Yoga Therapy
What Is Yoga Therapy?
When it comes to healing, I often like to say that the body is the access route for everything. The body stores our traumas, emotional wounds, and deepest vulnerabilities. It’s only by working with the body that we can truly get to the core issues at the root of our suffering.
Yoga therapy is a therapeutic approach that enlists the body as an agent of change, healing, and deeper self-awareness. Through postural, breathing, and meditation practices—the three steps of the yogic healing process—clients can ultimately quiet their minds, release stress, and get in touch with their true nature, beyond the stories the mind creates.
Contrary to popular belief, meditation is not about forcing the mind to be quiet. It’s about developing the mindful awareness to watch and observe the stories your mind creates. Doing so can help you disengage from habitual thought patterns and learn new skills for calming your nervous system. You can think of it like going to the gym to consistently work out a muscle; with time and patience, the practices of yogaand meditation can become second nature andhelp youaccess mindful awareness no matter what situation you’re in (1).
How Effective Is Yoga Therapy?
The beauty of yoga therapy is that it can help anyone—it isn’t some rarefied practice that only a few enlightened gurus can benefit from. Yoga therapy can assist people who are struggling with a wide range of mental, emotional, and physical challenges, including:
Depression and anxiety
Hypervigilance and PTSD
Insomnia and sleep troubles
Various chronic illnesses
Inability to calm the mind
There’s also a wealth of research on yoga’s positive health benefits (2). The core principles of yoga have been demonstrated to help people alleviate stress, quiet their inner chatter, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression (3) (4) (5).
How Does Yoga Therapy Work?
In sessions with me, you will become familiar with basic postural, breathing, and meditation practices for quieting the mind, the nervous system, and the emotional body. You will learn specific meditation practices and somatic techniques that will systematically take you to deeper levels of awareness.
The practices I teach are specific to the Tantric yoga practices I have learned over many years of study. In essence, the right-handed Tantric approach is all about accessing your true nature, which is referred to as Self in yogic teachings, and clearing the symptoms that stand in the way of it. The goal is to unlock your innate essence, the Self, and harness your inner potential for change and transformation.
There are three basic components to my yoga therapy practice, each of which is outlined below:
Asana (Physical Practice)
The physical practice of yoga uses movement and posture to help open the body and relax the nervous system. I will teach you postural exercises for exploring different tension patterns, uncovering deeper emotional issues, and bringing relief to specific pain points. Different postures can be used to address depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues.
Pranayama (Breathing Practice)
When you are in a fight-flight-or-freeze response, you don’t have access to the resting part of the brain, otherwise known as the parasympathetic nervous system. The breathing practices I’ll teach you can help you engage this resting part, empowering you to calm your mind and body and deepen your moment-to-moment awareness.
Meditation Practice
The meditation techniques I use can help you overcome automatic thought patterns that no longer serve you and ultimately expand your range of choices. Meditation can also assist you in fostering a deeper spiritual connection, allowing you to connect to something greater than yourself, whether you refer to it as the Divine, the universe, or simply your own true nature or inner healer.
Throughout your yoga therapy journey, I may also bring in a technique called Yoga Nidra, or yogic sleep. Yoga Nidra is a method used to access the deeper layers of consciousness that lie under the surface of our awareness. It can help clear the karmic blocks so that we are able to do what our souls came here to do—the work of healing and restoring a sense of meaning and purpose.
How My Own Healing Journey Inspired My Yoga Therapy Practice
I attribute half of my healing journey to yoga. More than 30 years ago, while in the midst of a mental health crisis, I sought refuge at Kripalu Center of Yoga and Health in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Kripalu offered a unique blend of breathing practices, meditation, and movement, introducing me to the full spectrum of yogic practices that are not taught in most public settings in the US.
Today in the West, yoga has in large part moved away from the core teachings of yoga that involve meditation and breathwork, focusing almost exclusively on the postural practices. The practices I learned at Kripalu opened my eyes to the full spectrum of yogic teachings, allowing me to experience yoga in its authentic form.
From the beginning, I learned about how emotions are stored in the body—how they can manifest as muscular tension, nervous system dysregulation, and constriction of the breath. I also learned how asana and pranayama, leading into meditation, can facilitate the release of painful emotions, enabling us to live fuller and healthier lives. All of this knowledge has greatly benefited me as a yoga therapist and deepened my practice in innumerable ways.
Upon returning to my home state of Colorado, I sought out yoga teachers who were teaching more than the postural practices. I found Anusara, which focused on postural alignment as well as the philosophical roots of Tantric practices. In 2011 I met my current teacher, Rod Stryker, and began a deeper dive into the transformative Tantric practices of pranayama and meditation, along with specific postural practices focused on how we can specifically move energy to address symptoms of emotional dysregulation, depression and anxiety.
Experience Inner Transformation Through The Power Of Yoga Therapy
Over the years, I have seen time and time again how the practices of yoga, alongside the inclusion of somatic therapy, can help relieve symptoms of emotional distress and allow for growth and transformation.
If you want to experience the wisdom of this time-tested, research-backed approach, I encourage you to get in touch with me. To begin your journey, you can call (303) 507-6310 or fill out my contact form. I look forward to working with you!
Woodyard, Catherine. (2011). Exploring the therapeutic effects of yoga and its ability to increase quality of life. Medknow Publications, Pvt Ltd.
Gard, T., Noggle, J. J., Park, C. L., Vago, D. R., & Wilson, A. (January 01, 2014). Potential self-regulatory mechanisms of yoga for psychological health. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8.
van der Kolk, B. A., Stone, L., West, J., Rhodes, A., Emerson, D., Suvak, M., & Spinazzola, J. (2014). Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 75(6), e559–e565. https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.13m08561
Farhi, D., & Young, B. (1997). The breathing book: Good health and vitality through essential breath work. East Roseville, N.S.W: Simon & Schuster
Goleman, Daniel; Davidson, Richard J. (2017). The Science of Meditation: How to Change Your Brain, Mind and Body. Great Britain: Penguin Life.
In August, I attended my second Yoga Nidra training, this time a 9-day training with my teacher, Yogarupa Rod Stryker.