By Swami Nirmalananda  

In my first yoga class, the teacher said, “Just do what you can.”  It was compassionate but not very helpful. I enjoyed the classes but made little progress.  When I tried another yoga style, the teacher often shouted encouragingly, “Reach for it!”  Not at all compassionate, but she was giving me a goal to aim for.  Unfortunately, I failed.  Repeatedly. 

Yoga therapy meets you where you are at, which means it is compassionate.  And it gives you a goal, which is so important.  Yet it does one thing more.  It gives you a way to reach that goal, a step-by-step process that is custom tailored to your needs.  You can see your own progress toward the new possibilities you’re expanding into. 

Your private yoga therapy session begins with an assessment, “How are you, really?  What do you need help with?”  Then your yoga therapist creates a personalized plan for you, a step-by-step process that moves you through your needed healing. 

If you have a medical diagnosis, yoga therapy is a powerful adjunct to your medical treatment.   

If you are coming for pain relief, stress relief or deeper levels of healing, yoga therapy makes powerful changes from the beginning.

We usually begin with coaching your breathing, pivotal to all levels of healing.  Yoga’s gentle, focused breathing process makes you feel better quickly.  You learn how to take the practice home with you, empowering you to contribute to your own improvement.  Your pain and stress levels drop, your circulatory and immune systems begin to recalibrate themselves. All your physiological systems are gradually revitalized. 

When we incorporate yoga poses into your private sessions, they target your spinal tensions and dissolve them.  This creates interior space in your body, good for all your organs as well as muscles and bones.  Even your brain loves it!  The most important part of each session is when you settle into a deep healing state, a yogic immersion that integrates mind-heart-body in a delicious and tangible way. 

You move through the phases of yoga therapy, traversing a well-mapped pathway to health and wholeness.  A gentle self-inquiry process helps you melt mental and emotional patterns that are linked in with your physical condition.  The result is a profound paradigm shift, one that helps you make sense out of your life experiences and the choices ahead.  All systems are go!