"By drawing from her deep knowledge of ancient healing traditions and her lifelong practice of meditation, Amelia shares with us powerful and transformative practices for regulating health, growth and restoration. These practices help our nervous system shift from states of defense into states of safety and interconnection. "
-- Stephen Porges, PhD
Course Timing
Now enrolling our next cohort with self-paced content available October 2, and live-online sessions beginning October 9, 2025.
This 12 week course meets for 6 live two-hour sessions every other week on Zoom on Thursdays at 2:30 pm ET / 11:30 am PT (US & Canada).
Cohort schedule:
• Module 1: self-paced content available starting October 2
• Module 2: live Zoom meeting on October 9
• Module 3: self-paced
• Module 4: live Zoom meeting on October 23
• Module 5: self-paced
• Module 6: live Zoom meeting on November 6
• Module 7: self-paced
• Module 8: live Zoom meeting on November 20
• Module 9: live Zoom meeting on December 4
• Module 10: live Zoom meeting on December 11 including a live discussion with Dr. Stephen Porges
Recordings of previous live sessions will be available on our learning platform.
Course Description
Over 3,000 years, the wisdom healing traditions of Classical Yoga and Qigong developed a map of our vital energy and nervous system, and taught techniques to generate good health and experience our highest human potential. Many of these teachings were passed from teacher to student in small groups of disciples so only a small part of the population was acquainted with them. Dr. Barili studied directly from those teachers and is a pioneer at integrating the teachings of both wisdom traditions. In this polyvagal-informed certificate course, Dr. Barili shows us how Polyvagal Theory (PVT) provides us with a map that perfectly fits the maps of the continuum of body, mind and spirit developed by these ancient wisdom healing traditions, and gives us a language to relate those wisdom teachings to our daily life, so that we can navigate the challenges we meet. By integrating this ancient knowledge and Polyvagal Theory you can learn to reset your body/mind complex to optimize your human experience.
In this course, you will learn how these three maps—from Yoga, Qigong and Polyvagal Theory—complement and enrich each other. These maps will help you understand your own specific terrain: your autonomic nervous system (ANS), its vulnerabilities and potential. You will learn how to bring balance into your ANS and how to access your unconscious mind by working with 3 major centers of energy recognized in all ancient healing traditions, and especially in Yoga and Qigong. You will find new pathways back to regulation as you learn and practice the skills taught by the sages of these ancient wisdom traditions, now integrated with the insights that PVT provides to us.
Dr. Barili teaches you how to engage your nervous system’s natural pathways and your body’s regulating circuits to regain a sense of safety and connection, and to gently shape your nervous system in new ways. You will more easily be able to monitor what is going on in your body and mind, notice when you are getting triggered or stuck and use the ancient techniques learned in this course to come back into balance. They integrate breath, contemplative states, touch, gentle moves, brief guided meditations, mudras as centering, releasing and supporting practices. Practiced every day, these techniques will develop in you a stronger and more flexible autonomic nervous system and a platform of greater ease and regulation with emergent characteristics of openness to new opportunities, resilience and compassion.
This course prepares anyone interested in developing a strong and flexible nervous system to easily come back into homeostatic balance again, and to assist others in experiencing states of safety, flow and co-regulation. These techniques are easy to learn and safe to practice. Learn them for yourself and share them with clients and loved ones.
We invite you to watch the introductory webinar recording here.
Payment Information
This course costs $899. Learners may opt to pay the full fee at registration, or to pay in three monthly installments. Learners will have access to the course for 365 days from the date of the first live session.
Course Requirements
There are no pre-requisites for this course.
You have the option to earn 30 CEs through our co-sponsor, Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA).
CEs for psychologists, LPCs, LCSWs, LMFTs, and nurses are available for purchase for an $85 fee.
*If you are interested in obtaining optional continuing education credits (CEs) to support the maintenance of a professional license (mostly relevant to learners based in the U.S.), please note that 100% live attendance is required in all live sessions, including live discussions.
Course Format
Course Framework
This course offers experiential instruction in integrating Yoga, Qigong and Polyvagal Theory to support healing, achieve your highest human potential and bring forth personal, professional and community transformation:
• 6 two-hour live Zoom classes every other week
• 8 hours of self-paced lectures by Dr. Amelia Barili
• Recorded conversations between Dr. Amelia Barili and Dr. Stephen Porges
• Additional self-paced content including videos, articles, and self-reflection
Outline:
Module 1: Framework for integrating Yoga, Qigong and Polyvagal Theory
Module 2: How to befriend your nervous system with Polyvagal Theory
Module 3 Yoga’s continuum of Body, Mind and Spirit:
Module 4 How to befriend your nervous system with Qigong
Module 5 How to monitor and regulate dorsal states with Yoga and Qigong
Module 6: How to monitor and regulate sympathetic dysregulation with Yoga and Qigong
Module 7: Experiencing and sustaining a ventral state with Yoga and Qigong
Module 8: Ancient Techniques to Consciously Activate the Social Engagement System
Module 9: Going deeper and bringing it all together - Practice and Testimonials of Integrating Yoga, Qigong and Polyvagal Theory in daily life and work
Module 10: Live Dialogue with Dr. Porges and Dr. Barili based on your questions
Recommended Audience
Course Outcomes
The Learning Objectives for this course are:
1. Explain in your own words what Polyvagal Theory (PVT) is and what PVT teaches us about how our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) shapes our human experience.
2. Discuss what Classical Yoga is and what it teaches us about how to use our ANS for integral healing and developing our highest potential.
3. Discuss what Qigong is and what it teaches us about how to use our ANS for integral healing and developing our highest potential.
4. Describe ways the ANS responds to cues of safety and danger.
5. List the 3 Basic States or platforms of the ANS from PVT and the corresponding neurological platforms from Classical Yoga and Qigong.
6. Describe vulnerabilities and potential that accompany those 3 basic ANS platforms.
7. Compare the correspondences between the Classical Yoga and Qigong maps of your vital energy and ANS, and the map of the ANS provided by PVT.
8. Create a map of your autonomic nervous system, integrating PVT, Classical Yoga and Qigong. Identify your own cues of safety and danger in relation to yourself, others and the environment.
9. Utilize practices from Yoga, Qigong and PVT that bring a return to autonomic regulation.
10. Utilize skills to engage the nervous system’s natural pathways to regulation from Yoga, Qigong and PVT.
11. Discuss the opportunities and promise of optimizing the human experience in integrating Yoga, Qigong and PVT in your daily life.
INSTRUCTOR(S)
Amelia Barili, PhD
Amelia Barili, Ph.D. studied with old teachers of the healing traditions of India and China and has taught Yoga, Qigong and Meditation for over 40 years. A survivor of deep trauma herself, in this course, Amelia shares with us a distillation of her lifelong dedication to learn from sources of knowledge that contain the foundational principles to enhance health and optimize human experience. Dr. Barili is a pioneer at integrating the ancient wisdom healing traditions of Classical Yoga and Qigong, which she knows deeply not only from her passionate dedication to learn them and teach them, but also from her own journey of discovering healing and inner guidance.
In the 1970s, Amelia studied and graduated from Kaivalyadhama Yoga School in India. Founded by Swami Kuvalayanda in 1924, Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute was the first ever to research with scientific methods the application of yoga therapy to manage chronic diseases. Dr. Barili participated in some of the experiments conducted at the Yoga Therapy hospital adjacent to the institute. That experience profoundly imprinted in her the transformational power of working with the energy body by applying ancient yoga practices.
Inspired by those discoveries, Dr. Barili set out to learn what the other great pillar of ancient wisdom, China, taught about the energy body. She apprenticed with Qigong masters and healers among them several from the lineage of Grandmaster Yang, Mei Jun, the 27th generation inheritor of the Taoist Medical Qigong system developed in the sacred Kunlun Mountains in China. Seeing the parallels in the understanding of the continuum of body, mind and spirit in the wisdom healing traditions of both India and China, She developed through persistent practice and teaching a unique way of integrating the knowledge of Classical Yoga, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Qigong.
Dr Barili teaches her health, healing and awakening approach in this PVI course and to broad audiences worldwide. Dr. Barili is emerita professor from UC Berkeley and faculty at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes in Berkeley and Irvine, and at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery. She teaches youth and older adults a systematic approach to personal and community transformation. A strong advocate for experiential learning and universities becoming centers of transformation, she integrates contemplative techniques and volunteering in her courses as tools to assist students in experiencing safety and connection. Currently she teaches “Meditation, Volunteering and Positive Neuroplasticity” at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of California, Berkeley, and “Wellness and Wisdom,” a series of self-care courses based on ancient wisdom techniques seeing from a polyvagal perspective, at OLLI UC Irvine. In recognition for her innovative courses and her work with the community, she received the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Award for Public Service.
Dr Barili is the founder of “Integrating Yoga and Qigong” ™ approach which now has extended to “Integrating Yoga, Qigong and Polyvagal Theory,” ™ a practical transformative approach to integral health and transformation at an individual, community and global level. To find out more about Dr. Barili’s work, see the documentary “Building Nurturing Communities” and “The Embodied Mind” on YouTube, or visit her website ameliabarili.com
Amelia Barili, PhD
