Mindful embodiment with Šárka
Meet Yourself
Wherever You Are
Yoga Therapy
Therapeutic use of yoga and ayurveda for optimal health and wellbeing
What is Yoga Therapy?
Yogatherapy is a form of complementary or integrative healthcare, offering offers a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model, based on the ancient wisdom and practices of yoga, integrated with scientific knowledge. It has attratcted the attention of the psychological and bio-medical communities as a stand-alone or complementary therapy for psychological problems because it offers a holistic model which is increasingly appreciated and seen as highly effective in treatment. The multi-dimensional, bio-psycho-social-spiritual model, has been shown to be more effective than treatments that target just one aspect of the person.
According to International Association of Yoga Therapists, Yoga therapy defined as a process of empowering individuals to progress toward improved health and well-being through the application of the teachings and practices of yoga.
The word empower here is important, because a key aspect of yoga therapy is the active participation of the client in the process of therapy. The tools of yoga require that the person plays an active role in the process of optimizing their health and increaing their wellbeing.
Eventhough yoga classes offered in studios can certainly alleviate the impact of daily stresses and balance physical stifness or common lifestyle discomforts, yoga therapy goes further, as the sessions are tailored to your actual individual needs, taking into the account your current physical and mental state, your history, your lifestyle, your personality as well as your goals to offer the tools and practices from broad discipline of yoga and ayurveda to leading to a state of YOUR optimal balance.
In yoga and ayurveda, being healthy means that we are balanced. In a healthy person, lifestyle, diet, senses, thoughts, and emotions are all steady and positive.
We cannot become healthy just by consuming medicines. Medicines can help set right some problems. But we cannot become balanced in our mind and body only through an external support like medication.
We must develop inner strength. An ancient quotation says, “nāsti yoga-samaṁ balam” meaning “there is no strength like yoga.” They are not referring to physical strength here. They mean inner strength of mind and senses. The eight limbs of yoga are the best means to that inner strength.
― A. G. Mohan
My journey towards Yoga Therapy
As I am reflecting on my experiences of yoga teacher and facilitator in the past few years, I am feeling strongly and clearly, that making yoga personal practice makes so much sense. And that to inspire and to encourage people to adjust the practice to their current needs and dispositions, to help them integrate their intentions to the practice in respectful and self-caring way is the best I can do for them.
I see yoga as a broad discipline which offers us many tools to function easier in our daily life, to live in fulfilling, responsible and healthy way, as a discipline which allows us to see and live our highest potential in harmony with our unique essence and with the world we live in.
Also from my professional perspective, the most satisfying work for me is to guide individual therapeutic yoga sessions - to really focus on the needs and intentions of the unique students in their present stage of life - meeting them wherever they are. I feel in this way yoga becomes really powerful experience with the deep level of human connection. And also as I see a huge potential of yoga in balancing and easing not only the physical side of human beings, but also their mental and emotional worlds, a tool helping them to overcome past traumas, from my experience the individual work makes really sense here.
Holistic practice | the State of Svastha SVA means 'self' and STHA means 'stay'. In a state of remaining as yourself, which according to the yoga sutras is the ultimate goal of yoga. ‘I am pure consciousness and I stay with that experience’ . This can be seen as the state of ‘optimal health’
