*** Successful completion of a 200-hour Yoga teacher training from a Yoga Alliance approved school is required for participation in the Integral Yoga Therapy Program track to become a Certified Yoga Therapist.

For more information Contact:
Satya Lynn: yogatherapy@integralyoga.org

A minimum of one year (minimum 50 hours) teaching Yoga is required for participation in the Integral Yoga Therapy Program track to become a Certified Yoga Therapist.
For more information Contact:
Satya Lynn: yogatherapy@integralyoga.org

• Monday
• Tuesday
• Wednesday
• Thursday
• Friday

• 12pm-5pm ET

I have been practicing yoga seriously since winter of 2018. My personal practice picked up significantly after I decided to work and live as a karma yogi on the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Ranch in Woodbourne, New York. I worked and lived there from July-September 2018. I have done pranayama (anuloma viloma, kapalabhati, bhastrika, kumbhaka) every day since I first got to the ashram; pranayama is an indispensable part of my daily life. I practice pranayama first thing in the morning before I eat and again in the evening time when the sun starts to go down. I move through the 12 poses of the Sivananda sequence almost every day, though not quite every day, and also like to do a gentle/restorative practice at night.

I got my 32-hour trauma-informed certificate through Yoga Prison Project in the fall of 2020 and would like to eventually also work with incarcerated peoples in a therapeutic capacity as well.

Hatha, Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, Raja. I like to read and study the older teachings - Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramakrishna. I am applying for this specific yoga therapy course first and hope I get accepted because I know Swami Satchitananda was a direct disciple of Swami Sivananda and that means a lot to me. I also have Swami Satchidananda's 'Living the Gita' downloaded on my kindle app, I have read through it multiple times and refer to it when I need uplifting.

I taught a total of 10 hours as part of the certification process at Sol Yoga studio here in Frederick, MD. Each of those 10 classes was an hour apiece. I have also taught friends and family - these sessions are typically less formal, I teach them whenever I get the chance. To help my dad with sciatica, mom with ankle pain after a broken ankle, my niece and nephew (ages 8 and 6) to help them with impulse control, and close friends of mine who have struggled with addiction in the past in order to help improve skills of emotional regulation. I also teach 'live' on social media; I do this during the evening several times a week, teaching 30-45 minutes each class, typically teaching a gentle class while also sprinking in some neuroscience or yogic philosophy while I teach.

I can interpret American Sign Language for future events at the ashram when it eventually fully opens back up to the public. This could be useful as there is a huge deaf community in Washington, DC. and the surrounding areas.

I was a sign language interpreter for 10 years. I specialized in academic and medical interpreting and became the interpreter of choice for a pre-med student at Johns Hopkins. This allowed me to spend much of my time learning about biology, biochemistry, neuroscience, anatomy, physiology, and other scientific topics while at work. Because of this, I am able to understand the benefits and mechanisms of yoga on a deep level, which makes me want to share the teachings even more. Beyond the incredible philosophy and tradition behind it, Yoga is also a science, and the practices it confers make up the most powerful scientific tool I have come across when it comes to re-wiring the nervous system.

From what I learned at the Sivananda Yoga Ranch, Ayurveda is the science of extending life. Keeping our energies in balance is key in Ayurveda. One aspect of Ayurveda regards the doshas: Pitta (fire), Kapha (earth/water), and Vata (air). Ayurvedic practitioners and doctors use massage, oils, herbs, and yogic asana to bring the doshas into balance, as an imbalance in these doshas can cause a variety of mental disorders and other diseases. I know that ayurvedic practitioners observe the body and bodily functions in order to diagnose illnesses, observing nails, physical excretions, tongue, eyes, taking pulse, etc.. Ayurvedic doctors can prescribe or otherwise recommend different herbs like ashgawandha, turmeric, gotu kola, and other preparations that contain minerals. From what I have heard, diet is also key in ayurvedic treatments, with a vegetarian diet often being recommended. I have considered embarking upon the course to become an ayurvedic practitioner, but I believe yoga therapy is a better fit in terms of my ability to serve humanity and the community. One of my favorite satsangs at the ashram was about ayurveda, I would love to learn more about it and am very, very much looking forward to the module about it!

I understand yoga and Hinduism to be very deep and rich spiritual traditions that date back thousands of years, if not many more. Vivekananda says that what America has done for materialism, India has done for spirituality, meaning there are many, many schools of Indian spiritual thought and philosophy. Of these, I gravitate most towards neo-vedanta and advaita vedanta. I love to read the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and the Gurus who were influenced by him, because these philosophies are incredibly inclusive: the Truth is One, but goes by many names. There are many paths, but all lead to the One without a second. Bhakti Yoga, or the yoga of devotion, is a path for those who have a decidedly emotional temperament. Jnana Yoga, for those who have an intellectual bent. Karma Yoga, the yoga of work, is good for those who feel the urge to work in the world. While there are several paths, it can be beneficial to think of these paths not as completely separate but as systems to be utilized to take us to the Ultimate. The Samkhya philosophy and Yoga concerns themselves with overcoming the ceaseless tossing of the mahagunas; we seek to overcome tamas, or inertia, which can leads to laziness, lethargy, and dullness when imbalanced, and rajas, or activity, which can lead to harmful passions and greed when imbalanced, by remaining Sattvic. I understand sattva to be a state of lightness, harmony and equanimity - a state in which we can find the highest activity even while we are sitting still in a state of inactivity and also find inactivity even while we are intensely active, as we are when we are working tirelessly in the world to bring about positive change. Yogic practices allow us to still and control the mind; yoga allows us to put the body under the intelligent control of the mind. The end goal of Yoga is union with the One, Ishvara. When we attain to the Goal it is called Moksha or liberation. Jnana yoga, or the emphasis on rationality as a means to liberation, got me into actually believing in God, but I am also particularly fascinated by the Bhakti yoga tradition and kirtan. Chanting was one of my least favorite parts of ashram life when I was at the sivananda yoga ashram, but it became one of my favorite parts of the day when a devotee explained to me how the various Deities are also symbolic of various traits that can be used to enhance focus on those traits. Hanuman is my favorite God, he cares not for creature comforts and lives only to serve God and the greater good. His faith and focus allowed him to leap over the sea - He had repeated the holy name of Rama with absolute faith, so all things were possible for Him. I love learning about the philosophy, which is another reason I would like to be trained at a real Ashram that descends from a legitimate lineage.

I am hoping to deepen my own practice and learn about yoga, which is my favorite thing in the world. I hope to learn how to use yoga as the therapeutic tool for healing that we know it to be. I am a bit dismayed at the thought of teaching 'workout' style yoga classes to those who can afford to pay $140/month here in Frederick, MD - I want to learn how to present the teachings in a way that has the best chance of reducing human suffering, and then bring it to those who need it the most. I am very excited at the prospect of learning yoga therapy from a legitimate ashram and being able to study and learn more about the Integral Yoga lineage and tradition. It is important to me that I take the training program at a real ashram, and Yogaville is as real as they come. Although I am grateful to have learned and to be able to teach I regret not taking my 200-hr training at an ashram and I would like to avoid making that mistake again.

I first started practicing yoga because it was helping with my chronic pain - I have had one ankle reconstructed and still deal with pain in the other one, both due to repeated ankle sprains and strains. When I first heard a meditation on Durga at the end of one of our classes, I read more and soon became fascinated with yogic philosophy and mythology. Beyond helping me with my chronic pain, yoga also diminished my cravings for opioid painkillers, which I had been on and off of since my injuries. This led to me going to live on the Sivananda ashram, where I transformed further, found my cravings all but annihilated, experienced far less pain in my day to day living, and was happier than I have ever been. I knew that something happened to me when I was at the ashram, and I started to do research into the neuroscientific benefits of yoga and the brain changes that arise from it. I read further into the neuroscience of PTSD and addiction and found that many of the same brain structures, functions, and circuits are diminished in capacity from both addictions and traumatic experiences, which explains why people who report 4 or more traumatic experiences on the ACE exam to measure childhood traumas are 500% more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder and 4,600% more likely to become an IV drug user. Amazingly, although perhaps not surprisingly, yoga seems to reverse the changes to the nervous system that occur in PTSD and addictive disorders. Yoga quiets and decreases the size of the amygdala, which is key in the fear response. An overactive amygdala is responsible for the uncomfortable hypervigilance that addiction and trauma survivors live with. Yoga increases the size and function of the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a convergence zone for decision making and conflict regulation - another structure changed by trauma and addictions. Yoga increases our capacity for emotional regulation - it allows our pre-frontal cortex greater control over the emotional impulses that are pulsing constantly from our limbic and subcortical brain structures, which are sending signals to us to take action based on what we're feeling in the moment, every moment. In fact, I believe that pranayama - specifically, kumbhaka - can be verified in a lab to help increase our impulse control. When we are deprived of air and our bodies start to sound the alarm to get us to breathe, this is an extremely powerful impulse. The ability to inhibit the impulse to breathe certainly gives us greater control over all of our impulses, including those that come from our cravings and our emotions. I can provide medical references to support this theory if need be. My goal with becoming a certified Integral yoga therapy practitioner is to eventually set up a treatment center for PTSD and addictive disorders that will rely heavily on yogic practices and philosophy that descend from a true lineage while also being able to provide scientific backing for the practices, perhaps even allow for studies to be done to prove the efficacy of using yoga therapy as a legitimate treatment for PTSD and addictive disorders that should be accepted by all forms of medical insurance here in America.

I would like to start by practicing the techniques myself and then offering it to those who are closest to me and need it the most. I have an arrangement set up whereby I will be teaching yoga to the clients at a nearby addiction treatment center, and this is the population I would like to work the most with if I am certified as a yoga therapist. I believe that there is much more to yoga than the 200 and 500 hour certifications can offer, and I would like to learn as much as possible, so I can do yoga the justice it deserves and typically doesn't receive in our communities when it comes to its' potential as a healing and treatment modality for physical as well as mental health. I believe yoga therapy could help with terminal illnesses, ADHD, PTSD, addictive disorders, developmental disorders, autoimmune disorders, common mental disorders like anxiety and depression, and in the treatment of deviant behavior of the kind that gets people incarcerated. I believe it is something that our youth, in particular, really need, and I also hope to work with them.

I work as a mortgage loan originator for a brokerage right now whereby I am essentially on call 24/7. I should be able to make the time and space necessary to participate in the lectures and studies that I will have to during the work week as long as it is not too much, and I would be more than happy to do the homework, yoga practice, and other assignments on the evenings and weekends.

My parents are deaf. I love to read about science and think about how it relates to spirituality and yoga. I love the outdoors, and I hope to visit India one day!

If there are modules that require strict attendance for many hours (15+) of any one given work week, that could potentially be an issue, but I am available evenings and weekends, am confident I will be able to make it work, and Satya recommended that I apply anyway, so here I am!

Susan Debad - susan@athayogafit.com , E-RYT-500 and YTT trainer, Cell # - 240-643-8993
Shelly Pentony - spentony@frederick.health ; mjeannepentony@gmail.com . Oncology and trauma informed yoga practitioner , E-RYT 500, Y4C . Cell # is 301-524-1394
Dorcas Mcwilliams - Dorcas@solyoga.org . Owner of Sol Yoga, E-RYT-500 . Cell # is 301-788-5154

https://www.iayt.org/page/AccrdPrgms

I looked through all the options on that list and was definitely most interested in the integral yoga therapy program. Your program seems like the best.

I follow Sivananda ashrams but beyond that I mostly read books and listen to audiobooks.