I work in a high energy manufacturing facility and on top of that, I teach multiple yoga classes per week, which is a full life! Practicing yoga for over 20 years and teaching for 5 years has been wonderful, yet I was looking for greater depth and insight. I was always searching for something that would bring more peace into my life, and allow me to bring peace to the lives of others.
Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra has filled that gap for me! It’s an extremely relaxing and peaceful practice. It’s the best! By accessing the five levels of being called the koshas, this profound practice has opened doors to a very deep place within me.
Since I attended Jennifer’s Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra teacher training at Kripalu Center last April, I have been practicing with Jennifer’s CDs a number of times a week. Between my own personal practice and also guiding Divine Sleep with students, the change in myself is huge! My spiritual practice has the depths I longed for. My ability to deal with whatever life throws at me has increased. I am more peaceful, present and open to whatever is going on in each moment.
I have never attended a training that brought me deeper, or which I left more open and clear, than Jennifer’s teacher training. It is wonderful and sets the student up to begin guiding others through this incredible practice upon graduation. I jumped right into guiding Divine Sleep shortly after the training and it honestly feels like I have been doing this forever! It feels natural for me and I suspect its because of the simplicity and sheer beauty of the practice. Guiding yoga nidra feels like the most natural thing to do! I can say that — thanks to Jennifer’s teaching.
One amazing aspect is that when I lead Divine Sleep, I feel like it’s as much a meditation for me as it is for those receiving it! Guiding is a deep meditation for me. Recently, we held a ‘yoga nidra and movie night’, with a showing of the movie Awake, about the life of Paramahansa Yogananda, after practicing Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra. It helped us to open to the beauty of his life and retain the information rather than just being half present, we were very present. Yoga nidra is a flexible practice that can be teamed up with restorative yoga or, if you’d like, with a great movie!
Jennifer told us during the training is that ‘there is no way you can mess this up’. Using the lessons learned in our training and Jennifer’s wonderful manual, it’s been easy for me to develop new scripts and guide students into very deep states of mind and relaxation. One of my students said it’s like ‘night time story time’ for adults!
I have a number of dedicated participants who are self-proclaimed “haters” of Savasana, yet when I lead them in yoga nidra, they Love it. Because it’s a guided practice it gives the mind something else to do, which gives a chance to quiet the minds, and to find some peace inside within. This practice opens doors deeper and deeper into one’s self. The journeys plant a seed inside that blossom into better rest and sleep, more peace and an awakening to one’s true Self.
I am more peaceful and more present than ever before. Jennifer is a wonderful teacher and she is the reason that the trainings and her Divine Sleep Yoga Nidra sessions are so profound. She is a master at guiding groups into very deep states. I feel very grateful.
