The foundation of our 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training has stayed mostly the same. This is the beginners, 21 day course, that anyone who wants to be a yoga teacher needs to take! The structure works. It is immersive, transformational, and rooted in daily practice, philosophy, teaching methodology, and community.

But the 300 Hour YTT has changed alongside me. The 300 Hour is the advanced training.

Over the past few years, my own practice has deepened far beyond asana. I have fallen more deeply into bhakti yoga, mantra, kirtan, meditation, yin yoga, Yoga Sutra study, and the spiritual heart of the practice. I have also become increasingly passionate about helping yoga teachers not only become better teachers, but sustainable leaders: people who can actually build meaningful careers and communities through yoga.

So this year, I’ve been thinking lots about restructuring the program, and this is it’s new design.

Instead of one broad advanced training, or six 50-hour modules (which was a lot of pieces!) the Mindful Bali 300 Hour YTT is now divided into three distinct 100 Hour modules.

Each one has its own focus, energy, and purpose.

You can take them individually, or combine all three together to complete your full 300 Hour certification.

And next February - March, I will be offering all three modules consecutively in Bali, with short integration breaks between each training.

The Three Modules

1. Bhakti & Circles (100 Hours) (NEXT ONE ALREADY HALF SOLD OUT!)

This training is for yoga teachers who want to deepen the spiritual and devotional side of their teaching.

We will explore:

• Kirtan & mantra

• Harmonium basics

• Bhakti philosophy

• The Bhagavad Gita (Optional Online Add-On)

• Sacred storytelling

• Circle facilitation

• Women’s circles & sharing spaces

• Meditation & chanting practices

• Building authentic spiritual community

This module is deeply heart-opening. It is designed for teachers who want to learn how to hold transformational spaces, not just teach yoga poses.

Expect morning practices, philosophy sessions, kirtans, circle work, and evenings filled with music, devotion, and connection.

The next training is January 28 - February 10, 2027 - and i

t is already half sold out, since I previously announced it to my India retreat from this year and current YTT group! You can save a spot here.

2. Yoga Leadership (100 Hours)

This module blends advanced teaching methodology with yoga entrepreneurship and leadership development.

This is the training I wish existed when I first became a yoga teacher.

We focus on:

• Asana adjustments & assists

• Intelligent sequencing

• Practice teaching

• Workshop creation

• Public speaking

• Retreat leadership

• Building a yoga business

• Marketing authentically

• Creating offerings aligned with dharma

• Leadership through service

The days are immersive and practical.

You will teach. Receive feedback. Refine your voice. Build workshops. Learn how to lead retreats. Learn how to create sustainable offerings online and in person.

This training is for yoga teachers who are ready to step into a career in yoga. Our next training is February 14 - 24, 2027 and you can sign up here!

3. Yin & Sutras (100 Hours)

This module is inspired by my weekly class, Resting with the Sutras.

It combines Yin Yoga, meditation, nervous system healing, and deep study of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

Inside the training, we explore:

• Yin Yoga sequencing

• Nervous system regulation

• Meditation

• Pranayama

• Yoga philosophy such as yama and niyama, the kleshas & vrittis, etc. We look at every single sutra in Patanjali’s sutras during a deep book study.

• Dharma & spiritual practice

• Trauma-informed space holding

• Yin assists

• The integration of ancient teachings into modern life

This training is slower, quieter, and deeply introspective.

It is designed for teachers who want to move beyond performance-based yoga culture and reconnect to the deeper purpose of practice. I will offer this once in November 2026 - and once in February 2027. You can sign up here!

Take One Module — Or All Three

Each module can be taken independently as a standalone 100 Hour training.

So far I have the next Yin & Yoga Sutras training planned for November, November 1 - 10, 2026!

But in February 2027, I will be offering all three trainings back-to-back in Bali for students who want to complete their full 300 Hour certification in one immersive journey.

There will be short three-day breaks between each module to rest, integrate, explore Bali, and reset before beginning the next phase.

February–March 2027 Bali Schedule

Bhakti & Circles

January 31 – February 10, 2027: Book it here (Only four spots left!)

Yoga Leadership

February 14 – 24, 2027: Book it here

Yin & Sutras

February 28 – March 10, 2027: Book it here

Why Bali?

There is something that happens when you step away from your normal life and immerse yourself fully in practice.

You wake up at sunrise.
You chant with community.
You practice every day.
You eat nourishing food.
You study philosophy.
You have conversations that matter.
You reconnect to yourself.

Bali has been that place for me for many years now.

The trainings are intentionally small and intimate, held at our home shala in Bali, where students practice closely together in community rather than disappearing into massive commercial trainings.

This is not a “factory style” certification.

It is a deeply personal experience.

If you feel called toward deeper study, devotion, leadership, healing, or transformation, I would love to welcome you to Bali for one of these trainings.

With love,
Alexandra

All Upcoming Trainings at Mindful Bali

• June 14 - July 5, 2026: 21 Day, 200 Hour YTT

• August 18 - 23, 2026: Alcohol Free Women’s Retreat

• Sept 6 - 26, 2026: 21 Day, 200 Hour YTT

• November 1 - 10, 2026: Yin & Yoga Sutras 10 Day 100 Hour YTT

• January 3 - 23, 2027: 21 Day, 200 Hour YTT

• January 31 - Feb 10, 2027: Bhakti & Sober Circles 10 Day 100 Hour YTT

• February 14 - February 24, 2027: Yoga Leadership 10 Day 100 Hour YTT

• February 27 - March 10, 2027: Yin & Yoga Sutras 10 Day 100 Hour YTT

• July 4 - 24, 2027: 21 Day, 200 Hour YTT

• September 5 - 15, 2027: 10 Day, Hybrid 200 Hour YTT

Sometimes, when I think about starting to write regularly again for Substack, I feel overwhelmed. Last year, I used to write every day - about my personal practice, about my spiritual studies, about my travels to host yoga retreats. My life has shifted so much since then - and I stopped writing so much. And now, I’m like: Where do I even begin? There is so much of my journey over the last six months that I haven’t shared with you, that if I started now, it would feel like too much to catch you up on.

It’s been wild. I think the real catalyst for it all was the ten-day Vipassana course I participated in in early December. (If you haven’t heard of Vipassana, it is a ten-day silent meditation retreat, where you can’t have any contact with the outside world, read or write, and you meditate for about 11 hours a day). Since then, it’s reorganized and reframed so much of what I thought about myself and my identity.

Last night, I was reading The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh to prepare for my online Buddha Dharma philosophy class, which I teach every Tuesday morning on the Buddha Dharma. He explains in Chapter Six how Buddhist meditation has two aspects: shamatha (stopping) and vipashyana (looking deeply). Vipashyana is where we gain insight and liberation from suffering. But he emphasizes that the practice of shamatha (stopping) is fundamental, and often overlooked. Because if we cannot stop, we cannot have insight.

I was sharing with my students how I think our inability to stop is the cause of so much suffering in the world. We live in constant input. In North America, I grew up with the news on in the background every night. My granny and dad always had the radio playing. Now, for many of us (myself included), that distraction has been replaced by scrolling. It’s still the same thing. And if we’re not stopping, we’re not reflecting, and we aren’t becoming aware of our wants, our needs, our suffering, and how to alleviate our suffering.

In the last few weeks, I feel like I’ve been released from my social media addiction. I can’t fully explain it, but something shifted. It’s like I suddenly woke up and saw how much suffering it was causing me to be constantly exposed to stories, news, and other people’s lives that stirred emotions in me that didn’t need to be experienced. I no longer have any desire to post or log into the platforms I used to. I am sometimes shocked when new people find me on the internet and connect. (I’m like - how did you find me without me constantly posting on Instagram? Lol!) But it feels good, like a genuine connection beyond social media. (Side note: I’ve heard that some of you have found me lately through Sober Yoga Girl Podcast & Sober Yoga Girl The Book (Audiobook) which is so cool!)

When we are constantly receiving input, our minds don’t have enough time to rest. shamatha. And it’s in that rest that deep insight arises. vipashyana.

I saw this clearly during my Vipassana. For the first three days, I slept - deeply, constantly. shamatha. I was that exhausted. And then, by Day Four, my causes of suffering began to surface. vipashyana. I suddenly saw with clarity what I hadn’t seen before.

This year, I’ve been working with the idea that the truth is within us all. We all have intuition. We all know.

And yet, we have a tendency to place others on a pedestal. I did this for years - I would listen to teachers and assume that they were all knowing, that they would offer me the solution - when really they are just the medium delivering the message. I’ve done this with partners, too - thinking they have a more evolved practice than me, or a more deep understanding of spirituality and philosophy. The Buddha said, “My teachings are like a finger pointing to the moon. Do not mistake the finger for the moon.” I often think about this when I offer the Guru Mantra in class - that we honour our teachers for guiding us, but ultimately, everything we seek is already within us. Our Gurus are just showing us the way.

I recently experienced an ending. I didn’t share about it on substack because I don’t share publicly a lot of what is going on for me anymore. I find myself valuing my privacy more and more. But the same thing happened that happened to me almost a year ago with an ex partner: when I stop, when I rest, when I take space with myself, when I return to my body and allow my nervous system to down regulate - everything becomes clear. shamatha and vipashyana.

I often tell my students that we forget and remember, forget and remember. The aim is to shorten the time we spend forgetting and lengthen the time we spend remembering. I forget that I am of the spirit - and then I remember. My nervous system dysregulates, and then it regulates. And then I come back to the truth. And as my relationship with my daily 60 minute morning meditation practice deepens, it’s becoming quicker for me to remember. The remembering might have taken four months last year - this year it took two weeks. So, this is progress.

And yet, yesterday, during a craniosacral therapy session, I felt a quiet grief. Entering the session I told my healer that my body felt fine, but as she began working, I started to feel profound pain. She said all my major muscles were engaged - as if I were in a freeze state. As a tear rolled down my face, she asked what it was for.

“I’m sad I abandoned myself again,” I said.

Because like every time I’ve ended up in a scenario like this, I can trace back through everything that happened and see the moments I knew something wasn’t right - and yet I denied my intuition. It was there very early. (It always is). And that’s why I was in a state of Freeze. I continued to override my nervous system signals, thinking that I could logically convince myself of something. Meanwhile, my nervous system was on alert.

Last year, a teacher told me he thought I was addicted to creating chaos. At the time, I resisted that idea. How could I be responsible for the behaviour of others? How could I be responsible for them creating chaos? But I see it now. Every time I don’t set a boundary. Every time I keep going along with things and don’t truly honor myself. Every time I ignore my gut intuition about someone or something. I am playing an active part in chaos’ creation. And right now, I am feeling a comedown from that.

This morning, in my Buddha Dharma class, we explored the second Noble Truth and the ways we continue to create our own suffering.

The first noble truth is that there is suffering, and the second noble truth is that suffering has a cause. There are three turns of the dharma wheel around it:

1. Recognition
   I am continuing to create suffering. Even after we diagnose our pain, we keep feeding it. The Buddha spoke of the four nutriments:

   • Food: what we consume physically

   • Sense impressions: what we watch, hear, and engage with

   • Volition: our desires and intentions

   • Consciousness: both collective and individual

2. Encouragement
   Real happiness is possible if we stop ingesting what causes suffering. If something harms us, we can choose differently.

3. Realization
   We commit to stopping what causes our suffering. We return to simplicity.

There’s a part of me that wants to celebrate: Way to go, Alex. You spotted an unhealthy situation in two weeks instead of four months. You’re growing. You’re learning. You’re shortening the periods in which you forget and lengthening the periods in which you remember.

And that’s true.

But there’s also grief. Because if I’m honest, I knew in my gut for a while that I was not ok. I can point to the exact moments - the sensations in my gut, the conversations I clocked, the inner knowing. In hindsight, I see how by continuing to talk my self out of what my intuition already knew - I participated in creating my own suffering. (And the more I talk to people about it these days, the more they tell me they had these experiences recently too! Gut instincts about people they hired that they ignored, or gut instincts about places or things. It seems like a lesson a lot of us can relate to right now).

There are so many AA slogans about this - about cleaning up our side of the street. About taking responsibility for my own side of things. I see a familiarity in this scenario because I’ve gone through it so many times. As Gabby Bernstein says, “We will continue to attract the same person in different bodies until we show up for the universal lesson.”

Right now, I feel a bit like a wounded animal. I am exhausted. My body is on antibiotics, fighting an infection. I am tired. My nervous system is slowly coming out of freeze, recalibrating toward safety. Rest is what I need. I spent the day at home yesterday and today. I’m resting up to start teaching on the RA YTT later this week.

Thicht Naht Hanh writes, “Calming allows us to rest, and resting is a precondition for healing. When animals in the forest get wounded, they find a place to lie down, and they rest completely for many days. They don’t think about food or anything else. They just rest, and they get the healing they need. When we humans get sick, we just worry! We look for doctors and medicine, but we don’t stop. Even when we go to the beach or the mountains for a vacation, we don’t rest, and we come back more tired than before. We have to learn to rest.”

And in the rest, I feel space returning. Space to focus on what matters most to me: the sober women’s yoga community and the Mindful Bali community I’ve been building for the last seven years, since I got sober in April 2019.

I am grateful for each one of you who has participated in some of our classes and programs over the years.

If you’re feeling called to reconnect, here are some ways to do that:

Upcoming Retreats & Trainings at Mindful Bali

• June 14 - July 5, 2026 THREE SPOTS LEFT Book here

Alcohol-Free Women’s Retreats

• August 18 – 23, 2026 Book here

I am going to be re-organizing my 300 Hour YTT. Stay tuned for an announcement about what the new version will look like!

I have FOUR Free Online Resources for Sober/Sober Curious Women.

1. You can listen to my audiobook, Sober Yoga Girl: The Book, free from now until the end of April at this link!

2. I have a podcast, Sober Yoga Girl, where I interview more than 250 guests from all walks of life on their sober/mental health/well-being journey. You can listen to the show here.

3. I offer a free 60 Day Sober Girls Yoga Challenge to support women in going alcohol free & developing a spiritual practice to support the journey. You can join us here.

4. I run FREE twice weekly Recovery Dharma meetings at 9:30am Bali time on Mondays (9:30pm New York Time) and then also at 6:00am Bali time on Wednesdays (6:00pm New York time on Tuesdays). You can join us by joining our WhatsApp Group here.

Current Online Yoga Classes:

• Mondays 7:30am-8:45am Bali Time: Bali Bhakti Flow

• Thursday 7:30am-9:00am Bali time: Resting with the Sutras

Current Online Programs:

• Tuesdays 7:00am-9:00am Bali Time - ONLINE - The Buddha Dharma Philosophy Studies Sign up at this link (starts April 28 and runs for 10 weeks)

• Fridays 7:00am-9:00am Yoga Sutra Study - ONLINE - Sign up here

Bali Yoga Classes:

I teach drop in classes at my shala Mindful Bali and at Radiantly Alive.

I was sitting in a pub called Gabbys (which doesn’t exist anymore) with my sister Em and our friends Anna and Leah. It was a Friday night in 2014, in November, in mid-town Toronto. Leah asked me if I had Instagram, and I said no.

“Oh, you would love Instagram,” she said. “You can add filters to photos and post t…

Read more

In 2010, I picked his book up off the shelf at my yoga studio, read it cover to cover, and became completely fascinated by Patanjali. That was really the beginning of a long chapter of my life where I studied the Sutras in depth.

Read more

I think this is the beginning of the end of my relationship with Instagram. Not in a dramatic way. Not like when I quit drinking.

More like… slowly breaking up.

I’ve been doing this for about 16 mont…

Read more

For the first five years of my sobriety, I had been part of a community of women who were anti-AA: the newer, modern recovery spaces. And I still resonate with a lot of that world. But the truth is, I judged AA before I knew anything about it.

At the t…

Read more

This book took me five years, three editors, and was so incredibly difficult, but rewarding, to write. In writing my story, I made sense of my life. In publishing, I had to make amends with a few characters in the story (most importantly the person I married whe…

Read more

I actually wasn’t planning to run this again online. But one person asked… then a few more… and somehow a group came together!

So I’m teaching it again, and it will probably be the only time I offer it in 2026.

I want to share a bit more clearly what we actually do…

Read more

Last Call - Join us Tomorrow for Resting with the Sutras

Read more

I said to the stude…

Read more

There are a lot of reasons for that (read: excuses). First of all, life has been wildly full. When I really reflect on the last few months, it’s been profound. Through January and February, there was drop-in yoga every single day at the new home yoga shala I opened here in Bali - Mindful Bali

Read more

I want to invite you to join a special Free Resting with the Sutras class on Zoom this Wednesday night 7:30pm New York Time (Thursday morning 7:30am Bali Time) to experience it!

Resting with the Sutras is the embodiment of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. We chant a sutra, practice seve…

Read more

The first, is the new Resting with the Sutras series on Thursday mornings Bali (Wednesday nights New York), and the second is the new Yoga Sutra Study on Friday mornings Bali (Thursday nights New York).

Why are th…

Read more

Yesterday was Ogoh-Ogoh.

And it’s Day 4 of my March 2026 Yoga Teacher Training.

This is the first time I’ve ever hosted a YTT over Nyepi and Ogoh-Ogoh here in Bali—and I planned it this way intentionally. After how incredible last night was, and how today has felt, I’ve already decided: I will r…

Read more

We meditated for eleven hours a day. We had no access to reading materials, writing materials, or communication devices.

I didn’t know what to expect going into this experience, and I’ve barely written anything about it since. Vipassana is one of those things that feels almost impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it.

But one thing happened that I absolutely wasn’t expecting.

Memories.

A huge amount of them.

I moved to Kuwait when I was twenty-three and spent the rest of my twenties in the Gulf region before eventually moving to Bali. When I think about my life story, it tends to begin there: my twenties in the Middle East. What has now become more than a decade spent in Asia.

But during Vipassana, something strange happened.

It was as if my life had been moving through a tunnel. When I moved to Kuwait, it was as if I closed the tunnel door behind me and locked it shut.

Inside the meditation course there was nothing to keep me busy. No work. No conversations. Nothing to read. Nothing to write.

And suddenly it felt like I stepped back into that tunnel.

Memories started arising.

Memories of strange things teachers said and did when I was a child.

Memories of choices I made as a teenager that are no longer aligned with my values. (I’ll write about that another time. It’s too big for this piece.)

Memories of things people said to me when I was young that I hadn’t thought about in years.

All of it had been locked away somewhere in a vault.

I always knew that vault existed, but I don’t think I was ever truly conscious of it. I thought those early years simply didn’t matter. I thought the things that shaped me happened later, in Kuwait.

So it wasn’t that I was avoiding earlier memories. I simply believed they weren’t relevant points on the timeline of my life.

Yoga philosophy actually has language for this.

In the Yoga Sutras, the deep storehouse of our past impressions is called karmashaya, literally the repository of karma. It’s like a storage field inside the psyche where the traces of every action, experience, and emotional imprint are held.

Read more

Read more

Unlike previous trips here, where I wrote a lot during the retreat, this year I wrote very little. There has been so much I’ve been privately reflecting on over the past months that I didn’t feel the need to share everything in real time. I’ve also had very little downtime. Anyon…

Read more

I am headed back to Bali where I will do a 200 Hour YTT for three weeks. One of my new yoga classes will be starting next week (Bali Bhakti Flow!) and that will be the only class running durin…

Read more

This week, on Monday morning, I taught my usual Bali Bhakti Flow class online.

But this week, I want to give you this class for free!

Return to Your True Nature is a gentle, heart-opening Bhakti Flow designed to help you come home to yourself. In the midst of busy schedules, emotional overwhelm, and constant mental noise, it’s easy t…

Read more

We meet every Tuesday morning. I’ve been teaching Yoga Philosophy online for about four years, but mainly Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. This year I’m teaching the Gita, and integrating a lot more meditation practice into the academic classes. The r…

Read more