All posts tagged: stress release

The Resilience Retreat, 15-17 May 2026

Published by Minna

A Weekend of Trauma-Informed Yoga in Nature Friday, 15th May, 5pm – Sunday, 17th May, 2pm Grempoli Retreat, 7 Via Uscioli, Pontassieve (FI) 50065, Italy Join us for a weekend of regeneration, with time in nature and trauma-informed yoga. Experience the benefits of a simple, gentle yoga practice on body, breath and mind. Asana (postures), pranayama (breathing practices) and yoga nidra (deep relaxation) will be combined with an understanding of nervous system regulation. Over the weekend, you will develop an understanding of how trauma affects your physiology and psychology, as well as how yogic practices can support your capacity to find balance and restore resilience. Who it is for: This workshop is open for everyone interested in learning how to use the body, breath and awareness to overcome and heal from stress and trauma. While no previous experience in yoga is needed, those who are yoga teachers will learn skills to adapt yogic tools and techniques to their sessions with trauma survivors. Topics covered: • Practising yoga to free the body, breath and emotions from

Community Really is a Super-Power

Published by Minna

We received this precious feedback from our recent refugee yoga retreat, held for the second time at Lockerbrook Farm in the Peak District National Park in the UK. A mix of cultures, ages and backgrounds came together with compassion and embraced the yoga practices that were shared. *** Dear friends, fellow yogis, kitchen warriors, As we wrap up this unforgettable retreat, I wanted to take a moment — from the bottom of my stretched hamstrings and still-tingling chakras — to say a big, hearty THANK YOU. A round of belly-breathing gratitude to our wonderful teachers: Yanar, Kerry, and Lynn, who guided us through flows, stillness, journaling, and something called sankalpa, which we’re still trying to pronounce correctly. You taught us that transformation can be gentle… To all of you who washed dishes, chopped veggies, and scrubbed pots — you embodied karma yoga with sudsy grace. You reminded us that yoga doesn’t end with shavasana. Sometimes, it ends with compost. And then, just when we thought the magic had peaked, came the final night: a fire

“Sow seeds of love wherever you go”

Published by Minna

– Quote by Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati These are some personal reflections by Mantramala (Minna Jarvenpaa) on the Yoga Pura Vida teacher training that Tools for Inner Peace supported in Sierra Leone: The week before our departure from Sierra Leone was full of emotion: grief, joy, memory of old hurts, love. Over the course of the first eleven days of the training, participants had been finding their way into all the aspects of yoga, opening up, releasing tension, going deeper. Old memories were starting to come up, both tender and sad. On Day 12, we started teaching Yoga for Children and discovered that many of the participants had been orphans, street children or refugees from the civil war; some had survived sexual abuse or abandonment. Others had been pulled out of school and made to work in the streets by relatives. Several had never had the safety or care to really be children. All carried within them the inter-generational trauma of slavery on which Sierra Leone was built. Now we were asking these same people –