About Us

Sarah Powers is the co-founder of the Insight Yoga Institute as well as the author of Insight Yoga and Lit from Within, which interweaves Yoga, Buddhism, Taoism, and Transpersonal psychology into an integrated practice to enliven the body, heart, and mind. Sarah began teaching Yoga in the mid 80’s and today her yoga style blends both a Yin sequence of long held floor poses to enhance the meridian and organ systems while often engaging in inquiry practice, with an alignment-based slow flow, or yang movement practice. Sarah has completed all levels of the Internal Family Systems Therapy training and has been a student of spiritual psychology for over 35 years. She also draws from her in-depth training and long retreats in the Vipashyana, Tantric and Dzogchen practices of Buddhism.

Ty Powers is the co-founder of the Insight Yoga Institute. He teaches yoga and meditation retreats around the world with his wife, Sarah Powers. He has been teaching Vipassana since 2003 as a graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader training program and has been practicing Dzogchen Buddhism for over 20 years. Ty is also a Certified Integral Coach and has also completed all levels of Internal Family Systems Therapy training. He also leads workshops on personal transformation as a graduate of the SkillfulChange Strategist Training Program, a program led by Phillip Moffitt.

Lifelong Learning

Whether prompted by a crisis or a profound curiosity to uncover that which is hidden within, the path of awareness arouses a heartfelt bond to both our human potential to open, and our human predicament of contraction. As depth practitioners we find that we are not alone – that there is common ground amongst us all reflected in a teaching that the Buddha gave over 2500 years ago in the Four Noble Truths. These truths recognize the base of our human condition – that we all experience suffering, or dukkha, but also that miserable conditions need not become misery; that there is a genuine path to the cessation of suffering.

We will certainly need an immense amount of encouragement and support to awaken from the human habit of struggling with existence and developing experiential insight. Sarah and Ty’s teachings, retreats, and community are meant to provide a safe supportive haven for awakening to what Tibetans call our natural state, a relaxed, caring, and lucid quality of awareness.

Through ongoing attendance of Sarah and Ty’s workshops, intensives, retreats and/or completing certification through our Insight Yoga Institute, you will experience some of the essential ingredients for learning to rest in your authentic nature, inspired by skillful self-practice and ever more subtle and relevant experiential insights.

This commitment to living whole-heartedly invites lifelong learning – to continually seek and deepen our connection to our essence nature. By placing ourselves in a retreat setting, we can continue the process of unraveling our conditioned patterns, creating more space for creative engagement with ourselves and life.

Why Retreat?

In removing ourselves from our familiar surroundings and busy schedules, retreats afford us the opportunity to see accumulated habits of distraction and begin to soften them. In removing everything we do that is not supportive of living with freshness and wakefulness, practice retreats realign us with our deepest values, helping us discover ways to upgrade how we live our lives. We often uncover not only what habits are destructive and learn how to work skillfully with them, but are also encouraged to attend to that which is pulsing softly within us, under all the noise or numbness. Sufis call this primordial aspect our Hidden Essence, Taoists call it the tranquility at the center of all storms, the Tao, Hindus say the Self or Brahman, Buddhists refer to this as our Buddha nature, while others say inner spirit or God. Skillful dedication to a yogic path of awareness uncovers this intrinsic inner dimension, teaching us about the suffering inherent in our perceived (not actual) disconnection from wholeness. In inner silence and increased stillness, we often glimpse and learn to sustain a truth larger than our self-definitions allow.

The Yogic path is a gradual process involving self-investigation and skillful means. Daily practice helps us become aware of the patterns which perpetuate our inner rigidity or chaos, while longer retreats, which emphasize meditation, loving-friendliness, social silence, and continual mindfulness teach us how to sustain a simple and kind presence.

We offer many opportunities to be on retreat through our Insight Yoga Institute. Retreats can be taken independently or as part of a 500+ hour Yoga Alliance certification program.

“It is essential sometimes to go into retreat, to stop everything that you have been doing, to stop your experiences completely and look at them anew, not keep on repeating them like machines. You would then let fresh air into your mind. Wouldn’t you?”
— Krishnamurti

About Insight Yoga Institute

Sarah and Ty Powers created the Insight Yoga Institute (IYI) in 2010. Having both interwoven Yoga, Buddhism and Psychological approaches for three decades in their retreats and trainings, they decided to create a more formal umbrella to draw people together in a like-minded community. Of particular interest to Sarah and Ty is that participants learn how to commit to an integrated daily home practice for the body, heart and mind through yogic, Buddhist and psychological teachings and methods.

IYI retreats bring together the dynamic and receptive aspects of yoga, the three schools of Buddhism (Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana) and the skillful methods of psycho-dynamic personal and relational work and are held in social silence. The teachers on retreat are not silent but will be leading classes and seeing people individually. The program can be enjoyed as independent retreats or as a path to Yoga Alliance 500+ hour certification.

If you would like to apply for our 500+ hour Yoga Alliance certified program please refer to our Program Overview.