NSDR Yoga Nidra: Safety, Holding, and Letting Go with Kelly Boys
Channel: The Alembic
Date: 2022-10-01

This class is a deep dive into the non dual Yoga Nidra tradition of a lying-down, guided meditation practice. In this class you'll be invited to get comfortable in a supported position for a deep exploration of body and mind into relaxation, as well as a somatic-based meditative inquiry for embodied spiritual recognition.

NSDR, or non sleep deep rest, was coined by neuroscientist and Stanford professor Andrew Huberman and refers to powerful relaxation practices such as yoga nidra which are designed to take your body and mind into states in between waking and sleeping, in order to provide rejuvenation, rest, and deeper well-being.

As part of this class, we will explore the psyche and its layers of emotional and mental conditioning as held in the body, all in the context of a deeply restorative journey into the more subtle aspects of meditation.

Kelly Boys is a mindfulness trainer and meditation teacher. She designs and delivers bespoke mindfulness programs for large institutions such as the United Nations Foundation, where she co-developed and worked to deliver a mindfulness and well-being program called “Peace on Purpose” for UN humanitarian and development workers on the front lines. She has delivered programs with UN agencies such as UNICEF and UNDP from New York to the Middle East to Central Asia. The Peace on Purpose program is now being implemented across UN agencies and is being scaled to their global staff, with the support and guidance of the United Nations Foundation.

Kelly is the author of The Blind Spot Effect, released in 2018. It has been translated into Spanish and Chinese. The book is an informative and practical guide inviting us to understand: how we get blind spots, how to bring them to light, and how to work with that newfound awareness to improve our lives. She was also Director of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute's facilitator training program, launching a program to train trainers from around the world through a yearlong mastery program in the neuroscience-based emotional intelligence and mindfulness program developed at Google. She is the former Director of Operations and teacher trainer for the Integrative Restoration Institute, a teacher training institute for the research-based and trauma-sensitive mindfulness protocol called iRest. Kelly studied the non dual yogic tradition of Kashmir Shaivism and tantra through the Yoga Nidra tradition.

She taught a weekly trauma-sensitive mindfulness and yoga program at San Quentin State Prison for incarcerated veterans alongside James Fox of the Prison Yoga Project. Kelly has worked extensively in the field of trauma sensitive mindfulness, teaching meditation to US veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI). She holds a degree in Intercultural Religious Studies and is a certified iRest® meditation teacher, Search Inside Yourself teacher, and is the founding advisor for the meditation app Simple Habit. She teaches retreats and workshops at spots like the Esalen Institute, and her teaching is featured on the Oura Ring as well as the apps Mindfulness.com, Wise at Work, and Simple Habit.

The Berkeley Alembic Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit - you can donate to support these classes at: https://berkeleyalembic.org/donate and be sure to leave us a note and tell us it's for Kelly!