…and for anyone who is ready to set yourself free.
This is also for those who may not have struggled with food and body image, yet are sensitive and empathetic towards others who struggle.
When: November 1-10
Where: The Yoga Barn, Ubud, Bali
* 75 hours towards your 300-Hour Advanced Yoga Certification (Yoga Alliance)*
Schedule: (subject to change)
• 7-9:30am
• 11am-1pm
• 3-5:30pm
Price: (includes all course material and a welcome dinner)
Early Bird: $1599 – ends August 1st, 2020
Regular: $1999
* If you attend both “The Field – The Power of Presence” and “The Power of Pleasure – Yoga for Eating Disorders” the price for both trainings: $2800
Scholarship: one scholarship is available for this course. You may download the application here.
Why Yoga For Eating Disorders?
One of the greatest neuroses most of us carry is that something’s not right with us, that we aren’t enough, that we need to make changes and constantly work to improve. That there’s something to hide. Instead of continually exhausting ourselves, there’s a power in resting with ourselves.
The kind of effort required in healing isn’t to keep trying to be something you’re not, it’s learning how to settle back into yourself and discover the gold that you already are. The distortion that we carry is that we are broken, when in fact we’ve been whole all along.
My primary reason for running this training is that more of us struggle with food and our body image than we’d like to admit. We feel pressure in social media and even more pressure from our own inner voices.
Eating disorders aren’t about food and the body, while they are everything about food and the body. It’s also our saying, “I’m not comfortable, I don’t want to be here,” or “I’m scared,” or “I don’t feel like I’m allowed to be myself,” or “I hate myself,” or “I have so many feelings that I don’t know how to handle and I’d rather numb out.”
There are more voices to name.
Our greatest embodiment wants to happen – that huge life Source wants to run through the totality of our being – and without realizing it, our pain we’re not sure how to yet handle, is blocking it.
Now more than ever is the time for you to own your light, to own your LIFE.
I’ll admit I never thought I’d be healthy. I never thought I’d love my body. I never thought I could enjoy my life.
There’s a Tibetan Practice of Dancing with Your Demons and through the dance, you discover the gifts you were always looking for.
This gets to be your own dance – what will you discover?
This is your space to get intimate with what works for you.
- To understand why you may “regress.”
- To understand your triggers.
- To understand what true health is for you.
- To make your life go beyond food.
- To know everything as Source.
- To understand how intelligent your own system is and how it will speak to you.
- To feel truly safe and loveable as you.
If you’re coming to this training to understand how to support others, you’ll get to understand the mind and emotions of these disorders and what can be the most empowering and supportive approach.
“I put myself on my first diet when I was 9, purged for the first time at 13, was officially underweight with heart problems at 17. It wasn’t just about food and my body – life was a struggle. I had a hard time being around others, I was always exhausted, I had a difficult time asserting my worth and boundaries. There was a lot of unnamed pain I never wanted to look at. And although I recovered several times, I kept regressing and there were deeper layers in me that were still dominating my experience. Through the combination of meditation, movement practices, shamanic work, craniosacral therapy, energy practices, spiritual psychology, somatic experiencing, and trauma therapy, I found my way through.
Now I understand the gift of my disorder and what my body, my soul was calling out for all along. I’ve been there. Having walked through both the dark and the light paths, I know where there’s ease and a way. I know how to name what’s happening and how to hold space for you to embark on your journey towards recovery. Each of our recovery paths will be unique and it’s helpful to have a map, torch and healthy companion along the way.” ~ Cat Kabira
This program comes from my heart to those who:
- Are serious dedicated practitioners and teachers.
- Have ever struggled with food, with body image, with identity, with being seen.
- Feel unsafe in this world
- Feel like they carry a dirty little secret or have remnants of their struggle.
- Has had a hard time being here in their body or in life in general.
- Has had a hard time grounding or relating to others.
- Struggle with dominating fears that keep us stuck in our own little prison, unsure of how to get out.
- Are teachers who may not struggle with an eating disorder, but whose students do.
- Encounter others in pain and aren’t sure what to make of it or how to safely hold space for them.
- Are friends / family of those with eating disorders.
In this Yoga For Eating Disorders Training you will learn how to begin to heal the anorectic, bulimic and overeating patterns by:
- Outlining the patterns of what anorexia, bulimia and overeating are really about.
- Gaining a deeper understanding of it energetically, emotionally, and mentally, where it can show up collectively and ancestrally.
- Getting real about our relationship with food and body and finding out what’s true for ourselves and healthiest for us.
- Most importantly: owning the power of self-compassion
Through both Dynamic and Subtle Movement, meditation practices, as well as multi-dimensional work with our chakras and energy field, on this 10 days Yoga For Eating Disorders journey will we embark on together will enable us to:
- Become our own witness.
- Understand our own energy field and strengthen it.
- Meet the ghosts of the trauma that we may still carry.
- Healthily feel and process our emotional body in a way without going into overwhelm.
- Handle life: gain inner-stability; learn how to ride our waves; how to meet ourselves when new tension, change, pain, trauma arises. Instead of destroying or minimizing ourselves, we will gain the skills and courage necessary to meet ourselves and meet life.
- Understand our relationship to food, how we may restrict our own life force and power.
- Discover how our emotions influence our digestion.
- Understand our relationship to pleasure and how we sense it in our own body.
- Receive pleasure in our own life and clarify why pleasure is so essential.
- Understand our relationship with our own sexuality and sensuality including reclaiming our own boundaries
- Discover ways we leave our body, how to bring awareness to it, and ultimately how to come back home to ourselves.
- Discover other ways we escape or leave and what it means to stay.
- Recognize the power of anger and destruction and how to respect our fierce Kali nature.
- Bring our badass wild self back to life.
- Strengthen the connection between our personal power and our voice, in order to speak directly with empowered confidence.
- Harness the power of nurturing.
Asana, Movement, Meditation and Energy Practices:
Daily movement practices in both dynamic and subtle forms, some in the more typical movement patterns, while much will be outside of conventional asana, are designed to make new connections and pathways in our body and field, expand our inner horizon and connect us more deeply to our inner truth.
Meditation practices will bring us in to welcome our ground and deeper stability and sense ourselves in our deeper layers. Here we will gain an understanding of what it means to be truly grounded.
Self healing Energy Practices: learn to work with your own energy in a way that’s healthy for you.
These and other practices will work directly on our chakras, especially the 1 st -5 th , in order to strengthen our field, bring love to our wounds and create a healthy flow through our system physically, mentally, and emotionally.
You will Grow as a Teacher by Learning:
- How to hold space (in general) for someone in a supportive, safe, and neutral way
- How to healthily hold space (specifically) for those struggling with eating disorders, so they can find their way through it.
- What are boundaries and how to honor them both internally and externally – getting real about what you can take on and what’s not yours.
- Various practices that are supportive for your students
This training includes fundamentals in working with the energy body and is strongly recommended if you have interest in taking “ The Field ” – Power of Presence training .
Why pleasure? Why is it so healing?
As someone who was struggling with anorexia, bulimia, and overeating, I didn’t know what pleasure was, denied myself pleasure in food, in life, in fun, and in relationships. Essentially everywhere. I was scared of pleasure, I only knew the pleasure that somehow had negative consequences. It was like I wasn’t allowed to have pleasure.
The game-changer I discovered is that pleasure (or we could call it delight), is what makes me ground, pleasure is what makes me want to be here; that what gives me pleasure is uniquely my own – and I get to keep discovering what that is for me and you get to discover yours for you.
Now I build my life around pleasure. And I’m not talking epic Instagram moments; I’m talking the small things that catch me: the simple things like good smells or how much I love what I do. There is so much pleasure in simply being.
We can spend all this time “working on ourselves” and what if there was nothing to work on? What if we just need to come home to ourselves? In these 10 days you will get to discover what pleasure actually means for you. That it’s even there when things fall apart. That it’s a power that holds you and carries you and it’s the magic you build your life on. It’s what you say yes to, from the light of your soul.
The Inspiration for this Yoga for Eating Disorders Training:
When I was 17, I started meditation and yoga to heal from my eating disorder. That helped and I started teaching at 22 feeling empowered since “yoga saved my life.”
For the first couple of years I found some true breakthroughs. Having tried so many other practices from shamanic work, craniosacral therapy, spiritual psychology, somatic experiencing, to name a few, I found practices that worked and practices that didn’t work.
However I found myself, despite all my practices, still regressing in both behaviors and never finding a way through, I started to understand my behavior behind the scenes and what my anorexia, bulimia, and overeating was really about.
In fact I found that the more trainings I’d take, sometimes my eating disorder would get even stronger. I felt desperate and fearful that I would be dominated by my relationship with food and body image, that it was my dirty little secret that affected my relationship with others and myself. Not to mention what it was doing to my health – not that at the time this mattered to me.
While no yoga practice seemed to save me, I felt ashamed. I felt pressured as I became more public to keep my body a certain way and while I may have looked “healthy” on the outside, I secretly was anorectic-bulimic, using “detoxes, fasts and cleanses” as ways to hide my disorder.
It never felt safe to be with myself.
I didn’t want to be trapped in this, I just didn’t know a way out. And after countless therapists and healing methodologies, not to mention a deep commitment to yoga and meditation, I wasn’t sure why I kept regressing.
I feared that I was somehow a fraud as a teacher, questioning: how was I actually in my power?
And then I found my way. With the help of a therapist I understood the deeper power of grounding, stability, and safety and finally had a baseline in myself that I could trust. The more stable I became, the deeper work rose that wanted to be met.
I am not a psychologist. I’m someone who’s trained extensively in yoga and the healing arts. Someone once called me a shaman – and their definition is “someone who’s been dismembered and put themselves back together.”
Yes! That’s me.
As someone who has recovered from eating disorders, I know firsthand:
- the fear that dominates;
- the struggle that seems to never end;
- navigating the desire to heal along with the fear of: who am I if I am healed ?
- the fear of my body changing
- how overwhelming it can even get to be intimate with one self;
- the fear of my own power and intimacy with others;
- the fear of surrender
- what it’s like to finally trust.
I created this Yoga For Eating Disorders Training because I know what we first choose to use as freedom can end up being just another prison. I found that my spiritual practices went from something that seemed to open up a new world yet those possibilities also turned into a restrictive way I had to be. We are so skilful, in how our past or current history as gymnasts, dancers, overachievers and perfectionists can still keep us rigid. That old pain and trauma, especially sexual trauma, can echo in our system; we want to get it out yet we don’t know how. While sometimes there seems to be a greater force that controls us, it’s time to find the force within us that can set us free.
So if you’re ready for your freedom, if you’re ready for your power and if you’re ready to live life – join this Yoga for Eating Disorders Training: 10 days. 7 hours/day; a commitment that will open up the world to you in a more expansive way and you get to come home to yourself again.
Note: for anyone deeply in the throes of an eating disorder we recommend that you also work one-on-one with a therapist to create deeper stability for yourself before joining us.
Prerequisites:
However a 200 hour certification is not required, we do expect a certain level of stability, emotional maturity, commitment, and self-awareness, in order for you to dive fully into this training.
For those of you who have already completed a 200 hour Yoga Alliance training, you may find that both of these trainings will take your personal practice, awareness and teaching abilities to a much deeper level.
No “advanced asana”
In terms of the physical aspect of these trainings, there will be no “ advanced asana ” in a gymnastic sense. When we do movement it will be exploratory: an ownership of personal space and most importantly, the invitation to fulfil your deepest embodiment.
Intimate Group Sizes that Foster Connection, Community and Personalized Support
This is energetic work – whether we are talking about yoga or healing – you will train with Cat Kabira in new ways, enabling you to sense and support yourself and eventually to support others. As a facilitator, this does require extra attention to your specific needs. In order to foster this connection, community, and support, so that we may tailor to the specifically unique needs of the students within the training, groups are purposefully kept to a more intimate size.
Furthermore while we are conscious of how to support groups throughout this deep work, you may need additional individual support. This support could be via a therapist with whom you already have been working or one recommended by us.
Due to the unpredictable travel predicaments regarding the global pandemic:
Cancellation / Refund Policy:
Your registration is not confirmed until we receive a $500 non-refundable deposit to hold your space.
Special Note: With the global pandemic, we are aware that travel at the moment is unknown.
It also looks like coming to Bali will be a “go” for many countries by November (yay!) We will be in touch with you as the training dates get closer. If it looks like travel is not possible for November we will move this training to a later date.
In that time you will have the option for either a refund (minus service fees) or to keep your tuition as credit for this training or any training with Cat Kabira online or in-person.
We will run a module on eating disorders online during these dates if we can’t do this in person. We won’t cover all of the material (we’ll keep that for our in-person training) but we will make it potent and juicy. Again, at this point we’re confident the training is a go but it’s nice to know we have plan Bs and you’ll get your money back if you can’t leave your country.
Full tuition is required to be paid in full no later than two months (60 days) before the starting date of the course.
Cat Kabira’s Yoga and Energetics reserves the right to cancel this event, due to insufficient registration, rejection of employment visas or any circumstances beyond our control. In case of a cancellation on our side, you will of course, get your full tuition plus your deposit refunded.
If you decide to cancel your attendance for the course, the following applies:
- Deposits ($500USD) are non-refundable.
- Any alterations of your booking (for example from housing to offsite) will concur a penalty fee.
- If you cancel before 2 months in advance of the training, 100% of your tuition will be refunded minus the $500 deposit. You also have the option to transfer the $500 deposit and apply it to another training, otherwise the deposit will be forfeited.
- Any cancellation within 2 months of the training your tuition is 100% non-refundable.
- Once the course begins no refunds will be issued.
- There can be exceptions to the policies above and are dealt with in a case-by-case manner.
Yoga and Energetic Work are in essence, practices of self-empowerment and self-responsibility.
I recognize that I participate in this/these program(s), in real-time or via recordings at my own risk. [READ FULL WAIVER]
* If you attend both “The Field – The Power of Presence” and “The Power of Pleasure – Yoga for Eating Disorders” the price for both trainings: $2800
About the Venue: The Yoga Barn
Hi there,
I am very interested in joining this program and would just like to know a bit more details about how to get there in terms of travel, like airports, and from airport to the venue etc. COuld you perhaps tell me more about that?
Sincere thanks,
Simone
This training may indeed be offered online, due to potential continuation of pandemic travel restrictions. So if you are interested in this as an option, do let us know.