Why We’re Offering a Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher Training in Guatemala
Why We’re Offering a Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher Training in Guatemala (And Why It’s Different From Every Other YTT Out There)
By Carrie Hoffman, Founder of Bigger Life Adventures · Bigger Life Adventures 200-Hour YTT · March 1–22, 2027 · Mystical Yoga Farm, Lake Atitlán, Guatemala
I’ve been teaching yoga for 8 years. I’ve co-taught two 200-hour teacher trainings, led trauma-informed continuing education programs, and spent 6 years as the yoga provider for my home county’s Juvenile Detention Center. I’ve unrolled my mat in treatment facilities, schools, retreat centers, and outdoor spaces in 7 different countries around the world.
And in all that time, across all those rooms, the question I keep coming back to is this:
What would it look like if every yoga teacher walked into their first class actually prepared for who might be sitting on those mats?
Not prepared for the imaginary “ideal” student — the flexible, open, trauma-free practitioner that most teacher trainings seem to design their curriculum around. But prepared for the real one, the one who’s been through some shit. The one who might flinch at hands-on adjustments but not feel able to say no. The one with major body insecurities and imposter syndrome. The one who can’t close their eyes in savasana. The lonely one who showed up because they didn’t know where else to go.
That question is why Bigger Life Adventures is offering its first-ever 200-hour yoga teacher training in Guatemala — and why we built it around trauma-informed teaching from the inside out.
Why Guatemala? Why Mystical Yoga Farm?
If you’ve been researching a yoga teacher training in Guatemala, you’ve probably already encountered Lake Atitlán. There’s a reason it keeps coming up. Nestled between three volcanoes in the Guatemalan highlands, Lake Atitlán is one of the most visually stunning places on earth — and one of the most energetically potent.
We chose to host our Guatemala YTT at Mystical Yoga Farm specifically because it embodies everything Bigger Life Adventures stands for. It’s a self-sustainable, off-grid eco-sanctuary near Santiago Atitlán, run by an intentional community of yogis committed to conscious living, zero waste, and deep connection to the land and the local Tzʼutujil Mayan culture.
There’s limited Wifi so you can stay present. Clean, eco-friendly composting toilets. A swimming platform, fire circle, and sauna. Three plant-based meals a day prepared by local chefs from home-grown organic ingredients. Multiple yoga shalas, a sound healing dome, and a tree net lounge.
Mystical Yoga Farm is not a resort, and we chose it for a reason. It’s an immersion. And for trauma-informed work specifically, that distinction matters enormously.
When you remove the noise — the screens, the social media, the alcohol, the constant stimulation of modern life — the nervous system gets to do something it rarely gets to do: actually rest. For 21 days, the container is set before we even begin teaching. The land, the simplicity, and the community all set the stage for us to dive deep into the work.
Compared to other popular destinations for yoga teacher trainings — Bali, Costa Rica, India — Guatemala offers something increasingly rare: a destination that’s genuinely transformative without being over-touristed, that supports local community rather than extracting from it, and that’s accessible enough in cost to not price out the very people who most want to learn to teach and then offer trauma-informed yoga to their communities.
What Most Yoga Teacher Trainings Get Wrong
Most 200-hour yoga teacher training programs — including some excellent ones — are built around an implicit assumption: that the student walking into your class is basically okay. That they have a relatively regulated nervous system, no significant trauma history, and the capacity to do what you ask without it triggering something you weren’t prepared for.
That assumption is wrong. And it’s getting more wrong every year.
Research consistently shows that a significant majority of adults have experienced at least one traumatic event. Post-traumatic stress is not rare — it’s common. And yoga, with its emphasis on breath, body awareness, and presence, can be profoundly healing for trauma survivors. It can also, if taught without awareness, accidentally retraumatize them.
The language you use matters. Whether you offer choices or issue commands matters. How you approach hands-on adjustments matters. Whether students feel they have agency in the room matters enormously.
Most yoga teacher trainings either don’t cover trauma-informed yoga or briefly gloss over it. The success of Bigger Life Adventures retreats over the last 8 years proves that trauma-sensitive yoga matters, so we built our entire training around it.
What “Trauma-Informed” Actually Means in This Training
Trauma-informed yoga is not a separate class. It’s a lens — a way of approaching every class, every cue, every adjustment, every room you walk into — that prioritizes psychological safety alongside physical alignment.
In the Bigger Life Adventures YTT in Guatemala, trauma-informed teaching is woven into every aspect of the curriculum. Not as a module. As a foundation.
That means our students learn:
*The neuroscience of trauma — how it lives in the body, how it affects the nervous system, how yoga interacts with it
*Trauma-sensitive language — the difference between invitational cuing and directive cuing, and why it matters
*Consent-based adjustments — how to offer touch (or not) in a way that always centers student agency
*How to create a safe container — from the physical setup of a room to the way you open and close a class
*How to teach in non-traditional settings — studios, schools, treatment centers, detention centers, corporate spaces, outdoor environments
*How to hold space off the mat – because living your yoga is a 24/7 experience
But trauma-informed teaching doesn’t exist in isolation. It sits alongside everything else a well-trained yoga teacher needs in order to succeed out there: deep fluency in vinyasa and hatha sequencing, anatomy, philosophy, pranayama, Ayurveda, meditation, and the business of teaching yoga in the real world.
Our curriculum covers all of it. Because a teacher who understands trauma but can’t sequence a flow class isn’t ready for anything. And a teacher who can sequence beautifully but doesn’t understand trauma isn’t safe.
Apply Here to Secure Your Spot
Who This Guatemala Yoga Teacher Training Is For
One of the questions we get most often is: “Do I have to want to teach to come?”
No. Not at all.
The Bigger Life YTT at Lake Atitlán was designed for yogis in a few different places in life:
The aspiring teacher who wants a certification that gives them real tools — not just sequencing, but the confidence to hold a room with genuine skill and care.
The dedicated practitioner who wants to go deeper into the philosophy, anatomy, and lived wisdom of yoga without necessarily stepping to the front of a class.
The seeker of healing who is using this training as a container for their own transformation. The curriculum, the community, the land — all of it is medicine.
The teacher of service who wants to bring yoga into the spaces that need it most — schools, treatment centers, community programs, underserved populations.
If any of those descriptions resonates with you, there’s a seat at this table.
Why Bigger Life Adventures Guatemala Yoga Teacher training — And Why Now
Bigger Life Adventures has been leading trauma-informed yoga and adventure retreats for 8 years across 7 countries. We are an alcohol-free, recovery-aware brand — because our founder, Carrie Hoffman, got sober through yoga and has never stopped believing that the mat is for everyone, especially the people who feel like they don’t belong there.
For 6 years, Carrie has been the yoga provider for her home county’s Juvenile Detention Center, training and managing a community of teachers who bring this practice into one of the most challenging environments imaginable. She has co-taught two 200-hour YTTs, led trauma-informed continuing education programs for yoga teachers seeking growth, and holds an 800-hour Ayurvedic Health Counselor certification alongside her E-RYT500.
This YTT is the culmination of everything Bigger Life Adventures has been building toward — a program that prepares teachers not for the ideal room, but for the real one.
The training is co-led by Sydney Jansma Kleis, a 500-hour trauma-informed RYT and certified yoga nidra teacher whose own recovery from disordered eating shapes her deeply attentive, spacious teaching style. And co-founder Zach Minnich — holistic nutritionist, Reiki Master, and yoga philosophy contributor — holds the container and treats students to one legendary plant-based “Zachalicious” meal per week.
The Details: Guatemala Yoga Teacher Training
Dates: March 1–22, 2027
Location: Mystical Yoga Farm, Lake Atitlán, Guatemala
Hours: 200-hour Yoga Alliance certified
Cohort size: 12-17 students
Format: 16 hours online, then 3 weeks fully immersive, off-grid, residential
Post-immersion personal mentorship and group integration sessions online
What’s included:
*200-hour Yoga Alliance certification
*21 nights accommodation (shared dorm or private room)
*3 plant-based meals per day
*Full printed course manual
*Trauma-informed yoga methodology
*Ceremonies — fire, temazcal, cacao, moon circles
*Full use of MYF facilities including yoga shalas, sound healing dome, paddle boards, kayaks
*2 post-training group integration Zooms
*1 private 1-on-1 mentorship session with your lead teacher
Early bird investment (through September 30, 2026, then prices go up $100 per person):
*Shared dorm: $3,100
*Private single room: $3,700
*Couples private room: $3,400 per person
Two scholarship spots are available at 50% tuition for Central American applicants or those demonstrating financial need.
A $500 deposit holds your spot, with flexible monthly payment plans through January 1, 2027.
Ready to Learn More?
If this is speaking to you — even quietly, even uncertainly — we’d love for you to take the next step.
Read the full details and apply for the Bigger Life YTT →
Questions before you apply? Contact us directly – we read every one.
Bigger Life Adventures is an 8-year-old trauma-informed yoga and adventure retreat brand founded by Carrie Hoffman. We believe yoga is for everyone — especially the people who feel like they don’t belong in the room. Our 200-hour yoga teacher training in Guatemala runs March 1–22, 2027 at Mystical Yoga Farm, Lake Atitlán.