Welcome Certified iRest Teachers!

 

Class in session

A warm welcome to our newly Certified iRest Teachers

We value and continue to build our community (sangha) of newly certified teachers. Certification provides an opportunity for teachers to deepen and enrich their teachings as they continue to share iRest in the world. We are proud of their accomplishment. We'd like to recognize them by highlighting their personal stories below:

Denie Shae - Lake Forest, California - Teacher Profile
My passion is to create a supportive and accessible space for others to learn and explore self-care and awareness practices. Offering individualized sensory and lifestyle therapies such as Ayurveda Health Counseling, iRest Yoga Nidra Meditation and Massage Therapy, Aromatic Botanicals and Restorative Yoga.

I started a health and wellness practice in 2013, Giving Tree Essentials. It began as a love for nature and the healing power of plants. My curiosity as to how and why plants healed physical, mental, and emotional dis-comfort and dis-ease led me to a deep dive into the pool of self-inquiry. I began to unravel my ego, got heart centered and started to focus on the larger truth- we are all connected. I have experienced first-hand generational suffering, I knew that there had to be a another way to live. As one of my most respected teacher always says, "I could choose peace instead of this." I sought out the choices I needed to have peace. During my studies I realized that we as a society are never taught the importance of self-care and self-awareness. Many of us are not living our hearts desire, rather a life that is dictated by demands we accept from self, family, friends, work and society.

Deeply knowing and embodying our truth is a life time practice, we are always changing, growing, and living through a variety of life experiences. The mind, body, spirit connection is the key to our longevity, health and inner peace. I devote myself to connecting to my true nature, living joyfully and being a guide and teacher to those who are on their path to enlightened health and wellness.
I teach groups and one-on-one. I have had the honor of teaching a women's chemical dependency and rehabilitation group a few times a week for the last 2 years as well as general population at various yoga studios in my area.
 
A profound shift for me in my iRest Yoga Nidra practice has been living life as meditation. The practice has increased my resiliency, opened my heart to seeing rather than looking, and has grounded me in Being. In my Level 1 training with Richard Miller after our first group iRest he said "Welcome Home", and for the first time I truly felt like I was home. I am who I am today because of this practice and will continue to practice and share.
 
Tatiana Melnyk- Toronto, Canada - Teacher Profile
I am a psychiatrist working in Toronto at a large hospital center and as part of my work, I run iRest groups for adult patients with cancer and chronic medical disease. I also incorporate iRest into individual psychotherapy. Though I have personally undergone my own psychotherapy, and roughly 15 years of Mindfulness practice, certain deeply held beliefs and patterns continued to persist until I began my iRest training.  iRest has allowed me to more thoroughly meet and welcome  this deeply held material somatically, allowing for true release and change. And while psychological material is met, iRest also reminds us of our nature as Being and Awareness, which has allowed me see that there is a part of me that is already complete and whole, beyond my psychological self. It is such a gift to come from a place of okayness just as we are, as opposed to beginning with what is wrong with us.  And as I work with patients, I see how they discover this precious wholeness within; seeing themselves as beyond disease or mental distress. As I consider my mental health training and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction training, I would say that in my experience, no program or approach so explicitly, and skillfully introduces people to the ground of Being and Awareness as iRest does.  A radical and compassionate act indeed.