Yoga Teacher Training on Scholarship/35th Birthday!
My Travel Story
My name is Olivia Ryan. I own a wellness business called ORyan Body Works. I officially launched my business in 2023 with the goal to work with people physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally to increase their quality of life through movement. I am a personal trainer with a focus in corrective exercise, a level 2 Reiki practitioner, a dance teacher, and a licensed massage therapist with my BA in psychology. The next two biggest endeavors will be my Yoga certification and finishing my Masters in Sports and Performance Psychology. Each of these skills broadens my ability to hear my clients/students. From better assessment to better application they help me meet them where they are, while connecting to them in a way that holistically fits their needs. I am on here asking for help to a achieve a major milestone for myself personally and my career. I received a scholarship to obtain my Yoga teacher training certification in Ubud, Bali, which is the hub for such an endeavor. This is something I have been trying to accomplish for years and this program just happens to be happening the day after my 35th birthday. The past few years have been full of grief and rebuilding. It has been a journey full of a lot of hard work, but through the hard work comes the laying out of blessings. I am working so hard to walk into this experience with a clear mind and truly be present. So, having my affairs in order, especially financially, physically and spiritually, have been my main focus for this past year. Making the decision to get help with the finances is the last big step I decided to take.
This will be my first time out of the country, after multiple attempts. I decided to treat myself to a trip for my 30th birthday so that I could use my passport before it expired. I wanted to bring in my 30s with peace, calm, and beauty. So, I decided on a trip to Bali. As I was doing my research, I ended up finding a 25 day Yoga teacher training that I could attend out there for the price of a weeks training here. It seemed ideal. Not only would I get to go abroad and be somewhere beautiful, but I had been wanting to go away for my Yoga teacher training for roughly 10 years. I would get to practice yoga every day and lets face it, if you know me, I have an aptitude for learning and I love constantly expanding my knowledge. So, for me, all of that as a gift, and one of the final pieces to my business was the perfect combination. It all seemed surreal. Then the world shut down.
Between 2021 and now I received everything I had ever prayed for and was at a peak. Then, everything was swept from under me all at once sending me to my lowest points of my life where I was forced to tap into a new realm of strengths and vulnerabilities. I Experienced fraud that caused me to experience my 2nd biggest fear, almost not being able to afford my medication as a type 1 diabetic, and a year later while still trying to pull myself up, I lived through my biggest fear, losing my mother. Within that next year I also lost my eldest brother and a close friend who was like a brother. At the beginning of 2024 I had shoulder surgery that reset my whole body, with so much more intertwined along the way. Life could have gotten really bleak and taken me under. But, God had properly prepared me for what I couldn’t have seen coming.
During that time, I got to check off another major milestone which was getting to attend Massage School to obtain my license. It was one of the best experience of my life, ultimately giving me all of the tools to heal from the obstacles on the way. School was a place where I got to holistically heal and reconnect my mind, body, and spirit, and apply the other skills I gained as a trainer, a dancer and a psychology major. I got to see the benefits that came with continuous application of all of these practices, including massage, which allowed me to experience the peak of my health to date. The more I healed, the more clear the mold became on how I wanted to apply these modalities with others and share the amazing power our bodies possess when we take a true holistic approach. The more I grounded in mind, body, and spirit through my movement the more I recognized how I was finding this multidimensional, continuous rhythm and what it looked like. Ultimately I found myself moving through spaces that looked like methods of yoga, tai chi, qigong and other practices. By the end of my unwinding movement sessions, I found that they brought me to a stronger, more powerful, effortless experience that created a healing that carried though the rest of my day. My body felt weightless and grounded at the same time. This experience brought me back to looking into getting my yoga teacher training as my next addition to tie my professional practice together. It is the one piece that I truly believe will help me better communicate the grounded and somatic practice of movement that I want to teach to my community.
My Goal is to fully immerse myself and be fully present in this Yoga teacher training. I want to increase my understanding with another layer of consistent practice so I can bring it back to my community and help them find better awareness of the mind body connection. It is so important to have skills in your toolbox to maintain a consistent homeostasis in the body and be able to regulate the nervous system as needed. This piece of my training can really help my community learn ways to maintain and expand their grounding practice into their every day lives. I believe that it is extremely important to understand, as a teacher, that this healing journey is a team effort. It isn’t just me telling someone what to do with their bodies but us working together to reconnect and bring awareness so the client can learn to have the honest conversation with their bodies in order to enhance their ability to communicate what they need, to not only others but to themselves in order to address the proper issues.
I hope that by reading this you have found value in this experience and would like to help assist in making it happen. But, no matter what you choose, thank you for sharing this space with me and hearing a little about my experience. I hope that it peaked your interest in exploring your own holistic journey. I hope that you find time in your day for grace and slow moments, and to enjoy the beauty in the little things. I leave you with a deep breath and the courage to move through your days being present and allowing for moments of joy. Best of wishes to you and God bless.
Olivia Ryan
More Travel Information
Adventure Registry
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Scholarship for program
2,250by Radiantly Alive- Granted
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airline miles
2,000 -
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Donate
$ 50 USD
Total Donation Received-
1%
Funded -
$ 6,479 USD
Goal Amount -
41
Days Left
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Cost Calculator
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Accommodation
$ 2,970
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Airfare/ International Flights
$ 2,200
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Local Travel Expenses
$ 1,000
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FundMyTravel Site Fee
$ 309
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Funders
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Dana Donovan Funded $ 50 USD
Mar 09, 2025
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