Yoga & Somatics for Healing & Recovery Online Training

This Live Online training can be taken as a standalone training totalling 76 hours, bookable via this page.

You have the option to add four additional IN PERSON day long workshops to gain a full certification in Yoga & Somatics for Healing & Recovery. You can book the full 100-hour CPD course for a bundle discount of £680 by emailing info@yogacampus.com.

You can choose the order and location of different parts of the course which work for you. The 4-day in person component can be completed in BRIGHTON or LONDON

What will be covered in this course?

There will be inclusion of Somatics practices – from the work of Thomas Hanna that emphasises internal physical perception and experience – and sits well within yoga to support modern body needs. It is also informed by Formative Embodiment, a body psychotherapy laid out by Stanley Keleman, as taught by Jim Feill.

The courses will be held in ways that ensure safe and intimate group dynamics, with needs of the individuals attended to.

A large part of this exploration will be modern stress and trauma, and what this means for our bodies, minds, yoga teaching and practice; on and off the mat. Charlotte Watts gathers together strands of her courses on Teaching Yoga for Stress and Burnout, and for ME/Chronic Fatigue (for Yogacampus) and her recent books Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health (Singing Dragon 2018) and The De-Stress Effect (Hay House 2015), for an experiential dive into how we can view symptoms of 21st century living through the lens of the Yoga Model of Wellness.

Course Structure

The course content covers 10 themes (outlined below) – these will be explored in the 10 live-online sessions.

The course also includes lifetime access to an online portal with the pre-recorded (asynchronous) learning materials:

• 2 detailed presentations on each of the 10 course themes
• Pre-recorded physical practices for self-study
• Directed exploration for self-study
• Specific content to read from the manual provided and from Charlotte's Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health (note: you will need to purchase this book)

Live Online Sessions

Sept 10. 2024

Week 1: Arriving – Setting our community healing space. Where we find ourselves in modern life and what it means to be a ‘modern yogi’ in a world of goal orientation, high expectation and physical ideals. How these considerations can be supported by the yoga model of healing and recovery, as distinct from the reductionist model of disease.

Sept 24, 2024

Week 2: Context of the Modern World – The stress response and what it means for the modern yogi – the effects of modern life and psychosocial stress on the nervous system, noticing polarities, somatic practices, survival over growth. Bringing in the yamas and the gunas as guides for practice and life.

Oct 8, 2024

Week 3: Vagal Connection – Trauma & polyvagal theory – the freeze response, grounding, orientation and what this means within practice on and off the mat. The importance of the vagus nerve and old/new vagal tones.

Oct 22, 2024

Week 4: Belly Connection – The enteric nervous system aka ‘second brain’ and listening to ‘what is true right now’, as well as sense of safety, intuitively responding and embodied awareness. Observing separation of head and body in reductionist culture; coming back to ‘head, heart and hara’ as whole.

Nov 5, 2024

Week 5: The Fascial Web – Fascia as a sensory organ and how everything is connected to everything else. Communication via the psoas and fascia for kinaesthesia; interoception and proprioception, and how tightness, lesions and distortions in this matrix can ripple through the nervous system and affect how we move and feel.

Nov 19, 2024

Week 6: Posture & Self – Modern postural habits from stress, sitting on chairs and trauma patterns. Including exploration of the primary and secondary spinal curves, the ventral and dorsal aspects (front and back body) and expressions of these via breath tones, and the Deep Front Line (Anatomy Trains) and sense of self.

Dec 3, 2024

Week 7: Body Psychotherapy – Modern chakra theory & developmental trauma models for body psychotherapy – relationships with survival, trust, attunement, attachment and autonomy and how they affect our expressions through responses, gestures and movement.

Dec 17, 2024

Week 8: Mindful Language – Stress, trauma & hypervigilance language – the modern habits of goal-oriented and self-critical language; how this affects yoga practice and teaching. The language of modern mindfulness as a helpful guide; inviting movement rather than imposing our will and the support of sound during physical practice.

Jan 7, 2025

Week 9: Health as Whole – The yoga model of wellness (as opposed to the medical model of disease) and approaching health as coming back to whole, the root of the word ‘healing’. Discussing the kleshas (hindrances) as obstacles to wellness and sources of dis-ease within yoga philosophy. Identification with illness as a state and finding our essence nature.

Jan 21, 2025

Week 10: Bringing it all together – Bringing it all together – gathering together the threads of the course to review aspects of whole health covered – in the context of moving beyond stress, trauma, burnout, anxiety, fatigue and post-illness through embodied awareness.

Who is the Course For?

For yoga teachers, other movement teachers and wellness practitioners, or for personal self-enquiry (minimum of yoga practice experience of at least a year).

Attendance requirement and recording of live sessions

Attendance Live (80% minimum) is part of the course requirement as we are not meeting person for these sections. The live sessions are not recorded as we don’t believe it is ethical to record others voices and send out. These sessions need to remain a space where people feel they can speak freely and openly without any censoring that can occur when they are being recorded; particularly with the often personal and sensitive nature of the course content and discussion.

The only time live sessions are only recorded is for practices within eg if a 10 minute meditation is lead within a session, only that time will be recorded and a link sent on to the recording after.

This also follows the basis that if you were taking the course in person, you would not be allowed to miss any percentage of teaching time, but we do recognise that those who come to this course may be experiencing health issues, so there is leeway for time away from the screen and the group where needed. However, you are free to turn off video and audio at any time to be able to hear content but not to engage or look at a screen.

80% minimum attendance is only a bare minimum, not a suggestion, so only use this is you really need and do let course leaders and assistants (where appropriate) know of this by email just before the course start. To keep up the integrity of course standards, attendance will be noted and any home study you may need to make up advised.

Breakdown of the 76* hours course CPD hours

Each of the 10 themes includes:

• 2 presentations – c.1.5 hours
• Practice – 1 hour
• Live discussion – 1 hour (dates available below)
• Reading – 1.5 hours
• Home exploration – 1.5 hours

= 6.5 hours per theme

+ 11 hours assessment

*100 hours course CPD hours if you also complete the 4 additional live workshops detailed below.

Meet the Teacher

Charlotte attended her first yoga class in 1996 and immediately knew that it would be a large part of the route to overcoming her stress-related issues. She trained at the Vajrasati Yoga School in Brighton (500 hour Yoga Alliance training) founded by Jim Tarran who is influenced by Buddhism and brought a natural mindfulness aspect to practising yoga. This was the beginning of a relationship with yoga focusing on taking time and finding space to feel subtleties of the experience, energetics and responses within the practice and create full body awareness within postures.

Charlotte is an author with many published books, including Yoga and Somatics for Immune and Respiratory Health (Singing Dragon 2022),Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health (Singing Dragon 2018), Good Mood Food (Nourish 2018) and The De-Stress Effect (2015). She is also an award-winning nutritionist, practising since 2000 and specialising in stress-related and fatigue conditions and burnout, and digestive issues.

Charlotte teaches classes in Brighton and London, workshops, UK yoga weekends and retreats abroad. She also runs courses and retreats specifically for yoga teachers to attend to their own self-care so they have the resources to support others.

She is assisted by Leonie Taylor (500 RYT).