I started doing yoga 17 years ago. It saved my life. I had just finished an intensive academic study and training and was extremely stressed. To make a long story short, Yoga and its related teachings saved my life and my sanity. Literally. Some years later I became a certified Kripalu yoga teacher. That training seemed to make me even more sane and healthy.

Of course the important teachings/lessons came when I started teaching others. Boy, oh boy was I at a loss time and time again. Eventually though I embodied the lessons that came my way...some of them at least! That was when my spiritual progress, maturity and understanding beautifully coalesced and I discovered iRest® Yoga Nidra. Can you imagine? It had been there all along but I did not see it. I am sure something like that has never happened to you?

Lo and behold. Another lifesaver. How many do I need anyway? I started practicing iRest yoga nidra ,on regular basis and couldn’t get enough. I took Richard Miller's Level II trainings and I and was thrilled. I met so many wonderful teachers, people that were assisting, fellow students as well as other searchers, like me. What a treasure chest to fall into. The only thing I had to do was to open up, listen and welcome. "This isn’t so hard. Is it, Aegir?" I said to myself. Well up to that point it had for me. Yoga nidra had a wonderfully profound and calming effect on me.

After the trainings I became like Cupid who shoots his arrows at people and they fall in love. I asked myself. Who can I shoot with the iRest yoga nidra arrow so they welcome and realize the immense calm, healing and feeling of well being that iRest yoga nidra can bring to their lives, as it has to mine?

I soon relaxed, much to the blessing of all the people I came in contact with – and thanks to iRest yoga nidra – and my shooting arrow turned into a kind invitation.

Inspired and guided by my progress. I had to be a manifestation of the benefits of iRest myself to spread the teachings of iRest yoga nidra. It was as simple as that.

It was when I started teaching iRest yoga nidra that the miracles started to happen. The everyday John and Mary that came to my courses and classes and had never done yoga before; started to sleep, started to tolerate their fellow workers, started to loosen up and lose some of the chains of stress that had previously given them only one option... reacting in an unhealthy way.

One significant benefit I saw was that the people with whom I worked who took medication for sleep disorders, anxiety etc, needed less of their medication or didn’t need them at all! I looked on in wonderment. Is this a genuine article or what?

“I want to be certified as an iRest yoga nidra teacher”, I thought to myself. Then the “sane” monkey on my back said: “Why? You can still teach it as well as practice it without certification”. “I want to know/embody more”, I said to the monkey. “You still haven´t answered my question”, the monkey said. Then it dawned on me. When I was training at Kripalu I had an aversion to the yogic literature. I think it came from my academic background. “I don´t need to study the literature”, I thought, “I´ll awaken my inner guru with my feeling/sensing. That way I will become like the two winged bird.....one wing love and the other one wisdom”.

Be that as it may, there will be less confusion if I follow a tested path and use a map for the journey that I am now embarking on. Studying the literature and learning from the wisdom of the teachings that span thousands of years will guide me past many pitfalls on my way. Wisdom from people that have gone before me and will make me a “better” Aegir, a more effective teacher, enrich my training. Hopefully I’ll make lifelong friends on the way. I prey that I will have the wisdom to welcome their teachings.

I am about half way to being certified now. My learnings, blessings, embodiment of the teachings have been priceless! I have grown, matured and my ability to be an effective teacher has multiplied, and with that an abundance of overwhelming joy!

Now you know my reason for wanting to be a certified iRest Yoga Nidra teacher. What do you think yours could be?