Yoga Therapy for lasting health

Yoga therapy

Schedule a 15-min intro call

Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a yoga practice that improves your symptoms, but also considers your health history, your personal history, your work, your relationships, your lifestyle and your spirituality?

Yoga has exquisite tools to help you address the physical and the subtle aspects of your system. Amanda assesses your needs and goals and then adapts each tool so you have the most effective and efficient daily practice for you.

You’re probably familiar with yoga poses, but yoga also has many other time tested practices to help you use your breath, focus, communication, habits, and your emotions to improve your life. Amanda shapes your practice to include āsana (postures), prāṇāyāma (breathing techniques), nyāsa (hand placement), bhāvana (visualizations), meditation, and/or mantra (chanting).

The kind of support you need depends on your health and life situation

  • cikitsa - You can practice yoga with the purpose of recovery when you are dealing with an event, illness or condition that makes it difficult to manage daily life

  • rakṣana krama - yoga can help you to recover from the strain and stress of daily life and maintain and protect the capacities that you have

  • śikṣana krama - yoga can be applied to help you fully engage with life and develop exceptional capacities. Self-discovery, self-exploration and self-fulfillment

Yoga Therapy can help with…

  • Do you have times when the mind won’t slow down, worry dominates your thoughts and there’s tension in your body? You don’t have to feel this way. There are very effective yoga practices that can ease anxiety and help ground you in a feeling of safety and ease. As this happens, thoughts slow down and you can work with the underlying causes of your anxiety that might need special care.

  • With depression, you can feel disconnected from your life. You might have lack of motivation, heaviness, negative thinking, a dull mind and difficulty finding joy. You aren’t alone and yoga therapy can help you make meaningful and sustainable shifts so you can participate fully in your life and reconnect to your inner joy.

    If you are suicidal, or struggle with suicidal thoughts, call someone who loves you and tell them. Need a suicide prevention plan or want to see what kind of help is out there? Visit this page of resources.

  • Amanda is highly trained in working with breathing related issues and can offer a range of progressive practices to help you develop capacity and vigor over time.

  • Amanda has seen many clients heal their back issues. If you have intermittent or chronic back pain, a diagnosed spinal or disc issue, or symptoms like neuropathy in the limbs, hands and feet, yoga therapy can help. Active breathing can influence the spine at a very deep level. Learn breathing techniques, appropriate movement, and attention practices, to help improve your spine, nerve and soft-tissue related issues.

  • An ongoing health issue, doesn’t just affect a single part of your body – it affects your functioning, your energy, your lifestyle, your thoughts, your sleep, your relationships, and your mood. Yoga therapy offers a holistic model of healing. We will work with your diagnosis AND how it is affecting you.

  • Though there are common sets of symptoms with different kinds of EDS, they manifest in each individual uniquely. Amanda can design a practice for you to address your structural, physical and emotional needs associated with EDS.

  • If you are actively involved in or recently recovering from treatment for cancer, you may be living with side-effects and emotional strain. Yoga therapy offers complementary care to help address your unique symptoms.

  • For many of us, this is a big life-transition that comes with a range of symptoms. Yoga offers a gentle support in navigating this tiime.

Complementary Care

Facing a serious medical issue for yourself or a loved one touches all parts of life – our time, emotions, finances, energy, relationships, sense of self, and emotions are impacted. Yoga therapy can fill an important need during treatment and recovery. It is possible to lessen uncomfortable side effects or aches and pains without more medication, reduce the severity of discomfort by accessing an overall calm feeling, and improve important functions like sleep, appetite and digestion.  Yoga therapy can also help with the emotional load. You can share openly and freely and learn to implement teachings that steady the mind and emotions. 

I contain multitudes…

Walt Whitman’s oft quoted phrase speaks to the complexity inherent in your humanness. The second chapter of the Taittiriya Upaniṣad presents a model that describes five aspects of our multilayered and interconnected nature.

  • Annamaya - we have a physical body that is nourished by food. 

  • Prāṇamaya - physiology, energy and breath participate in the dynamic functions of our human system 

  • Manomaya - our mind is trained by various influences (parents, culture, teachers) and this shapes how we think and respond in the world

  • Vijñānamaya -  attitudes and belief structures operate at an even deeper level than the manomaya and influence our behavior and sense of self

  • Ānandamaya - emotions influence so much of how everything else in our system functions. Consider how you think when you are content and safe vs. under threat.

If we experience a shift in one dimension, then all the others shift. This is the model that can help  us understand why a breathing practice can shift the entire system, reducing our experience of pain (prāṇamaya) and helping us to have a more positive outlook (vijñānamaya).

So beautiful, right? 

You are more than body, mind and emotions

There’s more to the story… 

The pañcamaya is useful in understanding how the various parts of us are interconnected, but doesn’t describe the totality of our human nature.  There is another aspect, unchanging and untouched by grief or sorrow*.  According to yoga this is puruṣa, the “dweller in the city.” It is the part of you that is divine in nature.  Or if you aren’t spiritually inclined, the part that is steady, wise and essentially you, your True Self. We can learn to become more attuned and connected to this part of us and live our lives from this place - living with authenticity, clarity and purpose. 

*Yoga Sūtra I.36

Get started

Your individual yoga lessons include engaging conversation, valuable teachings, and deep, immersive experience. Explore the wide world of postures, breathing techniques, and meditation practices tailored specifically to your unique needs through a viniyoga lens.

Schedule with Amanda

  1. Start with a free 20-minute Zoom call

  2. Schedule a 90-minute intake session

  3. Follow up regularly

Committment and Payment

Commitment: Amazing change happens with consistent practice and support over time. New students are requested to commit to 5 sessions at the start - a 90-min intake and four 60-min continuing growth sessions over three months, and be open to doing a regular home yoga practice.

Payment options: Lessons are $150 an hour. If you’d like to bundle your intake (90min) and first four, pay $750 and save $75. I offer a limited number of sliding scale appointments. Please inquire as needed.

Schedule a free 20-min call

You are welcome here

Innermost Yoga is dedicated to anti-racism, allyship to people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, individuals at any level of ability, and to challenging the notion that a practitioner of yoga has a specific body type. Your unique way of being and experience deserves to be seen, heard, and cared for. We commit to listening, understanding, and acting on the needs you express with integrity, accountability, and attentiveness. Innermost Yoga is here for you. 

I was referred to Amanda during the most painful back experience of my life.

Working with a yoga therapist has far exceeded any expectations I could have imagined. Amanda really took time to understand my current physical state and my relationship with my body.  

 I am regularly surprised just how present, and how much detail she seems to empath in coaching me every session. She helped me develop a tailored approach to working with my body, and letting it work with me. Today, with her help, I have a tailored practice that serves my body, mind and spirit well.  And as fluid as life is, fluidity needs to exist in my practice, too. I am grateful to be working with her regularly and consistently so that as I change, my practice can change and develop with me. 

ANDREW THACKER,  Financial Advisor,  Newburgh, IN.

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