14/06/2026
A breath of air ~ story time:
As a decade+ clinical yoga therapist (and nearly 20 years as a yoga teacher), I’m used to pretty much everyone I speak to having no idea what Yoga Therapy is. In fact, I’ve sort of opted out of the conversation for a few years now… relying on word of mouth and referrals to see clients. It gets old after years and years of constantly having to explain what I do and what my skill set is on top of doing the actual work (running a business, intakes, assessments, notes, and treatment plans). 😅
People look at me with suspicion and confusion — because to them, they have a picture of yoga that fits both neatly on the cover of a magazine and in spandex.
The truth is that the modern field of Yoga Therapy itself, while the roots of it are quite ancient, is in its adolescence stage of defining itself. The other thing that makes it difficult to explain and define? Yoga Therapy can support those with heart conditions to chronic pain to people with rotator cuff tears to neurodivergence to those with an adolescence that was filled with uncertainty and dysfunction. As a dynamic human with a wide range of interests and an unquenchable thirst for embodied knowledge, you might see how this field has kept my interest for this long.
After attending a four year Yoga Therapy program (2015-2019) and then immediately heading into a Masters program (2020-2022), I also opted out of attending any Yoga Therapy conferences: my entire academic life for six years was spent researching, listening to others’ research, and attending classes. Of course then I opened Breathe Ojai {Yoga Studio & Community Hall} and launched The Vriddhi Foundation • 501c3 and Gold Yoga School which have all kept me very busy for the past four years since graduation 🙃
✨ This brings us to present day: I decided to attend the annual IAYT Official Page “Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research” for the first time.
Not only did I get to discuss my thesis research (which takes a deep dive into the actual roots of the widely referenced Kosa model) and a Yoga Therapy capstone project that I created to support those suffering from codependency, but I got to connect with peers from my graduate and yoga therapy cohorts.
💥 All in all, I am glad I attended. While there are still outstanding issues the field is working to address, the value of being around people who had a shared language of the immense depths of what Yoga has to offer felt like a breath of fresh air.
I feel inspired to get to work on three publications that have been pushed onto the backest of the back-burners since 2022.
I continue to think creatively and steadfastly about how to bring to the forefront of people’s minds in my little town when they think of Yoga for all stages of life, true health and lifestyle support, spiritual stewardship and more.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Keep me accountable by asking me about how my publishing projects are going 😘
