Introduction (00:00.00)
You are listening to From Pain To Possibility with Susi Hately, you’ll hear Susi’s best ideas on how to reduce or even eradicate your pain and learn how to listen to your body when it whispers so you don’t have to hear it scream. And now here’s your host, Susi Hately.
Susi (00:22.80)
Welcome and welcome back. I’m so glad that you’re here because today’s episode is all about the shift from being a yoga teacher to becoming a healing facilitator. And when I say healing facilitator, I’m pointing to a deeper role than what many yoga teachers are trained for in their 200-hour programs or even their 500-hour programs.
In those programs, you learn sequences and alignment and cues, which are all wonderful foundations. But for many of you, the real desire underneath is to help people to heal, to help them recover, and to support them in reducing or resolving pain. And that’s really the shift. It’s not just about more anatomy or more biomechanics. It’s not even just about adding therapeutic technique. It’s reconnecting with the inspiration for why you’re drawn to this work in the first place.
If you’re listening to me now, it’s either likely because you’ve experienced healing in your own body or you’ve witnessed it in somebody else. The bottom line here is you know that it’s possible, and you’ve seen transformation happen, and you wanna be a part of that for other people.
Susi (01:40.59)
And here’s the key. You are already bringing so much into this conversation. It’s not about leaving what you know behind and taking on a new model, like mine. No, rather, it’s about weaving all of it together. So some people listening are yoga teachers, some are health professionals, nurses, physicians, physical therapists, massage therapists, fitness trainers.
Some are yoga teachers who wanna work closely with edical teams who want to become bridges between the yoga world and the medical world. So really, there’s a spectrum here of where people are coming into this conversation and the skills and attributes they have coming in. And this is what really becoming a healing facilitator is all about.
It’s taking that which you’re bringing into the conversation already, and integrate it with what you’re going to learn, not as the doctor or the yoga teacher or the PT, but rather as someone who can be the bridge who can see and who can support. Now, there’s also another important layer that I need to make mention of when I’m speaking about becoming a healing facilitator and also about my certification program.
Susi (03:07.23)
Most of us spend a lot of time in the left prefrontal cortex of our brain. We like lists and evidence, research, and studies, and it’s all important. I’ve had two of my programs studied at a university level, so clearly I value the science, but what makes yoga and breath and mindfulness so effective is the way they enable us to drop into our bodies, they connect us to our body wisdom.
And when we connect that body wisdom with evidence-based practice, we start engaging the whole of the brain – left and right, front and back. And that integration is where true healing takes root. And that’s really what this episode is all about. It’s about making that shift and about how certification is the container to allow it to happen.
Susi (04:12.83)
One of the most powerful shifts in becoming a healing facilitator is understanding the role of the brain and the nervous system in healing. I had the privilege of working with Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor in one of my courses, Healing and Revealing Human Potential. She wrote the book, My Stroke of Insight and Whole Brain Living.
She explains that the brain, of course, as we know, is not just left and right, but it’s also front and back. So to keep it super simple, on the left side we have the prefrontal cortex, and that’s about labeling, organizing, and decision making, executive functions. It’s where we categorize and where we look for order. And in the back, that left amygdala is tied to safety and fear.
On the right side, the prefrontal cortex – so same structure, but on the right side of the brain – is where intuition lives, where creativity flows, and the right amygdala thrives on innovation, sometimes even a little chaos, parking new ideas and possibilities.
Susi (05:18.72)
Now, here’s why this matters. When we practice yoga, breath, mindfulness. And when we do it with curiosity and not force, we’re inviting more of the right brain into the conversation. We’re tuning into sensation, into body wisdom. And when those insights come, the left brain steps in to name them to integrate them, to make sense of them.
And that’s when progress happens. Not just through information or belief, but through embodied experience. And this is critical. Beliefs don’t shift because we try to force them. Beliefs shift because we have a novel experience, something in the body that feels new, that feels different. And that experience creates new thought, and that opens the door to new beliefs, into possibility.
Susi (06:19.94)
It’s one reason why I named my podcast, “From Pain to Possibility”. Because when someone has been living in pain and then they have a moment or two where they move with less strain, with less effort, that for them is a novel experience. And what comes with that is the thought, oh, oh, maybe I can actually get out of pain.
And that’s when the whole system begins to change. Let me share some stories of trainees who experienced this in their own way. Kirsten came to me as a physical therapist, and at the time she was done with PT, she had already opened up a yoga studio, and had dove deeply into the yoga framework. But something for her also wasn’t totally clicking. And through certification, I helped her to begin to reintegrate her PT training back into her yoga work. Not as an either/or, but as a both/and. And the results with her clients really began to shift. It wasn’t PT alone, it wasn’t yoga alone. It was the integration that made the difference.
Debbie’s background is in fitness and yoga. She’s a highly trained and highly skilled teacher integrating both. She’s taken many trainings and has applied them very well. But problem is that many of them conflict with each other, and she’s been trying to make sense of them all. Through certification, she’s learning to discern. She’s learning to observe what’s in front of her rather than rely on generalizations and be able to be more specific in how she pulls from the different trainings that she has in the moments that she needs that particular information. And that’s providing a lot of clarity.
Then there’s Bobby. Now Bobby came into certification with chronically low iron levels. Her doctors actually told her, you know what? That’s just the way it is. You just have low iron. All the injections and all the interventions that we’re doing are not helping. But here, what was interesting, is through our work, after the first training week in certification, she began to notice what was contributing to why her system was responding and saying to her, you have low iron. And she began to practice differently, move differently, integrate some of the information she was being taught. And guess what? Her iron levels quadrupled. She wasn’t someone with low iron anymore. She was someone whose system had shifted. And her health markers reflected that.
Three very different people, three very different backgrounds, but what united them was this: they learned to integrate. They stopped looking for the right cue or the one answer, and they began seeing, sensing, and responding to patterns. And that’s when their clients’ results and their own results begin to change.
What I’ve seen again and again and again, both with clients and with trainees, is that what’s missing in most yoga trainings is precision. Precision doesn’t mean being rigid. It doesn’t mean memorizing the right way to do a pose.
Susi (10:03.57)
Precision means actually seeing a body in motion. It means noticing compensation. It means understanding what’s really going on rather than assuming. I’ll give you an example.
I had a private client once tell me, everyone says to me that my glutes are lazy. I’ve been told over and over again that they just don’t fire. And she had done all of the glute exercises, she’d done the activation drills, the squats, the bridges, but nothing had changed. So clearly that wasn’t the stimulus that was gonna shift what was happening with her glutes. So instead of going straight at the glutes, we started working elsewhere, but really looking at why the glutes were responding in the way that they were.
So we played with the pelvis and the shoulders through the ribs, and then something remarkable happened. Not surprisingly, her glutes woke up. They weren’t lazy at all. They were simply blocked. I sometimes like to use the metaphor of debris. There was debris in the system; resistance, or friction in the system where other patterns of tension were getting in the way of her brain and body connecting.
But once that debris or resistance, that friction, was cleared, the connection came back online. Her glutes engaged, her pain resolved, and her whole movement pattern steadied. That’s what precision really is. Seeing beyond the surface. Recognizing that a pelvic tilt or a posture or a muscle that won’t fire is rarely the actual problem.
Susi (11:50.61)
Those things are data points, and the solutions are found in the patterns, not isolated parts. And when you begin to see those patterns, you stop solving the problem that isn’t, and you start solving the problem that is. And this is also where nervous system regulation becomes essential. We hear that phrase a lot these days. Nervous system regulation. Years ago, we called it relaxation response. Now we call it about regulation, and it’s a fuller concept, but what does it really mean? It’s not just about guiding someone through en nidra or a calming breath, and leaving it at that. True regulation is sustainable. It’s helping someone develop the skill of noticing their own spectrum, knowing when they’re upregulated, knowing when they’re downregulated, and being able to shift.
And that’s what allows healing to last. That’s what allows change to stick. And as a facilitator, it’s not just something that you teach, it’s something you model. Your steadiness. Clarity. Your ability to regulate yourself while you work with another person becomes part of the healing relationship. And this is one of the core skills we build inside of certification.
Susi (13:13.91)
You learn to see patterns clearly, and connect those patterns with nervous system states. And you learn to guide people into sustainable regulation, not as a one-off, but as a skill they carry into their life. One of the most powerful parts of becoming a healing facilitator is realizing you already carry the seeds of your own model, and here is how you can begin to discover it.
Listen to yourself when you teach. What are the phrases you say over and over again? For me, I often say things like moving a range that doesn’t increase pain or notice how your leg bone moves in your pelvis. Those repeated instructions aren’t random. They reveal what I value and they show what I’m paying attention to. They point to how I see the body and how I guide people toward healing.
It’s the same for you. If you take a moment to reflect, you’ll notice you have a handful of phrases you say again and again. Those phrases are clues. They’re pointing you towards your framework, your way of seeing, your way of teaching, your way of facilitating. Inside of certification, this is something we draw out. We begin by slowing you down, by helping you become more precise.
We help you to start to see the patterns not only in your clients, but also in your own teaching voice. And from there, we help you build it out. Some people discover they wanna focus on migraines, some on diabetes, some on core stability, others on hypermobility or osteoporosis or recovery from surgery.
Susi (15:09.11)
The thing here is, my certification program doesn’t hand you a cookie cutter method and says follow the script, but rather, it gives you the mentorship and the structure to develop your own model. Because there’s no one method or model that works for everyone, not even mine. What matters is discovering the approach that’s uniquely yours, the one that is authentic to you, that aligns your experience and that gets results for the people you are meant to serve.
And that’s the gift of certification. You stop chasing other people’s models and methods. And you begin to clarify your own. And with mentorship right along with you, you bring it to life with confidence. You build the technical skill, you build the business skill, and that model of yours is what integrates the two, and you reach the people who need to hear what it is that you wanna teach.
Susi (16:20.58)
So then let’s bring this all together. How does a shift from teacher to healing facilitator, and how does it actually happen inside of certification? It all begins with a therapeutic yoga intensive, and this is the foundation. It can run as a six weeks asynchronous program or as a live synchronous training.
The live synchronous training is six days, and this fall it is October 25th to October 31st. Inside of the intensive, we start with the fundamentals: anatomy, biomechanics, motor control and coordination. But we don’t stop there. We also layer in interoception and proprioception. We help you develop the teaching skills that make healing possible.
Because here is the truth: exercises on their own don’t work. Scripts on their own don’t work. What works is teaching people how to sense themselves, how to notice fatigue before it becomes pain. How to catch compensation before it becomes injury. How to move in ways that steadily reduce pain and increase capacity. And that’s where the therapeutic yoga intensive begins.
Susi (17:40.64)
Then, if you feel the pull to go further, you move into certification. But before I describe the two certification programs, let me just say, the intensive is standalone. You can take just the intensive and be well on your way, but if you want more and to dig in more deeply and grow that skill into being a great, great therapeutic yoga teacher or yoga therapist or healing facilitator? There are two options. One is our technical training program. I call it the Functional Synergy Yoga Therapy Certification Program, and it’s for people who wanna dive into the movement mechanics, nervous system regulation, the therapeutic application. You’ll have a mini business training and a mini practicum.
So, mini application, but full technical training. And that begins in January and finishes the following February. The other, is the full certification, and this includes not only the full technical training, but also mentorship, a full mentorship, along with a full business training component. In this full program, we help you build out your framework. Design your own signature programs and learn how to share them with the people who need them most. Both pathways are supported by five training weeks across the year. Between those weeks, you’re not left alone. You have weekly calls, mentorship, practice opportunities, and our circle coaching board where people interact on a daily basis.
It’s like having me in your back pocket, along with a great cohort who’s as keen as you are, to be great at what you do. You get to apply what you’re learning immediately with your clients, your friends, and yes, your own body.
This is not a program where you passively sit back and memorize. It’s a program where you embody, you practice, you refine, you integrate, and here’s something I’m really proud of.
Susi (19:57.66)
In the full certification program, I do offer a guarantee. If you engage with the training, if you do the work, if you apply what we teach you in the business mentorship, you will earn your program feedback within 12 months of graduation. Most people who follow, engage with the training, do the work, and apply the business mentorship, they’re in it back much, much sooner, oftentimes while they’re still enrolled.
And if you don’t, we’ll keep working with you until you do. It’s how confident I am in the structure and the mentorship in what this program can do.
So if you’re listening right now, and you feel that pull, you feel that full body yes. Maybe a quiet but steady yes. I invite you to take the next step. Start with the intensive. Come and experience what it’s like to integrate biomechanics, nervous system regulation, and body wisdom in a way that actually changes how people feel. You’ll change how you feel too, and from there, if it’s a right fit, if you feel it in your bones, then move on to certification.
Susi (21:15.99)
You don’t have to figure it out all at once. You just need to start, to step in, and experience it. This is the path from yoga teacher to healing facilitator. Yes, you are going to learn more instructions. Yes, you are gonna be learning more technique, but it’s not simply about more instruction and more technique.
It’s really about integrating, observing, and guiding people into the results that open the door to healing. It’s taken what you already have learned to date. Not throwing that out, but rather integrating all that you know so far into the model that is perfect for you. And if that resonates, you can find all the details at functionalsynergy.com/certification.
Susi (22:09.92)
If you’re interested in the intensive, functionalsynergy.com/intensive. And if you would like to speak to one of our graduates, then please let us know. Just again, go to functionalsynergy.com and click the support or contact us link. I’m happy to introduce you to our certification graduates because you’ll learn what it’s actually like from their perspective.
Because ultimately, this isn’t about doing more, it is about going deeper. It’s about becoming the kind of facilitator who can truly, truly help people heal. Thank you for being here. I look forward to working with you and we will see you next time, on the next episode.
Susi (23:01.47)
Hey there, was this an interesting, resonating episode for you? Are you thinking about certification or the therapeutic yoga intensive? Well check out the intensive over at functionalsynergy.com/intensive as your next step towards becoming a healing facilitator and getting the results with your clients that you truly, truly want.
See you there.
