iRest yoga nidra teacher training provides students with far more than solid tools to teach integrative yoga nidra. Over this five-day intensive course, students discover for themselves their deepest, wisest self – already healed, already whole, already healthy and already awakened. Ahead of his iRest teacher training at Camden in October 2019, we share James Reeves’ reflections on the genuine transformation he witnesses within his students.
I am perpetually amazed at the potency and transformational nature of the five-day iRest yoga nidra teacher training course. The heart of the teaching is a paradox. As part of the training, we are teaching people to drop their agenda to try to fix, change or refuse their experience.
At first, this is disconcerting for some, but through the practice of co-meditation (sitting with another and allowing that person to be a mirror for their experience) something profound takes place. As the trainees begin experientially meeting self-refusal, shame, blame, guilt and denial, enormous personal shifts take place. As the inner world begins to feel welcome, they begin to embody the ideals of yoga. That is to say that a genuine sense of internal ‘one-ness’ (or welcoming) manifests as a quality of being at one with others and the world.
This then sets the stage for the final part of the training – to explore the nature of consciousness itself. As people start to feel freer on an emotional and mental level, the energy and attention that has been bound up in the realm of the mind becomes free to explore higher states of consciousness. It’s such a joy to facilitate these trainings and to see attendees gain far more than the ability to teach really good, solid and integrative yoga nidra. They also start to embody the depth of the teachings of yoga.
At the end of the training, I see the potential of the attendees to be genuine healers and a powerful force for transformation in the world. And the funny thing is, that this has been facilitated through the simple act of accepting that there is nothing to fix, change, work out or mend in another. We’re just listening, asking questions and being with another. Simple.
I am so grateful my past groups of trainees who show such willingness to dive in deeply and give their all to this training. My heart-felt thanks for the work they are now engaging in with the world – helping others to be at ease with themselves and find a sense of real and lasting inner peace.
James Reeves has almost two decades of yoga experience and is the UK’s only iRest teacher trainer. His interest in yoga nidra was sparked during his first ever yoga class when the closing relaxation left him feeling a profound sense of interconnectedness and wholeness. This unexpected discovery led to many years of self enquiry and in-depth study with master yoga nidra teachers around the world.