Yoga for Trauma, Anxiety, Depression & Body Image 50-hour Advanced Training for Yoga Teachers

THE TRAINING HAS BOOKED OUT SINCE IT BEGAN IN 2019. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO BOOK EARLY OR JOIN THE PRIORITY LIST TO SECURE YOUR SPOT.

What is the training?

This 50-hour advanced training is for qualified yoga teachers, focusing on Yoga for Trauma, Anxiety, Depression, and Body Image. All modules are integrated from a person-centred, ethics-oriented, social-justice perspective. The course is designed to create deep shifts in the way you think about yoga, social justice and mental and spiritual health, and support you to be a confident facilitator of safe and empowering spaces for yoga to be shared in the context of challenging personal and psychological experiences in the lives of your students. The course is registered for 50-hours advanced training with Yoga Australia and attracts both CPD and teacher training hours.

 
Who is it for?

The training is designed for yoga teachers who genuinely want to feel confident and equipped to offer more specialised support for their students, but are unsure exactly how to refine their teaching skills to be most sensitive to working with complex and vulnerable situations and communities. If you’re among this community of teachers, then this course is tailored specifically to train you in these areas so you can feel confident and clear in your approach to mental health, trauma, and body image in your teaching.

A minimum certification of 200 hour yoga teaching is required to attend the course (teachers-in-training who are currently completing a minimum 200 hour certification may also enrol). The training is designed to ensure there’s plenty of opportunity for small and large groups discussions, as well as personal reflection, diverse learning methods and integration of content.

Based on contemporary research, social justice principles, and underpinned by the framework of the highly popular workshops and programs below (among many others), developed by your facilitator Sarah Ball who has been teaching yoga since 2003 and works 1:1 and with organisations and universities specialising in trauma, mental health, and eating issue/ body image recovery.

Modules and Topics Covered

Trauma Sensitive Yoga + Social Justice Principles for Yoga Teachers
-Yoga and Trauma: Understanding and applying the 4 primary principles of the Trauma Sensitive Yoga method
-Methods of working with the nervous system to create greater safety in individuals and groups
Introduction to trauma informed practice as a wider social movement in the ‘helping professions’.
-How yoga can be adapted in specific contexts to support trauma sensitive principle
-A suite of simple teaching principles and practices that can be integrated into daily life, group yoga classes, and 1:1 yoga sessions 
-Methods of teaching public yoga classes with a trauma-informed approach
-The scope of professional practice for yoga teachers in the field of mental health, trauma and body image.
-Bringing life experience to teaching: peer work and the appropriate use of self-disclosure and lived experience.
-Social Justice in Mental Health: The role of critical reflection in influencing how and what we teach
-Understanding power and privilege and intersectionality in yoga spaces
-Spiritual Bypassing – what is it, and how does it show up in the yoga world?
-Working with ‘shadow’ – our own and those of others
-Providing tools in the yoga space that encourage acceptance self-empowerment, connection, agency and change. 

Yoga for Anxiety, Depression & Mental Health 

-Mental Health through Multiple Lenses: yoga, western psychology and questioning pathology 
-Narratives of mental health: Ways of thinking about anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues using social justice and narrative approaches
-How to adapt yoga for anxiety reduction
-How to adapt yoga to support depression 
-The ecology of healing: The intersection of the koshas and ecological systems theory
-A bio-psycho-social framework for teaching yoga for mental health
-Working with the needs of the individual: avoiding a prescriptive approach
-When and why to avoid certain practices for specific mental health issues
-Specific practices and teaching methods that work with the nervous system to support relief from psychological and emotional experiences, including anxiety, depression, grief, anger, and burnout 
-How to structure classes to cater to diverse mental health needs in one space


Yoga for Body Image 

-Yoga and Body Image: How Yoga Harms, How Yoga Heals
-Unpacking the notion of the ‘Yoga Body’
-Identifying and responding to white privilege and the impact of racial injustice in yoga spaces
-Encouraging environments of body-positivity and body-acceptance in yoga classes, 1:1 sessions, and personal practice
-The Art of Facilitation: creating and sustaining a safe space
-Balancing acceptance and change in the yoga space
-Working with the damage wrought by the ‘transformation fantasy’ as it relates to the body and yoga in the west, while honouring the transcendent possibility of the practices 
-Practical approaches to welcoming difference and diversity in yoga spaces


Trauma-Informed Facilitation Skills, Program Development, Personal Practice + Self-Care
 
-Codependence in yoga teaching: how to work with the distress of others without moving to save or fix
-Sustaining our own practice and passion for this work
-Designing your own trauma informed programs
-How to work 1:1 with experiences of distress
-The art of therapeutic presence: how to work with the distress of others without moving to save or fix
-Moving beyond imposter syndrome: readiness to teach and knowing when you’re skilled enough to teach for specialised groups. 
-Moving beyond “doing good” and unsustainable activism. Learning how to work collaboratively to bring about change.
-Personal practice considerations
-How to surround yourself with ongoing support in this work: Supervision and Sangha 
-Cultivating active hope in the face of the difficulties of our students and communities

There is also plenty of time for discussion and questions, as well as ample opportunity to practice facilitating the methods and practices explored in the theoretical modules.

This course is registered for 50-hours advanced teacher training with Yoga Australia

Home study requirements to meet 50-hours of Training – (For In-Person Training Only)

The vast majority of the in-person course content (40 hours) is covered over the 4-day intensive. However, in order to meet the 50 hours of training and receive a certificate of 50-hours completion, the following activities are required as part of the in-person training (otherwise you will receive a certificate of 36-hours training).


IN-PERSON TRAINEES – YOU WILL NEED TO: Read the required text and at least one of the following recommended texts prior to the training. Please also keep notes of questions and key ideas as you read, to contribute to group discussions during the training.  
​
PRE-COURSE REQUIRED BOOK Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga by David Emerson and Elizabeth Hopper
 
OTHER PRE-COURSE BOOKS: CHOOSE AND READ AT LEAST ONE OF THE FOLLOWING TEXTS 

1. Yoga for Depression by Amy Weintraub
2. Yoga for Emotional Balance by Bo Forbes
3. Yoga and Body Image edited by Melanie Klein and Anna Guest-Jelley
4. Yoga and Psyche by Mariana Caplan
5. Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven

IS READING BOOKS NOT FOR YOU? PLEASE NOTE: If you feel that reading/listening to these texts is not possible for you for ANY reason (this includes learning difficulties or other life circumstances that might inhibit you from completing this part of the training), please get in touch to discuss alternative methods of meeting additional study requirements. The training is intended to be adaptive for the needs of all participants, so please do get in touch if you feel the home-study component may pose challenges for you.   

Also included in the training…

-Hard copy of course manual.
-Membership to a closed facebook group for ongoing peer feedback
and resource sharing beyond the training
-Optional priority booking for 1:1 mentoring with Sarah in-person
or on Skype following the training (limited number of spots available
as Sarah’s clinic is often booked out)
-Certificate of completion for 50-hours of advanced yoga teacher training 
 
Catered Option – 
Nourish yourself with our catered option and receive:
Daily yogi lunch special of spiced kitchari or a delicious wholefoods salad, 
Bliss ball, 
Smoothie of choice 
2 hot drinks

 About Sarah Ball

Sarah Ball is a registered senior yoga teacher with Yoga Australia. She has been teaching yoga since 2003, practicing since 1995, and regularly facilitates on level 1 and 2 yoga teacher trainings as well as yoga therapy trainings. Sarah is also a qualified social worker, counsellor, and art therapist, specialising in mental health, social justice, positive body image, eating disorders, and trauma recovery, who has developed the popular Yoga for Anxiety and Depression 8-week course, 4-week intro to Trauma Sensitive Yoga, and Body Love Yoga workshop programs. Sarah also teaches the trauma informed practice and mental health subjects in the Bachelor of Social Work program at the University of Wollongong. 

Sarah’s yoga courses and facilitation are informed by her extensive ongoing training in a wide variety of yoga approaches. Her programs offer a fusion of trauma-sensitive, body-positive, hatha, vinyasa flow, Vini, yoga therapy, and yin yoga methods, with an emphasis on the power of yoga to inform and transform our lives beyond the yoga mat. She is also an affiliate member of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition and senior facilitator and program developer for Off the Mat, Into the World Australia.

Sarah runs a private clinic in Bulli NSW and on Skype, working with counselling and yoga teacher mentoring, specialising in 1:1 and group therapy for anxiety, depression, trauma, body image, emotional eating and eating disorder recovery.

*Payment plans available, please contact the studio to request

Scholarship Places – SCHOLARSHIPS NOW FULL

Two partial scholarships are available at 50% off the training fee (total fee of $800 per scholarship place). Please apply only if you have sincere financial need. We are committed to cultivating a diversity of voices and life experiences in this training, and making it accessible to people of all income levels. 
 
These two scholarship places are offered to those who apply first who meet the guidelines listed below. Please feel free to apply for a scholarship place if: 
 
1.     You are a yoga professional (or mental health professional with a personal yoga practice) who has limited access to financial resources at this time. 
2.     You belong to – or identify with – a marginalised or under-represented community (this includes examples such as: Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islander; culturally or linguistically diverse; mental health diagnosis; refugee background; veterans; LGBTQTI+; sole parent; carer; person with diverse ability). Please feel free to apply if you feel you are not represented in this list of examples but experience marginalisation in your life in some way. 
3.     You are committed to learning about the principles of this training and intend to bring them to your own community through your own work or community programs in future.
 
NOTE: Please consider additional cost involved; travel and accommodation will be a separate fee that all participants must cover on their own. Please note the training dates and details above and have a plan for travel and accommodation.
 

Please email Sarah directly at info@sarahball.com.au to apply for a partial scholarship. 
Sarah will notify you via email if you are receiving a scholarship place, in which case you will need to enrol and make payment via the host studio asap or risk missing out on the scholarship!! 
We look forward to receiving your application. 

A message from Sarah to Egg Community about this upcoming training, listen here!