Hi, I’m Soraya
I’m a facilitator, a healer, an artist and guide. I am also a trauma survivor (although I don’t necessarily like that phrase). You’ll find me immersed in nature; the forest in my studio, sailing on the sea or up in the mountains holding space for retreats.
Sometimes I am asked why I practice yoga? To me, yoga is a way of life. It helps me inhabit and understand myself more fully. To recognise the character traits that I naturally have, the traits that I have inherited, the traits that I have inhabited like clothing, that I've even forgotten that I'm wearing and the traits encouraged by society.
Why do you practise yoga?
It's been a long journey, yet by more deeply understanding myself, I begin to open up choice in how I choose to react to situations; whether I perceive these as positive or negative, I get choice!! This opens up space for my life to change and become a life I want to live, I choose what I wish to experience rather than operating from habitual ways. This includes not only choosing what thoughts to think...or not, but also habitual ways of holding my body that causes stress and eventually causes feelings of tightness or even pain.
Inhabiting my body and understanding at a deep core level that I always have choice...has been inspirational. To me these are the stepping stones to consciousness.
I remember as a child trying to copy the poses that my mother practiced and when she died, in my early 20's, yoga gave me a way of remembering and connecting back to her, I didn’t have anyone who could guide me through grief, I craved normality in an abnormal place. So I learnt to stuff my emotions down and get on with life, part of my coping strategy was yoga and embodied barefoot dance. .
My journey with yoga has been complex, when I was pregnant, yoga gave me a growing connection to my baby and to my changing body - a sense I was nurturing both of us. Years later in an emotionally abusive relationship where life became challenging. I used yoga as a refuge, my mat became a small rectangle of peace where I moved and breathed. What I didn’t realise was that I was using my practice as a way of both coping but also of disembodying from my life. I would essentially disassociate through my practice of vinyasa flow, get an enormous energetic high that would sustain me. Classic spiritual bypassing!!
Back then I would never have described myself as suffering from complex post traumatic stress disorder (C_PTSD) I just got on with life. I now realise that I spent much of my life developing complex coping strategies to help me engage with life and hide my fear. For sure on the outside I was semi successful; Stage Designer, Silver Gilt Chelsea Garden Designer, mother of two adorable boys, Yoga teacher....but I was trapped inside a cleverly built tower that separated me from the world and kept me safe. The stories that I told myself about my childhood and the people in it that made my traumatic childhood that included emotional and sexual abuse, palatable.
It wasn’t until I started to slow my practice down and really face with truthfulness, the reality of my life (with the help of my current partner). That my body started its process of releasing all the silt that had blocked sensitivity and my outer armour began to dissolve. Today my body has never felt more nuanced and soft and my mind connected to insight and clarity, this is though an everlasting inner journey.
After practicing yoga for over 3 decades, I am beginning to understand the real truth and meaning behind yoga, it is giving me a growing connection to myself and the tools to navigate situations in daily life with care, authenticity and spontaneity. My lastest training (2021) in Trauma Sensitive Yoga has given me a true gift of interception (really feeling into my body) understanding the impact of choice making and non-coercive language (with myself and others).
The practice of yoga inspires me to be more open, real, compassionate, truthful, mindful and balanced every day. I don't always manage it in every situation but yoga allows me to get it wrong, pick myself up and try again. Yoga offers me the support, structure and foundation to reveal myself and show vulnerability without my armouring and masks.
To become authentically me and know why and when I am not.
This is why I facilitate yoga, I hope to inspire you to go on your own journey of self discovery and experience the relief and joy when you can just be you. To connect with others, to inspire and be inspired and to reveal, so that others can reveal themselves too.
Training & Experience
I’m a senior teacher and have been practicing yoga for over 30yrs, facilitating for 18yrs. I have taught thousands of regular classes, worked with hundred’s of people in both group classes and 1:1 settings, hosted workshops and retreats.
300hr Trauma Sensitive Yoga - Trauma Centre Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY)
200hr BWY & Yoga Alliance accredited Teacher Training - Yogacampus, London
200hr Yoga Alliance Kirtan Leader Training - Nikki Slade, London
100hr Tantric Journey Trauma Release Bodywork, London
Additional 200hrs+ hours yoga trainings including:
Yoga Nidra - Rod Stryker (Para Yoga)
Various trainings with Rod Stryker (Para Yoga)
Yin Yoga - Norman Blair
Relax & Renew Restorative Yoga - Judith Hanson Lasater
Pranayama - Judith Hanson Lasater
Experiential Anatomy - Judith Hanson Lasater
Sound Healing (Anne Malone)
Children & Teen Yoga - Jo Manuel (Special Yoga)
Pregnancy Yoga - Uma Dinsmore Tuli
Super Sleep (yoga for insomnia) - Lisa Sanfilipo
DPD Certificate
Fully Insured