Patricia Villegas
Psychology, Yoga y Meditationn
Psychology Degree, Yoga in India & Learning travells.
Yoga Sutras define yoga as the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. This understanding has guided my entire journey through psychology, yoga, and meditation, leading me to see the mind as the primary path toward inner transformation and liberation from suffering.
I began my academic training by studying Psychology, a discipline that shares with yoga an interest in understanding mental processes and fostering emotional well-being, mental clarity, and inner balance.
Later, I trained as a Hatha Yoga teacher in India at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres school in Madurai, and as an Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga teacher in Mysore. I made four trips to Mysore to deepen my traditional practice at K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute, under the guidance of Saraswati Jois, integrating Ashtanga Yoga within its original lineage.
During this period of training and travel in India, I also began to deepen my study of Tibetan Buddhism, attending teachings since 2015 by Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and other great masters, gradually integrating Buddhist philosophy into meditation practice and into my understanding of the mind.
Lucía Yoga: Yoga Retreats, Meditation & Teachings.
In 2014, I co-founded, together with Antonio, Lucia Yoga, a project specialized in organizing yoga and meditation retreats with international teachers in different locations around the world. (luciayoga.com)
Through Lucia Yoga, we have led more than 200 yoga retreats, creating spaces for deep practice where yoga, meditation, and silence are integrated as tools for personal transformation.
Within this project, I have worked as a yoga and meditation teacher, facilitating Hatha Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, and mindfulness practices, always from an experiential, contemplative, and accessible approach.
Lucia Yoga represents a space where the teaching of yoga becomes community, enjoyment, and group learning, allowing immersion in Andalusian culture, traditions, and heritage. Our goal was to share our homeland with the world by creating healthy and transformative experiences—and we achieved it. To date, more than 350 retreats have been held.
THE PANDEMIC: SILENCE, INTEGRATION, AND DEEPENING OF PRACTICE
The pandemic marked a natural turning point in the rhythm of my activity. The external pause opened an internal space of silence, reflection, and reconnection with what is essential.
During this period, I completed a University Master’s degree in Mindfulness applied to clinical contexts and psychological research, integrating in a more structured way contemporary psychology with meditation and the Buddhist contemplative tradition.
In parallel, I have continued collaborating in the
training of The Class Yoga, where I teach meditation and Buddhist philosophy, keeping the transmission of practice alive within a structured educational context.
This period marked a shift toward a more internal practice, less focused on external activity and more on the deep integration of the path.
MATERNITY AND EDUCATIONAL COUNSELING
Shortly after the birth of my first child in April 2023, I made a radical shift in my professional path and began working as an educational counselor in public schools in Andalusia, supporting cognitive, emotional, social, and academic development processes within the education system.
I have complemented this work with two master’s degrees in education—Special Educational Needs (Attention to Diversity) and Educational Guidance—expanding my understanding of learning, motivation, and human development from a pedagogical perspective.
This new profession, which brought a sense of relief compared to my previous work in the field of yoga, has allowed me to experience motherhood in a broader sense, not only as a personal experience but also through its professional dimension. This stage has enabled me to explore not only learning difficulties but also the gifts and talents that everyone possesses, and how to develop them, fostering motivation, creativity, and the fullest possible potential.
LAMRIM YOGA: THE GRADUAL PATH OF INNER TRANSFORMATION
Inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Lamrim, the “gradual path,” this approach proposes a progressive process of mental training in which body, ethics, attention, and compassion are developed in an integrated way within daily life.
This path is deeply influenced by the teachings of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who appears in the photograph. I have received his Lamrim teachings on three occasions while attending the November Lamrim retreat in Nepal, focused on this gradual training of the mind.
Lamrim Yoga represents today this synthesis: the union of psychology, yoga, Buddhist meditation, and lived experience, aimed at cultivating the mind of enlightenment through great compassion and the gradual path.
Today, my intention is to share this path with you and to continue the legacy that Lama Zopa Rinpoche has left us during his lifetime, accompanying processes of presence, balance, and inner transformation in Lamrim Yoga classes in El Puerto de Santa María.