At 22 years old, I took myself on my first ‘adult holiday’ to Bali, determined to understand Yoga, outside of Elizabeth Gilbert’s eyes in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. I found a glass-windowed Yoga Studio, a heavenly teacher & a whole new language of ancient wisdom.

In 2015, I undertook my first official Yoga studies with Shy Sayar of Tantravaya Yoga, on the shores of Thailand after accidentally meeting him over raw carrot cake in Bali. Craving further studies, Shy offered me a scholarship to take on his specialised Yoga Therapy training in Denmark, EU the following year - and I have invested in ongoing training with Shy and affiliated teachers ever since.

My early experiences of yoga studies were often siloed - that is, contained from the very real outside world, facilitated in pristine studios or online through a screen. Realising that there must be more to understanding our vastness amidst our complex human layers, the last two years have seen my work take a deep dive into the intersections between Yoga/Embodied Movement, Trauma & Social Justice.

Completing Sarah Ball’s training in 2024 in Yoga for Trauma, Anxiety Depression & Body Image has opened my heart and mind to all the ways our precious world continues to hold so many plural truths. There can be freedom found here. Our world can be both wondrous and utterly heart-breaking at the same time. I can walk into a class at my Studio feeling super brave, yet simultaneously anxious. I am continually leaning in to more practices and ways of fostering greater safety and ease in our bodies amidst the often nuanced and unjust systems and circumstances (social, cultural, geographical, economic etc) we live inside of.

How can we utiliise gentle movement as medicine? Why is a whole-person, somatic approach important? What does it look like, for you, as an individual? How do these practices also support collective care and liberation? These are the types of questions I will continue to ask, as I foster my own practice toward deeper collective care and individual responsibility.

I continue to learn from incredible teachers such as Sarah & Mei Lai Swan, and am currently studying the intersection of Polyvagal Theory & Trauma-Informed Yoga alongside Deb Dana. I also have an ever-growing (and often overwhelming!) stack of bedside books from educators in the trauma-informed conversation (Joanna Macy, Michelle Cassandra Johnson, Staci K. Haines, Peter Levine, Bessel Van der Kolk, Stephen Porges… and many more!)

I believe our bodies - particularly women’s bodies - are not designed to live comfortably inside of the patriarchal, colonialist and capitalist systems that have been built around us. None of us are broken. We just need an opportunity to find our way safely back home. Again, and again, and again.

We must keep leaning towards this reclamation.