14-Day Soma Yoga Immersion Retreat in Costa Rica’s Blue Zone: Playa Coyote, Guanacaste

Liz Heffernan, MA, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT is a gifted international yoga teacher, a certified Yoga Therapist and long-term practitioner. She combines her in-depth knowledge of anatomy and bio-mechanically safe alignment principles with insights and practical wisdom gained from over 26 years of yoga teaching & immersive study. She is the Founder and Director of Soma Yoga Institute, a world-wide yoga teacher training school that embraces a therapeutically-oriented, heart-centered approach. These programs, heralded by many as truly inspirational, combine modern day biomechanics and research driven science with ancient teachings and serve to teach adaptive Yoga for all BODIES as a practice for vibrant health, self-transformation and personal empowerment. Liz's dynamic teaching style is influenced by many, many wonderful yoga teachers. These include Ashtanga Yoga’s Shri K. Pattabhi Jois, Tim Miller, Nancy Gilgoff and Bhavani Maki; Anusara Yoga’s Desiree Rumbaugh, Jenny Otto, Noah Maze, and Jim & Ruthie Bernaert; Integrative Yoga Therapy’s Joseph Le Page; and yoga philosophers Ram Das, Douglas Brooks, and Carlos Pomeda. Liz is known is for her ability to bridge the gap between the ancient perspectives of yoga and contemporary daily life. In her work as a yoga therapist, Liz specializes in helping seniors age gracefully and is highly skilled in adapting practices to meet the complex health challenges associated with aging. In collaborative partnership with Yoga 4 Brain Health she has co-founded the Memory Maintenance Yoga Teacher Training program that certifies Yoga teachers to help their communities delay the onset of memory loss related diseases through Yoga. Liz also serves as a faculty-mentor for the Kripalu School of Integrative Yoga Therapy supporting professionals on their journey to become yoga therapists. Liz believes that the path of Yoga brings greater ease, not just to the individual, but to all beings everywhere, and ultimately uplifts planetary consciousness one conscious breath at a time.

Jess Trudeau, E-RYT 500 first began practicing yoga in 1999 as a young college student and fell in love with it’s creative nature. The practice has been her foundation through the carnival of life including motherhood and a tumultuous illness with Guilliane-Barre that left her temporarily paralyzed in 2016. She believes her yoga and meditation practice to be the shining light through any darkness on her path as it has helped her recognize the body’s phenomenal potential to overcome.