About The Program

What is Trauma-Aware & Mental Health Yoga?

Trauma-Aware & Mental Health yoga is not meant to take you back to the origin of your pain. It is not a means to diagnose or provide treatment. Its goal is to assist you in being more mindful of your body's sensations. By doing so, you can then focus on releasing any accumulated emotions, stress, and tension.

Trauma-aware and Mental Health Yoga is an approach to create a safe, supportive space where students can build their confidence to learn and practice emotional regulation, emotional agility, and learn how to effectively work with their nervous system to consciously activate their parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system. TMH Yoga provides each student with the opportunity to feel safe in their body, in control of their emotions, and experience greater inner peace.

TMH teachers learn how to effectively guide their students so they can lessen their trauma response symptoms through the many tools that the practice of yoga, meditation, Yoga Nidra, sound healing, traditional breath practices, hypnosis, traditional Chinese medicine, and both Eastern and Western psychology offer.

What is the difference between Trauma-aware yoga & regular yoga?

Yoga offers numerous physical and mental health benefits, but a typical yoga class may not be suitable for everyone. Trauma-informed yoga can support post-traumatic growth and healing for trauma survivors. A yoga instructor who is trauma-aware and mindful of mental health will prioritize your experience within a yoga class rather than focusing solely on performance, sequences, or postures.

In many traditional yoga classes, students are often encouraged to work through any emotional discomfort that airses. However, trauma-aware & mental health yoga aims to create a safe space for individuals to recognize signs of dissociation and distress, and to pause whenever necessary. Teachers trained in trauma-informed & mental health yoga are equipped with techniques to allow this pause without affecting the overall atmosphere, sequence, or posture goals of the other students in the class.

What is Mental Health?

Mental health is crucial for a person's overall well-being, enabling them to cope with life's stresses, realize their abilities, and contribute to their community. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant increase in anxiety and depressive disorders. The number of people with depressive symptoms has risen from 193 million to 246 million, an increase of 28%, and those with anxiety disorders have increased from 298 million to 374 million, a 25% rise.

Mental health issues are prevalent worldwide, and many people may have experienced them or know someone who has. Common signs of poor mental health include feelings of worry, stress impacting sleep and appetite, depression symptoms, prolonged guilt, feelings of unworthiness, or an exaggerated sense of 'high'. Changes in sleep, weight, personal hygiene, or work/school activity may also indicate a mental health issue.

Mental health is fundamental to overall well-being, and practices like yoga can be beneficial for trauma healing and maintaining good mental health. Some insurance providers cover yoga classes, and corporate wellness programs, including yoga, are becoming more common.

What is Trauma?

When an individual experiences a highly stressful or frightening event that is difficult to cope with or control, it can lead to trauma. This event can be a one-time occurrence or an ongoing situation that persists over a long period of time. Trauma results in a lasting emotional response, which can impact a person's sense of safety, ability to regulate emotions, and capacity to navigate relationships.

The human body's reaction to trauma is natural and can be beneficial up to a certain point. Our body's stress responses have evolved to act as a personal bodyguard, alerting us to potential threats. However, problems arise when past experiences trigger this stress response.

Program Objectives

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Participants will gain a thorough understanding of achieving and maintaining a balanced state of mental health. They will comprehend complex and developmental trauma and PTSD, including the neuroscience, subconscious and conscious patterning and the nervous system imbalances that accompany both trauma and PTSD.

They will also learn, through mentorship and in-depth individual exploration, the reasons, methods, and timing for utilizing TMHY (Trauma-aware & Mental Health Yoga) as supportive management for complex and developmental trauma, PTSD, emotional regulation & to obtain a macro vision of life.

Participants will gain the knowledge and skills needed to conduct TMHY sessions for individuals and groups to assist those dealing with trauma, PTSD, or seeking emotional balance. The program will cover various techniques including curated sequences from restorative yoga, yin yoga, gentle yoga, chair yoga, wall yoga, yoga nidra, breath practices & meditation. After completing the program, students will be able to effectively deliver all techniques and learn how to market themselves as a TMH Yoga Teacher. 

What you get

• Lifetime access to our online learning platform

• Access to our initial meet-up and closing graduation meet-up

• Access to 8 live seminars (recorded in case you cannot attend the dates)

• Access to 16 recorded seminars/lectures, uploaded weekly

• An automated Calendar with your "Daily Do's", which are short practices with a written log of your experience

• Access to a schedule of live TMH Yoga Classes (presented during our initial meet-up)

• Connection to your peer group for support and enhancing your studying and learning process

• Printable mantras, including Vedic stories, as well as recorded mantras to learn how to guide the mantra to your individual clients or groups

• Unlimited email support during your training dates with your faculty mentor

• An opportunity to meet 1:1 with your faculty mentor 4 times throughout this program

• ​A printable program manual will be available for download from our program platform on July 7; this manual will serve as your guide for teaching.  It will contain your scripts for TMH Yoga Classes, meditations, breathwork practices, and Yoga Nidra that you can use as your own, as well as important teaching verbiage.  All other theory will be on our online learning platform.