The Bigger Life YTT
200-Hour Trauma Informed Yoga Teacher Training
Carrie Hoffman, Sydney Jansma Kleis & Zach Minnich
❤️ March 1 – 22, 2027 at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala! ❤️
This 21-day immersive training, hosted by Bigger Life Adventures at Mystical Yoga Farm on the shores of Lake Atitlán, is a Yoga Alliance–certified 200-hour program rooted in trauma-informed practice, intentional community, and deep personal transformation. Designed for aspiring teachers and dedicated practitioners alike, the training blends vinyasa and hatha yoga with philosophy, anatomy, meditation, mantra, and the art of skillful, inclusive teaching.
With a small cohort of 12–17 students, the experience emphasizes hands-on learning, practice teaching, discussion, and integration—supporting students to graduate with both confidence and real-world teaching skills. Trauma-informed principles are woven throughout the curriculum, preparing participants to create safe, accessible spaces for diverse populations.
Beyond the classroom, the immersion includes daily plant-based meals, ceremonies (such as fire, cacao, and sauna), and life in an off-grid, eco-conscious setting—offering a rare opportunity to unplug, connect with nature, and live yoga as a way of life.
Students leave not only with Yoga Alliance certification, but with a deeper understanding of themselves, a supportive global community, and tools to teach and serve in a wide range of environments.
The Bigger Life Adventures team has been guiding trauma-informed, alcohol-free retreats and trainings around the world for over 8 years. Your trainers’ leadership and teaching styles are informed by their personal journeys of addiction and eating disorder recovery, study and practice of yoga philosophy, trauma healing, Buddhism, shamanism, and more.
View all of our upcoming retreats in Guatemala at Mystical Yoga Farm.
Carrie has been practicing yoga for 14 years and teaching for 8. Her path to the mat is inseparable from her teaching philosophy. Yoga helped her get in touch with her intuition and finally quit drinking alcohol after a decade of addiction, work through her trauma, and reconnect with her higher self. Now she brings that same unflinching, recovery-aware presence to every place she’s blessed to teach: retreat centers, treatment facilities, schools, and juvenile detention centers.
For 6 years, Carrie has been the yoga provider for her home county’s Juvenile Detention Center, where she has trained and managed an entire community of trauma-informed yoga teachers. She has co-taught two 200-hour YTTs and multiple trauma-informed yoga trainings, led 100+ retreats across 7 countries, and holds an 800-hour Ayurvedic Health Counselor certification.
Her teaching is grounded, warm, and deeply practical. She infuses trauma-informed practices into every class she leads, yet also loves to challenge her students with a little intensity or a creative mobility flow! From vinyasa at a studio to yoga in a cell block, Carrie strives to infuse her yoga sessions with nervous system regulation, philosophy you can actually grasp, and a bit of humor as well. She believes every teacher deserves this foundation. An entrepreneur, writer, and activist, Carrie isn’t afraid to speak up about the cognitive dissonance of running a yoga business under capitalism. She brings years of real life experience as a founder, studio teacher, and retreat leader to this training and aims to transfer her business savvy as well as her teaching methods to trainees.
An avid traveler, Carrie has explored 44 countries, worked as a Health Education Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Tanzania, and coached many travel lovers on how to volunteer and live abroad. In her free time, Carrie loves trail running, mountaineering, playing harmonium, eating chocolatey desserts, and making friends with dogs.
Sydney is a trauma-informed yoga teacher and was Bigger Life Adventures’ very first intern back in 2022. She has been practicing yoga for over 10 years and teaching for half a decade. Sydney’s love for dance and movement naturally flowed over to her love for yoga asana, but slowly learning breathwork, meditation, and practicing yoga’s ethical principles is what propelled her recovery from disordered eating.
Yoga for recovery resonates deeply with Sydney and influences her trauma-informed, exploratory style of teaching. When she is not practicing or teaching, you can find Sydney trail running, thru-hiking around the world, or cuddling with a cat enjoying one or her “granny hobbies”.
Zach is the co-founder of Bigger Life Adventures and Carrie’s partner in building a brand rooted in conscious living, plant-based nourishment, and genuine community. Zach contributes his deep knowledge of yoga philosophy, the science of consciousness, and ceremony, helping to hold the container that makes transformation possible.
Once a week during our Guatemala yoga teacher training, Zach takes over the kitchen to give the local Mystical Yoga Farm chefs a well-deserved break, and to treat students to his somewhat famous “Zachalicious” meals! Vibrant, from-scratch vegan meals and desserts inspired by his plant-based cookbook Plants on Plates await you! Reiki Master, musician, rock climber, and true “jack of all trades”, Zach shows up to every space with creative energy and grounded care.