Discernment In Trauma Aware Yoga and Breath-Work With Rebel Tucker | Ep 36

A quick note before you listen: this episode was recorded in less-than-perfect audio conditions, so you may notice a few sound quality issues along the way. We appreciate your understanding and hope you'll stay with us, as the conversation contains valuable insights that we didn't want you to miss.

Liz Albanis welcomes back Rebel Tucker for another insightful conversation. The wellness world loves big promises, but what happens when the very practices meant to help people are the ones doing harm? We dig into the uncomfortable edge of modern yoga and breathwork: quick certifications, charismatic authority, and emotionally intense techniques that can feel “cathartic” while leaving someone more destabilised than before. Our north star is discernment, learning when to trust, when to question, and how to keep your power in your own hands rather than handing it to a teacher, a brand, or a trend.  unpack why not all breathwork is pranayama, why contraindications matter, and how teachers can accidentally step far outside their scope of practice. We talk about real risks in large-group “release” processes, the importance of agency and opt-outs, and why trauma-aware yoga is not the same as trauma therapy. We also get practical about professional standards: what ethical marketing looks like, why insurance may not cover you when you overreach, and what many Australian yoga teachers don’t realise about unregistered health practitioner codes of conduct. the rise of short online add-on certifications like yin yoga “teacher” trainings that may skip the foundations needed for safe cueing, anatomy basics, and real teaching skill. If you’re a student, a teacher, or someone returning to yoga after trauma or PTSD, you’ll leave with sharper questions to ask, clearer red flags to notice, and a more grounded way to seek support without chasing a quick fix. 

Key Topics:

• Discernment in yoga and breathwork, what ethical teaching looks like, and how to choose support that protects your agency and mental health. 
• Power dynamics in yoga spaces and why “guru” culture can be risky 
• Discernment (viveka) as a core yogic skill rather than blind trust 
• Breathwork versus pranayama and why contraindications matter 
• Real-world harm when emotionally intense practices remove choice 
• Scope of practice, insurance limits, and why liability gets ignored 
• Australia’s unregistered health practitioner codes and what teachers should know 
• Quick certifications, yin yoga misunderstandings, and safety problems 
• Why practical assessment beats quiz-based “certificate” models 
• Trauma-aware teaching as agency, choice, and careful language 

About this episode's Guest: Rebel Tucker is a yoga therapist, naturopath. And senior yoga teacher with over 40 years of experience. She runs a yoga studio on the Mid North Coast of NSW. Where she specialises in helping individuals restore well-being through the energetic body. Traditional yoga practices, and evidence-based methods. As a board member of Yoga Australia. Rebel is dedicated to the professional growth of the yoga community. And making yoga accessible to everyone.

https://yogarebel.com.au/

https://www.instagram.com/yogireb/?hl=en

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Transcript

Catharsis Versus Healing

SPEAKER_04 0:00

A cathartic experience may not necessarily be a healing experience. And if you don't know how what you do is going to affect somebody, either on the side of fortune and assume a level of authority to train others that perhaps we have learned. That would be the worst error in my mind in regards to being trauma aware.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

What if the very practices meant to help people are sometimes the ones doing harm? In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on the yoga and wellness industry, where quick certifications, charismatic gurus, and emotionally intense practices are becoming more common, but not always better taught and facilitated. This is a conversation about discernment and knowing when to trust and when to question. It's about understanding that not all breath work is pranayama. Not all teachers are ready to teach. And not all practices are suitable for everyone. Just because it's good for one person doesn't mean it's good for someone else. We explore the responsibility that comes with holding space, the risks of stepping outside your scope of practice, and why yoga is not a quick fix and it's not the complete solution. And it isn't about handing your power over. It's about coming home to it instead.

Meet Rebel Tucker

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Hi, I'm Liz Albanis, and welcome to season two of Yoga for Trauma, The Inner Fire of Yoga, where we explore how yoga can help release trauma, calm the mind, and reconnect you with your body.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Before we get started, just a gentle note that this episode includes conversations around trauma, mental health, and some of the risks within the yoga and breath work spaces. Please listen in a way that feels supportive for you. And feel free to pause or come back to this conversation when you're ready, if you find it distressing.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

The views and opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host Liz Albanist. 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 discretion and consult a qualified professional before making changes to your health or wellness routines.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Today I'm welcoming back Rebel Tucker. Rebel is a dedicated yoga therapist, senior yoga teacher, naturopath, and yoga practitioner with over 35 years of experience. She runs a small studio on the mid-north coast of New South Wales in Australia, where she also trains aspiring yoga teachers. Rebel's approach is centred on helping others restore well-being through a blend of traditional practices and evidence-informed methods, specializing in the subtle, energetic body to help individuals take charge of their health and cultivate self-leadership. Revel believes that yoga is for everybody. She is a long-standing board member of Yoga Australia and an active volunteer on the Yoga Therapy Committee. She is committed to contributing to the growth of the yoga community. Let's get into the episode.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Welcome back, Revel, to the show. Hello, I'm really happy to be here. I love chatting with you, Liz.

Gurus And Power Dynamics

SPEAKER_03 3:43

There's this automatic power dynamic that happens when we teach a class or teach a person. And recently we've seen more gurus that have uh abused this with what's come out with the Jeffrey Epstein files and more so-called gurus not practicing what they preach. So I think for me gotta be careful. I don't like to worship anyone. You know. No one really is my guru. Yes, in the old days they had a guru who they went to who taught it verbally because there was no writing. They had to do it that way. But it can be really disheartening when we've had someone as our guru or worship them and then find out they're not the person I thought they were at all.

SPEAKER_04 4:43

Yeah.

Discernment As A Yogic Skill

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Look, I was recently teaching a contemplated study session on um discernment at Viveka. And I was doing an experience of having decided to do a wrestler constructor training online.

unknown 5:06

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

And and my disappointment in the level of accuracy um and safety pervaded within the course, and the thinking that essentially what turned out to be about five and a half hours of content online was sufficient to take somebody from zero training to, oh dee, let me lead a room full of people in how to do breath work and charge them for it. I thought it was very underbaked as a training. Um, and one of the students in my class, when I was sharing this experience of discerning for myself the quality of the training and whether or not this was a right way to do things in the sphere of yoga and breathwork or Anyam reading practice training, said to me, Well, how how do we know whether, you know, they're the ones that are not getting it right and you're the one getting it right? And I just pointed to the word on the board and I said, defernment. You need to defend for yourself whether or not what this person, what this teacher, what this institute is sharing with you is true and correct. You need to be able to assess for yourself. So it's not believing blindly that one thing is better than the other or that what I said is right and they're wrong. It's about testing the waters for yourself, having enough knowledge and a great enough compass to be able to know when you're aligning with that which is true and correct, and really going to serve you and the greater good. That's discernment, that's viveka. And in the practice of yoga, you know, the idea that we hand ourselves over blindly, you know, that's not a yogic tenant. That's really not practicing yoga. Like if that's what people are being asked to do, to hand ourselves over blindly and trust just because somebody is in a seat of authority, then I I would emphatically say that that is not yoga. That's not yogic. It's not upholding some of the practices that sit alongside the ability to master our mind as Purpatanjali and Yodra and the Yoga Sutras, but also the Dantra engraving inquiry, you know, and self-study. Um, the ability to fine-tune our mind, which is not something we lock away and to throw in the depths of the ocean, as some people teach, get rid of your mind and your ego and ah, you know, off to the far corner of the universe with the ego and the mind. No, the mind is something to be um mastered by the practices of yoga. And the the the point at the end of that stick is to be able to discern for ourselves wisely what is and isn't uh true, real, suitable, applicable, um, safe, um serving not only us, but the greater good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Yeah. And I think it's great for teachers to have not have the attitude of, I know better than you, I'm an expert, and be humble and say, you know what, I don't think anyone knows all the answers. And I've teach I've had one teacher say to me, look, sometimes my answer's gonna be, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

I don't know the great answer, Rick. You really don't know.

Pranayama Risks And Contraindications

SPEAKER_03 8:42

I don't know, I'll get back to you on that. I guess the other way of discerning with if that person is credible is to look at their own credentials. And uh something that was really instilled in me with my yoga therapy training was the difference between mere breathwork and pranayama, in that a lot of these modern breathwork experts they can call themselves breathwork, but can they call it pranayama? Pranyama needs to have that qual the qualities of Shuksma and Dirka, as defined by the potanjali's Yoga Sutras, long and soft. I'm a bit concerned, and I'm not you are, about some of these so-called breath experts teaching things without being aware of contraindications or just teaching it incorrectly, because a lot of people think, oh, asana is the dangerous component of teaching yoga. But what they don't realize is pranayama could potentially be more dangerous and I studied with someone who's quite highly regarded and he's very careful with what pranayama he teaches because he himself ended up in hospital after overdoing it with I think it was Kapalabhati or something because he wanted to achieve enlightenment. Yeah. He literally had psychosis. Yeah, yeah. We've got to be really careful in what we train who we train with and what we actually teach.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

Yeah, I think that's a really sensible piece of advice to take on, Liz, because we are seeing I don't know whether we can say the food, but we are seeing some breath work facilitator, yeah, the teachers are being suited because of cheeking techniques that triggered them mentally and made them become unstable because of the trainings, the teachings, the practices that were taught that um potentially were not handled in the most professional best way for the student who was having what we could say even an adverse reaction to the technique. So this is the risk you take. And if you don't have the proper training and you don't know how to remedy that adverse account, if you don't know how to bring a student back to safety, and if you're teaching out of your scope of practice and you're not insured, well, good luck to you. Because you're gonna lose your house, you're gonna lose your car, you're gonna lose everything you're owned to pay off somebody who gets aborted damages.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

And even if you are insured and you're going out of your scope of practice, well, the insurance company is gonna say, hang on a minute, you've gone out of your scope of practice. We're not covering. Yeah, you should have read the fine print and insurance are only getting tighter.

unknown 11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Because they're going broke after things like the Los Angeles bushfires, and a lot of us don't read the fine print. Like I used to not read the fine print when I discovered carpet was contents and was part of the building. But can you give any

Legal Liability And Scope Of Practice

SPEAKER_03 12:12

examples of what that person might have done? Was it breathwork that caused this mental instability?

SPEAKER_04 12:19

So this one that was mentioned and was all over social media and getting shared around yoga circles was a Yoda teacher, I think from the UK, who'd gone over to India to teach a retreat. And part of the retreat had a component that was rather emotionally um sensitive in that they were requiring to do some child parent imaginings of their past with their parents and recalling instances that could have potentially been triggering. And the setup wasn't such that really allowed for the participant who made the complaint to opt out, they were encouraged to keep going even though it had triggered trauma, and then they became mentally unwell after said occurrence and um sued for damages.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

So they were given no agency, no choice.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

No agency, no choice. They weren't given an opt-out, they were kind of forced in a sense to comply because they just felt like everybody else was doing it and they needed to in order to be part of the group. And then when they brought up the fact that they didn't feel okay about it, there wasn't anyone on site to help them work through that. They were referred to do that at a later date, which was found to be insufficient, and the person who was sued for the attack to do pay damage of the student that was awarded.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Um so you know, sorry, was there any amount released on how much?

SPEAKER_04 14:07

No, I'm not aware of the amount. But yeah, these things do happen. And I, you know, if you carefully watch the chat of um breathwork training, you can see people getting triggered or upset or stirred up um by the practices of breathwork that are designed to be emotionally triggering so that you can release whatever it is you need to release. But if you're doing this with 400 people online and one presenter, who you got at home could take you back. You know, who's in the chat box waiting there to help you when you say, I got a little triggered and I'm uncontrollably shaking and I can't breathe or whatever the hell else is going on. You know, that that's just red flag all over the place. And I sat there and watched the chat forums and I've just gone, oh my goodness, I am really quite astounded at the the lack of fancy. But you know, there's also this thing that I have going on in my head, Lou, which is, well, people choose to do these things. But clearly nobody made them sign up to do this course and participate and play the game, so to speak. But there they are, handing themselves over probably rather blindly, based off a probably a really good marketing, really good sales, really good PR, which may or may not be breaching some of the regulations for how

Retreat Harm And Lack Of Consent

SPEAKER_04 15:39

you're supposed to conduct yourself as an unregistered health practitioner with the words you use. Um, because there are actually rules around that, which most people don't know. Like if you're a yoga teacher in Australia, you're an unregistered health practitioner, and each of our states and securities has a code of conduct that you're supposed to follow. If I reach over to my right here on my desk, I have a copy of it sitting here because you're actually meant to have a copy available in your studio. Who knows that?

SPEAKER_03 16:11

I didn't know that. So that's interesting. That's one key takeaway already.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

Yeah, one key takeaway. The the Unregistered Health Practitioners Act for your state of therapy in Australia is your guide for what you can and can't do as a health practitioner or somebody who is supporting to treat health conditions or emotional states. Like this is why we train to be a yoga therapist lead, so that you could actually um essentially assist people with their mental health and work alongside allied health and medical practitioners with what you do to support their treatment. Um, that puts us in the class of unregistered health practitioner. So yeah, we need to know the act. Um, but it's one that most people don't know about, but we are still beholden to because you'd never and she's got a um get out of the car free part.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

I've never come across a studio that has that. So that is very interesting. It's obviously not a well-known thing. Oh, that's a shame. Okay, well yeah, yeah. I would have to say that I do not know everything, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_04 17:30

There we go. So um, yeah, so everybody can look up the act. There's been a recent article that um we put together for Yoda Australia that um I think points people in the direction of where to look for um that particular

Australia’s Code For Unregistered Practitioners

SPEAKER_04 17:44

guideline in their state and territory. Yeah. So I was rather astounded that people, you know, they get caught up in the enticing language. Like marketing is, I guess, using words skillfully to be able to engage people in an interest in what we offer, but we're also beholden to do that in a way that does not take advantage of the vulnerabilities that people might have. Um, and it can be just a simple phrase that might potentially look like we've trade on vulnerabilities or we've uh uh marketed something that we can't bring evidence to or that we're not trained with our scope of practice to actually do as the teacher or yoga therapist or practice more that we we are. Um and these are things that can really trip us up because you know you could you've got to know these things, you've got to know your scope of practice. And certainly a lot of people are handing themselves over to people who

Marketing Claims And Ethical Boundaries

SPEAKER_04 18:51

um maybe fresh out of training themselves. Um, one of my bugs at the moment is yin yin yoga training. Um, oh, come and do this, you know, 20-hour yin yoga training online and you can be a yin yoga teacher. And I'm like, really? Do you really think you're going to be able to teach a room full of people to do yin yoga? Are you adequately trained to be able to lead a room full of people to do yin yoga? Like, and who is the person putting together this yin training? Are they yin trains themselves or did they just download how to do yin off the internet and chat CPT created a course for them? Because hey, really easy to do these days. Um, you know, if you're gonna do a yin training that's 20 hours online, I had absolutely zero problem with that. If you're doing that just as a student who wants to have a nice 20-hour online experience, or if you're doing that as an already qualified, preferably 350 hour, but we'll say 200 hour foundation me um playing Yoda feed cat and you're doing it as continuing professional development. Yay, great, but they'd be marketed to people who have zero experience, zero training formally in yoga to be able to then go out and teach it. Really? Yeah. I'm worried. I just and you know, and then I've got to ask myself, like, okay, well, who are these people running the training? Are they trained in yin themselves? Like, have they actually done training? Are they just making it up? So how yin is that yin training? Mm-mm. Um and do the people who created yin yoga think that's a good idea? Um, probably not. Um, how safe is it? Is it trauma aware? Is it looking at contraindications and safety? Um, and do you have the requisite peaking skills in anatomy and physiology to be able to say that what you're doing, you know, is going to be physically okay? Can you modify it for people like you're not gonna get that in a 20-hour online training? And is it yogic to do that, Liz? Like there's this principle, no.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Ethics, no, is it ethics? Ethics.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

No, it's just not. I mean, where's one the honesty? Are you adequately trained or are we just doing this because it's really a great way to charge people 500 bucks to do a 20-hour online or whatever it is? Well, we've discounted it's $97. Well, that makes it better, does it? So I don't know. I don't think it makes it any better that it's cheaper. Because if you're cutting off a piece of yoga and you're selling it to the cheapest buyer, oh, can we please stop doing that? Um, there's a thing called Adikata, which is the right to teach, you know? Teaching the right things and you have the adequate training, you've got the blessing of your teachers. You've got an organization behind you that says, Yes, rebel and with uh senior yoga teachers. Um, you get this training that you're about to attend as. student is recognized by Yoga Australia or if you're international yoga alliance, you know, have they got 10 years experience as a senior yoga teacher before they try to teach you something that is effectively training you to be a teacher? Because that requires somebody who's got the lived experience and the training

Yin Yoga Certification Concerns

SPEAKER_04 22:20

to be able to give you the certificate that really will allow you to do essentially what you've been told you can do through a sales and marketing scheme. At the night's way to put buttons on seats and dollars in bank accounts, so I'm just not so sure that it really is yogic. It's not ethical.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

Yeah and there is definitely ethics. It reminds me of a yin class I went to in Melbourne quite before COVID and I knew this teacher had not done her training because she brought us into hammock pose, which is the yin version of Sutta Padangustasana. And it's great to use the yin names because it automatically differentiates it from the yang version. So what she did was she told people to she pretty much taught it like a the yang version, but she held it for five minutes, which is not safe for your body. So she got people to dorsiflex, activate when they were cold and hold it. You practice yin in a yin way not yin in a yang way and having relaxed muscles is one of the key concept concepts and that's the thing yin is very unique. It's also confused with restorative yoga. Yes there is absolutely it yeah but they have completely different intentions and purposes. Absolutely yeah kind of relax and renew and restorative yoga we don't want any discomfort it's more suitable for people with injuries yin we want tolerable discomfort but yes they're both great.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

I don't think one is better than the other but they Yeah and then you've got to kind of ask you know in a 20 hour online certification are you going to get that in a 50 hour face to face are you going to get that depends who you you know depends who you play with exactly and so that's about asking the right questions like you know is this going to give me a certification to do X, Y, and Z that I think it's going to do or am I going to get to the end of this course thinking I can teach as a Yen teacher and find that I'm not going to be able to join any membership organizations worldwide because you know really you should have a 200 hour foundation before you go teaching something like yin. You need a greater longer study time perhaps I don't know. If it's a CPD like continuing professional development for yoga teachers fantastic. But I I have um a desire to call people up to greater standards and that's not about shaming people who are running these things. They get excited about it and they want to share and you know potentially they do need to kind of find a way to make a commercial enterprise out of the thing that they love. And we should all have the right to be able to do that. But we shouldn't have that right at the cost of the safety of our students and the potential teaching capabilities of those who train with us.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

I mean complete agreement unfortunately

Why Practical Assessment Matters

SPEAKER_03 25:33

we're seeing more and more of it and now the evil of AI is that people can write these courses quicker but also people can pass the courses easier because they can cheat on the quizzes unless the facilitator is super clever and AI cannot find the answer. That's possible but I believe because of the world we're living in we should have practical assessments they cannot use AI for that you can immediately pick up if have they they got the lived experience have they absorbed the knowledge of the course are they capable of going and teaching yoga or can they teach again yoga class? I know if I ever run a teacher training they'll get a practical component. They get a practical police I think that's just a great idea.

SPEAKER_04 26:29

I think it should be an absolute requisite and I really hope that organizations around the world you know Australia and uh internationally that when we're not just handing out certificates certificate milling it you know and for me practical assessment would be a really wise component to ensure was there in some form and that doesn't mean you have to be face to face you can do that with synchronous you know online Zoom sessions but as long as you as the assessor are able to adequately assess the capabilities of your students. So that would be Ada Kata in acting right that as us being responsible as teachers handing on the torch of the light of yoga to our students in a way that is measurable and determinable not just automatically granted because they click complete on their course module.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Well no if we were to qualify someone in a course by clicking on that quiz it ref and they go and teach yoga in a poor manner and and they s someone that says to you them, who did you train with? If it reflects on us if they did a fabulous class because you know you taught you taught it like it you ran the course like it should and they did a fabulous class you're going to get people say, oh wow you're an amazing teacher where did you study? I want to study there too. So another reason why to do it ethically talk but to keep going with this conversation you and I have been teaching almost the same amount of time we did our level two together back in 2013 with the wonderful Byron Yoga Center where we we had to teach and they actually walked around and assessed us and I think that's great. But in those days things were a lot different. There was less awareness

Trauma Aware Language And Teaching Choices

SPEAKER_03 28:37

of trauma and mental health I didn't know that straps could be a trigger and I'm not saying that it's foolproof and you can do everything you can possibly do and still trigger a student but we want to try to do our best and learn from this new knowledge. So I'm hoping that your teaching might have changed over the years because of the research has come out with agency and choice and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

Do you think it has changed because of what you've learned I think some of these trainings have learned from the people who have done a really good job of teaching in the past and no doubt we're formulating um instruction on how to be not only trauma aware but trauma informed off the backs of what has worked and hasn't worked. And I think some people have a natural inclination to be able to talk the language safety to do be able to say the right words to be able to have the right touch to be able to think what words work well in these situations be able to integral agency interest I think that there's people who are just good at that sort of stuff you know they're probably some of the original therapists whose language models have been looked at through such um such study of neurolinguistic effective. So you can take two different models one hypnotic and then one quite language detailed orientated which is seemingly at other ends of the scale hypnotic language is quite um open-ended and then you can take language that is also quite detailed and we can model what works best in what circumstance yeah and some people are just good at meeting up and down that scale and being able to do that naturally and others need to learn it. And I would say that some of my language skills have been upgraded along the way to be even more trauma sensitive without running the risk of just we we can self-edit so much that we stumble and fall like we're constantly self-editing that then just nothing comes out right. But sometimes you know because I'm acutely aware that if we try to be perfect like you said that we can take ourselves out of the game before we even start playing you know like um so it's about being gentle on those of us who step up to the plate as teachers it's about being gentle on ourselves and just calling ourselves up into more refined levels of language, more refined awareness around what people need. I would like to think that I'm constantly moving in that direction and you're brought to awareness with with you know lighting candles, fire in a room can be triggering for some people I don't really use any of that. I have general lighting and then sometimes I think to myself it's the lighting too bright, too dark, too much of this, too little of that, too too noisy, too quiet, too too hard, too soft, too difficult, too easy. We've got to sort of land somewhere in the middle of this landscape of trauma but we certainly need to know the difference between being trauma aware and trauma informed and then targeting at a therapeutic level um trauma specialties yeah every yoga class should be trauma aware but not every yoga class will be specifically for trauma and trauma sentiment. Yeah exactly so because sometimes your building might not lend itself to the right sort of layout to have an easy exit if somebody wants to leave the room because we've got to take what space is commercially available to us or affordable to us and it may not be the perfect space. So how do we make the most of what we've got so I'm acutely aware that it it can be tough but can make us anxious about everything we do as teachers. So we want to give ourselves the grace of something along the way and the happy medium of knowing that we're doing the best we can with the knowledge we have but I do think there's definitely room for the whole scope of teaching yoga teachers to begin to ask ourselves who are we doing a favor when we dilute yoga and we assume um a level of authority to train others that perhaps we had that would be the worst error in my mind in regards to being trauma aware that you overstep your scope as somebody who thinks they can train others when you don't have the teaching experience to do so. Or you make up your training because it sounds cute. Use GPT to wear it how good is that what is this do you think? Like maybe I suspect like the rebel yoga or something, you know no I like just yoga. You know I like what we learned with

Group Catharsis And Trauma Claims

SPEAKER_04 34:42

John Turner yoga to complete yoga it's a traditional Happy yoga. I've got a bit of your lineage which um I was exposed to in my late teens and early twenties which I tend to lean into but I think we need to be really transparent and honest about you know who we study here, who our teachers are our timeline of progression from student teacher and if you just have come out of a really great career for the last 20 years, did a yoga class, found the yoga aha and chip yourself up in Bali for a month and then next minute you're trained as a trainer no I don't want to study with you. No. If you're thinking that you can now train people to be yoga teachers after that no like but that that was happening I think Yoga Reliance had tightened up their um standards and I don't think there was I mean that used to happen.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

Hopefully it's not still happening gosh Yeah well I mean the people who are t doing those trainings in some that wouldn't surprise me if they could get sued by the person who did the training. Who knows? Um because of that were negligent in a way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Well the other thing that we do when we do this is we I don't know like is it respectful to the tradition of yoga is it respectful of its history and roots when we just kind of decide that oh I I I heard something the other day which was oh no I didn't fit into yoga alliances boxes to be able to run a teacher training because we don't teach all of the eight limbs of yoga and we're a specialist training. And I was like you're using that as an advertisement to sell the benefits of joining your organization as a member I'm like oh hell no thank you no thank you like that's like saying that you can be a surgeon without doing your basic medical training like really is that I was like ooh I think they should not use that anymore um I think I might have put a a comment up something to that degree like do you really want to skip the eight limbs? Like well you know and and maybe there's seven limbs but if you're covered in subtraditions of yoga there are but we've got to have an agreed upon foundation of what is a really race um basis for yoga feature painting like like if you're going to be a member of yoga there's certain things that we need you to have done. But if you want to go off and do all the special things on top of that or add in a Japanese flavor to that or a yin flavor to that or you know a traditional Chinese medicine lens because you're also a TCM practitioner, that's really great. But we've got to sort of have a foundation that unifies all of us as yoga teachers there's got to be a ground floor that we all get in on and build from and you know I think a commonly agreed upon thing is probably at least the discussion around the eight wings is not teaching them. But if you've got a system that only teaches seven because there are some then you know so be it. Um as long as you're you know there's there's a common ground. Let's say that if you want to professionalize yoga and if you want the the medical profession to be able to kind of refer to us with just being taken back up into the private health fund um insurance scheme again which you know is good yeah in Australia which is good because people are already asking me I can claim on yoga gone and when can I get my receipts and it comes in in April sometime. Although I need to check that you know look at act like professionals if we want the medical profession to refer to us and say oh look go do yoga it's great you know they've got to know that when they refer somebody to yoga they're referring to somebody who does as leap to the foundation you've kicked all those boxes you're gonna be safe you're gonna be defective you've got your private health insurance uh so you've got your public liability and professional indemnity your certain and your CPR all of that they know that they can trust us because referrals aren't going to happen if they're referring to beautiful angel down the street who actually has done no training but is seeking yoga anyway. And has somebody and they go back to their doctor and Renault find yoga and it wasn't in me.

SPEAKER_03 39:07

I broke my knee in the past or whatever it is, you know Or they do a cookie cutter teacher training that's focused on memorising a dialogue and they refer to the humorous bone as oh you know that upper arm bone in here? Yeah that one.

Rebirthing Stories And Inner Guidance

SPEAKER_03 39:25

We want to be able to use some basic terminology of humorous bone and things like that. And if a teacher doesn't know the humorous bone it's one of the major bones in the body. Yes we're not physiotherapists we don't need to technically know every tiny little bit of origin and insertion but I would think they'd know the femur and the humorous and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 39:51

Basic anatomy training does not go you know what um in this breastwork instruction course that I did online um the lovely fellow cute bit of black and kept saying breathe into your stomach and I just was like oh my god it's an organal digestion I was like do I say I was like yeah no that's not how it works and that sort of stuff doesn't do anything for our credibility as yoga teachers because you know if you're a medical profession that's gonna go you can't breathe into your stomach. Really? I mean I know it's colloquial but as people who are training people to be instructive you need to get your anatomy right and you cannot breathe into your stomach yeah breathe into your lungs you use your diaphragm your ribs expand you know there's a whole lot of stuff going on but yeah we are not breathing into our sight. And I you know what I wanted to say something I should say oh is anybody else uncomfortable with this terminology I didn't say it because I quickly saw that there was some editing or comments that weren't um all pretty and nice and they were getting um hurra.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Right and uh are there any other concerns you had about this breath work breath Well the other thing was they didn't even get some of their anatomy right in regards to what was happening biochemically in the body.

SPEAKER_04 41:16

And several people yes some people did question it and make comments and I was one person who said oh it's not very clear like it was actually completely incorrect the diagram that they had shared to these people who are becoming breath instructors and when they were pointed out on it rather than saying oh we've made an error they just deleted the post and then the person who put it up put it up again and that got deleted. Ooh well that so yeah you know when you've got to edit and delete your comments because people are pulling you up on the mistake to make you own them and you say yeah that was incorrect. I'm gonna change that thanks for letting me know.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

Yeah and yes even the experts we all made mistakes yeah they meant to have a moment or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 42:02

I look I I still still remember um like a workshop that I did one time and somebody asked me about question a a question about um cortisol in the morning and I I gave the wrong answer but it was only 15 minutes late was like right at the end of the thing I was a bit tired I I answered it wrong 15 minutes later right at the end of it I realized oh wait a second I got that wrong like uh just before you leave can I just edit my my my response I think I said this and what I should have said is this. So I stand corrected. I said the wrong thing. So sometimes you just open your mouth and you're like what was that? I mean I've given instructions in yoga classes where my students have looked at me and gone, oh if we do that rebel we'd be levitating. You know I'm like yeah levitation that's the next step. And you go, okay what I meant to say was like you know get the right anatomy piece and you miss your hand up the seat or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_03 43:01

That that's irning and and it comes back to having the humbleness of saying to a student, actually I don't know the answer to that or out of my scope of practice. I can't diagnose you with a bulge disc. You need to go to a doctor, physiotherapist, get scanned so I've come to a couple more questions here, but I've heard some interesting things yoga therapists who have more scope but also yoga teachers saying you need to push your students to get them deeper. You need to make them uncomfortable you need to push them um some of them might even think that exposure therapy is within their scope and I just wonder what your thoughts are with yoga teachers who are teaching a big you know so I'll give you an example. Say for instance you had um a class of 10 more people and The yoga teacher does a shaking meditation and once even if they let them come out of it, they do that shaking meditation for a long time and say, Oh yeah, let's release all the trauma. I'm gonna get all the trauma out of your body. And they might even call themselves the trauma healer or a trauma therapist. Yeah. How do you feel about that? Because I've heard of things like that. And because the students need to be pushed to heal. And I don't like to work use the word heal.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Um yeah, we're explicitly prohibited from using it in certain contexts. Like we can't promise that. I mean, we can talk about the process of healing and what facilitates healing, but we can't, you know, say we're healers or that you're going to be healed from doing this session, or we can't say that, you know, shake your body and you're gonna release all your trauma. It makes me cringe on the inside. Um, it really does make and it does it make my face want to do weird things too. Like it it raises red flags for me. Um I'm also a trained naturopath, been a natropath for 35 years. You know, at some point in time we've had this idea that there can be such a thing as a a healing crisis. Um, I don't know that I've ever been particularly comfortable with that because I think certainly in modern busy lives where we're often experiencing overwhelm, the last thing we need is something to lever us into a cathartic experience because that cathartic experience may not necessarily be a healing experience, it could just be a re-traumatizing experience. And look, if you don't know how what you do is going to affect somebody, either on the side of caution and just leave it, leave it. You know, I don't think we should be trying to do therapy in big groups either. Like, yeah, you

Choosing A Teacher After Trauma

SPEAKER_04 46:00

know, that's not what what we're trying to do with judgment therapy. Yeah, exactly. Like really, we have small specific groups where we do one-on-one individualized um therapeutic approaches, but I'm certainly not comfortable with working with large groups pretending that I'm going to do therapy with them. That's that's not the way it works. Um, I don't like this idea of of pushing, like, you know, I like the Golden Lots principle. Did we learn that with John? Yeah, I think we did, you know.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Not too little. Yeah, and Brandon Play and Bernie. I know Bernie is big on this. Explains it so well.

SPEAKER_04 46:36

Not too little, not too much, just enough for this student in this moment, yeah. And who am I to know explicitly what is enough for that student in that moment? You know, if I haven't done a a a case history with them, I'm not aware that they've got a creepy left chip. Am I gonna push them into greater um flexion or extension or whatever with their here? Am I gonna look harder? Like I'm not. I tend to be that yoga teacher who does not put my hands on my students, even though I know some of them would probably love it. Like, oh, I love angel stuff and love yoga teachers, you know, but I just cannot be. Um, but I felt that people learn to do it for themselves. Find that release in your own body through some really useful cues. How can I be more elegant in my cues as a teacher that I can elicit my students in finding that whatever it is for themselves, that I'm interested in that. That to me is autonomy, not me pushing and potentially overstepping my market. I don't I'm not interested in taking that risk at all. Um even as so yeah, I I do even as a yoga dev, as as a yoga, I feel um, yeah, I I I feel really a need to caution both students and yoga teachers from those scenarios. I I I think we want to avoid them.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

Yeah, especially uh because a lot of them wouldn't know what to do if that person experienced being re-traumatized. Do they actually know how to hold space for them and help them?

SPEAKER_04 48:28

I'm not confident in that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

And the third time even though I'm a yoga therapist and I've got 35 years clinical experience as an afterpath and I was trained in holistic counseling, I can't say that it's something I would readily want to actually have to figure out how to deal with. I'm confident that I've got the skills too, in the best way I can within my scale of practice, but yeah, I don't know, I don't want to be responsible for doing something that was so overwhelming and challenging for a class of people that I've got people breaking down in front of me. And I certainly don't want to pretend like that's a good experience for them. I guess because I'm 55 this year, Liz. And so I think yeah, I've been getting what I do for a very long time, and I have blown myself into the fiery pit of other people, I guess. It was in their own judgment as therapists. Um, I did rebirthing back when I was still in high school. I remember going to the house, like this house just I remember the street and everything and the building that I was in and going to it to this, I don't even know who she was, I can't remember her name, and we did rebirthing and it was a terribly awful experience that I subject myself to twice more after that initial experience, which did nothing for me other than potentially reinforce some of the states that I was going through in my late teens. That was rebirthing. I kind of feel like breastwork is rebirth and repackage. And so I think the beauty of yoga practice is that we're really empowering our students to be the ones that take responsibility for themselves, for their own health and for living their life well. Um and that uh we're not there to to fix or heal or do things differently out of our scope of practice. I I think yoga is being taught really well and practiced really well is the thing that gives us access to our own inner guidance. Um so therefore I might personally question whether anything that doesn't do that is actually yoga. For me, that's what yoga is all about. Um coming to this inner guidance. That's that light that's got me through. That's why it was a life-saving experience when I was 12. That's what it gave me to have me understand myself better, yeah? That I can be my own inner guiding light. That's the gift it gave me. That gift was beautifully expressed by our teacher with John Alderby when he was asked for yoga week a few years ago. What's the greatest gift yoga has ever given you? And he said, the the power of concentration, of paying attention on purpose in the moment, yeah? What a great gift to be able to be able to tune your mind to be attentive to the moment and to the experience that you're in. You know, um that's the greatest gift yoga has given me. And I question if we're not doing that for our kids, are we really getting yoga?

SPEAKER_03 51:52

Yeah, that that's true, because a lot of yoga these days is taught like a a mere exercise fancy dance routine. As a final question to you, if you knew of a person who wanted to try yoga who had diagnosed PTSD, what advice would you give to someone who or not even just diagnosed PTSD, had just experienced some trauma. Like what comes to mind now is the Bondi terrorist attack that Australia had last year just before Christmas on the first day of Hanukkah. I was absolutely horrified and my heart was with all of the people, the victims, the the rissers, and so even someone like that who's thought, oh yeah, I'll go to a yoga class and I'll feel better or it'll help me recover.

SPEAKER_04 52:47

Yeah, I guess my advice would be to like look up Yoga Australia and see if the yoga teacher that you're about to select um is a member. Um, I potentially be looking for at least 112 yoga teachers, somebody who has five years experience. Um if you're looking for the Yoda Reliance equivalent, it would be and B R YP 500. That's just an easy check, but there are people who are fantastic yoga teachers and yoga therapists who are not registered with any organization. And sometimes speaking to people that you know who've had great experiences, great experiences with a teacher, a particular teacher or a a therapist, you know, perhaps personal recommendation can be something that you can look for. But either of those things are never going to be a guarantee that you're gonna have the experience that you need in that that moment. But what we're all doing is minimizing, we're taking responsibilities, throwing ourselves into something, thinking it's going to fix all our problems, when it might not. So it's that that discernment is what I come back to again. Like, do your homework, look them off. Are they a registered teacher? Have they got some experience? What do other people say about the way they teach and what they offer? And then work out whether it's all the lines for you. But certainly I guess the advice would be potentially one of what to avoid, which is don't believe the hype. Yeah, I guess not your call. Yep, exactly. I would like to say don't believe the hype. Look for the seeds of truth in it, look for that which is um, you know, something that you can lean upon as a good thing to base your decision of. Have they got a certificate? Did they trial me? Are they actually trained? Do they have experience? You know, if you're looking for a yoga therapist, Liz, you've done a great training, and I have years of speaking to you, you've been studying with earlier at Biomi. Um I can really see the veracity with which you're framing yourself into study. And I could only wish that everyone could come across somebody who was as only used in it, that we'd be about fanatical about learning as you are, you know? Because it's inc Yeah, I know you like that. But you could because it's important, you know, we've got uh we're holding people and if we say really we're gonna keep them safe, we should be able to. If we say we're gonna do XY and Zion, you know, know that we've got the requisite skills to do that. So um, yeah, I just think we're a yoga therapy designation when it's something as important as your mental health.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, thank you. You're very kind. I do have a not for knowledge, but I uh I I do understand I've been privileged to be able to have the time and money to do that. Not everyone has that. Um it is an undertaking, isn't it? Huge undertaking. Idiot their opinion. And I've I know I've been pulled up on that. Oh, it's all right for you, Lee. You've got the time and you've got the money. I would do that if I was in your circumstance. Okay, yeah, I get that. That is true. Any final words of wisdom, Rebel?

Non-Attachment And Avoiding Quick Fixes

SPEAKER_04 56:38

I like coming back to that yoga principle of Varaja of detachment or non-attachment. Sometimes it's translated as dispassion, which I struggle with that one as a translation because it makes me feel like I should enjoy anything. But for me, yoga has been an absolute joy and it's helped bring joy into my life. I think it's made me a better person, a better parent, a better wife. It's just made me better. My teacher finds me so as body when I explained yoga as that which makes you more you. Um and so I think when we practice yoga that if we go into it looking for it to be the answer to all our problems and expecting it to solve everything, it might fall short. But if we go in as a willing student with our ears open, our eyes open, our heart open, as much of ourselves open to learning as we can safely expose ourselves to, then we might just transform in a way that does seem miraculous. Um, so this non-attachment to the outcome, if we're going in desperate for a cure, desperate for healing, desperate for something to be released or relieved or some burden to be taken off our shoulder, that often the very practices we employ to do that often add the burden, add the weight, re-traumatizes. So I would say go in having chosen the best that you think you can choose, but without an attachment to the outcome, because sometimes it takes more than one setting, more than one practice. For me, it's a lifetime practice. And so if you find the right teacher who's got some really great training, somebody that you really align with, and stick with them and learn from them and incrementally allow the transformation to take place and maybe you'll get to that point where not in one session, but maybe in a year's time, the thing that made you feel so awful that felt so traumatic in the past, now it's something that you can look back on um with a greater sense of peace and acceptance and compassion for who you were that went through that. They're the sort of things that I feel yoga can teach others to do, but like any school they take practice. So give yourself the grace of time.

SPEAKER_03 59:39

Yeah, I've learned that one. I I didn't realise how much that fire would affect me, the recovery time and uh I've reflected on how I've changed and recovered, but it has not been a quick thing at all. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:57

I I something else has just come

Testimonials And Closing Notes

SPEAKER_04 1:00:00

to mind with you saying that like if you if you go and do some quick fix thing and at the end of that day the person who put you through that fix click program asked you for a testimonial, politely decline. Really people do that? Oh my goodness. Oh my god, Liz, I've seen a few recently and it just oh Yep, it's cringeworthy to watch it. And and it's not cringeworthy because the testimonial isn't heartfelt in that moment, but you know, whether or not that change or that feeling is lasting is seen down the road, not at the moment of impact of that that event on that person to hopefully change them. Asking for a testimony at that point is um taking advantage of somebody who might be in a very vulnerable position. They might not be able to say no. And if they say yes, the testimony that you might have elicited from them might be the exact sort of thing that these unregistered health practitioner codes actually advise against doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

I've never thought of that being an issue, but you would know in your position when I will put all your social media links, your website. And are you I think you're running another yoga teacher training this year. I've sore on your social.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:25

I was looking at doing um that again too, so we'll just see if there's the call for it, there's instruction in a way that really um honors some of the new guidelines that come have come in with the um public health insurance. So I'm getting at research and my thoughts to be able to meet those um criteria for my teachers who train with me to be eligible for those. So that's a bit of a working job, Beth.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

Stay tuned, watch this space. Stay tuned, yeah. Thank you. It's been great to have you back on the show. You were my first guest on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

Thank you, if you enjoyed that episode. I encourage you to go back to episode two from season one and check out for some bonus episodes where you'll hear Rebel's voice again. Thanks for joining me.