Breathworks Teacher Rabia shares her journey with Breathworks' Teacher Training, and her advice for anybody thinking of following the same path.

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My name is Rabia and I am a Chartered British Physiotherapist based in Singapore. I treat a variety of conditions and I specialise in Chronic pain and Clinical Pilates.

I decided to pursue the Breathworks Mindfulness for Health teacher training programme personally because I enjoy my own meditation practice and professionally because it supports my clinical approach to helping people work towards optimising physical and mental well-being.

When I initially travelled from Singapore to UK in 2017 to do my Introductory Teacher Training (TTi), I was overwhelmed. It was the first time I had left my children and whilst everyone was friendly, I felt disconnected about not being based in UK. I  also felt a little lost that I wasn’t really aware of the possible timelines of each stage of the training programme or had any contact with someone who had been through the programme.

The first two people I met were Ollie Bray, Marketing at Breathworks who was also attending the TTi and Karen Hall, Breathworks trainer. Both were friendly, kind and shared their Mindfulness journey with me which was invaluable.

After my TTi I decided to change my workplace to somewhere that could support my Mindfulness classes and programme teaching and then when I took my TTa in 2019, things started to really come together.

Andrea Cygler led the TTa training retreat and encouraged facilitating sessions by being in the "green zone" and so I lost that sense of being "on stage" and things really shifted into place for me. I started feeling more connected as Andrea continued being my mentor and when I did the Practice course, I felt she understood that I was dealing with a very diverse, multi-cultural and multi-religious group of individuals in Singapore. For some people, English wasn’t a first language and Andrea helped me work with this. 

When I supported an online course with Fidelma Farley that again, made me feel more connected to the Breathworks community and has been an invaluable learning tool for me to observe others teach and the witness the power of listening and acknowledging, rather than needing to find immediate solutions, which both Fidelma and Andrea embody beautifully.

I look at the Breathworks website now and the clear description of the training pathway is really helpful, but I also now see that Breathworks supports your pace and considers your circumstances while you are training and I think that’s why they don’t have a specific timeline. It’s this flexibility that allows you to grow in your teacher training experience without feeling pressured. 

I am delighted to hear that the training pathway is now available online which I think will really help people like me feel more connected to the Breathworks Community around the world and it means we don't have to travel as far! 

My biggest piece of advice to anyone who attends these courses, wherever you live, is to support and stay in contact with the people you do your training with as it really helps. I don’t do any social media plus I live abroad, but even the smallest of contact helped me feel less isolated.

My deepest of gratitude to all the teachers that have supported my Mindfulness journey and all the people and peers that have shared a smile and a connected moment with me on this journey; I’m truly grateful.

I’ve had a very deep desire to see people healthy and flourish, which I have had since early childhood, so I’m really grateful that I can now merge Physiotherapy and movement rehab with mind rehab to help facilitate wellbeing.

With warm regards,

Rabia

Eudaimonia.sg.com

Rabia's Breathworks Teacher Profile

Learn more about the Breathworks Teacher Training Programme