Introducing Core Faculty Graduate: Gwen Rebbeck

My name is Gwen Rebbeck. I am an E-RYT 500, YACEP, the founder of Yoga4Sobriety™, and a Core Faculty member at Sacred Centers Academy.

My introduction to Anodea Judith began in 2013, when I entered my 500-hour yoga teacher training. One of our first modules included studying Eastern Body, Western Mind, a text that would profoundly change the course of my life and work.

As I moved through Eastern Body, Western Mind, I began to see a deep resonance between the liberating path of the chakras and the Twelve Steps of recovery. At the time, I was already teaching a general recovery-focused yoga class, experimenting with themes and tools I had gathered along the way. During that first training module, something clicked. With each homework assignment, the connections between the chakras and the Twelve Steps became clearer and more alive. Those early insights eventually became the foundation of what Yoga4Sobriety™ is today.

 Because this body of work spoke to me so deeply, I traveled to Kripalu in 2017 to take my first training with Anodea. I entered the program somewhat backwards, my first course was Chakras, Charge, and the Energy Body (formerly Chakra Therapy I). I was immediately hooked. Anodea’s final presentation, in which she modeled a session with a student, moved me to tears. It felt nothing short of divine.

From there, I never looked back. I continued taking offerings at Kripalu, connected with Nini Gridley, became a Co-Heart, and ultimately completed my final project to become a Sacred Centers Academy Teacher.

What continues to amaze me about this path is how deeply the work supports the practitioner, not just the people we serve. Through learning how to support others, my own inner work deepened. For years, I wrote the same intention at the start of every training: to be comfortable in my body. Today, that intention has been realized.

Through this work, I have learned how to sit with sensation rather than fear it, how to listen to my body’s needs, and how to work with energy skillfully, asking simple, essential questions: Do I need more energy or less? Rest or movement? Stillness or expression? The chakra system has become a map back to myself, and now a gift I can pass on so others may feel at home in their own skin.

Yoga4Sobriety™ has grown organically over the years to meet the needs of teachers, healers, and students. Our team has grown to ten, and our mission is to support individuals in all Twelve Step recovery programs. I teach in substance use treatment centers, lead teacher trainings and retreats, and offer small-group programs from my home.

I live in New Jersey with my husband and our pit bull rescue, Bella. We have one grown son. This work flows through my life and into my family, so much so that my husband attended Kripalu on his own to take Creating on Purpose. It was my Christmas wish that year.

Connect with me at www.Yoga4Sobriety.com