1 Week Personal Yoga and Spiritual Practice Retreat
Spend one week at Château de Montcuquet for a one week personal retreat with yoga, meditation, shamanic journeying, sound therapy and just being in nature in this magical space. Two yoga classes available daily, morning and evening and two sessions daily, morning and afternoon working with meditation, mantras, energetic healing, shamanic journeying or sound healing which we are calling the Spiritual Circle. Unlike formal training, this retreat allows you more down time just to be.
"Magic !"
An unforgettable retreat masterfully performed by Sunshine Ross who instilled in me the values of yoga in a gentle and at the same time designated way. A group on a human scale which allowed us to get to know each other more personally. Everything was perfect, the rhythm of the weeks, the class, the material supports, the quality of Sunshine's teachings and above all her kindness, her professionalism and her passion for teaching yoga which inspired us a lot. It went too fast! I recommend ths training with eyes closed.
- Clarisse D.
"Human Training"
This training has given me so much more than I expected! Magical encounters, interesting and captivating lessons. I'm going home with a desire to continue learning and sharing even stronger! THANK YOU 🙏
- Geraldine T.
Sample Schedule
8:00 - 9:30 yoga class
9:30 - 10:30 Breakfast break
10:30 - 11:30 Spiritual Circle
11:30 - 13:00 free time
13:00 - 15:00 Lunch
15:00 - 16:00 free time
16:00 -17:00 Spiritual Circle
17:00 - 18:00 gentle yoga
18:30 19:30 dinner
Sunshine Ross
Fondatrice, Formatrice, Masterclass
Sunshine is a senior yoga teacher, wife, mother and author of The New Yoga Sutra: Divine Grace.
Sunshine began teaching yoga in 2005 and founded the yoga school now called Awake Space in 2015. The yoga school was born in Leith, Scotland, and the following year a residential yoga retreat was opened in southwest France. In 2024, Awake Space will move to its new home Château de Montcuquet in Lautrec, France.
Sunshine first trained in Rishikesh in the traditional style of Hatha Yoga and has since trained in Vinyasa, Kundalini and Ashtanga. Sunshine has also received 8 years of formal training in Buddhism and has completed undergraduate studies in psychology. Sunshine is also a high level practitioner of VortexHealing® Divine Energy Healing (Ric Weinmann trademark)
She has traveled extensively with her husband Glen all over the world - Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Central America as an expatriate. They have two children, Ocean and Sky.
"Teaching is my profession. It's my dharma. I remember coming home from my first day of kindergarten and sitting my grandmother down, pretending she was my student and me pretending to be the teacher and teaching her the vowels and consonants. It's a past life. We have all been many things in our past lives. Somehow, I acquired the skill of teaching. I vaguely remember other past lives as a nun and also as a disabled person. This life, I happen to have a good body for yoga.
I teach the full spectrum of yoga because I honor the fact that we are all at different stages of evolution on the soul journey. We come to yoga for different reasons. Yoga is so broad that you can approach it from many different angles. For me, yoga is primarily a spiritual practice. Ross Method uses hatha, vinyasa, ashtanga and kundalini yoga with different meditation techniques. I use VortexHealing in trainings to help evolve the students' energy system and we will be using Art Therapy at the Chateau de Montcuquet for the personal development of yoga practitioners and future yoga teachers.
If you would like to speak to Sunshine personally, you can reserve a time. Please use this link to schedule a call.
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Méthode Ross
Om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhisvaha
(Go, go beyond go ever beyond into enlightenment) The Heart Sutra
Part of yoga practice is the practice of postures but that is not all yoga is. Some of the most highly realized yogis put very little emphasis on posture.
Yoga poses are for moving the energy of the body. It is about opening spaces in your body and letting stuck energy in the form of emotions, thoughts, even disease to flow through. Asana is used primarily for removing energy blockages and letting the energy flow through the nadis and chakras. Pranayama or breathing techniques help you manage energy and state of mind.
Yoga is not acrobatics or gymnastics or a performance. It is sometimes a dance but it’s a dance of life, you let the energy move you. Sometimes you hold the poses to go deeper into the soul. Once you get to know the soul deeply, you let go of it completely, then you arrive at yoga.
“The stopping of the thoughts in the mind is yoga.” Yoga Sutra, Patanjali first chapter second verse. Meditation is raja yoga. Raja means “king” which represents that it is the highest form of yoga. Meditation begins with awareness of the body (sensations), awareness of the mind, your thoughts and feelings then your energy. But meditation is not simply mindfulness practice or relaxation or hypnosis or trance.
First recognize you have a body but you are not your body, you have thoughts but you are not your thoughts, you have feelings but you are not your feelings. Then meditation becomes a tool for you to discover who you really are. This is not creating a new identity or a new story but the opposite. It is the falling away of identities and letting go of the story. You are a divine magical creation.
Méthode Ross
The yoga teacher training provided by Awake Space uses the Ross Method which primarily treats yoga as a spiritual practice and uses a combination of hatha, vinyasa, ashtanga and kundalini to train future yoga teachers. It also uses various relaxation techniques, mantra and meditation techniques as well as simply meditating with Presence.
Respect and knowledge of ancient traditions combined with modern methods and knowledge of anatomy and biomechanics are very important to the school. Its objective is to train holistic and multidimensional teachers.
VortexHealing®
Sunshine is a practitioner of VortexHealing® (Jewel Level) during the yoga retreat you will receive healing, clearing, strengthening and optimising for your physical body, emotional body, mental body, energetic body, etheric body, karmic body, astral body and spiritual body.
VortexHealing® is designed to evolve your energy system and consciousness. It is a powerful, holistic system of energetic healing from the Merlin lineage that bridges in Divine Energy & Consciousness to transform emotional issues and all aspects of the body's energy system, including the physical body. VortexHealing® releases one layer of egoic identity at a time facilitating awakening.
“VortexHealing®" is a registered service mark of the R. Weinman VH Trust. All rights reserved. Used here with permission. For more information on VortexHealing visit www.vortexhealing.org
Disclaimer: VortexHealing® is a complementary energetic healing tool. It is not a replacement for medical treatment. Please consult your physician for medical issues in addition to any complementary healing you receive.
Shamanic Journey & Sound Healing
As part of your own personal and spiritual evolution, we will be offering shamanic journeying and sound therapy. Shamanic journeying is a special guided experience that takes you deeper into your own soul and strengthens your centredness to earth. Sound therapy provides a healing and nurturing experience for the body, mind and soul.
What Our Graduates Say
"I love Sunshine's peaceful presence and energy. She's very knowledgeable about the philosophy, postures, and anatomy of yoga. As a spiritual person, I especially appreciated practicing raja yoga (meditating), the chakras (energy channels), and the pranayamas (breathing exercises) along with the philosophy. I also admire teachers who respect the traditional ways and cultural roots. Thank you Sunshine for your teachings, your energy and your time. And thank you to you and your family for welcoming us in your home."
The Essentials
Please choose to book with us directly and not third party websites.
2024
Dates (indicates arrival day and departure day)
March 4 -10
March 10 - 16
March 16 - 22
April 1 - 7
April 7 - 13
May 13 - 19
May 19 - 25
May 25 - 31
Fees
Awake Space yoga teacher training
Double Room shared bath Є999
Single Room shared bath Є1,499
Getting Here
We are able to pick you up from Castres Train station. Don't hesitate to coordinate your arrival with us.
Flying
Castres Mazamet airport(DCM) - Paris
Our nearest airport is conveniently 20 minutes away by car - Castres Mazamet, daily flights from Paris Orly typically leave and return 3 times per day.
Toulouse Blagnac airport(TLS)
Located just over 1 hour from the Chateau is Toulouse Blagnac airport
Direct flights from these UK airports - London Heathrow/Gatwick/Stansted, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh
Many other cities have direct flights including - Dublin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Lisbon, Frankfurt and Brussels
Carcassonne airport (CCF)
This nearby airport is just under 1hr 20minutes from the chateau by road, regular direct flights from London Stansted, Manchester, Brussels, Dublin, and Porto on budget airlines make this a great option.
Trains
The best way to arrive by train is from Toulouse Matabiau train station. A bus leaves the airport every 20 mins (9.00 euro) it takes around 30 minutes to the train station.
Regular trains depart to Castres from fares as low as 10.00 euro one way and takes between 1hr - 1.30hr.
To Reserve your place:
Please complete the Є100 registration fee and complete the form here
