school staff, recovery and peer support workers, and anyone who leads a group and wants something useful to offer.
You do not need a trauma certification or years of teaching behind you. We have experience with our own nervous system, we’ve established some ease in our breath, and this class shows you how to offer.
Our nervous system has one job
It is one hundred percent committed to keeping us alive. It has a negativity bias (better safe than sorry), and we constantly and unconsciously assess our level of safety and danger in our environment and with other people.
We are all uncomfortable with not knowing. Our mind will explore every possible worst case scenario, believing that will make us safer. This works against us. Our brain believes our thoughts, and we drain our energy imagining the worst.
Then we notice our body and realize we are holding our breath and our shoulders are up around our ears. We are in a survival response, preparing to flee or fight. We remember to breathe and enjoy some relief. You can bring that relief to your friends, family, students and community.
The depth of simplicity
Everything in this course is taught in plain language, on trauma informed foundations, without jargon. When we know our nervous system, breath and mind on a deep level, that is when we are able to make it simple for others.
Simple is what fills a room. The people who need this most are not looking for polyvagal theory. They want to know why they cannot sleep and what to do about it tonight.
What we cover
Education. The basics of regulating our nervous system, reconnecting with our body, survival responses of fight, flight, freeze and fawn, how trauma affects the brain, and how to explain all of it so everyday folks understand.
Practice. Live guided practice in every session, plus recordings, transcripts, handouts and class materials.
Teaching. You practice teaching with each other in class, then with family and friends before you take it out.
Materials. Handouts you can print, link to, or edit to make your own. Links to my guided practices on Insight Timer and scripts for making your own.
Filling your class. Where to teach, how to approach a venue, and what to expect.
Support. Questions are welcome during class and in my weekly office hours, Tuesdays at 4:30 p.m. Eastern. Office hours continue through the fall and winter, so you have somewhere to bring what comes up once you start teaching.
Filling your class
This is the part most of us worry about, so this is front and center.
A class description you can copy into a studio newsletter or a library events listing
An email to send a studio owner, clinic manager or library programmer, and what to expect back
What to charge, and how the numbers work for a four week class with eight or ten people
How a single free introductory session brings people in
What to do when only three people register
I built my own teaching practice this way. I gave talks on simple topics like Friends With Your Mind at libraries and health food stores, and people came, and some of them stayed with me for years. Libraries are looking for programming. Health food stores want a reason for people to walk in. Yoga studios want a midweek offering that is not an asana class. You are solving a problem for them, and that is a much easier conversation than asking for a favour.
What you can do with the material
You are welcome to use the handouts and scripts with your own students, and to edit them so they sound like you.
This is a continuing education course. You will finish with a certificate and CEU hours for Yoga Alliance.
You will be prepared with a class you can teach in your community.
All classes are live on Zoom with video replays and resource materials.
About Lynn
I have been teaching meditation and yoga for twenty eight years, and I specialize in holding a safe, trusted space for healing trauma in online groups and classes. I am a senior teacher in the Himalayan Yoga Meditation tradition and the founder of the Stillpoint Method of Healing Trauma.
My guided practices on Insight Timer have been played 767.2 thousand times. This year I published the revised book Friends With Your Mind, How To Stop Torturing Yourself With Your Thoughts.
I healed my own PTSD using these practices and I built my own successful business, so I am not teaching theory.
I live near family, ocean and forest in Nova Scotia.