Rachel Bayliss

I qualified as a yoga teacher with the British Wheel of Yoga in 2014 and now teach Hatha yoga in Chesterfield. During 2017, I completed the BWY Mindfulness Module to further develop my personal practice of mindfulness and then completed the CMI Level 1 conversion training to enable me to incorporate mindfulness into my yoga teaching.

Currently I am continuing to develop my personal mindfulness practice so that I can share these practices from a position of experience and real understanding.  The training has provided a firm foundation to build on and a wide range of resources to explore and utilise as I make steps towards offering yoga and mindfulness classes.

Mindfulness develops our ability to pay attention to the present moment, observing thoughts, emotions and feedback from the physical body with greater perspective and clarity. It enables us to respond more skilfully to situations in our daily life rather than reacting instinctively based on potentially unhelpful behavioural patterns. Mindfulness encourages us to treat ourselves and others more compassionately and less judgementally. It offers the possibility of change which, though challenging and difficult at times, may lead to greater resilience to the stresses in our lives, improved well being and a greater sense of ease with ourselves.

As a student, it is important to me to study with teachers in whom I am confident are well trained and experienced in the authentic, evidence based practices of mindfulness and who create safe and caring environments in which learning can take place.

As a teacher, it is important to me to be part of a mindfulness community with good practice guidelines that ensure high standards of training and that advocate teaching based on in-depth personal experience, ethical practice, continuous professional development, on-going supervision and support.  It provides a forum in which to discuss new research and developments in mindfulness; and to explore how best to bring mindfulness to our communities