Yoga Therapy
in Staveley, Kendal and online
Bringing together ancient wisdom and modern science can be a potent combination. I offer one-to-one Yoga Therapy sessions online and in person in the South Lakes, sharing evidence-informed tools and techniques to support wellbeing.
Sessions focus on your individual needs and explore movement, rest, sound, gesture, posture, breath and mindfulness to help you find greater balance.
What is Yoga Therapy?
Yoga Therapy is an individualised approach to supporting physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, drawing on the practices and philosophy of yoga.
Unlike a general yoga class, where everyone may follow a similar sequence, Yoga Therapy starts with you: how you are feeling, what you are experiencing, what you would like to change and what might help.
I trained in Yoga Therapy with Svastha Yoga, with the Mohan family and Dr Günter Niessen. This approach brings together traditional yoga teachings and contemporary understanding of the body and mind, with an emphasis on adapting practices to the individual.
We explore ways of developing greater awareness of your body, breath, emotions and thoughts, and how they influence each other.
The intention is not necessarily to become more flexible or to achieve particular yoga postures, but to find ways of feeling more comfortable, stable, connected and able to respond to what you need.
What can Yoga Therapy help with?
Yoga Therapy sessions can be useful for a range of purposes, including:
Fatigue and burnout
Stress and anxiety
PTSD and trauma symptoms
Developing self-confidence
Reconnecting with body, mind and spirit
Feeling more in control of overwhelming emotions
Chronic pain
Individual Yoga Therapy sessions can be beneficial for anyone who would like to explore embodied ways to find a greater sense of peace and strength.
We explore movement and breath to help you develop connection, self-acceptance, self-expression and grounding, and to reconnect with your body.
Sessions are available for adults and children.
What happens in a Yoga Therapy session?
We begin by exploring what you would like support with and what you are already experiencing in your body and daily life.
We might look at how you respond to stress, what happens when you feel overwhelmed or tired, how you experience movement and rest, and what helps you feel more stable and comfortable.
Together, we can experiment with different practices, which might include:
Movement and posture: Exploring movement, strength, flexibility, balance and ways of feeling more stable in your body.
Breathing: Noticing how you breathe and exploring different ways of using breath to support your wellbeing.
Rest and relaxation: Finding approaches to resting and releasing unnecessary tension that work for you.
Mindfulness and sensory awareness: Noticing sensations, thoughts and emotions, and developing greater awareness of what you might need.
Sound and gesture: Experimenting with sound, movement and expression as ways of connecting with yourself.
Everyday habits: Exploring small changes that could support your wellbeing outside our sessions.
There isn't one practice that works for everyone, and something that feels helpful one day might not feel right on another.
We experiment together to find what works best for you, making adjustments according to your needs, preferences and capacity.
Developing your own practice
Unlike psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic counselling sessions, which may also incorporate Yoga Therapy practices but usually take place weekly, individual Yoga Therapy sessions can take place less often to give time to experiment with the techniques shared.
We will develop practices for you to use regularly in your daily life, based on your individual needs.
Follow-up sessions can then take place as required to review how things are going, experiment with changes and adapt the practices.
The intention is to find something that works for you and your everyday life, rather than expecting you to fit around a particular routine.
It might be a few minutes of movement, a way of resting, a breathing practice or a combination of different approaches.
We can explore what feels realistic and useful, and adjust the practice as your needs change.
Yoga Therapy and Psychotherapy
Yoga Therapy practices can also be incorporated into my psychotherapy and psychotherapeutic counselling sessions, particularly when exploring ways to feel more stable, grounded and connected.
However, a specific Yoga Therapy session is more focused on exploring and developing practical approaches that you can continue to use in your everyday life.
If you are looking for longer-term therapy to explore emotional difficulties, past experiences, relationships or trauma, you may prefer psychotherapeutic counselling or child and adolescent psychotherapy.
We can discuss which approach might best suit your needs.
Practical Information
Location: Sessions are available in person in Staveley, near Kendal, and online.
Session length: Individual Yoga Therapy sessions are 50 minutes.
Frequency: Usually one or two initial sessions, followed by further sessions as needed to review or adapt your practice. However, some people prefer more regular sessions- I am happy to adapt the frequency to best suit your needs.
Fees: Sessions follow my sliding scale.
Enquiries
If you would like to explore whether Yoga Therapy could be useful for you or your child, please get in touch.
We can discuss what you would like support with and how we might work together.