Why Choose Yoga Therapy over classes?
While doing yoga at home or in a class setting provides a myriad of benefits, yoga therapy gives the practitioner the added bonus of having a personalized guide to witness, assist, and aid in moving through physical or internal blocks. Individualized sessions are tailored to each individual’s physical, mental, and emotional condition and desired outcomes.
The yoga therapist acts as a gentle and non-judgmental witness, creating a safe container for the practitioner to fully bring their awareness to body sensations and stored emotions, in each pose.
Yoga therapy session we look at the whole person. What’s happening in your physical body, what you’re experiencing emotionally, what your daily life looks like, do you have a spiritual practice, or not. We look at what your particular goals are and then use the tools of yoga - breath, movement, mudra, mantra, meditation and more - to find a practice that moves you towards a feeling of wholeness. Breath is one of the most powerful tools we have for integrating mind, body and spirit. We all breathe, but in yoga and yoga therapy, the mindfulness we bring to different breathing techniques supports a conscious release of unconscious physical, mental and emotional patterns of tension. Breath can be a tool for aligning your posture physically, inviting a sense of aliveness. and providing a point of focus, training our minds in concentration and attention.
Most people are most familiar with the asana aspect of yoga. Asana is the movements and postures that were traditionally practiced to prepare the body for meditation. In yoga therapy, asana or postures, are chosen specifically to meet the many unique needs of the individual. We all develop movement patterns and postural habits that reflect the way we move. Through asana and mindfulness we can bring awareness to the patterns which cause suffering and empower ourselves to be and move in our bodies in a different way. Yoga therapy emphasizes that your body is a reflection of emotional and thought patterns. Your body is the silent communicator of the spirit, which means your body is a reflection of what’s happening for your on the mental, emotional, and psycho-spiritual layers. Within yoga therapy, we begin to explore feelings and sensations as you move in both familiar and unfamiliar ways. This somatic experience invites you to feel and release what you might otherwise tuck away.
As humans we have a tendency to push down and ignore our feelings and thoughts that we deem unacceptable or inappropriate. They can be ignored to the point of explosion, to the point of being released in a negative way. When we explore sensation in the body, in a yoga therapy setting, we can allow for the experience and release of long held emotion in smaller, more manageable doses.