A mindful, compassionate approach to yoga teaching.

“I highly recommend this accessible book, not only for yoga teachers, but for anyone interested in understanding yoga, themselves, and what a yoga practice can be when it is reconnected to the heart of a living tradition.”

— Donna Farhi, author of Bringing Yoga to Life

Teaching Mindful, Compassionate Yoga

This book is born out of a passion to deepen people’s understanding of the power and importance of placing mindful awareness and compassionate action at the heart of yoga practice and teaching.

Available from all major booksellers.

Published June 2025. RRP £19.99.

Buy Your Copy (UK Link)
Buy Your Copy (US Link)

In Detail

Weaving Mindfulness and Compassion into Yoga Teaching sits within Singing Dragon’s series of Yoga Teaching Guides. It explores the vital and often under-emphasised link between mindfulness, compassion, and yoga teaching. This deeply authentic exploration of mindfulness and compassion will allow yoga teachers to enrich and enhance both their practice and teaching.

  • Section 1 explores what mindfulness and compassion are and how they interlink with the teachings of yoga.

  • Section 2 considers how yoga teachers can use mindfulness and compassion within their own lives to support both their wellbeing and the sustainability of their teaching.

  • Section 3 explores ways of bringing mindfulness and compassion into the forefront of our yoga teaching in service of our students.

While many 200-hour teacher trainings offer detailed instruction on how to guide students into poses, fewer focus on how to guide students towards a state of presence. This book explores this in depth, considering choices of sequencing, pacing, demonstrating and language use. It offers suggestions for practices that can be incorporated within our teaching, both in movement and stillness.

Guided by reflection points and practical tips and informed by a person-centred, holistic approach, this book provides an opening to a more intentional yoga practice grounded in the wisdom of compassionate presence.

Book Reviews

  • "This is important. What you are holding in your hands is crucial reading for all yoga teachers and all committed yoga practitioners ... you will find jewels within these pages."

    — Norman Blair, author and yoga teacher trainer

  • "This wonderful book is filled with guidance and directions for not only practicing yoga mindfully but also taking this skill into daily living. It is an excellent resource for teachers for their own practice and sharing this wisdom with their students."

    — Bernie Clark, author and creator of YinYoga.com

  • "In the 21st century, the word yoga has become synonymous with the physical practice of yoga postures, relegating this time-tested spiritual technology to a form of calisthenics with Sanskrit names. Having jettisoned the essential values of yoga, modern practitioners are being short-changed of what could be a much deeper experience with rich rewards. Anna Taylor's Weaving Mindfulness and Compassion Into Yoga Teaching, reasserts that yoga's primary purpose is to reduce suffering and to awaken an awareness of ourselves and the world that is both clear and compassionate. What I love about this book is the warmth of the author's voice which makes the reading of this book feel like a warm balm for the soul. I highly recommend this accessible book, not only for yoga teachers, but for anyone interested in understanding yoga, themselves, and what a yoga practice can be when it is reconnected to the heart of a living tradition."

    — Donna Farhi, author of Bringing Yoga to Life

  • "As the Foreword says, this book is important. Packed full of common sense advice, as well as wide-ranging and accessible practical tools for teachers and students, it is an essential reminder that yoga is not about performance, but about giving ourselves space and time really to get to know ourselves, and to meet what we find with compassion, non-judgment, and the willingness to change. An incredibly valuable resource for yoga teachers new and old."

    — Dr. Graham Burns, Yoga teacher and teacher trainer

  • "This book is a gift. Whether you've just qualified or you've decades of experience, you'll find insights on every page that will enrich and sustain your teaching practice. It's clear and inspiring and full of wisdom. I will be recommending it to every yoga teacher I know."

    — Naomi Annand, Yoga Teacher, Teacher Trainer and Author of Yoga: A Manual for Life, and Yoga for Motherhood.

  • "This book is born of experience.  Centered around the transformation of self-critique and suffering into self-care and self-compassion, Anna Taylor draws equally on yoga and mindfulness practices and philosophy to knit together the methodologies and describe a body-heart-mind integrated approach to life.  The text is alive with her authentic voice sharing her experience and offering practice guidance to us readers on how to enliven physical practice with mindfulness and both with heart-felt curiosity and compassion.  Anna illumines a path toward wholeness in language that is easy to understand and a pleasure to read.   She leads us while standing right beside us."

    — Lisa Kaley-Isley, PhD, E-RYT-500, and C-IAYT Clinical Psychologist, Yoga Therapist, and Yoga Educator

  • “Reading the book felt like a warm hug and I have been going back to it again and again.”

    Katie Wheater, Yoga Teacher

  • "I'm blown away just reading the first few pages and flicking through it - such a calming and soulful voice shines through and I love it! This book should be on every yoga teacher training reading list!"

    Beth Wheeler, Yoga Teacher and Coach

  • "I finished reading your book and I thought it was brilliant. The writing is so accessible ... I read quite a few books for my yoga teacher training and one of the things that really differentiated your book from others is your deep dive on how to use language to create a kind and mindful class. In my cohort, we often found it difficult to find the right words to guide our class in an inclusive and kind way. Your book really sheds light on this."

    Manisha Patel - Yoga Teacher

  • "I can’t recommend this beautiful book enough. Anna has created a ‘must have’ masterpiece for yoga teachers and yoga students alike. I am going to have it as part of my yoga teacher training course reading list from this year onwards. Thanks Anna, for reminding us that yoga practice goes way beyond the body!!!"

    Victoria Adamson, Apanaveda School of Yoga

  • "Although most yoga teachers do approach their students with compassion and kindness, the mindfulness can sometimes be assumed rather than addressed. This book allows us to examine techniques by which we can mindfully introduce ways of considering ourselves and others in ways which affect and transform us, as practitioners and teachers, on a deep level. … it should be obligatory reading for all teachers, whether they are trainees or already trained."

    Wendy Teasdill, Yoga Teacher and Author (click here for full review)

Do you run a yoga TTC?

I work with a range of Yoga Teacher Training organisations delivering modules on.

  • Mindful, Compassionate Yoga Practice

  • Mindful, Compassion Yoga Teaching

  • Self-care for Yoga Teachers

Sessions are tailored to meet the needs of your course and cohort. Available both in-person and live online.

Join a number of trainings including Weaving Mindfulness & Compassion into Yoga Teaching on their recommended reading list.

Learn more

"Integrating Anna’s work on mindfulness and compassion into my yoga teacher training has been an absolute must."

Imogen North Yoga, Teacher Trainer

Why mindful, compassionate yoga?

Skilful teaching goes beyond guiding students into poses. It involves supporting students to practice with care and awareness.. While mindfulness awareness and compassionate action lie at the heart of yoga, it is easy to both practice and teach with the absence of them.

Bringing these components into the foreground of your teaching enables you to:

  • understanding what mindfulness and compassion are and how they are inherent within yoga

  • bring mindfulness and compassionate to the foreground of your own personal practice (enabling it to feel like a refuge that sustains and supports you rather than getting caught in notions of how it ‘should’ look as a teacher).

  • embody and model mindfulness and compassion when teaching

  • hold space in such a way that creates an environment of care and safety

  • feel equipped in guiding students into embodied presence (as much as poses), while understanding both the benefits and challenges of doing so

  • feel more confident teaching open level classes (offering options, guiding students to adapt to needs and practice with care and attention)

  • understand the benefits of compassion (for self and others) and practical tools to weave it within a teaching setting

  • incorporate space for self-reflection and inquiry within a teaching setting

  • experience ways of weaving mindfulness and compassion within your teaching in both movement and stillness (through language use, sequencing, pacing, pausing and dedicated practices.

CPD for Yoga Teachers

Find out more about forthcoming CPD courses on the themes of:

  • Mindful, Compassionate Yoga Teaching

  • Sustainability & Self-Care for Yoga Teachers

Find out more

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