What is Yoga Therapy?
Yoga, the original body, mind, spiritual approach to life, reflects a 5000-year-old tradition designed to evoke higher states of consciousness. Along the road to enlightenment yoga practitioners discovered improved health and sense of well being. Out of this evolved yoga therapy, the application of yoga towards health and wellness. However, yoga therapy is not a treatment for a condition. Instead it creates an educational experience of yoga whereby the client’s own innate healer is stimulated. Yoga teaches us that dis-ease or illness, be it physical, mental or emotional, begins at the most subtle level of the body and then moves through layers or koshas until eventually the dis-ease manifests in our lives as either illness, accident, or crisis. Yoga, used as a healing tool, addresses all of the layers of the body, and seeks to create balance and unity. When practiced diligently, yoga can create healing energy and move into the roots of an issue, thereby creating opportunities for deep healing. The power and potential of properly practiced yoga has no limits. The masters have left us the way.
Today, in 2016, yoga has exploded across the USA. Much has been gained by this rapid expansion, and much has been lost. Organizations that never before existed have come onto the scene and are now regulating and certifying. How does one *know* how ‘qualified’ their teacher is? And who’s making those determinations? Lot’s of questions to work through in this ‘new’ field.
Yoga Therapy is now defined by the IAYT, perhaps the onlyan organization that recognizes yoga therapy as a healing modality. Their efforts are commendable, even though I personally disagree with some of their decisions. Here’s how they define yoga therapy.
Personal Yoga Therapy© can be scheduled for one or more participants who wish to work together. Family programs are available. References are available upon request. Yoga experience is not necessary and beginners are encouraged. Sessions can be held in the privacy of your home or at studio. Ida’s IAYT profile is here.
Ida Cullen, C-IAYT, YACEP
