Ciara Bomford
Abergavenny Soul Yoga and Career Development
Who am I?
My name is Ciara Bomford, and I am a career development practitioner, trainer and yoga teacher, based in Abergavenny, Wales.
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My life has been a great journey of overcoming anxiety, lack of confidence and limiting beliefs. In my teens and twenties, I found life a struggle, and it was yoga, meditation, counselling, personal development and career development that helped me to find my path. I now practice yoga or meditation every day, and it is this practice that guides me to finding and expressing my authentic self, and to helps me find peace in an ever more disturbing world.
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The work that gives me most satisfaction is the work that helps other people to find peace in themselves and find paths that enable them to express themselves and get satisfaction from using their talents. This may be training, yoga teaching, writing, working with people one to one or managing my team at work.
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I trained as a Careers Adviser in the early nineties, at the University of East London, and went on to complete my Masters in Career Development and Management, also at UEL. I worked in Further Education and Higher Education, before moving to Careers Wales, where I am now the People Development Manager, looking after all aspects of learning and development, performance and wellbeing. I am excited to be running a leadership development programme for 32 employees this year.
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I co-authored, with Liane Hambly, the popular handbook for careers practitioners, “Creative Career Coaching: Theory into Practice”, published by Routledge in 2018. Working with Liane on this book was a dream come true, and I feel very proud of the way the book is full of really practical ways to work with clients, all grounded in theory.
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I have practiced yoga for over 30 years, and in 2017 I finally took the step of training to be a yoga teacher. I completed my BYA 200 hours Teacher Training course in 2018, with Universal Yoga. I have practiced many forms of yoga, including Ashtanga, Iyengar and Vinyasa Flow, but I was drawn to do my teacher training in Sivananda yoga because I wanted to develop the more spiritual side of my practice and bring this into my teaching.
I then wanted to further develop my skills in teaching people with different abilities and health conditions, so I followed this the British Wheel of Yoga 500 hour diploma (regarded as the Gold Standard of yoga teacher training) with Audrey Blow. I teach yoga in Abergavenny, with the aim of creating a community of yogis who explore the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of yoga together.
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I have been lucky enough to benefit from CPD in yoga from a range of excellent teachers including Donna Farhi, Zoe Knott and the Mandala Ashram team, which has helped me develop skills in asana and meditation teaching.
