Kundalini Global will soon be running its first ever Radically Inclusive Pregnancy Yoga Teacher Training. Open to yoga teachers from all disciplines. And we can’t wait. We hope to bring huge change…
Many people first come to yoga when pregnant or experiencing issues with fertility. It is a propitious decision, to choose do yoga whilst pregnant or working through fertility issues.
Some may come for the much cited physical and emotional benefits of the practise during the transition into parenthood…
…Some may come owing to a primal need for a connection, to the Divine, to the Universe, which comes in for many at this hugely transformative time in their lives…
And many, many come in suffering.
Fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, the postnatal period… they are not very often the picture-perfect fairytale one may expect.
A raft of studies show that yoga can improve the outcomes of pregnancy and childbirth. And the coming together of pregnant people, in community, for yoga classes, can bring many benefits too.
What does pregnancy yoga look like to you?
But, if we were to say to you, ‘Yoga for Pregnancy’ it is likely that images are conjured up of young, slim, heterosexual, white women in lycra with neat, stretch-mark-free-bumps and plastic, smiling, faces. It is certainly what you’re met with on stock image sites, advertisements, and pregnancy websites all over the Internet. And that is lovely, perhaps the experience of a few, and no judgement here but… but it is not the reality.
In the realms of fertility, pregnancy, and the postnatal period we are experiencing an anxiety epidemic. Infertility is on the rise. Medical interventions before and during birth are at an all-time high and the impacts far-reaching.
When, bravely, those in suffering turn to yoga for solace, how welcome are they made to feel?
Is it ever something you have stopped to consider?
As a trauma therapist with a specialism in pre and postnatal issues, Kundalini Global founder Carolyn Cowan, who has over 20 years of experience in this field, recognised a need to train yoga teachers to work with the reality of the pregnant experience.
The Kundalini Global Radically Inclusive Pregnancy Yoga Teacher Training is starting in January 2022.
The issues around pregnancy right now are huge. And, sadly, few are acknowledging it.
It is not only about the existential experience of the past few years, about the fear and anxiety that brings… it is, too, about the huge diversity of experiences that comes in and about acknowledging that to be of service in this time, we need to open up our classes, open our minds, to the breadth of what pregnancy in 2022 and beyond may look like.
Where is the safe space, the support, for the non-binary parent-to-be whose experiences with professionals have been utterly horrendous?
Where is the space for the person who is pregnant for the fourth time with no baby, yet, to take home?
Who works with the fears that are born in people arriving at pregnancy with the knowledge that, if they are black, they are 5 times more likely to die during childbirth?
And who, ever, includes the partner, be they of the opposite, same or similar sex, in any of it?
As a sex and relationship therapist, too, Carolyn acknowledges that their experiences, their voices, are a huge thing in how it all plays out. And yet their own suffering is usually ignored.
Become an excellent pregnancy yoga teacher who understands…
The intention, with the Kundalini Global pregnancy training, is to make you a hugely knowledgeable, radically inclusive, well-boundaried, extremely excellent pregnancy yoga teacher who understands what the issues are… who understands that pregnancy is not always easy, not always safe and not always the preserve of women.
A teacher who is aware of the impact of a trauma history on fertility, pregnancy and beyond… who is inclusive in what they say, how they say it, what they offer and in the messages they put out.
Participants will be invited to challenge cult thought around what the experience of pregnancy can encompass and who the experience of pregnancy is ‘for’…
In becoming a radically inclusive teacher, and learning to be competent in dealing with pregnancy in the class, you can create safe spaces for those in pregnancy that really do help. The benefits of yoga for pregnant people and their babies are truly enormous.
Yoga in pregnancy can help to improve sleep, reduce anxiety, help manage fear, increase the strength, flexibility and experience of muscles used in childbirth, help with physical symptoms of pregnancy including decreasing lower back pain, managing nausea, headaches.
By learning breath practises that are safe and fantastically beneficial for those who are pregnant we can also open people up to the possibility of a whole new experience of the pregnant self… one where agency is handed back those who may well be having experiences that feel entirely out of their control.
Knowing the huge benefits we will also work on the boundaries, the edges to what our role is as a teacher, when to refer, when to pull back, when to step in…
It is time to make change…
Beginning in January and set over 5 weekend modules, all compulsory for 100 hours of Yoga Alliance certification, this course is open to all yoga styles.
As yoga teachers we have much to offer people who are pregnant. If you’re inspired to make change you can find out more, and read the syllabus, here:
