Is Yoga Therapy for ME?

According to medical research, Yoga therapy stands out as one of the most effective complementary therapies for various common ailments. These challenges may range from illnesses to temporary conditions or chronic issues associated with old age or Trauma. Yoga Therapists perceive the Human Being as an integrated body-mind system that can function optimally only in a state of dynamic balance. This holistic approach fosters change, growth, and enhanced well-being in the realms of body, feelings, thought, and spirit. As a growing field, scientific evidence increasingly underscores the efficacy of yoga therapy. It is not only utilized to address existing mental and physical health issues but also serves as a valuable self-care strategy for prevention and maintenance.

How Do We Begin?

Yoga therapy integrates traditional yoga techniques with current trauma-informed and somatic practices, offering support to individuals confronting challenges at various levels. When someone opts for yoga therapy, an initial assessment is conducted to gain perspective. This assessment is tailored to evaluate lifestyle and physical capabilities, explore reasons for seeking therapy, and formulate a customized course of treatment. After establishing a collaborative treatment plan, the frequency of sessions is agreed upon, and sessions are scheduled accordingly.

Trauma Sensitive Yoga

Trauma is defined as the emotional response to a troubling event in one’s life, overwhelming his/her ability to cope with stress, or even typical events in daily life. Side effects of a traumatic event are most often based on the resilliency of an individual's own nervous system. The Trauma Sensitive approach to teaching yoga has proven to increase a person’s ability to reduce stress and anxiety, therefore, becoming more resilient, and ultimately empowering the students by providing opportunities for choice-making. A Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TSY) teacher is a guide who offers healing opportunity through a yoga practice so that a student is then able to experiment, through the poses, with any emotional or physical revelations that occur inside the body. A TSY teacher understands that if you meet students where they are rather than where you think they should be, there is a profound opportunity for strengthening personal agency and healing unprocessed trauma. TSY teachers believe that every posture is an experience that helps one to feel or sense the body; therefore, TSY teachers care less about the body’s outer expression. This means that although a teacher will offer a specific pose, poses do not need to take a specific form. Yoga poses merely provide students with the opportunity to learn how to feel what is going on inside the body and then to choose how they want to express the form physically. In a TSY class, students are taught to explore levels of sensation and to try to understand them from an informed, present-moment awareness, where every choice is completely valid and one version of a pose isn't better or more advanced than any other. The teacher is a guide, holding space for any emotional or physical sensation that emerges. The teacher can be relied on as someone who offers safety and security and gives students the responsibility to organize themselves, minimizing any type of power structure and helping to cultivate a strong sense of agency for the student. It’s important to remember that this method of teaching can be applied to all styles/levels of classes, ranging from beginners to what many studios call advanced yoga.