Teen girl Retreat

In April 2023 we took eight teenage girls on a 2-night, 3-day Retreat. The girls are supported by and live together at the Lillian Howell Project (Lillians), a specialist homelessness service. They provide medium to long term 24-hour, on- site gender specific supported housing for up to 13 young women and girls from 13 to 17 years of age. Lillian’s aim is to provide young women who have experienced complex trauma with a stable environment offering care that is reparative and empowering, and that builds the capacity of the young women through modelling reliable and consistent. Lillians’ model of care is very much aligned with The Yoga Foundation’s values and we felt confident this retreat would be very beneficial for the girls in multiple ways.

Our April 2021 Retreat, also with Lillians, went very well and we built on that success, applying our knowledge and experience with this cohort as well as applying current research. The Retreat program was designed by The Yoga Foundation and Natalie Haider who was selected to be the yoga teacher on this Retreat. Natalie is a Registered Yoga Teacher, Yoga Therapist and a Registered Psychologist. The entire experience was created to be trauma informed, meet diverse needs and introduce the girls to yoga-based activities to self- soothe, regulate the nervous system, educate and have fun.

Our aim was to ensure they felt safe and supported and could enjoy a retreat from their day-to-day routines, be refreshed by a new environment in nature and connect to themselves and others. Lillians’ Manager, Vivian, and caseworker, Ruby, also attended the Retreat to support the girls also participate.

On arrival the girls were excited to explore and raced around the property. Their energy and smiles were great to see. They rarely, if ever, have holidays and they expressed sheer delight at being out of the city and at the beautiful Yanada, St Albans, NSW. All attended a Welcome
Circle and enjoyed a gentle movement practice after the car journey. After a delicious vegetarian dinner prepared by the chef at Yanada the girls had free time or could join us for a movie.

Day 2

We started our second day with a bush walk through the property and Natalie invited everyone to take part in a Five Senses Nature Scavenger Hunt. Most of the girls enthusiastically called out when they spotted mushrooms, flowers, a fallen bird’s nest and spiders in their huge webs. At the top of a hill we paused to rest and Natalie offered the group some gentle breathing exercises. Everyone enjoyed being outside in the beautiful bush, the peace and the sunshine.

After our walk we had a yoga session with the theme of Balance. Natalie provided useful psychoeducation about finding balance in our lives, as well as fun and challenging balancing poses to take us out of our heads and into our bodies.

After lunch it was time to get messy! Natalie led a session to create a DIY sensory self-soothe pack and we all made slime and stress balls. The girls really appreciated this relaxing, playful experience, learning the many ways the nervous system can be soothed and emotions can be regulated.

A restorative yoga session was our final activity of the day and this was the most popular of the yoga sessions. Natalie skilfully showed the girls how to use bolsters and blankets to support their bodies and invite deep relaxation.

In the late afternoon and evening the girls, enjoyed being in the cold swimming pool and warm outdoor spa, built a fire and toasted marshmallows.

There was something for everyone to enjoy and the smiles, laughter and conversation was testament to their engagement and open hearts and minds.

DAY 3

For our final morning we basked in the sunshine on the deck as Natalie led a sensory activity using Dialectal Behavioural Therapy TIPP skills that integrate yoga tools. This included temperature changes and paced breathing.

We experienced what an ice cube on the back of our necks could do, learnt how using a straw to regulate our breath could calm us and how a sour sweet could shift you out of distress or overwhelm. Our final yoga session invited everyone to partner up and support one another through movement. A closing circle and gratitude practice showed how much everyone had appreciated this Retreat and all that it had to offer.

Impact

The feedback from the teenage girl participants was beyond our expectations. All indicated they would use the techniques and practices taught back at home.

7 out of the 8 girls rated the whole experience “Excellent” and one asked “can we do it every year?”. We would love to. The girls return to their lives nourished, rested and restored, equipped with new strategies and techniques to support their recovery and healing from complex trauma, anxiety and depression and build their confidence and agency.

Key comments from the girls:

“I learnt to surrender to my emotions.”
“It was all relevant and amazing. Thank you!”
“Very helpful and relaxing. I loved the workshops”.
“What did you learn during this Retreat? Gratitude and joy.”

Leading By Example

Our inspiring Chair Christy Forest is the subject of a Women in Leadership blog by Laini Bennett. Here is the article in full, and a link to Laini’s great blog.

Christy Forest believes leaders who prioritise self-care benefit not only themselves but their teams, too. Here, the LiveHire CEO shares her leadership journey and lessons learned, including why leadership is not a popularity contest.

As the CEO of ASX-listed tech company LiveHire, Christy Forest understands the importance of leading by example. While she expects her team to work hard and deliver results, she also wants them to have balanced lives and to support their well-being. Forest finds this balance by practicing yoga, daily meditation, and going to the gym. She blocks time in her work calendar for self-care and encourages her team to do likewise. 

“At LiveHire, we can see into each other’s calendars. I consider it a badge of honour to have my two to three personal training sessions a week scheduled. I want the people working for me to see that I prioritise it,” she explains.

She strongly believes in the transformative effects of yoga and meditation, making her a passionate advocate for The Yoga Foundation, for which she is Chairman of the Board. The not-for-profit provides free classes to vulnerable people to help them heal and begin an unmedicated journey to recovery. Corporates can also sponsor yoga for their staff, which she believes is essential for healing after COVID, helping people overcome symptoms such as anxiety and depression.

Forest herself took up yoga when she moved to Australia from the USA some 15 years ago. She says it has changed her as a person, giving her tools for her own compassion, and has made her a better leader. “It helps me find balance in what might still be a very hard-charging kind of leadership position, which requires extreme courage at times, but also humanity.”

Inspired by her grandfather

Forest started her career in the US, initially in sales, before moving into executive positions. She grew up in southwest Virginia and, with the encouragement of her maternal grandfather, who travelled widely for work, developed a fascination for other cultures and finance. 

“Every time he visited a country, he would bring me a doll in traditional clothing and a piece of local currency,” Forest says. As a teen, he taught her how to calculate loan repayments and invest in mutual funds. While her father was a dentist and her mother a PhD-qualified teacher, Forest knew she was destined for business by the time she finished school. She undertook a Bachelor of Science and Commerce at the University of Virginia, quickly followed by an MBA at the prestigious Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she also met her future husband.

Forest’s journey into leadership began with her first management role as a business development and sales manager with Nasdaq-listed CEB (now Gartner), a company providing best practice research, benchmarks and decision support tools to business leaders. With sales targets on the line, Forest wanted to lead her team to success but soon realised that to do so, she needed to understand how to motivate them – and that what inspired her wasn’t necessarily the same for them. 

“Not everyone is wired the same way. Some people are financially-oriented, some are achievement-oriented, and some are even relationship-oriented,” she says, recalling one team member pointing out that she never started meetings by asking how they were doing. 

Climbing great heights

Within a few years, Forest became the first woman on CEB’s executive committee, running their global member service organisation worth $US240 million. By now, she had 250 staff and spent many hours discussing reports, numbers and strategies in the board room. At this level, she was far removed from the coal face and began to miss engaging more personally with her team and client portfolio, which nourished her as a leader. 

“It’s like, I’m climbing Everest, but the higher I go, the less oxygen there is for me,” Forest explains. She also didn’t enjoy the boardroom politics and soon dreaded attending meetings. “I lost my soul in that job.”

Reflecting on what she loved most and what would feel the most authentic and enriching for her as a leader, the penny dropped; it was time for a complete change.

Having spent much time in Australia for business, Forest knew CEB’s Asia Pacific operation had significant room for growth but needed a strong leader to make it happen. She and her husband loved Sydney’s climate and lifestyle, having travelled there together for work, and discussed raising their young son and daughter there. With Forest ready for a change, the opportunity was ripe to make this happen. Forest presented a business case for the transition to her CEO, who gave her the green light. Now, she could climb down from Everest to base camp and breathe again.

Adjusting to change

Shifting to Australia as CEB’s Executive Director Asia Pacific, Forest says her most significant adjustment was transitioning from managing a huge business to a very small one. Otherwise, she was fortunate. “I was given a lot of latitude and grace because I had already proven myself to the company,” she says.

Forest took up yoga and even created a yoga room in the Sydney office for her team to take time out to stretch or meditate. She thrived in the new environment. Over the next 10 years, including a 2-year interlude in Singapore, Forest took CEB’s APAC operations from a $20 million business to a $150 million enterprise, including an acquisition.

Embarking on new enterprises

While working with CEB, Forest encountered the recruitment and talent management technology company, LiveHire, and was impressed with their offering. “They had built technology that was the future – very intuitive, very humanised, with significant improvements in female and diversity hiring,” she says.

In 2017, CEB was bought out by Gartner, and Forest left the business, joining LiveHire as a board director. Temporarily freed from her day-to-day management responsibilities, she took the opportunity to gain her yoga teaching certification, spend more time with her children, and run the Business Council of Australia’s (BCA) Innovation Taskforce and Skills Committee. This included presenting the results of a BCA research collaboration with McKinsey at the United Nation’s 62nd Commission on the Status of Women in New York.Nine months after joining LiveHire’s board, she was invited to become its CEO, a role that has since proven both gratifying and at times, extremely challenging. Forest inherited investor expectations that she says ran well ahead of the value that had been built into the business. “So for me, it’s been about chasing that expectation with real value creation,” she says.With limited growth opportunities in Australia, Forest has taken LiveHire into the North American market, where she says it is now the number one technology in their industry. “We’re working with Fortune 100 companies, the biggest global brands in the world… you get starry-eyed at what’s been accomplished. But there is still so much to do.” 

Leadership is not a popularity contest

To drive the results that LiveHire’s investors demand, Forest sometimes must make tough decisions that her team may not welcome or understand. As CEO, she cannot always reveal to her team the impetus behind some changes, which means living with being demonised for the betterment of the business. “That has been a big leadership lesson for me, that it’s okay to be misunderstood… you’re not in a popularity contest,” she says.

To help her manage the challenges of her role, Forest has surrounded herself with people who support her and are honest about her gaps and vulnerabilities. This way, especially if she is experiencing imposter syndrome, she has a safe environment to ask for assistance. 

Forest credits her mentor, Jenni Smith, former Chief Human Resources Officer at QBE Insurance, with helping her navigate LiveHire’s sometimes challenging board dynamics along with former McKinsey partner and now LiveHire Chairman Michael Rennie, who she describes as “a beautiful, complete human being” who even runs meditation sessions for her team. “He always backed me and would give me tough feedback when I needed it,” she says. Her husband also provides phenomenal support.Forest finds spiritual nourishment in her work as The Yoga Foundation’s Chairman, helping her fulfil a desire to see more people benefit from yoga and meditation. Likewise, the charity benefits from her experience as a business leader and yoga practitioner. 

She believes it’s essential for board directors to have business experience. Otherwise, they become too focused on ticking compliance and regulatory boxes and miss the opportunity to contribute to the organisation’s growth and success. She says that everyone, including the directors, needs to contribute for a business to succeed. “Because it takes a village, you know?”

Christy Forest’s Leadership Lessons Learned

• Hire great people then clear away barriers so they can succeed.

• Remove cultural cancers because they will take the system down.

• Leadership is not a popularity contest. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions behind the scenes that people won’t understand, but you have to trust the truth will reveal itself and, until then, sit with being misunderstood. 

What Yoga can do

One of the best parts of our work at The Yoga Foundation is when we meet program participants who experienced significant change and hear their inspiring response to yoga.

Yoga teacher training opportunities for our participants

This month CEO Jessica Hobson had the pleasure of being on an interview panel with Centacare to select a recipient from our yoga program for a teacher training scholarship.

Both shortlisted candidates - Yang and Gabriella - were so impressive it was hard to choose just one so The Yoga Foundation will fund a second scholarship so both of these inspiring women can do their yoga teacher training. The lived experience of Yang and Gabriella will be very valuable as teachers of women who've experienced domestic violence, mental health challenges and isolation.

How this all came about
Rewind to September 2021: Centacare in South Australia contacted The Yoga Foundation to discuss running a pilot program at their new women’s safety centre in Whyalla: The Haven. The Yoga Foundation agreed to fund and deliver an eight week pilot program to women and domestic violence victim-survivors accessing support and services at The Haven. This program started in December 2021.

Immediate benefits

The yoga program was immediately successful with excellent attendance from the target group of women and very positive feedback on the benefits they were experiencing. Post program surveys demonstrated the enthusiasm and impact of the yoga on all the participants who responded. Here are some of their responses:

“I am thinking clearer. Able to complete much more arduous activities. From the first lesson to now my life has changed in so many ways, I have also created friendships with the ladies that I see lasting a lifetime. My core is happy and I look forward to what each new lesson brings”.

“In every aspect of my life I feel that yoga is the key to unlocking my full life’s potential.”

“The energy that (teacher) Dr Janet Sawyer generates is a very safe and loving environment which creates a perfect learning space.”

From little things..
The impact of our pilot program so inspired the Centacare team the applied for funding (from their local council) for one yoga teacher training scholarship and invited all the program participants to apply. Expressions of Interest were received and two candidates were selected to be interviewed by a panel made up of Centacare program coordinator, the yoga teacher and The Yoga Foundation CEO.

The successful candidates have committed to teaching at The Haven, Centacare, once they have graduated so they can continue to offer yoga to the many women in need who rely on such support. The Yoga Foundation will continue to support the teachers when they graduate as both are keen to teach women impacted by trauma.

Yang, a scholarship recipient

What a wonderful outcome from one yoga program! This is what your donations fund - potentially life changing programs. Watch this space for updates on the continuing yoga journeys of Yang and Gabriella.

End of year wrap 2021

With another year wrapped up and the new year off to a strong start, The Yoga Foundation has many positive things to report. 2021 created some obvious challenges due to the pandemic but there were also many highlights for us to celebrate.

A glance over 2021…

We created opportunities for nearly 300 people to positively change their experience of life through yoga. We delivered 388 yoga sessions and partnered with 23 service providers to provide yoga to people at risk, and those who have been marginalised by society and circumstance. We held fundraising events both online and in person in our endeavour to expand our services and raise awareness about the transformative and ongoing benefits of yoga. The Yoga Foundation ran our first retreats for At Risk Youth: highlights of our year. These were designed to be trauma informed, meet diverse needs and introduce the young people to a range of yoga-based activities that would soothe, calm, educate, and bring joy. The retreats were a success thanks to the level of engagement and commitment of our teenage participants, the skill of the yoga teachers and retreat facilitators and the careful planning and preparation by the teams involved. The feedback from the participants was extraordinary and heart warming and we are looking forward to repeating the impact at our 2022 Retreat in April.

Looking Ahead…

We are feeling excited about 2022, and willing to brave the challenges it may hold. More than ever we see the need for yoga to be integrated into people’s daily lives. 2022 is already showing promise with over ten new and existing programs already up and running.Our focus on At Risk Youth and domestic violence survivors will continue, and we intend to grow our programs for men experiencing mental health challenges. After the fantastic response last year, we are already in the thick of organising our next retreat for a group of teenage girls that will take place in mid April. They have experienced homelessness, abuse and trauma and are really looking forward to learning with us, and enjoying all the benefits a retreat can bring.

We have rung in 2022 with new additions to our team, which will assist us in creating more pathways for yoga to be accessed, and securing more partnerships to allow those opportunities. As we continue to grow our programs, our focus will remain not only on extending our reach but in extending the depth of experience for those involved. WIth that in mind all our current teachers and staff will be undertaking training in trauma with the Blue Knot Foundation in early April and we are thrilled we are able to offer this quality CPD to our incredible team.
Stay tuned…The Yoga Foundation has emerged from two challenging years bigger, more effective, and full of passion and energy for the transformative work we do.