“Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.” -B.K.S. Iyengar

What Is Yoga Therapy?

“Yoga therapy is the process of empowering individuals to progress toward improved health and well-being through the application of the teachings and practices of yoga.”

Per International Association of Yoga Therapists, Educational Standards for the Training of Yoga Therapists (www.iayt.org)

Yoga Therapy is the application of the ancient science of yoga to enhance health and wellness at all levels of the person: physical, psychological, and spiritual. Yoga Therapy focuses on the path of yoga as a healing journey that brings balance to the body and mind through an experiential understanding of the primary intention of yoga: the awakening of Spirit, our essential nature. The healing journey is unique to each individual; therefore, yoga therapy selects, adapts, and modifies the practices of yoga appropriately for the individual with respect to age, culture, religion, and specific physical challenges in order to facilitate optimal health and healing of the body mind. Yoga states that avidya, lack of knowledge of the True Self, is the source of all disease. Yoga Therapy works to reveal a state of health that is inherent to each individual by removing conditioning in the form of kleshas, or obstructions, in the physical body, the energy body, the mind and emotions, core beliefs and perceptions, and the spiritual body. Self-knowledge is the antidote to avidya, and it is gained through the practice of the eight limbs of yoga. Yoga techniques form the basis for treatment in Yoga Therapy and are the vehicles for self-knowledge and whole-person integration. The techniques in themselves are not Yoga Therapy because it is self-knowledge—the result of the techniques—that leads to health. The techniques and methods of Yoga Therapy come principally from the yoga traditions—including classical yoga, Vedanta, and Tantra (and its branches of Kundalini Yoga and hatha yoga). As it is strongly rooted in the yoga tradition, Yoga Therapy offers a unique approach to healing that has the practice and philosophy of yoga at its base. This avoids confusion with other healing systems, such as allopathic medicine and Western psychology, which have their own vision and foundations. Illness can be a signpost on the journey of self-knowledge, pointing toward transformation and wellness. Instead of focusing on the removal of symptoms, as in allopathic medicine, Yoga Therapy sees the healing process as a means of bringing the entire being into wholeness. Relief from symptoms is just one facet of this healing process. From the yogic perspective, a focus on finding happiness exclusively through the personality represents a misunderstanding of the purpose and meaning of life, and consequently results in suffering. It is the cumulative effect of a life not lived as who we truly are, subsequent stress, and the effects of this stress on the physical body that may lead to illness. Yoga and Ayurveda are employed as appropriate to guide each client to rediscover their unique peace and balance.

(From www.iayt.org website)