Becoming a Yoga Therapist

“ Most of us can attend to big, exciting things happening. Yoga teaches us to be present to even more subtle things. Through this process, yoga teaches us to be more in the now.” - Annie Carpenter

I became a therapist by accident, albeit a pretty intentional accident by all appearances. Those who know me well would probably sit back and say, “of course you are a yoga therapist now, that was inevitable.”

I did, after all, only step into my first class all those years ago to therapize myself.

It appears to be a pretty intentional accident once you consider that I’ve now spent well over 1,000 hours in training. Add a few hundred hours of supervised clinical work, and countless hours reading, studying, and ruminating on all things therapeutic yoga… And all this after already being an E-RYT 500 teacher who had taught 2,000+ hours of studio yoga classes, workshops, and trainings prior to this therapist adventure. So, yes, I intentionally invested all the time, energy, and funds into becoming a yoga therapist.

But I feel like I came to it by accident because in my childhood, I never once considered growing up to be any sort of therapist. In fact, yoga therapy wasn’t even on my radar in 2015, when I “accidentally” started teaching yoga. (Because I took my first YTT just to deepen my own yoga practice, but found teaching so rewarding that I couldn’t not teach.)

But to the point of those who know me well, yes, it was inevitable. Because I cannot have learned all that I’ve learned over the years and not put it to good use helping people. So, here I am, a yoga therapist.

My story

In 2015, when I led my first Saturday morning yoga classes at my local studio, freshly graduated from my first teacher training, I strived to be a really good yoga instructor. Good yoga instructors prepare a lovely, thoughtfully constructed sequence with cues that roll off the tongue in a smooth rhythm. And they offer modifications when a pose is inaccessible for you.

By the time I completed my 500 hour teacher training in 2017, I sought to evolve into a yoga teacher. A yoga teacher sees you on your mat and effortlessly adapts their planned sequence and familiar cues to meet you right where you’re at in order to take you where you can really go. They adapt poses (or even entire sequences) so that over time an inaccessible pose eventually becomes accessible for you.

And so folks were referred to my classes (at that point I was teaching up to 12 classes every week) whenever their aches, pains, stress level, or perceived limitations meant that they needed something a little more à la carte than we offered in our other classes at the studio. And it was such a joy to have each of those folks in my classes.

However, I never felt like I was really effective in helping them with their aches, pains, stress level, or perceived limitations in any real, lasting way.

Enter the process of yoga therapist certification.

What is a yoga therapist exactly?

Yoga therapists have oodles of hours of additional education and training in philosophy, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and diverse therapeutic modalities. (And surely I am leaving a number of things off the list, but you get the idea.) And they spend many hours logging work with clients, which is reviewed and critiqued by advisors over a number of months.

A yoga therapist is part wellness coach + part functional movement specialist + part mindfulness and meditation teacher + part accountability partner + part cheerleader all rolled into one.

But what do yoga therapists do exactly?

We help people improve their well-being with the tradition, techniques, and tools of yoga and Ayurveda. We look at wellness through a multidimensional lens. So, intake forms and initial consultations include a plethora of questions, all essentially wanting to know: How is your body? How is your breathing? How is your brain? How is your behavior (read: habits and lifestyle)? How are your beliefs (read: mindset and habitual thoughts)?… And do they all point you in the direction of health and well-being?

And from there we ask: Which yoga poses, meditation techniques, breathing practices, and/or lifestyle changes would help bring whatever is out of alignment back into a more harmonious state? The result: a personalized self-care practice.

How everything is different

Gone are the days of promoting, prepping for, and leading weekly drop-in classes at a studio. Can’t say that I miss it. Though I do miss getting to see some of those folks’ cheery faces every week!

Gone are the regular connections with my fellow yoga teachers (though COVID upending our routines is partly responsible). And I do miss their sweet faces.

In fact, gone is my presence at a studio all together. I’ve swapped out the dimly lit, moody studio setting, for a quiet office flooded with lots of bright, natural daylight.

Now, 90% of my energy and focus is poured into 1:1 sessions with clients who are dealing with chronic pain, stress, or fatigue. Instead of time spent matching my playlist to the vibe of my meticulously-sequenced, thematic class plans, I now spend time recording SOAP notes and connecting with other local wellness professionals who could offer additional support to my clients on their healing journey. Only occasionally do I host classes anymore.

It’s a really different side of yoga.

Yoga with a very different spin

I get to brew a cuppa tea, and invite you to sit down for a bit just to tell me your story.

It’s a space where you can tell me about your pain.

If you have a diagnosis, it may be migraines, CFS, fibromyalgia, IBD, IBS, rheumatoid arthritis… maybe it’s been suggested you have Long COVID… maybe you don’t even have a formal diagnosis, and feel stuck with a collection of symptoms but no great starting point to get better.

Together we can work on “mini” yoga practices to stop your chronic pain merry-go-round so you can start getting your life back.

I am here for you to feel seen. Feel heard. Feel better.

And it’s a space where you can tell me about your stress and exhaustion.

If you have a name for it, it might be depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADD, insomnia… or maybe you don’t have a name for it, but you feel overrun by your responsibilities and pressure to do All The Things – skewing work-life balance and exhausting you. And frankly, self-care feels unreasonable because you dread having to add one more thing to your plate. In fact, you are ready to drop said plate from sheer exhaustion already.

Together we can tap into yoga to find that much needed TLC to de-stress your body, your breathing, and your brain.

Because I am here for you to feel seen. Feel heard. Feel better.

And while this is yoga with a much different flavor than most of us are used to, it has definitely turned out to be really effective in helping you with your aches, pains, stress level, or perceived limitations in a very real, lasting way.