I often get a confused look when I tell people I’m a yoga therapist. While everyone knows what a yoga teacher does and group classes are commonplace these days, yoga therapy is less understood, even by people who practice yoga regularly.

So, what is yoga therapy?

Yoga therapy uses the tools of yoga, such as breathing, movement, meditation or yoga philosophy, to support overall well-being. What is special about it, is that the teacher works one-on-one with the student, to meet the needs and wants of each individual on many levels, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

The approach in yoga therapy is that we are multi-layered beings and that every aspect of ourselves is interconnected. I’m a little bit obsessed with super passionate about the mind-body connection and the more I learn, the more I realise that EVERYTHING is connected.

For example, how breathing exercises can affect your mood or meditation has an impact on chronic pain.

Everything affects everything (that’s for another blog post!). Because of that, yoga therapy goes beyond conditions and individual parts, and we work with the whole body and mind.

The other thing yoga therapy understands is the idea that we are whole, as we are.

Nothing is wrong with us, nothing is broken, there’s nothing to fix.

A great paradox of yoga (among many others) is this:

We are constantly evolving in our wholeness.

While there is nothing wrong with us at our core, many years of moving through life filters how we see the world, how we experience others, how we understand ourselves and our place in the world. Sometimes those filters are helpful, sometimes they aren’t.

Yoga therapy can help us remove some of those filters, through movement, breath, meditation, and many more tools.

While yoga therapy can help with a range of things, like chronic pain, neurological issues, illness support, healthy aging, overall well-being, I have a particular passion for mental health and helping you navigate the ups and downs of life.

The experience of being human is a crazy one! Uncertainty and change are a part of it and that can bring up a lot of stress, anxiety or depression. We are all different in how we handle things and those feelings come up.

As a yoga therapist, I’m here to support you and teach you how to work with your emotions, to become friends with them and come back to a place of balance.

Through the power of yoga, I’ve taught dozens of people how to spend less time in overwhelm and feel calmer than ever.

Do you want to know how yoga therapy can help you? Send me a message to schedule a free 15-minute session!