Restoring balance to ourselves and the world through the power of rest
Yoga Nidra is a practice for
resting, returning, remembering, re-connecting, replenishing, re-aligning, rejuvenating, rewilding
What is Yoga Nidra?
Yoga nidra is a meditative practice for deep relaxation, and an expansive state of awareness. It is an opportunity to spend time with your own body and being for rest and rejuvenation and, depending on your intention, even creative inspiration. It is an adaptable practice which has the capacity to provide different effects on different occasions, depending on what is most needed at any given time.
Nidra means sleep and the successive phases of the practice make it possible to experience some of the brainwaves that occur during sleep, allowing the body to receive deep rest whilst the mind remains awake.
It is an effortless process for getting in touch with different aspects of oneself – the mind, the body, the emotions and the soul. It provides an opportunity to bring these aspects together while relaxing and letting go. It can lead to an integration of seemingly contradictory concepts or feelings which can promote a sense of equanimity enabling us to deal with the natural ups and downs of life more easily.
During yoga nidra you can expect to lie down and get comfortable. The practice often includes a phase of settling, a rotation of consciousness around the body, conscious breathing, experiencing opposite sensations such as hot and cold, or juxtaposing emotions, and it will sometimes include visualisation. There are several different schools of yoga nidra each with their own style.
Possible benefits of practicing yoga nidra can include:
stress reduction, a calmer nervous system, improved sleep and digestion, sparks of creativity, support for healing processes, an increased capacity to hold the complexities of life, reconnection with the rhythms of Nature and our own cyclic being, and most fundamentally, the experience of deep and nourishing rest.
My approach
I offer earth-inspired, trauma-sensitive nidras. It is important for me to use permissive language to remind the participants that the experience is their own and to empower them to take what resonates and to discard anything that doesn’t ring true. Every practice is simply an invitation and I aim to create a space in which the participants can access and follow their own wisdom.
In 2022 I completed the teacher and facilitator training in Yoga Nidra for women with The Yoga Nidra Network. The Yoga Nidra Network is an independent post-lineage collective of teachers, trainers, practitioners and students from all over the world who strive for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
My work as a yoga nidra facilitator is rooted in the ethical guidelines that have been created by the Yoga Nidra Network. To read these guidelines and operating ethics you can click on the following links:
