INNER COMPASS | Personal Alignment, Purpose & the Courage to Follow Your Path
With Hilary Brown & Marianne van Wetter
A deep exploration of who you are—beyond the mat.
As yoga teachers and practitioners, we spend years learning techniques, refining skills and gathering knowledge. Yet some of the most important questions remain deeply personal:
What do I stand for?
What truly matters to me?
What are my natural strengths?
Who do I want to serve?
What is my unique contribution?
Where is my life asking me to grow?
INNER COMPASS is the personal-development thread that runs through the Advance Your Yoga pathway. Combining self-inquiry, yoga, mindful movement, nature, coaching, communication tools and community, it invites you to slow down enough to hear what is already trying to emerge.
This is not simply a retreat.
It is a journey of reflection and exploration designed to help you bring your practice, teaching and life into closer alignment with what feels true, meaningful and sustainable for you.
Why This Matters
Advanced training can give us more knowledge, more skills and more techniques. But knowing more does not automatically tell us where we are going.
Many teachers still find themselves asking:
What makes my teaching uniquely mine?
How can I communicate with greater confidence and authenticity?
What are my strengths—and where do I get in my own way?
How do I bring my deeper values into my work?
What kind of teacher, leader or human being do I want to become?
Lasting confidence rarely comes from accumulating more information.
It grows from understanding yourself more deeply—and having the courage to act from that understanding.
When your teaching begins to emerge from lived experience rather than borrowed ideas, your work becomes more authentic, meaningful and resilient.
Preparing the Inner Compass
INNER COMPASS begins with a two-day in-person foundation in May, where we start the process of understanding ourselves more clearly and prepare for the deeper retreat journey later in the program.
Together we explore the way you learn, communicate, make decisions and relate to others, while also beginning the mindful yoga, Slow Flow and reflective practices that will accompany the INNER COMPASS process.
Through reflective exercises and practical tools, you'll start to identify your strengths, recurring patterns and the assumptions that may shape how you see yourself and your possibilities.
These two days create a foundation for the deeper retreat process: not trying to invent a new version of yourself, but becoming more curious about what is already there—and beginning to develop the skills of attention, reflection and embodied listening that we will continue to deepen together.
“This is not just another training. It’s a journey inward, guided by your breath, your steps, and the questions that matter most.”
The Quest Within
At the heart of INNER COMPASS is a four-day retreat in nature inspired by the Quest-Trek approach.
Stepping away from the speed and demands of daily life creates a different kind of space—one in which walking, silence, yoga, reflection and conversation become tools for listening.
Across the retreat, we explore a journey through Open Mind, Open Heart, Open Will and Crystallizing: noticing habitual ways of thinking, reconnecting with what matters, becoming more willing to let go of old assumptions, and allowing new possibilities to take shape.
You may encounter old voices or beliefs that have quietly influenced your choices. Rather than trying to silence them, you'll learn to recognize them more clearly—and distinguish them from the values and inner signals that feel genuinely your own.
This is less about finding the "right" answer and more about developing the ability to listen.
Slow Flow, Movement & Embodied Inquiry
Self-inquiry does not happen only through thinking.
Throughout the retreat, Slow Flow, breath awareness, pauses, subtle movement and mindful transitions create space to feel what the questions stir in the body.
You'll explore the balance of sthira and sukha—effort and ease, using slow movement as a way to sharpen proprioception, deepen presence and notice more subtle internal responses.
Rather than moving quickly toward conclusions, the practice gives you time to digest, sense and allow insight to emerge.
Nature, Silence & Perspective
Walking in nature can shift perspective in ways that sitting in a room sometimes cannot.
Through contemplative walking, periods of silence and simple observation, nature becomes both a teacher and a mirror—inviting you to notice patterns, let go of habitual mental noise and reconnect with a wider sense of perspective.
Community, Communication & Inner Leadership
INNER COMPASS is also about how we relate.
Through coaching conversations, group inquiry and practical communication tools, you'll explore how you express yourself, how you listen, and how your natural strengths influence the way you teach and lead.
The aim is not to become a particular kind of leader.
It is to develop inner leadership: the capacity to know what matters, communicate with greater clarity and make choices that are aligned with your values.
From Insight Toward Expression
As INNER COMPASS unfolds, you may begin to recognize areas of teaching, service, community or study that feel especially meaningful to you.
These ideas become seeds for the Personal Project that develops later in the 300-hour pathway. At this stage, the emphasis is not yet on producing a finished project. It is on listening, noticing and discovering what you feel genuinely drawn toward.
The practical development and final presentation of that work will take place later, during the INTEGRATION phase of the program.
Who Is This For?
Yoga teachers seeking deeper personal and professional growth
Teacher trainees in the 300-hour Advance Your Yoga program
Practitioners interested in somatics and embodied self-inquiry
Anyone ready to reconnect with purpose and inner direction
What You Will Explore
Clarifying personal values and direction
Recognizing strengths, challenges and growth edges
Developing greater confidence in your own voice
Exploring purpose, authenticity and inner leadership
Communication and self-expression
Reflective journaling and guided inquiry
Slow Flow, breath and embodied self-inquiry
Walking and silence as contemplative practices
Working with uncertainty and transition
Learning within a supportive community
Beginning to identify areas of interest, service or specialization
What You Will Take With You
Greater clarity about what matters to you
A deeper understanding of your strengths and patterns
More trust in your own inner guidance
Tools for navigating uncertainty and change
Greater confidence in your teaching voice and direction
A stronger connection between your values, practice and work
Early inspiration for the Personal Project you will develop later in the program
The most important journey is not how far you can go, but how deeply you are willing to listen.
INNER COMPASS invites you to create enough space to hear yourself more clearly—and to begin shaping a life and teaching path that feel genuinely your own.
How do the days look?
To preserve the integrity of the QuestTrek, we won’t share a detailed schedule in advance. The general daily rhythm looks like this:
We start the morning around 7:00 AM with yoga, followed by breakfast, and then the day’s program begins.
Walking is a part of the program each day. Along the way and at various locations, you’ll engage in different forms of inquiry related to your personal QuestTrek intention. Late afternoon and evening we will have a somatics or end of day movement and sharing time.
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On this day we connect with the open mind — with our curiosity. We invite you to look at life with fresh eyes, beyond judgment. As we walk through our lives, we challenge ourselves to pause, to reconsider: What do you see when you suspend your judgment? What shifts when you become truly curious — about yourself, about others? This is the beginning of your inner journey: open, inquisitive, and ready to explore.
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Today we connect with the energy of the open heart — the space from which true connection arises, with ourselves and with others. It is the place of presence, of trust, and deep feeling. Your heart holds your core values, your desires. To hear its voice, we must become still and move beyond cynicism. Listening to the heart takes courage — it may speak truths we find uncomfortable, vulnerable, or even painful. Yet this is where authenticity begins.
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It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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What begins to emerge when you truly let go — when you are fully present, deeply connected to yourself and the field around you? Connected to source. What starts to rise naturally when you align with your own flow, when your will, heart, and mind are in sync? This is the space of emergence — of allowing what wants to be born through you to come forward. What becomes possible when you surrender to what is meant?
YACEP: 50 hrs of Continuing Education
Make It Part of Your 300-Hour Journey
Take this module on its own, or join it as part of our 300-hour Advance Your Yoga Training - a thoughtfully curated 20-month journey to deepen your practice, expand your skills, and grow into a more confident, creative and authentic yoga teacher.
DETAILS
Dates & Times: In Utrecht: 12-13 May 2028 | 11.30-18.30 | Studio Fly
At Retreat Center: 22-23-24-25 June 2028 | Start: 10.00 Thursday - End: 16.00 Sunday
Plus: 1-2 online sessions or calls will be added - pre/post retreat.
Location: The Blue Woods in Liempde in The Netherlands
Price*: Including lodging (shared room) and food. (you will need to bring some small money for sheet rental & coffees, etc when we are daily walking, and if you want to upgrade to a single room)
Investment: Early Bird Specials Before:
> 1 February €1295
> 1 March €1345
> 1 April €1395
After 1 May €1445
Space is limited.
*Training Prices are exempt from VAT (BTW) as we are CRKBO-registered.
**Inner Compass on its own reflects its full standalone value — including it as part of the full pathway is where the real savings show up.
about the tRAINERS:
