Understanding Trauma for Safer Spaces

20hr Berlin Trauma-informed Facilitator training from Legacy Motion

for all body workers, including yoga teachers and Alexander Technique teachers

hosted at English Yoga Berlin

When: September 8th to 10th, 2023

This training is more than an education, it is a practical learning experience to
transform your offering and the spaces you occupy.
This experience will offer you immediate tools, methods, and
interventions to instantly cultivate a more trauma-informed approach in
your current studio, classes, business, organization, and/or offerings.
It is an integrative and holistic approach to discovering the connections
between empowerment and resilience through personal exploration,
invitational language, safe space creation, supportive solutions, and
facilitating choice-making.

What is Trauma-Informed?

Trauma is an experience shared by all; whether you have experienced it
firsthand or know people who have experienced it, it is something we come
into contact with any time we work with humans. It is our responsibility to
know and understand the impacts trauma has on individuals and
communities as well as how behaviours manifest and how we can work
alongside them and support people in every field and industry. This training
gives you foundational tools and insights into what it means to be human and
interact with others in a way that promotes safety, dignity, and belonging.
Trauma-informed means taking into account past trauma and the
resulting coping mechanisms when attempting to understand the
behaviours of those we are working alongside. It means bringing empathy
and compassion to every interaction and creating a safe and accessible
space for all.

During this training participants will discover:

● How trauma anatomically affects the nervous system
● How to identify trauma symptoms and trigger responses
● Tools to promote biological resiliency, self-regulation and resolution
● Protocol and best practices in the field
● Invitational language
● Community building and outreach methods
● Ahimsa and the importance of self-care
● How to create a safe space
● Teaching methods for classrooms, yoga studios, healthcare
practitioners, etc

In order to earn your Certificate of Completion, you must be present
for all training days and complete all written assignments by the
scheduled due date. These guidelines for completion are to ensure
that we are building a safe and robust community during this
transformational learning experience.

Who is this Berlin Trauma-informed training for?

~ Suitable for – Yoga Teachers, Body Workers, Coaches

This 20HR training is foundational training, offering you the methods and
interventions to instantly cultivate a more trauma-informed approach in your
current studio and offerings. For yoga teachers and those in the health & wellness
industry, this training will allow you to understand the physiology behind trauma
and how to facilitate safe spaces for all.

~ Suitable for – Mental Health Practitioners, Community Social Workers,
Psychologists

Professional training for those in the mental health or health care industry to
incorporate the body and movement-based practices into your offerings and
work. This training will allow those working with members of the public to
understand the physiology behind trauma and how to work with individuals in a
safe manner for all. This training will allow you to understand trauma from a
bottom-up approach, allowing us to understand the body and how it is affected
during certain circumstances and events (mentally, physically and emotionally).

~ Suitable for – Human Resource Professionals, Managers, Business Owners.

“Trauma is an emotional injury that affects performance and well-being.”
Integrating trauma-informed principles into an organization means operating
from a place of understanding trauma, and recognizing the negative effects
of the trauma within the organization and in the communities it works within.
As a business professional, understanding trauma’s impacts on the workforce,
and how to approach organizational processes from a trauma-informed lens,
means mitigating the harm that is so often perpetuated through a
misunderstanding of human behaviour. It means creating a safe and
supportive work environment for all to thrive.

How to register?

Follow this link to look at prices and registration process:

Find out more:

Click here to find out more details about our facilitator, the modules studied, the time table, sliding scale prices etc.

Practicing Breath

practicing breath

Practicing Breath

The idea of “practicing breath” is one that’s often heard in yoga classes. But what does it really mean?

Aren’t we always breathing?

In the novel Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins writes about two characters, Alobar and Kudra, who learn techniques of immortality, one of them a slow, controlled breathing practice. I often think about them as I breathe the way I’ve learned through years of yoga practice. And no, I’m not doing it because I want to be immortal!

I started practicing yoga about 20 years ago. I’d follow along with the breathing techniques in classes, and feel their immediate effects; more openness in my body, a greater sense of calm, more energy, and sometimes just pure bliss. But I started to understand why they were so important only more recently as the practice became more a part of my daily life.

Breathing as Pain Alleviation

I’d struggled for years with pain from of endometriosis. And a few years ago I began a weekly practice of Osho Kundalini Meditation. Through this, I learned techniques of relaxation of the pelvic muscles, which helped to reduce the pain. As I would go through the exercises, I started to realize that it was my breathing that brought me to the relaxation. The deep yoga breath made me more conscious of where I was holding physical tension in my body and in invited me to release that tension. I don’t practice the Osho technique anymore, but as soon as I start feeling the pain from endometriosis, I take deep breaths and focus on relaxing my pelvic muscles. The pain quickly dissipates. I’m not saying that this could work for everyone, as not all pain is because of tension. But it works for me.

Breathing to Reduce Anxiety

Another thing that deep conscious breathing helps me with is anxiety. As an introvert, I feel the pressure of social anxiety in crowds of people. It’s easy to take a drink or too in social settings to numb that, and though I’m a yoga teacher, I’m not against that, as it does help me relax! But there are other situations where anxiety creeps up on me too. In these cases, a minute or two of deep controlled and conscious breathing help to me feel a bit more at ease. It’s not perfect, but that little bit does help me to function better.

Breathing as a Healing Practice

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been learning about restorative yoga and its healing potential. Allowing our bodies to rest through deep relaxation and conscious breath can support us in recovering from illnesses faster, reducing stress and anxiety, boost our immune systems and make us stronger. Last year, I began an advanced yoga teacher training, the Svastha Yoga Therapie program. What I’ve learned in the first couple of modules was invaluable. I’m excited for the 3rd and 4th modules which I will attend this year, which are all about the breath. I look forward to continuing to learn more about how the breath can heal.

Practicing Breath

The idea of practicing breath is not something unique to yoga, but it’s one that we focus on in yoga classes. Once or twice a week, we get together, breathe and move together. We learn various breathing techniques in a class lead by a knowledge guide. But then what happens when we leave? Do we go back to our short breaths, hunching shoulders up to ears while waiting for the bus in the cold? Holding our breath when someone makes us angry? My idea of practicing breath is about being conscious and aware of how I’m breathing in the moment. I try, when I can, to take this practice out of the yoga studio and into my daily life. It may not change the world and all society’s problems. But it can help me to deal with it better, and get strong to fight back against it in a way that is productive.

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Juli teaches restorative yoga and vinyasa flow at English Yoga Berlin in our Kreuzberg yoga studio.