We are each unique individuals who deserves a unique practice tailored to your needs. Below are the conditions I support.
Addiction
Addiction is a complicated dis-ease, and recovery is not easy. For most, it is a long and dusty road full of ups and downs. Many people face emotional mood swings between anxiety and depression, combined with feelings of guilt or being overwhelmed. Yoga is a practical part of a comprehensive treatment plan with multiple evidence-based therapies in addiction recovery.
Sessions with me are designed to aid in recovery by increasing skills in stress reduction and relaxation and managing symptoms such as chronic pain, feelings of anxiety, and insomnia. Sessions may be used for contemplative practice to create opportunities for stillness and peace of mind in response to life's daily challenges. To develop resilience tools such as breathwork to manage triggers and create energy to find balance. Either path will build strength and flexibility in the body.
Grief
To experience grief is a part of living because it is a normal and natural internal reaction to the loss of something special. In our daily life, we may experience grief in varying degrees. For example, the loss of an item may feel less intense than the loss of a marriage or a loved one. Often people will say time heals all wounds – which is a way of saying grief will end in time. While this could be a true statement, it often rings hollow because there is no one way to grieve. Time can pass, and not fully grieving for whatever reason can impact our bodies, creating a stress reaction.
In sessions with me, we begin with the physical and emotional symptoms of grief – such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, and rumination. Yoga therapy is not counseling where one will cognitively think their way out, which is often beneficial and essential. Instead, I will teach you how to build resilience by listening to your own body through breathwork, meditation, and movement. These practices are designed to slow ruminating and soothe emotional distress. Create space to connect to those around you and contemplative practices to reengage your life after loss.
Interpersonal Violence | Sexual Assault
Sexual assault and interpersonal violence can happen to anyone in any relationship. It does not matter your age, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity. For those who have been touched by this kind of violence, there may be an emotional sense of disconnection from the body, a sense of overwhelming fatigue, or a lack of physical strength. Yoga provides a safe and tangible approach for people to explore their healing internally and uncovers layers of pain hidden in the body, especially for those susceptible to retraumatization in triggering situations – such as watching television and experiencing feelings of fear, panic, rage, insecurity, and anxiety.
The body can store trauma, and sessions with me are designed to support you in the journey to reclaiming your body. I offer slow, gentle yoga sessions to create the space needed to reconnect with yourself and to develop ways to listen and receive guidance from your body. These one-on-one sessions are based on your needs and choices.
Menopause
As women age, she enters a period of perimenopause and menopause. This transitional period in life is both physically and emotionally challenging. The female body is altered due to shifting hormones in the reproductive system. A woman’s menopause is like a fingerprint—unique and personal. This experience can be marked by grief as this is the end of a woman’s reproductive years, physical and emotional imbalance, impact sexual life, and this period often requires an adjustment to daily life.
Sessions with me are designed to help you transform the menopause experience and the intense feelings of stress that may accompany this change in life. Together we create ways to tackle the most common symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, fuzzy thinking, anxiety, and irritability. I combine yoga postures, breath practices, and meditation in different ways to work with your body and your schedule.
Stress Reduction
In this world, people are continually telling us to work on reducing stress. Unfortunately, very few people talk about working on our brain or our emotional state to battle stress and improve our wellbeing. Chronic stress is difficult to define because we are dismissive of this emotion most of the time, choosing to chalk it up to "just life" and "being tough...pushing ahead". The emotions manifest in physical sensations like difficulty breathing, chest pain, difficulty falling asleep, feeling worried, waking to feel anxious, having trouble performing a daily routine, or losing the ability to see a path in front of you.
Sessions with me are about finding ways to reduce your stress by balancing the relationship between thoughts and your body. These sessions could focus on understanding your mental state and building skills to identify where tension is stored in the body. I also support caregivers who are often suffering from a combination of stress and fatigue to find rest.
Persistent Health Issues
Persistent health problems are health conditions where there is no cure only treatment for symptoms and those affiliated have to learn to live with them. Examples of these dis-eases are asthma, chronic fatigue, diabetes, hypertension, Inflammatory bowel disease, Lyme disease, Rheumatoid arthritis and Systemic lupus erythematosus. While we cannot cure these conditions, yoga can reduce some if not all of the symptoms and help to remind you are a whole person not just a diagnosis.
In yoga sessions we will work together in an integrative approach to support the whole body. In this way we can increase mental and physical endurance for individuals at any age and physical ability level. These sessions include learning how to use breathing control, meditation and the specific yoga postures adopted to your unique body and needs to achieve your goals. Research has shown an improvement for these conditions in the following areas:
Reduce pain
Lower anxiety
Lower blood pressure
Increase lung capacity
Improve balance
Improve bone density
Reduce Depression
Increase flexibility
Reduce stress
