about
a little snippet into who I am
WHY I’M HERE
My mission
I want to help you explore your full self and find presence within. Peel back the layers of conditioning and trauma by listening to your body’s innate wisdom and unwinding your nervous system.
get to know me
I’m Lavinia
Join me in learning more about embodied psychology, somatic awareness and trauma support. Explore practical approaches to unwind your own nervous system and move through life with self-awareness and ease in both mind and body.
And discover where psychology and yoga intersect and complement each other along the way.
Psychology Graduate & Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher
ready to dive in?
my values
what I stand for
love
For me love is at the base of everything. How can you hold yourself more lovingly? Viewing yourself and others through a lens of love and compassion and recognising that you are already whole, without the need for anything external.
embodiment
We are innately embodied beings. Embodiment to me means being in tune with my body, reconnecting to its inherent intelligence and aliveness through the senses and moving away from the conditioning of our mind-centered world.
freedom
Freedom to me is full authentic expression ad ultimately, the absence of all conditioning. In the context of our physical practice, this means releasing all chains of comparison and performance. We’re all unique beings, living unique lives. Our practice is here to reflect that uniqueness - not remove it.
rest
In a world where we are constantly tapped in, it’s evermore important for the wellbeing of your soul and nervous system to slow down and create pockets of peace and deep rest for yourself. Knowing that rest is deeply personal.
my story
my story
the full version
I’d be honoured to share my story with you.
For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with the human psyche. Trying to make sense of my own internal experience, as well as the people and relationships around me led me to studying psychology.
Throughout my Bachelor, I felt a sense of misalignment with mainstream psychology that I could not shake. I had this yearning for a more holistic lens, a lens that embraces the interconnectedness of the mind and body in regards to our psychological past and goes beyond the biomedical paradigm and traditional talk therapies.
Having practiced yoga for a while now, I knew just how transformative tapping into my body had been for my own mental wellbeing.
Yoga transformed my relationship with my body.
A pivotal moment for me was a few weeks into my first yoga teacher training. I was 21 at the time, and I remember sitting down cross-legged and realising that for the first time in a very long time I no longer felt the need to suck in my belly, which had become somewhat of a default for most of my teenage years. As a woman, I’ve spent most of my life trying to make myself smaller, being fed narratives by society that I will only be accepted when I am a smaller version of myself, when really the disposition of the universe is to be in a continual state of expansion. From that experience onwards, I’ve allowed yoga to shape my own lovestory with myself, my body and its everchanging form, and cultivate a sense of safety from within.
Over the years, I’ve fallen more and more in love with yoga and everything it encompasses. My why has changed so much over the years. These days, most of the time it is simply to bring awareness into my mind and into my body that would otherwise not exist. Learning to listen to and honour my body, using it as a vehicle for cultivating a deeper sense of self-love, and in turn allowing me to expand that love outwards.
my why
Yoga gave me meaning and direction, and a sense of deep rootedness and self-compassion while navigating this beautifully complex human experience.
It wasn’t until I stumbled across a trauma-informed yoga teaching lens that it finally clicked for me. A whole new world opened up in front of my eyes - a world where not only the prevalence of trauma is acknowledged in a yoga class, but that also recognises the potential of yoga and other somatic practices in the psychotherapeutic context.
It felt like finding the missing piece of the puzzle, where finally I had found a space for me within psychology that felt in line with my values, where I could envision actually being of service to others. What followed was a deep dive into all the literature I could find on embodied psychology, somatic awareness, nervous system regulation and trauma support.
My journey is ongoing and continuously unfolding, and I’m excited to see where it takes me…
If any of the learnings and insights I share along the way might be of value to you and your own life, this would bring me great joy.
