Yoga For Trauma: The Inner Fire of Yoga

Yoga For Trauma Season 1 Guest Highlights | Ep 20

• Liz Albanis - Senior Yoga Teacher • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Welcome to the finale of Season 1 - Yoga For Trauma: The Inner Fire of Yoga. A  celebration of transformation, truth, and the fire that burns within. This wrap-up episode features curated highlights from each guest who appeared on in 2025. Liz Albanis reflects on the wisdom shared by a diverse and inspiring group of yoga teachers. Yoga therapists, mental health advocates. And spiritual seekers from Australia, Germany the US, and beyond. Together, they explored the intersection of yoga, trauma recovery, mental health, nervous system regulation, sustainable wellbeing, and the deep inner inquiry that leads to transformation.

“Half of you burnt down with the fire.” – a metaphor that defines the soul of Season 1.

In This Episode, You’ll Hear From:

Rebel Tucker  On losing her brother to suicide, pain management through yoga therapy, and reclaiming the roots of yoga beyond modern trends. Website

Melinda Ferrier on the emotional weight of clutter, KonMari mindfulness, and how trauma can show up in our homes. Website

Lisa Weller on the trauma of surviving Cyclone Alfred, off-the-mat practice, and the nervous system’s recovery post-disaster. Website

Michelle Deiner on toxins in our homes, the truth about “BPA-free,” and how environmental wellness supports mental health. Linktree

Justine Janssen on teaching with presence, the need to simplify vinyasa, and honouring authenticity in class themes. Linktree

Doro Baumfalk on her initial dislike of yoga, using journaling in classes, trauma-informed teaching, and misunderstood triggers like Child’s Pose. Website

Karen Fabian  on the importance of mindset in yoga teaching, the hidden trauma many teachers carry, and how current yoga teacher training structures often overlook key emotional and psychological foundations. Karen also shares thoughts on teaching style, receiving feedback, and how the yoga path is ultimately one of personal development and self-discovery. Website

Rob Dorgan on the personal transformation sparked by self-inquiry and meditation, the symbolism of fire, and how growth often precedes big life changes. Website

Brian Sachetta on self-guided exposure therapy for anxiety, EMDR concepts in daily life, and the neurological truth behind “thought resistance.” Website

Todd McLaughlin on surviving cults and near-death experiences, questioning dogma in yoga, and breaking free from glorified suffering. Website

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She said, you burnt down with the fire? And I said, no, I'm still here physically, you know, she said, half of you burnt down with the fire.

And I said, yes, that's it. And she said that fire. Is a theme of your life and it's here to teach you something and to help you learn to burn away what's no longer serving you. 

Welcome to the final episode of Season One, yoga for Trauma, the Inner Fire of Yoga, and what a first season it's been. It has been this year's passion project for me, one of the most rewarding and fulfilling things I've ever done. Something I never thought I would be capable. Of doing, but thanks to the power of yoga, I finally had the confidence to do something incredible like this [00:01:00] to anyone else who's ever had a podcast.

Hats off to you. It's a lot of work. More work than a lot of us think it will be, but it can be a very fulfilling thing to do. To share the changes you wanna see in this world and to share insights, lessons you've learnt and your guests to help the greater good. Of the world. So, this wrap up episode is a celebration, a heartfelt tribute to the inspiring voices, brilliant minds and generous hearts who join me on the mic.

This year. I've had the absolute pleasure of sitting down where some remarkable guests from here in Australia, one in Germany, one Australian who resides currently in the UK, and a few lovely people from the United States. Each one bringing their own wisdom, vulnerability, and passion to the conversation.

Whether we explored yoga, [00:02:00] therapy, trauma, personal transformation, nervous system regulation, sustainable self-care, meditation, mental health in general, miss season helped create a richer understanding of what it means to live well and show up in our lives better. So in this special episode, I'm sharing some of my favourite snippets and why, and making it into a bit of a compilation in honour of my guests, my audience, and the show itself.

A bit of a highlight reel of season one. It's a chance to reflect, laugh. Yes, there are a few jokes in there. And remember the many truths shared to every guest who's had a chat with me. Thank you. Your stories and teachings have left an imprint, and I'm so grateful to your time and trust to every listener.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing time with myself and my guests. Your curiosity, support, and [00:03:00] open-hearted presence are what makes this podcast more than just a show. It's a shared journey.

 Before you start listening, please use caution. This episode includes conversations about depression anxiety, suicide violence house fires and a discussion on near death experiences, religious cults, sexual and physical abuse in the modern yoga world, and could be distressing for some listeners. Please take care. If you are struggling, please see a licensed healthcare professional or if in Australia to call Lifeline on one three triple one four.

The views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the hosts, Liz Albanis. The content shared in these conversations is intended for informational and educational purposes only, and it's not suitable for listeners under the age of 18. Please use [00:04:00] discretion and consult a qualified professional before making changes to your health or wellness routine.

Let's take a look at the magic of season one. Yoga for trauma. The inner fire of yoga.

My first guest on the show was a long-term colleague and friend, Rebel Tucker, board member of Yoga Australia, who I'm also proud to be a member with as a registered senior yoga teacher, and she's also a naturopath senior yoga teacher and a yoga therapist. She explained the importance of self-inquiry, especially after. The loss of her brother to suicide many years ago, they had me in shock and how yoga has helped to dial down pain for herself personally and with many yoga therapy clients, simple [00:05:00] practices.

And that a lot of yoga practices, are science backed. Her concerns about modern yoga tips for people who are trying to start a yoga practice. Benefits of Yoga Australia. And some of the issues in today's modern world with yoga teacher trainings some of the misconceptions about yoga, some of the concerns about people who. Call themself, breathwork practitioners, here's a little snippet. 

I was about 25 years old when my brother, he was almost 25, and he took his own life. He had been diagnosed back then with manic depression and yoga was the thing [00:06:00] that allowed me to accept what was going on. To be able to ask some of the tough questions of the universe and of myself, and to feel like I had a rock to ground me, it gave me acceptance of loss.

And it certainly gave me practices to still my wandering mind at that time.

For me, yoga is inclusive of Vedanta, and Vedantta to me is the great inquiring questions. The Maha, who am I? What's this all about? These sort of questions to, to me, are are ones that I have certainly let myself sit with and to experience water rises. I've got many experiences, both personally, but with some of my yoga therapy clients recently, and a lovely lady who was housebound due to chronic pain and chronic fatigue, and we just gave her some simple yoga practices.

We realised quite quickly that [00:07:00] the things that worked for her were some of our ana arm techniques, so the breathing techniques and some meditation techniques.

These things enabled her to quiet her mind, but also her nervous system, and we were able to get her out of the house and attending physical yoga sessions in a studio. Wow. Yeah. The things that she found most useful were some of the traditional Hatha yoga kriya style meditations where we are developing concentration on the breath and the feel of the subtle movement of energy within the body.

This helped her dial down her pain quite a bit, there's been some great studies done in regards to the way the brain changes with pain and then how the practices of yoga can actually begin to very encouragingly bring the brain back to a more normal looking brain [00:08:00] through the practices of yoga.

Mark Singleton and James Mal both have contributed or written a book called The The Roots of Yoga, and they do discuss the history of yoga and their conclusion is. I'm not gonna say exactly firmly that yoga existed prior to the advent of the ramification of yoga into something like Hinduism or Jainism or Sufism and the likes, but that the collective practices of yoga certainly would.

Well before and have been demonstrated to have existed through archaeological artifacts prior to the advent of religion, and that in and of themselves are not religious practices, but essentially an intuition science for living life.

 Modern postural yoga has become this behemoth of a thing where the focus is on extreme flexibility and mobility and great postures. 

Getting ourselves to a yoga class can be a [00:09:00] feat in and of itself in a busy world. And if we can just embrace the simple things in the practice looking for the quality of curiosity that we bring to that practice, be curious about what the yoga is doing for you, what the physical practices are doing for your body.

What the breathwork practices and the visualizations and meditative practices are doing for your mind and begin to self-value. What's this doing for me? How's it serving me? Then it becomes about what yoga can do for you as opposed to how entertained am I?

To my mind, we've gotta listen to the people, the professionals in the industry, and gather up the grand majority collective of where people wanna move this profession.

Do that together. A few members on a board doing their best to volunteer their time, we might move and shake it a little bit, but when we've got [00:10:00] membership behind us and we're listening collectively to our members, that's where we've become a real force for good for yoga in Australia. The more members the better. There has been the circumstance of somebody who's had a beautiful career doing something completely different.

All of a sudden deciding they'd like to be a yoga teacher and within the scope of a month has a beautiful website set up, and all of a sudden they're teaching people how to be yoga teachers. Now, yoga's not something you can just get and learn and share and pass on in a month. Yoga's a, a lifelong.

Dedication to the study and practice of yoga and all its philosophies and and practices, and to think that we could just do that within a month, it would behove us all to be discerning consumers and perhaps look for a stamp of approval. Yoga Australia members have a little icon, little logo thing that they can demonstrate to the public by way.

Putting it on their social media or their website to show that they've had the requisite training and they've done that minimum training. of the most encouraging [00:11:00] things is that there's now a growing body of evidence to show that yoga is quite efficacious in things like mental health, but also with things like stress management, cardiovascular conditions, pain, anxiety.

Depression, some mood disorders. So, there's a growing body of evidence to show that actually yoga, yoga has a great science space. It's more than a hippie woowoo thing. One of the things that I think yoga teachers might also need to consider is that we've got some practices that have been longstanding, practices that have been around for thousands of years, and we've seen recently an explosion in breath work practices.

I call them the huffy puffy breathwork practices. They're quite hyperventilated and some of the way people are practicing these things and the language that goes with it doesn't really match the science behind what they're actually doing. So, I'd like to see that yoga reclaims breathwork, quite personally, I think that we are the original, but prana arm practices.

And what is that? [00:12:00] That is prana. Energy, life force vitality. I Yama is the illumination of, or yama the control of prana. How do we learn to control, um, prana within the body? We use best practices to do that. To really know that yoga is more than for the body, it's for the mind and it's for the subtle body.

And then my next guest on April 28th, 2025, was my friend and colleague . Mel Ferrier, who's in Tasmania, Australia, former psychologist, certified Kon Mari consultant, and a professional organiser.

She shared some light on the profound impact clutter can have on your mental health. Not to mention, one really funny story Mel shared about one of her clients that gave her a good laugh and me a [00:13:00] laugh too. And also an amazing result. From doing her signature 12 week coaching program,

and how being a psychologist has helped enhance her skills with what she does with decluttering. And I find her inspiring given her marathon running.  I like the fact how the Kon Mari method emphasises mindfulness and gratitude and the lessons it's taught you. here's a little snippet.

Decluttering isn't just about our stuff. It is really deeply tied to our mindset, our habits, our emotions. And so what I find is really important to do is really to help my clients understand why they're holding onto things, whether it's out of fear or guilt, or identity attachment. And so by understanding that, then they can [00:14:00] make peace with letting go of items. And often my clients are stuck with overwhelm or anxiety or decision fatigue, and so I can use some techniques to help them reframe their thinking and reduce their anxiety and help them to take action so that they feel like they're empowered.

Sometimes people accumulate to feel safe and then others can't let go because the items. Uh, sort of attached to memories or identity, but for those who've been through traumatic experiences, the items may serve as a reminder of safer or more stable times.

I was a late bloomer with running, so I discovered it in my mid forties. And then I was approaching 50 and I thought I have to do a marathon before I turn 50. So I did. I ran New York Marathon and then I, then I think I [00:15:00] became slightly obsessed with marathon running.

I've run London and Berlin, uh, Dublin, Queenstown and new. New Zealand and Tokyo. I love the challenge of marathon running. Plus I also think that it teaches you discipline and resilience and how to push through discomfort and survive, 

When you talk about discomfort and discipline. Yes. That's what has helped me with my yoga. The discomfort of staying in a hot room for 90 minutes at 40 degrees helped me cope with uncomfortable feelings and being uncomfortable and giving me the courage and the discipline to quit smoking. So that aligns with that. I

With the Kon Mari method, we are focused on what we wanna keep and what sparks joy. So, we do ask that question, does this spark joy? Does this item serve a purpose in my life? Is it going to [00:16:00]support me to live the life that I want to live? It's a positive reframe, so then it becomes a much more enjoyable activity rather than a chore of thinking about what I'm going to get rid of.

And it's very mindful. So, you do need to touch and feel and consider every single item in your home. So, it teaches you mindfulness, which is skill. Yes. Precursor to emptying the mind for meditation. Ah, I know the clutter has an effect on mental health because after I survive the fire in 2024, I had been panicking or dressing that we might get burgled because of the crime.

And I thought, how am I gonna cope with this item? And what if they steal this valuable item? So I thought after the fire, the worst thing for me would be losing precious things like my wedding dress. And a painting that was over 50 years old that my parents gave me, but it wasn't the [00:17:00] worst thing effect it had on my mental health was actually the hardest thing for me.

It was a bit of a natural declutter, but it also taught me that clutter and possessions can really affect our mental health because what we possess. Can off and possess us, it can own us more than we own it.

It really showed the linkage between clutter and mental health. Is there a link to how trauma can manifest in the way people accumulate and hold onto things? What can often happen is trauma can create sort of deep emotional attachments to objects because they can feel like an anchor of security.

Sometimes people accumulate to feel safe and then others can't let go because the items. Uh, sort of attached to memories or identity. Those who've been through traumatic experiences, the items may serve as a [00:18:00] reminder of safer or more stable times. So, it might be a coping mechanism to hold on to those items, if that makes sense.

Okay. That's interesting. So, they could be more prone to clutter. Yes, they could be, but that's okay. I think if you've been through a traumatic experience, you've gotta be, I think, really kind and self-compassionate to yourself. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you don't need to rush into this. Um, so take the time that you need to work through those emotions.

And so one of the key elements of the Kon Mari method is when we let go of items, we express gratitude.

We thank the item for the service that it's provided. Or if it hasn't provided any service, 'cause the tags feel on it. We thank the item for the lesson that it was taught us. So, it's really important to do that sort of mindful thinking about when you're releasing an item, if you haven't used it, why didn't you use it, [00:19:00] and what was the situation that brought you to buy that item so that you can learn from that.

One of the ladies who did my 12 week program. She actually, in the first few weeks, we do clothing and she actually found an envelope with $3,000. Tucked in the wardrobe she had forgotten about. She actually said, when people ask her now what her hobby is, she says, decluttering.

So she's constantly looking. She'll pull a drawer out and she'll think, Hmm, what's not sparking joy? We were working through her kitchen boxes.

She pulled out this pan, which to me looked like it had never been used. And I said, oh, tell me the story of this pan. And she said, oh, this is an excellent plan for cooking steaks. It's the perfect size and it's just really good for steaks. And I said, [00:20:00] fantastic. When was the last time you used it? And she, she pause and then she did laugh and she said. I don't cook steaks.

I had another colleague and friend, Lisa Weller, join me as a guest. She is also a senior yoga teacher like me and a yin star like me, as we met on a yin yoga training with the one and only Jo Phee Lisa is also a qualified yoga therapist. She was one of the reasons I was inspired to commence my studies as yoga therapist. Lisa emphasized about the importance of taking your yoga off your mat and her experience of surviving a cyclone Alfred in Australia up in Queensland, and how it affected herself and others in the community. 

 Yoga isn't just your 30 minutes or your 60 minutes on your mat. I think that it's important at some [00:21:00] stage to create that understanding around that what it looks like from the outside isn't necessarily what it feels like on the inside. You don't always need for people to understand, but I think it's just that feeling of someone saying, are you okay? when there's times when you have things that are outside of your control, it's quite natural for your body to contract. So I know in in my own body, physically I felt that my muscles were really tight. I felt quite rigid in my body and I think it's sort of in that protective kind of mode that bracing.

And one thing I have noticed in the last week or so is even though we've come through the other side. A lot of people, myself included, feel really, really tired. All of every single little reserve of energy that you have existing in your body, everything, I guess, that week while you're bracing and preparing, and it's all unknown.

Every little reserve of energy that you have, in a sense is used in a way just to get you through to the other side, and then when you finally get through to the other side. Yes, there [00:22:00] is that way of release, but it doesn't mean that what you've been holding onto in, in that short space of time, it's like that, the residual effect, it's just, it's not like an on and off switch or on and off button and takes time for all that to unravel.

I had Michelle Deiner. Chat to me. She's an Australian ox coach and building biologist naturopath, and I was really inspired by the fact that she started doing what she does because of adversity.

And what she said about BPA free is something a lot of us need to hear that and what she said about pot plants, indoor pot plants. Now I'm not so fast with indoor pot plants, they're just outside and I really don't worry. 

What started it was my sister Nicole, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 29.

Because she was so young and we were so close, we did a lot of exploration together around [00:23:00]why she had cancer. Not in a self-pitying way, but in a, why has this happened? Why cancer? Why not another disease? Why breast not somewhere else? What's behind it? And in all the research I did, I kept discovering over and over again that while some cancers are genetic and some people's diagnoses are genetic, there's a lot that's going on behind the scenes that can contribute to people developing cancer.

And I started to look at the environmental impact that perhaps had contributed to her cancer.

Bpa A free doesn't mean low tox. BPA free means that the chemical BPA isn't in that plastic that others are. It's been substituted with something else, and it's called a regrettable substitution. Companies know that the community's onto them. They can't use BPA anymore, but they still need to line their tins with something and it still has to have plastic.

We have symptoms like brain fog and fatigue, of course, they then go on to affect our mental health as well. [00:24:00] Sleep changes affects our mental health, right?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Really. And they're all contributed to by endocrine disrupting chemicals. It's scary really. Indoor plants can be also useful for the air quality as well as those air purifiers you mentioned before. We all love household plants, don't we? But for them to do an efficient job, you need. So many plants, oh, that end up living in a jungle.

I had the pleasure of having Justine Janssen Join me on the mic. Justine was one of the first studio owners I worked for back in the day, as she used to own three power yogurt studios in Canberra. She's a highly regarded senior Australian yoga teacher with over 20 years of yoga facilitation experience. . Reiki practitioner she's also studied somatics. She [00:25:00] shared how yoga has been her anchor through life's unpredictability, offering her physical, emotional, and mental support, and she reflected on the importance of slowing down to teach authentically.

She explained why a lot of Vinyasa teachers feel the need to change the sequence a lot and how it's important when you theme any sort of yoga class to make it relevant for today's modern life, which she learned through Power Living Australia. She described what is meant by the word somatic and what Reiki is, and the fact it's even being used in hospitals.

And the importance of being very aware and present when we're teaching yoga as well as being invitational rather than dogmatic. Here's what stood out 

The way that it has really affected me and changed my life and what it's brought to my life, it's really [00:26:00] profound. I, I think for me, the best way I can describe it is that yoga is like my ground. It's a real way for me to feel stability and to feel gravity, and it has been that important because in times where life has been on fast forward and might not have been consistent in its pace, yoga's really helped me physically, emotionally, mentally, in all of the ways for myself, just being a person in the world.

It's not. All roses. There's lots of different challenges and adversities that we all face day to day, and I think yoga has been, uh, such a beautiful ground to hold me when times have been tough as I've moved through a practice that had started in very hot classes, Vinyasa, uh, and I grew and learned to teach and.

Move my body and open myself [00:27:00] up and explore all of the different ways that yoga adds to health in my body. I was also experiencing on levels that I would never have been able to grasp before starting just how much that affected my mental and emotional state and capacity. So, I think yoga has been something that has held me in good mental health.

It has supported me in my body when I have been under stress or duress, and even in terms of just my day-to-day health.

So, our emotional state, our mental state, the way we might do things in the world, we just start to be able to breathe better. Yeah. And that affects our whole health, the way we breathe, let's face it.

But we can certainly bring in the modern day things that we're all aware of and working with, and to be able to give people valuable tools through the teaching of philosophy that's still really, really apparent and really relevant in this day and [00:28:00] age.

I think through the trauma informed piece and being very aware and present as a yoga teacher to the spaces that we teach in and whom we might have in our classes, and thus being invitational, uh, and as well as the philosophy piece and just bringing it through in irrelevance that we all need to hear when we're on the map. A lot of Vinyasa teachers worry about boring students and feeling the need to make up all these fancy dance routines on the mat. But as Duncan Peak has said, it's often the teachers that get bored and it's nice to keep it simple and not get carried away. 'cause we can lose that mindfulness and philosophy when we spend so much time trying to memorise the sequence.

So, that was a mistake I've made in the past. Yeah, and look, I think it comes out of it being a dynamic practice. There's often a lot of [00:29:00] enthusiasm in this space. There can be an aspect of needing to give more or feeling like there has to be some kind of performance value that's added in if you're a teacher.

And harking back to days at Power Living. Yeah. That's where I really learned to be able to teach in a soulful way, in a way where philosophy. Was distilled into a modern day relevance where I was able to understand how these beautiful, ancient historical teachings were still relevant in my own life. .

It was imperative to me just learning how do weave philosophy, uh, and how to bring things forward that were gonna be of value to the students that I had on the map. Somatic is just a way of describing physical. It's just a way of us entering into a discussion that can start to open us up to all of the definitions of what the physical is.

[00:30:00] Because we have this wonderful body, we have these amazing inner intelligences that live within us. So, I guess it's this. Ever expanding, uh, definition that can open us up to all of the ways that we experience the physical. 

If we in ourselves as teachers are not disturbed and are able to hold the group dynamic and or also attend to whoever's needing it or, and trust that whomever is in the space knows that there is enough stability that they can go out and come back and resume if possible, when possible

reiki just works on all of the different ways that the body. Uh, it gets a little bit cluttered up, let's say, with the content of life and what we tend to hold onto. I never knew it could help with physical pain, Karen Fabian joined me from the United States in Boston, Massachusetts, Karen [00:31:00] brought up some great. Insights that gave many of us, including myself, food for thought on yoga teaching, whether it's the role of the yoga teacher or the way yoga teacher trainings are run and how they could be improved, especially with how anatomy is taught. But what really stood out for me with Karen was how she can see many yoga teachers have trauma, not just big T trauma, but little T trauma and how that can affect the way they teach. She also brought up the fact of the mindset piece, and I agree with her mindset is missing from, , most yoga teacher trainings and the feedback model has its issues. And [00:32:00]now Karen, whenever I see my power charger. For my iPhone with walk and talk on it. I think of you, the walk and talk teacher, mentor. Here's what stood out 

I was just emoting, like my skin was moulting off my body. It was so. Unlike me and so unexpected, looking back on it, of course, with the perspective of time, uh, I recognize it as, you know, an emotional release from everything that I had gone through, and there have been many times in my life when my practice has been an anchor for me in.

One of the things that comes up a lot is what I have come to call the walk and talk a style of teaching where you're walking around the room instead [00:33:00] of the practice with me approach where you're practicing with your class.

Now of course, there's no right or wrong. Teachers can do whatever they want. There also is of course a hybrid model where you're doing a little of this, you're doing a little of that. However, there are teachers who definitely practice with their class and believe that is the way yoga should be taught and or when they've experimented with walking around, they can't do it.

They believe that it's not possible for them even when they go to class and see a teacher doing the walk and talk and wish they could do it. When they try it, they can't do it. One of my biggest concerns about the standard teacher training path is that there is no mindset work done with yoga teachers.

And it's almost always group training. And there's nothing wrong with group training and there's nothing wrong with [00:34:00] the 200 hour. Teacher training agenda. It's just that it doesn't allow for this kind of mindset work, which is a big piece of teaching yoga.

And what I've discovered as I've looked across the board at all these yoga teachers experiences is that. There's something triggering about teaching yoga. Yeah, and I don't necessarily mean triggering as we now sort of have come to define it with respect to trauma Big T and little T. However, I have absolutely worked with yoga teachers who have experienced trauma Big T, little T trauma of various scenarios.

Who are triggered when they walk into the room from a memory perspective [00:35:00] because of different ways that they have processed their trauma. A. What we do as yoga teachers is highly unique and multifaceted in terms of there's a skill aspect.

Sharing cues, teaching a sequence. There's a knowledge aspect, understanding anatomy, understanding yoga philosophy, things like that. And there is a mindset piece. There is a, an ask to show up in a way where you are authentic. In that showing up authentically, you feel natural, you feel confident, and yet that the ability to do that in all of us as humans is shaped by our experiences.

Something about yoga, that it is a long standing practice, that it has a philosophical side, a historical side, a physical side, that there are gurus, there's a [00:36:00] history, there's an expectation that you are walking in the room and you know what you're doing. And laden on top of it is all, are all these other things.

As we move in that direction, as we build momentum in that direction, you are going to develop a better relationship with yourself. Because to be that kind of teacher is to be that kind of person. So, it's not like you're gonna. Be a more authentic yoga teacher, but not be like that in your life. Of course, it's a personal development path.

The path of a yoga teacher is a personal development path. One of the amazing opportunities for us as yoga teachers is to see these opportunities, to be the kind of teacher we wanna be. As an opportunity to develop a better relationship with ourselves to to have the transformations we want to have, even if we don't knowingly know we want to have them.

Another [00:37:00] aspect of the way yoga teachers are trained that I have a problem with is the whole model of feedback. The whole model of having a group of teachers in a group training, having somebody lead the training, having the teachers practice teach, and then sit and receive feedback from the person running the training.

Now, that's not to say that person's not qualified, but the whole essence of giving feedback. For the most part is an illustration, of one person's perception of the class they just took. And so long before a yoga teacher begins to teach, what they learn is that I am teaching to get good feedback.

Mm-hmm. And this is a problem for me because the reality is we can't control how people feel. We can't control how people think, and yet [00:38:00] to teach our class with an expectation that we'll get good feedback. Whatever that is, is to set ourselves up to be very disappointed.

I had the lovely Dorothea, or as she's often called Doro born folk from Germany join me as well. Now, what was interesting about Doro was that she was really honest here and she admitted that she found yoga initially because her parents enrolled her for her back, and she found it really, really boring.

She didn't like yoga initially. It wasn't until she found the right teacher did she start to enjoy it. She. Combines journaling with her yoga classes, which I think is a really interesting idea and she does help for a course on this if you're interested, which there is a link to [00:39:00] in the show notes for that episode.

She also noted about how the word triggered is misunderstood and used. When it's actually not applicable, and that can be irritating for someone like her who has anxiety or someone with trauma. She also talked about how her teaching has changed after doing trauma specific yoga teacher training.

I found it particularly interesting about what she said about child's pose, , and she's also an Ayurvedic counselor, which she described well through the primary colours and how there's not just three types of people. Here's what stood out 

I went there and I hated it because I thought it was way too boring. And by that time, yoga was getting more into the mainstream. It was so eye opening when my grandpa [00:40:00] passed away a few years ago

I felt so stiff because my mind was stiff with grief. I was grieving so much, and my body wasn't soft.

I feel like. For, for me it the fact that yoga goes way beyond the physical aspect, that makes it so appealing to me. Mm-hmm. And that's what I also wanna convey to my students.

That's also because I incorporated the journaling because I feel like people. Oftentimes they come to the mat, but they cannot relax. They're still so much in their thoughts about the day and the problems and their to-do list that they can't really focus on the practice. And by weaving journaling into that, I make it easier for them because they get a little channel for their thoughts.

They can just. Put them [00:41:00] on paper out of their head and then concentrate on the yoga. And also they feel like, oh, I'm allowed to contemplate during class. I even get to write about it.

I feel like the word trigger is overused and me personally dealing with anxiety and panic attacks, I oftentimes find it a little bit annoying when people are just like, oh my gosh, someone honked at me. I was so triggered. No, you were not triggered. You were just a little bit annoyed. I didn't think there were people who could be triggered by child's pose, for example, I thought child's pose is like the epitome of I'm safe and I'm grounding it.

It's not like in that class, I learned that there were people who had to seek shelter during an earthquake, and they were covering their head outs and going into China's post reminded them of the post that they took when the earthquake hit and the furniture was crumbling around them and everything.

Rob Dorgan, [00:42:00] made a fascinating guest. He is a qualified meditation teacher, senior yoga teacher and trainer, as well as an author. He authored a book book called Awakening the Mystique, which blends astrology and yoga, especially the lacs, the way we suffer as described really well in Patanjalis yoga Sutras. Rob, whose story like so many others shared this season speaks to the power of yoga, meditation, and the fire of inner transformation.

He really gave a great depth of understanding and how self-inquiry and meditation. Can show us how we suffer. We had a great conversation and it reminded me of some of the thought patterns. I noticed last year after the fire, as many of us do, when [00:43:00] we suffer.

He also brought up the issues of completing a basic 200 yoga. YTT in 14 days 

And Rob spoke a bit candidly as he reflected about the ripple effect of personal growth that can unfold when someone begins to reconnect with themselves through yoga. A pattern he's noticed over years of running teacher trainings and retreats with women evolving and reawakening and getting clear on what's no longer serving them with big life changes.

As big life changes often follow.  One of the things I found a little amusing , but it raised an important point that this transformation, this, this inner work we do can shine a light on misalignment and sometimes growth means outgrowing what once felt comfortable. here's a look back at what we uncovered together. 

Meditation is something that I do every day.

I've done it for [00:44:00] years, but now it's, it's definitely something I do not miss. I feel like that's really the deeper part of yoga that takes us to that part where we really know ourselves.

Even on my mat, I can say, oh God, I'm not in triangle post. I'm down the street going to the grocery store. I don't care how high up someone is on the ladder of meditation, they'll still make mistakes.

They'll get their feelings hurt. They'll hurt other people's feelings. But it becomes that relationship with the self where we can observe it more from a distance Is the shark shin? Yeah. Yeah. From a distance or, you know, I know that's the way it's described a lot, but I think it's observing it from the, from the heart, from the, her idea, the spiritual heart center almost immediately will say, you know, or maybe you should rethink that.

And so it, it just shortens the span between. What we might see is a faux pa [00:45:00] or a mistake and bringing love into it more quickly. She started with you started the fire and I said, no, the massage chair started the fire. She said, your house burnt down. I said, well, not all of it burnt down, but it's gonna get demolished. It can't be fixed. . She said, you burnt down with the fire? And I said, no, I'm still here physically, you know, she said, half of you burnt down with the fire.

And I said, yes, that's it. And she said that fire. Is a theme of your life and it's here to teach you something and to help you learn to burn away what's no longer serving you. .And I thought, oh, that's making more sense. And then you, because you are literally dealing with the element of Agni in that way.

Oh yeah. You can actually help other [00:46:00] people to see, even if they're not, their house isn't literally burning. You can see like when you're talking to people or when you start to, to do your yoga therapy in yours, it's like you'll be able to use that analogy. You'll be like, look, right now you're burning down pieces of your house that are outdated and you can't use anymore. 

Going back to your comment about suffering. It helps us to look and deal with what normally we would consider suffering in a whole different light. We wouldn't even realize it a lot of the time. It changes the perspective from the inside out.

It's not gonna happen from the outside. 

Once we know ourselves, we can help other people know themselves.

I've seen so much transition and people taking just a 200 hour yoga course where they're like, afterwards they're like, I'm not the same person because. It gives us the tools to self-reflect , most of us are, were not brought up that way. Even if we grew up with some kind of a religion [00:47:00] or spirituality, self-reflection and getting quiet is not necessarily part of that.

And I think that that's really what helps people to change. , Not to be funny is more than once, twice, or three times. After these teacher trainings, I see these women move on from their partners, really like, oh, it's happened a lot. Where they suddenly realize all of the things that open up to 'em is like, I'm not living fully, or I'm living with someone who's holding me back and they're not moving.

. And I'm not advocating that you should do a 200 hour so you can get divorced, 

This is gonna sound judgy, but with the, I'm gonna get my 200 hour and 14 days.

Okay. Maybe it's just me. But I need time to absorb information. Yeah, just because I've heard you say it doesn't mean I understand it. So you can give it all to me in 14 days and then what am I supposed to do with it,

[00:48:00] sometimes at the time you think, what the heck? Why did this happen? Yeah, but they help pave out the rest and help you find your dharma. Sally Kempton used to say about meditation, but I can say it about yoga. It doesn't solve your problems. It changes the way. You think about them. When we stick with the consistency, it's multifaceted.

It helps to change us, but it also builds self integrity to ourself. And the interesting thing is, is when we look at nature, it's changing constantly. There is nothing in our world that doesn't change, but we hold on. And if we keep our attachments to things and our versions and we keep pushing it back. We think that we're gonna be able to keep it just like this. 

My next guest was Brian Chea, who's an author, blogger, and mental health advocate from Boston, Massachusetts, and he shared some practical science-based strategies . [00:49:00] In this clip, Brian shares how he applied a form of self-guided exposure therapy using alcohol as a crutch at first, before gradually weaning off it to overcome social anxiety.

I'm certainly not encouraging anyone to use alcohol in this way. What fascinated me was Brian's insight into how thought patterns get wired into our brains. A concept we explore in yoga through self-inquiry and meditation among other things, and how he put two and two together and came up with this exposure therapy.

He also gave a brilliant breakdown of how the theory behind EMDR can be applied in everyday life, even during a meeting, and emphasized the fact that a lot of the tools he's using are holistic and they don't have an immediate effect, which makes them less click baitty and the way [00:50:00] he understands the mind body connection right down to the physical nerve.

Pain triggered by stress. Here's a little bit of the conversation and what stood out to me. You resist the thought. You try to fight it off, and what ends up happening is the more that you try to resist it, the more that you try to fight it off. The more that it sticks with you, so a way of looking at that is the more that you fight against that thought or that category of thoughts, you are literally building neuro circuitry around that category of thoughts.

Because you are essentially giving weight to that thought. You are considering it.

Part of the healing in this space is basically getting to the point of realizing that your brain has many, many thoughts every single day. A lot of them are weird, a lot of them are strange, A lot of them are unsettling.

The healing comes when you just get to the point of saying, I don't care. I'm gonna have the thought. I'm gonna let it go. And that's gonna be that, because then you're not building up that neural circuitry [00:51:00] surrounding that thought, 

In reality, change happens relatively slowly. And the challenge is that if that were turned into a headline, nobody's clicking on that article, nobody's reading the book in which that headline is found. But if you think about,, Hey, I want to go to the gym and I wanna put on some weight, you'd, uh, you know, or put on some muscle, sorry. You don't go to the gym and do bicep curls one time, and then all of a sudden you're jacked. Right? You have to go to the gym, stay disciplined, do the workouts, that kind of thing.

What was helpful for me was to, you know, essentially have a crutch of, uh, of drinking, right? So, like having a couple drinks before I go on a date, or if I'm going out in a social setting, getting drunk, you know? And so you lose that anxiety 'cause you have the liquid courage and the exposure therapy for me that I kind of put myself through was to say, over time, I need you to go to more of these social outings.

You know, in small doses, make sure that you warm yourself up to them. But then I also need you to go [00:52:00] to these outings and maybe if a previous outing you were having five beers, I need you to go to go down to four, and then I need you to go down to three and go down to two. So long-winded way of saying that, I basically ran exposure therapy on myself, and that became very helpful to. Unwind that neurological wiring.  eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, . It's meant to be a form of therapy that helps guide you through traumatic or difficult experiences or memories. Now, when you do EMDR, essentially what'll happen is the therapist will say. As you think about these scary and harrowing experiences or memories, I want you to move your eyes laterally back and forth. Yeah. And so what happens is, you know, I don't know the exact science behind it.

No, neither. But when you move your eyes back and forth, you're doing that same thing of sending a calming message back to your brain, back to your amygdala, the fear center of the brain, and saying. I appreciate the warning signals and all that, but [00:53:00] this is okay right now. You can calm down, you can turn off the alarms, and so when you're moving your body or when you're moving your eyes, and you know, funny enough, right?

If you're going for a walk or you're going for a run, just by being outside, being on a path in nature or being on the sidewalk, you have to look around, right? You have to observe what's going on around you. Maybe there's people, maybe there's animals. Maybe there's. Branches on the ground, that kind of thing.

So, you're forced to move your eyes. So, whether you're moving your body, uh, explicitly or you are just moving your eyes back and forth as you sit down, both of those things will send that calming message back to your brain 

 If they're sending that calming message back to the brain, while they then think about these previously untouchable experiences, the brain doesn't react in that same alarming kind of way. 

So when I'm feeling anxious. One of the things that I will do, right? Like I, I just talked about moving the body, moving the eyes, that kind of thing. Those are two of my go-to [00:54:00] tactics. So if I can't get outside, go for a walk, for example, let's say like I'm at the office and I'm in a meeting. As long as I'm not the one who's presenting, then maybe what I'll do is I'll close my eyes and I'll move them back and forth underneath my eyelids, really.

And I find that that gives me a nice little release from the anxiety sometimes. That's amazing. I've got a little app on my phone, but yeah, just even with your eyes closed. That's great.

The pattern that I've noticed is when I get really stressed out, I actually get nerve pain in my extremities. It's not fun to experience. I get like shooting zaps into my feet, uh, and into the side of my head. Wow. It's, it's definitely harrowing.

When I first encountered it, I was like, oh, I must be dying. This is horrendous. You know? And what I think I have noticed or sort of figured out over the years is, to me, it feels like when stress gets stored in my body, I essentially become inflamed. My [00:55:00] nerves don't know how to deal with it. And so it's almost like this energy that is, I don't know if being released is the right word, but basically my nerves become inflamed and then they create these, uh, painful sensations in my own body.

My last guest other than re-sharing, a podcast from Kristen Klipp was Todd McLaughlin, and he's a senior yoga teacher and massage therapist . He's someone who's experienced the traumas of a religious cult and more than one near death experience. He's analysed how his trauma has caused himself to push too hard, how that many yoga trainings and styles encourage this physical pain. So, in this episode, he shared his story of surviving a near death experience.

Navigating cult-like dynamics within yoga communities, dogma, and what it means to move beyond performative practice to one [00:56:00] rooted in self-inquiry and truth. He also highlighted the ingrained belief across many spiritual traditions and religions that suffering is noble even necessary for transformation.

The example he gave from Christian Penant rituals to intense physical yoga poses reveals a widespread cultural narrative. If I suffer enough, I will be redeemed. This belief is particularly dangerous for trauma survivors because it mirrors the logic of abuse that enduring pain is virtuous or makes one more worthy.

In yoga, this shows up as too much stir in Asana. Too much effort and not enough ease. Glorifying flexibility, discipline to the point of self-harm. We're trusting teachers who cross this [00:57:00] physical emotional boundary. Todd's reflections were vulnerable, sharp, and full of hard earned wisdom. He reminded us that yoga isn't about glorifying pain or chasing enlightenment.

It's about staying curious, questioning power, questioning gurus who are put on pedestals. And learning to honour the body and the mind with respect and stay humble. Here's what stood out 

Okay, this is it. You know, this is, I'm dying. And, um, and to not die and, uh, wake up in the hospital .

It had a huge impact on me.

I've gone through a lot of just trying to push through the pain and I've been through a lot of different yoga trainings where pushing through the pain was encouraged and I now, as I'm continuing on my yoga journey, I'm learning more and more how to take care of myself and honor my edge.

When we put a, a [00:58:00] person on a pedestal and we think that this person has achieved some sort of enlightenment, stage of enlightenment that, that I'm aspiring to, and then that person feeds off of that power and it creates this incredible dynamic that I'm really glad I saw it firsthand as a yoga teacher.

It makes me very aware that I do not want any students to cultivate or for me to cultivate in them any of that. 

And he's like, get up, get up. And I, and all these people are standing around me and I'm like, I was feeling so miserable. And he's like, you're the kind of person that's going to get me sued.

All other styles of yoga are unworthy. They're all a hoax. Only my yoga is the only yoga. Now what else does that sound like to you? That's a classic religious statement.

My religion. [00:59:00] Our religion, our cult, our group is the only one. Everybody else is gonna burn in hell and you gotta be a part of our group or else you're going to hell. Like you're, you're gonna experience an intense amount of pain and so you gotta be ready for it. I don't know what that is in, in our DNA or humanity that.

That is attracted to the intensity of that sacrificial fire that feels like you're somehow burning through karma by suffering, and this exists in a lot of different religious traditions. If we look back at some of the crazy cults in Christianity, there's people that strap things down on their legs where there's nails going into their skin as a penance, a form of penance.

Thinking that because Christ suffered on the cross that I need to suffer as much pain as he did to prove my love for the suffering that he did for me. It's [01:00:00] this idea that through pain and suffering, you become pure.

It is a really twisted logic that. I don't agree with I, I. And now, and I, but I've been wrapped up in that culture in different ways and different places throughout my, my life. So I feel like now I'm in this rehabilitation mode of appreciating what can come there. There is some good that can come out of it. And a lot of times I'd find myself, you know, wrapped up in a pose where I had my feet by my ears and I'm like, hanging on for dear life and you know, in a lot of pain while I'm doing it, but still doing it and going, am I comfortable right now?

And as you start analysing it more, it looks a little bit like we're consciously creating this form of pain to learn how to override our reaction to the pain with the, then that then when we go back out into the real world. Or in day-to-day living, [01:01:00] we won't react under difficult situations, we won't react.

But that begs a really interesting question. If I'm still putting myself into pain to be able to learn how to deal with pain, is that really the solution to pain? 

I keep coming back to why am I doing this? What is the purpose of my practice? I really try to get really clear on my intention, what is in, what is my intention right now as I embark on this particular practice session. And that's a wrap on season one. Recording has officially wrapped for the year, and what a powerful journey it's been. I'm already looking ahead to season two in 2026, and I'm thrilled to say I've already got a few incredible guests lined up. Thank you again for being part of this season, for listening, for reflecting, and showing up with curiosity and compassion.

I can't wait to share what's to come. Until next time, take care of yourself and never forget the power and possibilities of a [01:02:00] regular yoga practice. I.

Let's take a look back on some of the moments that made season one unforgettable moments of laughter, reflection, and wisdom that have sparked real change. Here's to the journey so far and to all that's still to come for all of 

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Liz Albanis

Host