Yoga for Trauma, Anxiety, Depression & Body Image

50-hour Advanced Teacher Training

We’re excited to welcome Sarah Ball to Green Monday Studios for her renowned 50-hour training in trauma-informed and mental-health aware yoga in AUGUST 2027.

What is the training?

Are you a yoga teacher or health professional wanting to feel confident and equipped to offer more specialised support for your students or clients, but unsure how to refine your skills to work sensitively with complex and vulnerable situations and communities?

This 50-hour advanced teacher training is designed specifically for you.

This training has regularly booked out since it began in 2018. It is recommended to book early to secure your spot.

This advanced training focuses on the specifics of working with yoga for trauma, anxiety, depression, and body image. All modules are integrated from a person-centred, ethics-oriented, social-justice perspective.

The course supports deep shifts in how you think about yoga, social justice, and mental and spiritual health, and helps you become a confident facilitator of safe and empowering spaces for people navigating challenging personal and psychological experiences.

The training is registered for 50 hours of advanced training with Yoga Australia and attracts both CPD and teacher training hours.

Modules and Topics Covered

Trauma Sensitive Yoga + Social Justice Principles for Yoga Teachers

Yoga and Trauma: Understanding and applying the 4 primary principles of the Trauma Sensitive Yoga method
Methods of working with the nervous system to create greater safety in individuals and groups
Introduction to trauma-informed practice as a wider social movement in the helping professions
How yoga can be adapted in specific contexts to support trauma-sensitive principles
Simple teaching principles and practices to integrate into daily life, group classes, and 1:1 sessions
Teaching public classes with a trauma-informed approach
Scope of practice for yoga teachers in mental health, trauma, and body image
Bringing lived experience to teaching: peer work and appropriate self-disclosure
Social justice in mental health: the role of critical reflection
Understanding power, privilege, and intersectionality in yoga spaces
Spiritual bypassing – what it is and how it shows up
Working with shadow – our own and others’
Providing tools that encourage acceptance, empowerment, connection, agency and change

Yoga for Anxiety, Depression & Mental Health

Mental health through multiple lenses: yoga, western psychology, and questioning pathology
Narratives of mental health through social justice and narrative approaches
Adapting yoga for anxiety reduction
Adapting yoga to support depression
The ecology of healing: the koshas and ecological systems theory
A bio-psycho-social framework for yoga and mental health
Avoiding prescriptive approaches; responding to each individual
When and why to avoid certain practices
Specific practices for working with the nervous system to support relief from anxiety, depression, grief, anger, and burnout
Structuring classes for diverse mental health needs

Yoga for Body Image

Yoga and body image: how yoga harms, how yoga heals
Unpacking the ‘yoga body’
Understanding white privilege and racial injustice in yoga spaces
Encouraging body-positive and body-accepting environments
The art of facilitation: creating and maintaining safe space
Balancing acceptance and change
Working with the impact of the ‘transformation fantasy’ in western yoga
Practical approaches to welcoming diversity

Trauma-Informed Facilitation Skills, Program Development, Personal Practice + Self-Care

Codependence in teaching: working with distress without fixing
Sustaining personal practice and passion
Designing trauma-informed programs
Working 1:1 with experiences of distress
Therapeutic presence
Moving beyond imposter syndrome
Moving beyond unsustainable activism; collaborative change
Personal practice considerations
Ongoing support: supervision and Sangha
Cultivating active hope

There is also ample time for discussion, questions, and practice facilitating the methods explored in the theoretical modules.

Who is it for?

Yoga teachers (or those in training) who wish to refine their ability to teach with trauma, anxiety, depression, and body image awareness
Mental health professionals with a dedicated yoga practice who want to integrate yoga into their clinical or community settings
Health practitioners from diverse backgrounds (massage, dietetics, etc.) with a personal yoga practice who want to apply these principles to their work

About Your Facilitator – Sarah Ball

Sarah Ball is a Senior Yoga Teacher with Yoga Australia, social worker, counsellor, and art therapist specialising in mental health, social justice, body image, eating disorders, and trauma recovery.

Teaching since 2003 (practising since 1995), she regularly facilitates on Level 1 & 2 Yoga Teacher Trainings and Yoga Therapy trainings. She created the Yoga for Anxiety & Depression 8-week course, Trauma Sensitive Yoga programs, and Body Love Yoga workshops.

Her approach is grounded in trauma sensitivity, body positivity, and social justice.

Training Details

Venue: Green Monday Studios, Carlton
Dates: Thu, 12 AUG- Sun, 15 AUG, 2027
Times: 8:30am – 5:30pm daily
Breaks: 30 min morning and afternoon tea, 60 min lunch

Additional Resources:

Access to 5 online classes with Sarah (available from 2 weeks prior)

Ticket Options

Early Bird — $1,490 + BF Available until FEB 12, 2027
Payment Plan — 4 x payments every 4 weeks + BF - first $496 is non-refundable)
Full Price – Pay in Full — $1,640 + BF
Available after early bird ends on FEB 12, 2027

How to access the payment plan option

Select your ticket adding the number of tickets you'd like to purchase.
Proceed to checkout: Click 'Checkout' and enter your name, email address and contact details.
Choose your payment option: At the payment stage, look for the option labelled 'Pay over time', alongside the usual 'Pay now' option.
Select the payment plan: Choose the available payment plan to spread your ticket cost across four instalments.
Review your payment schedule: Before confirming, you'll be shown the initial payment amount, the remaining balance and the scheduled dates for your future instalments.
Complete your booking: Enter your debit or credit card details and confirm your purchase. Your first instalment will be charged immediately, with the remaining instalments automatically charged to your nominated card.
Please note- the payment plan is automated and will come directly out of your account every 4 weeks after the initial deposit of $496+BF

What Graduates Are Saying...

“It is a must. Best training I have ever attended… BEYOND BRILLIANT.” — Hayley Bennett
“There is a reason that Sarah's offerings book out… I cannot more highly recommend it.” — Kay Callaghan
“I was nervous… but Sarah showed that it's about safety, empowerment, and choice… deeply inspiring.” — Kirsty Wright
“Such a wonderful, deep, immersive 4-days… very inspiring.” — Kerri Pietsch
“This course will change your mindset… Blessed for this experience.” — Michelle Beck

For further enquiries or any questions at all, please contact albee@greenmondaystudios.com.au

Teaching Yoga for Trauma, Anxiety, Depression & Body Image

Choose your tickets

EARLY BIRD (PAID IN FULL) ticket