Life of Wellness Institute

Life of Wellness Institute We embrace the eight limbs of Yoga and provide our students with mentoring, tools, resources, and a

Welcome to the Life of Wellness Institute, a dedicated school sharing the transformative powers of Yoga, meditation, and holistic health. Embracing Viniyoga, Ayurveda, current science, and neuroscience, we integrate the Eight Limbs of Yoga to empower your journey. Our mission is to guide you in embodying a balanced life, filled with peace and confidence, ready to impart this gift to your students. With a caring and compassionate community, we foster sustainable transformation, healing, and support. Gain the knowledge and assurance to help others with confidence. Join the countless students whose lives have been profoundly changed through studying with us! Selecting the right Yoga Teacher Training is pivotal for your future in Yoga. Thank you for considering us as your path to growth and fulfillment.

09/25/2026

At least, that is not what I teach in my advanced yoga teacher training modules.

To me, an advanced yoga teacher is someone who has done enough of their own work to stay present, attuned, inclusive, and ethical when a room gets real.

They know how to sit with discomfort without rushing to fix it.

They understand their own triggers, patterns, biases, and wounds enough to notice when those things enter the space.

They know when to speak, when to listen, when to refer out, and when to say, “I don’t know.”

That is not weakness. That is integrity.

Advanced teaching asks us to stop performing expertise and start practicing presence.

It asks us to stay curious, humble, and willing to be wrong. It asks us to understand that the work does not stop when we become the teacher. In many ways, that is where the deeper work begins.

This is what we explore in Advanced Teaching Methodology: Ethics, Self-Care, and Presence.
We look at what it means to teach from true self, understand the Life of Wellness Methodology, deepen our relationship with Viniyoga, reflect on the qualities of a caring professional, and create a personal learning plan that supports your growth as a teacher.

This module gives you an advanced framework for stepping into your role as a yoga teacher with clarity, integrity, and sustainability.

You can take this module on its own for continuing education, or apply it toward the full 300hr Advanced Yoga Teacher Training.

Head to the link in bio to learn more, enrol, or book a free discovery call with me.

09/23/2026

Functional anatomy is about understanding how the body moves and supports itself in daily life.

It is about seeing the body as a whole system, not just a collection of parts. It is about understanding that the way we move affects everything: our nervous system, our digestion, our mood, our ability to show up for ourselves and others.

When we take a functional approach as a yoga teacher, we start with the person, not the pose or practice. We ask:

What is this body’s history?
What patterns has it learned?
What adaptations has it made?
Where is it holding tension?
Where is it bracing?
Where is it seeking support?
Where is it compensating?
What does it need right now to move with more ease or stability?

The body is designed to function in certain ways. It has a natural architecture: bones that support weight, joints that allow movement, muscles that create stability and mobility, fascia that connects everything together.

Myofascial lines run through the body, connecting far-apart areas and allowing the body to move as an integrated whole.

When one part of the body is tight or restricted, the entire system compensates.

A functional approach helps us work with these changes. It is not about forcing the body back to some idealized “normal.” It is about understanding where the body is right now and supporting its function.

That is what we explore in my upcoming module Functional Yoga Anatomy and Physiology. We look at how bodies actually move, how to support function, and how to work with real bodies with real histories.

If you’d like to learn more and register, you can find the link in my bio for module 203!

Our experiences cause us to have all these fragmented parts of ourselves, and yoga, well it’s the toolbox for our journe...
09/21/2026

Our experiences cause us to have all these fragmented parts of ourselves, and yoga, well it’s the toolbox for our journey back to wholeness.

In this way, Yoga is for everyone. Every body. Every moment of life. And it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

It is not precious. It is not exclusive. It doesn’t require a mat, or expensive clothing, or a particular body shape.

What it does ask us for is our curiosity. Our willingness to be with our experiences. All while offering support for how freaking hard that can be. It asks us to show up just as we are and dedicate ourselves to the practice of wholeness.

And in exchange, it helps us come home to ourselves. To hear what your body, your mind, and your heart are trying to tell you. To help you live a life you love, even when it is hard. To help you be with the parts of life that can really freaking suck.

And in this case, continuing to lean into this part of yoga helped my client process the shame she felt.

Through yoga, she continued to develop her self-compassion, to re-establish her ability to listen to her body, and care for the needs it was communicating.

This is what we explore in my upcoming module: Introduction to Trauma-Informed Yoga.

We look at how trauma can shape the body, breath, nervous system, and relationship to practice, and how yoga teachers, helpers, and practitioners can respond with more choice, agency, care, and skill.

This module is not about learning a script or adding “trauma-informed” to the way we describe our work. It is about learning how to notice more clearly, listen more honestly, cue with more care, and create practices that honour the person in front of us.

If this is the kind of yoga you want to understand more deeply, this module is a place to begin.

You can take Introduction to Trauma-Informed Yoga on its own, use it for continuing education, or apply it toward the full 200hr Yoga Teacher Training if you decide to continue.

Head to the link in bio to learn more or book a free call with me if you’d like to explore whether this module is the right next step for you.

09/19/2026

Yes, trauma does distort our relationship to our body. And yes, yoga can help us reconnect to ourselves in a way that feels safe enough to feel again.

But here is where I push back. He speaks in absolutes, which I cannot get behind. The framing of “traumatized people” as fragile, as though we need to be handled with kid gloves, as someone to tiptoe around. Frankly, that is not trauma-informed. That is trauma-reductionist. It holds people as broken, not as human beings with resilience, capacity, and for post traumatic growth.

Being trauma-informed is not a list of rules. It is not about avoiding certain poses or saying the “right” and not the “wrong” things. It is about meeting people where they are. It is about recognizing that each person’s relationship to their body is different and complex, and that healing can happen when we honour and care for that uniqueness.

After 30 years of working with people, and my own lived experience, what I have learned is that it is about knowing how to work with the window of tolerance. Knowing when to offer a challenge, when to offer rest, when to pendulate between activation and ease. It is about understanding that discomfort is not always something to avoid, and that growth happens at the edges of our capacity, not by pushing through it.

It is about recognizing the difference between resilience and post-traumatic growth. Resilience is about bouncing back. Post-traumatic growth is about the depth, wisdom, skills, and compassion that can emerge when we have been through something difficult and have found a way through. That is what we are here to cultivate. Not to protect people from ever feeling anything, but to be with them as they expand their capacity to be okay, to feel, to heal, to grow.

This is what our Trauma-Informed Yoga module is about. It is for teachers, therapists, helpers, and practitioners who want to learn how to do this work with skill, humility, and an understanding of the nervous system. Not by following a list of rules. But by learning how to be with people in a way that honours their humanity.

Learn more about the module by going to the link in bio!

09/16/2026

When we use props, we are not dumbing down the practice. We are honouring the body’s needs. In fact, props often help us to lean in and be with.

We are creating conditions where someone can experience the benefits of the pose without straining, forcing, or compromising their well-being.

We are also helping people learn how to care for themselves in their daily lives, as their practice does not end when they leave the mat.

Here is what I wish every yoga teacher understood:
Adaptation is not just for people with injuries or limitations. It is for everyone.

Every body is different. Every body changes from day to day, moment to moment. The person who could do a pose yesterday may not be able to do it today.

The person who has been practicing for ten years may want a prop in a pose they have done a thousand times. That is not a failure. That is being human.

Modifications are not a step down. They are a way of meeting the body as it is where it is. We are not offering modifications as a consolation prize.

We are offering them as a way to support someone’s experience, to help them find what they need in the moment.

The goal is not to get people out of props.

It is to help people find the support they need, so they can experience the pose in a way that serves them.

If someone uses a block in triangle pose every single time, they are not doing the pose “wrong.” They are doing it in a way that works for their body. And that is exactly right. That was always the point.

What are your thoughts on this?

An advanced yoga teacher knows that teaching is not about being the expert in the room.It is about being present and att...
09/14/2026

An advanced yoga teacher knows that teaching is not about being the expert in the room.

It is about being present and attuned. It is about being willing to not know. It is about being able to sit with someone’s pain, confusion, or fear without needing to fix it. They know that their presence is more important than their knowledge.

An advanced teacher is humble. They know they do not have all the answers. They know they will get it wrong sometimes. They are willing to repair, to apologize, to learn. They are not attached to being the “good” teacher. They are honest and humble enough to being a real one.

An advanced teacher also understands the limits of their role. They know when to refer out. They know when to say “I don’t know.” They know when to listen more and speak less. They stay within their scope of practice. They do not try to be a therapist, a healer, a nutritionist, or a saviour. They know that their job is not to heal anyone. It is to create conditions where people can begin to heal themselves.

An advanced teacher is willing to challenge their own beliefs and training. They do not cling to a single tradition, a single teacher, or a single way of doing things.

And an advanced teacher knows that the work never stops. There is no finish line. There is no point at which they have arrived. There is always more to learn, more to notice, more to unlearn. The practice is the path. And they walk it with humility, curiosity, and a willingness to keep showing up.

Inside Advanced Teaching Methodology: Ethics, Self-Care, and Presence, we explore what it means to teach from true self with more clarity, honesty, and sustainability.

This module is for yoga teachers, teachers-in-training, dedicated practitioners, and helping professionals who are ready to understand teaching beyond poses, class plans, and performance.

You can take this module on its own for continuing education, or apply it toward the full 300hr Advanced Yoga Teacher Training.

Advanced Teaching Methodology begins October 5.
Head to the link in bio to enrol or book a free discovery call with me.

09/11/2026

Self-care is a necessary part of being able to do this work.

Without it, we burn out. We become resentful. We lose our capacity to be present. We start to treat students as projects rather than people.

But self-care is not just about avoiding burnout. It is also about building capacity.

It is about strengthening our own nervous systems so we can be with more of life without being thrown off balance. It is about developing the internal resources to hold space for others without losing ourselves in the process.

We cannot offer what we do not have. If we are dysregulated, overwhelmed, or exhausted, we cannot help someone else regulate.

If we are not taking care of ourselves, we are not taking care of our students. And if we are not taking care of ourselves, we are not showing up as the teachers we want to be.

My upcoming module: Advanced Teaching Methodology: Ethics, Self-Care, and Presence was created for the teacher or clinician who wants to keep doing this work with integrity for the long haul.

Inside this module, we explore teacher presence, self-care, ethical practice, the Life of Wellness Methodology, Viniyoga, and the reflective work that helps you understand not just what you teach, but how you show up.

The module begins October 5 and can be taken on its own for continuing education or applied toward the full 300hr training.

Comment “EARLY BIRD” for the last chance to secure our early bird rate!

Or head to the link in bio to learn more or book a free call with me to explore if this training is right for you 💛

09/09/2026

Trauma-informed yoga isn’t a style, a checklist, or softer music. It’s a lens for how we see, cue, listen, and hold space for what’s actually happening inside someone.

Here’s what else I wish more people understood:

1️⃣ It’s not about fixing anyone. Yoga and somatic practices aren’t a panacea or a cure. This isn’t a conversation that fits neatly in a social post, so let’s start with what it actually looks like to work with someone through a trauma-informed lens.

2️⃣ It requires us to look at ourselves first. If we’re holding space for others, we need to understand our own nervous systems, our own activation triggers, our own patterns. Not perfection, honesty. Being willing to do our own work so we can show up with integrity, and so we can ethically prevent caregiver burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma.

3️⃣ It’s not about doing less or more. It’s about being more intentional. Understanding why we cue the way we cue, why we sequence the way we sequence, why we offer choices instead of demands. Taking the time to build real relationships with students and trusting that they know their own bodies better than we do.

Trauma-informed yoga asks us to understand the nervous system, the stress response, the window of tolerance, and what it means to support someone without assuming we know what they need.

It asks us to offer choice without attachment. To cue without commanding. To listen without fixing. To create the conditions for someone to notice what’s happening inside them, without being overwhelmed by it.

This is exactly what we explore in Introduction to Trauma-Informed Yoga, a live online module where we’ll look at how trauma shows up in the body and nervous system, how to recognize trauma responses, and how to use grounding, orienting, resourcing, co-regulation, and trauma-informed cueing in your own practice, teaching, or helping work.

Take it on its own, use it for continuing education, or apply it toward the full 200hr Yoga Teacher Training if you decide to continue.

We begin October 8.

Head to the link in bio to learn more, enrol, or book a free discovery call with me.

In the decades since, I have learned:Yoga is not about the poses. It never was.The poses are a tool, one of many. They a...
09/07/2026

In the decades since, I have learned:

Yoga is not about the poses. It never was.

The poses are a tool, one of many. They are not the point. The point is the experience. The point is the resistance. The point is the relationship you build with yourself through the practice.

Yoga is a toolbox. A collection of practices and ways of being that help us navigate the human experience.
It includes movement, yes. But it also includes breath, attention, stillness, reflection, and the capacity to be with what is.

It includes the hard stuff: the discomfort, the resistance, the parts of ourselves we would rather avoid or hide. And it includes the quieter things: the breath, our inner experience, the permission to be exactly where we are.

Somewhere along the way, the yoga community got that confused. We started believing that yoga was about flexibility. About aesthetics. About achieving something.

We turned a profound, ancient, multifaceted practice into a performance… something we could win at, or lose at.

That is not yoga. That is just another way of leaving ourselves.

And this is exactly why I believe foundations matter. For everyone who wants to deepen their practice, but especially for anyone who wants to teach or integrate this work into work they’re already doing with clients.
Before we teach yoga, apply yoga, or even deepen our own practice, we need to understand what yoga actually is.

Where it came from. How it has evolved. Why it was never meant to be reduced to shapes. And how these teachings can help us build a more compassionate relationship with our body, mind, nervous system, and life.

That is what we begin exploring in Yoga Foundations: Philosophy, History, and the Viniyoga Lens.

We begin on September 22nd and meet on Tuesday and Thursday nights for 5 sessions.

You can take this module on its own, use it for continuing education, or apply it toward the full 200hr Yoga Teacher Training if you decide to continue.

Head to the link in bio to learn more or book a free call with me so we can explore whether this is the right place for you to begin.

09/04/2026

It took a therapist, and a lot of honest, uncomfortable inner work, to help me recognize the ableist way I was approaching my own sensations, and how those expectations were not my original thoughts.

I had been taught to expect my body to function in a way that was never going to be mine. I was shaming myself for not being “normal,” whatever the hell that means.

Everything shifted when I stopped expecting things from my body and started working with what was actually there: my executive function, my neurodivergence, my trauma history, my real body.

That was adaptation.

Not as a pose, but as a way of being with myself that honoured the body and nervous system I actually had.

We often talk about adaptation in yoga as though it is just offering a different version of a pose or a prop. But adaptation is so much deeper than that.

It means bringing the practice to the body, not the body to the practice.

It means understanding that the body is not failing when it does not communicate the way a teacher’s cues tell you to expect it to. It may be protecting, adapting, overwhelmed or disconnected for good reasons.

This is one of the reasons trauma-informed yoga matters so deeply to me.

Because the right practice at the wrong time, with the wrong expectation, can and does cause harm.

And the right practice, offered with choice, agency, patience, curiosity over prescription and respect for the person in front of us, can help someone build a different relationship with themselves and their body.

Not by forcing them to feel or treating their body like a problem to solve, but by creating conditions where listening, curiosity, acceptance, and response become possible.

I am teaching a module this October called Introduction to Trauma-Informed Yoga, where we will explore this more.

We’ll look at how trauma can shape the body, nervous system, breath, attention and safety. We’ll learn how to recognize trauma responses, understand the window of tolerance, and use tools like grounding, orienting, resourcing, co-regulation, trauma-informed cueing, titration and adaptation to support connection instead of performance.

Comment “Trauma Informed” and I’ll send

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