Feeding Your Demons® Online Program

An Opportunity for Real, Lasting Transformation

Ideal for therapists, coaches, and facilitators who desire to add a powerful technique to their professional toolbelt, and for individuals who wish to work with their own ‘demons’ through contemplative practice, the year-long Feeding Your Demons® Online Certification program offers a profoundly effective method for recognizing and transforming the deep-seated patterns, triggers, and neuroses that so often undermine the quality and enjoyment of our lives.

A recent study of the effects of Feeding Your Demons® (FYD) was conducted on adults in recovery from alcohol and/or drug abuse and who had elevated symptoms of anxiety and depression. The study found that FYD was associated with significant decreases in stress, depression, and intolerance for uncertainty, combined with significant increases in self-compassion and satisfaction with life. Click here to see a full summary of the study.

What Does it Mean to ‘Feed Your Demons’?

For the purpose of this practice, a ‘demon’ refers to the disruptive aspects of our own psyche, such as anxiety, depression, anger, addiction, or disease. Demons are often relegated to the dark recesses of our minds and fester there as we either repress- or ‘fight’ against them. This adversarial relationship with our demons is the very thing that polarizes our psyche. In our attempts to overcome our ‘shadow’, we become more enmeshed with it and our demons gain strength.

“Our demons are what we fear,” says Lama Tsultrim Allione, the originator of this profound practice, in her bestselling book, Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict (Little Brown Co. 2008).

“… In feeding our demons we are not only rendering them harmless; by addressing them instead of running away from them, we are also nurturing the shadow parts of ourselves so that the energy caught in the struggle transforms into a positive protective force.”

The Feeding Your Demons® (FYD) method employs principles of the Tibetan Buddhist practice Chöd, as originally articulated by the eleventh-century female Tibetan teacher, Machig Labdrön. FYD is a five-step process that guides the practitioner to transform their demons into protective allies through a sequence of illuminating questions and visualizations.

This accessible and effective method has helped thousands of people transform and heal negative emotions, fears, illnesses, and self-defeating patterns. FYD has practitioners on five continents, and Lama Tsultrim’s book has been published in fourteen languages. The work transcends spiritual constructs, serving as a meaningful tool for anybody, regardless of religious affiliation or personal philosophy.

In our FYD Online Training, you will learn this potentially life-changing method, and through your own experience and deep understanding of it, receive your certification to help others convert their fear into power, creating meaningful transformation in a world that is ripe for profound healing.

– “Lama Tsultrim Allione has brought some of the most important teachings from Tibet to the West for enhancing well being, through her book ‘Feeding Your Demons’ and FYD trainings.

In the practice of Feeding Your Demons® (FYD) she developed and refined a fundamental method of working with negative emotions and patterns in an easy to follow 5-step process that can be effective and even transformative in the short term. Rather than remaining esoteric knowledge, she has made Feeding Your Demons® secular and accessible to the public.

I believe this practice holds tremendous potential to help reduce suffering.” –

Author, best seller “The Telomere Effect,” and forthcoming book, “The Stress Prescription”

Why choose the Feeding Your Demons® Online Program?

FYD is designed to deepen your personal practice and provide you with an exceptionally skillful methodology to bring benefit and lasting transformation to yourself or your clients.

Who is it for?

• Mental health professionals, life coaches, substance abuse- or guidance counselors, spiritual mentors, social workers, or anyone whose work is dedicated to helping, healing, or empowering others.
• Individuals who wish to acquire an effective methodology to directly engage with their own habitual patterns, challenges, and obstacles for sustained transformation.

What you will learn and experience through this program:

• Readily recognize and transform deep-seated patterns, triggers, and neuroses, and gain a deeper understanding of what drains your energy and occupies your mind
• Understand the interconnectedness of your emotional patterns, and how a single pattern can impact multiple areas of your life
• Work with your demons on your own terms and in a way that is aligned with your own process – and learn how to facilitate others to do the same
• Establish a regular, transformational meditation practice that integrates seamlessly with your established life and work 
• Gain a sense of internal agency amidst the ups and downs of everyday life
• Experience more peace through an increased capacity to lead with compassion
• Acquire powerful and uniquely flexible tools to help relieve the suffering of others
• Integrate the practice through working with art to more fully express and embody the process of transformation 
• Learn the history, theory, and practice of FYD, which is based on an ancient Buddhist practice for healing

What Students Are Saying about Feeding Your Demons®

The Training

The Feeding Your Demons® Online Certification is a three-level training program, culminating in an onsite certification Capstone Retreat. Through compelling content and practice assignments, participants engage in a journey of increasing levels of personal transformation and an ever-deepening understanding of the power of the FYD process. For successful certification candidates, the training results in becoming authorized to use the method to help others on their path. For individuals who wish to utilize the FYD process with themselves and their friends, a non-certification (or ‘à la carte’) option is also available (see below).

Program Details

Below follows a detailed explanation of the program. In short, please note the following options:

• The Full Certification program consists of FYD Level I, FYD Level II, and the FYD Certification Level (A $250 discount applies when signing up for the Full Certification).
• À la carte option: Levels I, II, and the Certification Level can also be taken on an individual basis (Some prerequisites apply for the upper levels).
• All participants also have a choice between the Buddhist Track or the Secular Track.
  

Teachers

Lama Tsultrim Allione, the founder of the FYD Process, is the primary teacher. Teachers Lopön Pieter Oosthuizen and Dorje Lopön Charlotte Rotterdam teach the webcasts and the onsite component.

Two Tracks

Participants have a choice of two tracks: a Secular Track or a Buddhist Track. 

The Secular Track

The Secular Track is intended for participants who want to dive deeply into the FYD method without engaging in overtly Buddhist spiritual practices. 

The Secular Track consists of:

• 21 weeks of online programming (15 weeks for non-certification option)
• 11 live webcasts hosted by senior teachers (8 for non-certification option)
• Weekly assignments designed to deepen one’s engagement and understanding of the work
• Certification Level only:
  • Facilitated small group discussions
    
  • An onsite certification Capstone Retreat
    

Secular Track content includes:

• The fundamentals of Feeding Your Demons® 
• Partner work and FYD with art and clay
• Live teachings and discussion of key concepts and applications
• How to use FYD in a therapeutic setting (Certification Level)
• Progressive mindfulness-based sitting meditation practices (Mindfulness-based practice has been found to significantly enhance the personal transformation aspect of the work, as well as the practitioner’s ability to benefit others in a therapeutic setting).

The Buddhist Track

The Buddhist Track may appeal to individuals who wish to delve both into the FYD method while also supporting and deepening their understanding and practice within the Buddhist tradition. 

The Buddhist Track consists of:

• 24 weeks of online programming (18 weeks for non-certification option)
• 11 live webcasts hosted by senior teachers (9 for non-certification option)
• Weekly assignments designed to deepen one’s engagement and understanding of the work
• Certification Level only:
  • Facilitated small group discussions
  • An onsite certification Capstone Retreat

Buddhist Track content includes:

• All the non-meditation content in the Secular Track, plus:
• An in-depth exploration of the Chöd teachings of the 11th century Tibetan yogini, Machig Labdrön
• Related Mahayana teachings of Prajñaparamita
• Progressive Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices sourced from these teachings

Non-Certification Option

For those interested in using the FYD method exclusively for deep personal transformation (and not with others in a therapeutic setting), FYD Levels I and II may be taken, in sequence, as stand-alone personal development courses. As in the Certification option, participants may choose between the Secular and Buddhist Tracks (see Two Tracks above).

– “Feeding your Demons is a gift of wisdom and heart from Lama Tsultrim Allione’s deep practice and knowledge of the human condition. Learning this practice was a powerful personal and collective experience to immerse ourselves, in the power of acceptance and transformation, of this now research-backed effective mind training practice. Thank you, Lama Tsultrim, for this gift that keeps on giving!” –

Bestselling author of “Becoming Aware, Mindsight, Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human”

Program Format & Delivery

The program commences on a specific start date, after which new modules can be accessed on a week-by-week basis.

• Modules consist of both synchronous (live) and asynchronous (prerecorded) content.
• Participants move through the program together as a cohort, with the option of getting to know each other and finding partners with whom to practice ‘partner work.’ Collaboration increases at the Certification Level, with small group discussions and the online Capstone Retreat.
• Asynchronous content, such as prerecorded video lectures, remain available throughout the duration of the course, whereas Live Webcasts and small group discussions are one-time events to be attended online at a specific date and time. Live Webcasts are recorded and made available online after the fact.
• There are prerequisite assignments to be completed prior to advancing to Level II and again prior to certification (see below for details). 
• There are terms and conditions that apply to certified FYD Facilitators (see here for details).

Timing & Cost

The entire program and certification can be completed in 12 months. Participants who register for the Full Certification (Level I, II, and the Certification Level) earn a discount of $250. Otherwise the different levels could also be taken on an à la carte basis (Ideal for non-certification participants). 

The next FYD Level I program will start on March 22, 2025.

Relationship with Other Tara Mandala Programs

The Feeding Your Demons® Program is also offered onsite, and is called Kapala training. It is typically offered at Tara Mandala Retreat Center and other international venues on a regular basis. Kapala Training Levels 1 through V are a foundational part of the Magyu Path of Study in Tibetan Buddhism offered through Tara Mandala Retreat Center.

Please note that the Buddhist Track of FYD I & II Online corresponds closely with Kapala Training I & II Onsite and therefore qualifies as Magyu Path requirements. FYD I & II Online: Buddhist Track could, therefore, be taken interchangeably with Kapala I & II Onsite, provided the required assignments had been completed.

For more information please see:

• Kapala Training
• Magyu Path