What to Expect When You Train at SHINE
- Cortney Martinelli
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
One of the things we've become known for at SHINE is our trainings.
Reiki. Sound Therapy. Somatics. Yoga. Thai Yoga Massage. Reflexology. Hypnosis. Shinrin Yoku. And an ever-evolving collection of modalities that I believe belong in the hands of more people.
But when we started building our education programs, I noticed a pretty big gap in the wellness world.
On one end, you can take a $9 online course, watch a few videos and print yourself a certificate by dinner.
On the other, there are programs requiring thousands of dollars, weeks or months of training, travel and a significant life commitment before you can begin practicing.
I kept thinking:
Surely there's something in between.
Something deliberate without being inaccessible.
Something experiential without requiring you to rearrange your entire life.
Something professionally developed without stripping the soul out of the work.
Something that honors these modalities while also recognizing that most adults have jobs, families, responsibilities and limited amounts of both time and money.
That's the space we've intentionally built at SHINE.
Our Sweet Spot
For many of our modalities, you can become a certified practitioner in approximately two full days of training.
Not two days watching videos at home.
Two days immersed in the work.
Learning.
Experiencing.
Practicing.
Receiving.
Asking questions.
Working with actual humans.
And being guided by someone who deeply understands the modality.
Most of our pathways are divided into two levels.
Level One is foundational.
This is where you learn the modality, understand the principles behind it and begin experiencing and practicing it yourself.
For some people, that's exactly what they want.
Maybe you're fascinated by sound therapy but don't know whether you want to work with clients.
Maybe you want Reiki for your own personal or spiritual practice.
Maybe you want to understand reflexology because you find the body fascinating.
Great.
Take Level One.
You don't have to know the whole plan.
If you fall in love with the modality and decide you want to take it further, Level Two is waiting.
Level Two is practitioner.
This is where we shift from learning and experiencing into intentionally working with others.
And if you already know from the beginning—
Yep. This is what I want to do.
—you can register for the full training bundle, complete both levels and save money along the way.
Simple.
Accessible Doesn't Mean Disposable
This distinction matters to me.
We intentionally keep the time and financial investment in our trainings accessible.
I want someone with a full-time job to be able to do this.
I want the person who's been quietly feeling called toward healing work to have a realistic entry point.
I don't believe every new skill requires a yearlong program and a $10,000 investment.
But I also don't believe meaningful training should cost less than lunch.
At SHINE, we have a philosophy:
The transformation is in the transaction.
When you invest something meaningful—your money, your time, your energy—you tend to show up differently.
You pay attention.
You practice.
You integrate.
You take responsibility for what you've learned.
We want our trainings to be accessible, but we also want to honor the modalities we're teaching.
Because the goal isn't to collect certificates.
The goal is to become the person who lives what that certificate represents.
That's a very different thing.
Our Trainings
There's a lot of heart in what we do.
There's also a lot of rigor behind the scenes.
Our training programs are professionally developed, structured and vetted.
Many have gone through additional review processes to qualify for continuing education in their respective fields.
Depending on the training, that may include continuing education eligibility for Yoga Alliance professionals, nurses, mental health professionals, massage therapists or other licensed practitioners.
That's intentional.
I want the experience to feel warm, personal and unmistakably SHINE.
But I also want you to walk away thinking:
Holy crap. That was amazing!
You receive professional training materials.
You practice.
You experience the modality yourself.
You learn how and why it works.
And at the practitioner level, you learn how to responsibly take what you've learned and use it with another human being.
Our five-star reviews speak to the quality of the programs.
But I think there's another reason people travel from all over to train here.
Our Teachers LIVE This Work
This might be the most important distinction of all.
When we bring a teacher onto the SHINE education team, I'm not simply looking for someone who is qualified to teach a subject.
Of course credentials matter.
Knowledge matters.
Experience matters.
But there's another question I care about more:
Does this modality make you feel most alive?
Because if the answer isn't YES...
I want someone else.
I don't want a Reiki teacher who happens to know Reiki.
I want the person who LIVES Reiki.
I don't want someone teaching Sound Therapy because they completed the certification and added it to their résumé.
I want someone who LIVES sound.
I want the teacher who geeks out about their modality.
Who keeps learning after the certification is over.
Who practices it.
Who talks about it when nobody asked. 😂
Who can't help but share it because something about this work genuinely lights them up.
Every SHINE teacher is different.
Different personalities.
Different backgrounds.
Different teaching styles.
Different modalities.
But they share one thing:
A deep desire to share what they know with the world.
And you FEEL the difference when someone teaches from that place.
So...What Can You Learn at SHINE?
A lot. 😂
Our education pathways continue to grow as we find modalities and teachers we believe belong here.
You can learn Reiki, working with energy for personal healing and eventually with others.
You can learn Sound Therapy, exploring how vibration, frequency and instruments can be intentionally used in healing experiences.
You can study Somatics, learning to work with the body, nervous system and embodied approaches to healing and change.
You can become a Yoga Teacher through our 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training and go far beyond simply learning how to teach poses.
You can study Thai Yoga Massage, learning an incredibly beautiful form of assisted stretching and bodywork.
You can learn Reflexology, exploring the relationship between points on the feet and systems throughout the body.
You can study Ayurveda, one of the world's oldest holistic systems for understanding balance, constitution and lifestyle.
You can explore Shinrin Yoku, the Japanese practice of forest bathing and intentional connection with the natural world.
And we keep going.
Because I'm endlessly fascinated by the number of ways human beings have discovered to work with the body, mind, energy and consciousness.
SHINE gets to be a place where we explore them.
What It Actually Feels Like to Train Here
This is the part that's harder to explain on a certification page.
People travel from all over to train at SHINE.
And when you arrive, I don't want you to feel like you've walked into a sterile classroom.
You're walking into our home.
Not literally. 😂
But that's the feeling we've created here.
Warm.
Comfortable.
Welcoming.
A little magical.
You'll probably walk in slightly nervous.
You'll find your seat.
Someone will welcome you.
You'll start talking to the person beside you.
And within a few hours, the room feels completely different.
Because something happens when people who are curious about the same things finally find one another.
There is no community quite like this one.
I've watched friendships form during our trainings.
I've watched students return for another certification together.
I've watched people discover a modality they had never considered and suddenly realize:
THIS. This is my thing.
I've watched people come here simply because something sounded interesting and leave with an entirely different vision for what's possible in their life.
Which brings me to something I deeply believe.
If You're Attracted to SHINE, I Don't Think That's an Accident
Maybe you found us because you Googled Reiki certification.
Maybe someone sent you a link.
Maybe one of our videos showed up in your feed.
Maybe you've been lurking around the website for six months thinking:
Someday.
Maybe you don't even know why you're interested.
That's okay.
You don't need to know the whole picture.
I think we put enormous pressure on ourselves to understand where every decision is leading before we're willing to make it.
Will I become a practitioner?
Will I make money doing this?
Is this my next career?
How will I use it?
What if I take Level One and decide it's not for me?
Who says you need those answers?
Sometimes you simply know what the next step is.
Take it.
The Part the Product Page Can't Tell You
I can tell you how long the training is.
I can tell you what you'll learn.
I can show you the curriculum.
I can tell you the price.
I can explain the certification requirements and continuing education credits.
What I can't put into a course description is what happens when you walk into SHINE as a stranger and leave carrying a little piece of this place with you.
Because that's ultimately what happens.
When you train here, you're not simply learning our curriculum.
You're becoming part of the lineage of people who have learned this work here and then carried it beyond these walls.
Into their homes.
Their yoga studios.
Their therapy practices.
Their massage rooms.
Their hospitals.
Their communities.
Their families.
Their own lives.
You walk in as a student.
You leave carrying the work forward.
That's how we light up the world together.
And by the way...
Take a look at the person sitting beside you during your training.
You might not know it yet.
But you may have just met one of your new best friends.
I've seen stranger things happen around here. 😂
So if you've been circling a training...
If something keeps pulling you back to Reiki or sound or somatics or yoga or whatever modality won't quite leave you alone...
You don't need a five-year plan.
You don't need to know what you're going to do with the certification.
You don't need to see the entire staircase.
Take the first step.
Jump in.
Sign up for the class.
Come learn something that makes you more curious, more alive, more connected to yourself or more capable of helping someone else.
We'll meet you at the door.
xo,
💚 Cortney
find all of our certifications here on our certification page.
Comments