Yoga
therapy
Healing that lives in the body, not just on the mat.
This Is Not a Yoga Class
Let me be direct with you: yoga therapy is not about getting a workout in. It's not about nailing a pose or building a sweat. There are wonderful places for that, but this isn't one of them.
Yoga therapy is yoga used as a modality of healing. It draws from the ancient Ayurvedic tradition of personalized car… nutrition, self-care practices, and the full scope of Patanjali's Eight Limbs of Yoga, which go far beyond movement to include breathwork, somatics, meditation, ethical living, and self study.
As a yoga and somatic therapist, I am trained to assess what your body, mind, and nervous system actually need… and to prescribe a specific, individualized practice designed to bring you back into balance. Think of it less like a class and more like working with a clinician who speaks the language of the body.
How Yoga Therapy Works
Every yoga therapy relationship begins with an intake consult. I want to understand what's happening for you…your acute concerns, your chronic patterns, the areas of your life that feel stuck or out of alignment. Nothing is off the table. We talk about your body, your stress, your sleep, your emotional landscape.
From there, I develop a personalized wellness plan…a holistic roadmap that might include specific movement sequences, breathing techniques, meditation practices, and lifestyle recommendations. This isn't a one-and-done session… but in some cases you can have an 100% shift on intake. Like most therapeutic relationships, we work together over time. I monitor your progress, adjust the plan as your body responds, and meet you wherever you are.
The goal isn't to fix you. The goal is to give your body and nervous system the tools to heal itself… and to keep healing, long after our work together.
Who This Is For
Yoga therapy is for anyone seeking real restoration and life changes…physically, mentally, and emotionally. If you're dealing with something specific, or if you just feel like your body has been trying to tell you something and you haven't been able to listen, this work can meet you there.
Some of the most common reasons clients come to me:
Anxiety & nervous system dysregulation
Depression & emotional fatigue
Chronic pain & injury recovery
Trauma & PTSD
Pre-natal & post-natal care
Post medical intervention (chemo, surgery)
Grief & life transitions
Weight loss & body reconnection
The Clearing & The Rebuilding
Reiki clears the field. Yoga therapy gives it a new shape. One without the other can only go so far. You can clear energy all day long, but if the body's patterns haven't changed…the way you breathe, the way you hold tension, the way your nervous system responds to stress… the same stagnation will return.
And you can practice yoga with incredible discipline, but if the energetic blockages underneath haven't been addressed, the body will keep hitting the same walls.
When we combine both, we clear what's stuck and then rebuild how energy flows through you. That's not a surface-level shift. That is transformation at the level of the energy body itself.
Why I Pair Yoga Therapy with Reiki
This is where my work gets different from what you'll find most places — and it's the heart of what Rainbow Reiki Center offers.
I practice both Reiki and yoga therapy because they do fundamentally different things to the energy body, and when combined, the results go deeper than either modality alone.
Reiki
Reiki clears the energy body. It moves stagnant energy, dissolves blockages, and releases what no longer serves you. Think of it as a deep cleanse of your energetic system…removing the debris, the old patterns, the heaviness that accumulates in your field over time. Reiki creates space.
Yoga Therapy
Yoga therapy reshapes the energy body. Through intentional movement, breath, and practice, yoga therapy changes the actual architecture of how energy moves through you. It builds new pathways, strengthens your capacity to hold and circulate energy, and restructures your relationship with your own body from the inside out.
The Training Behind This Work
I want to be transparent about what sets yoga therapy apart, because the distinction matters for your care.
Yoga Therapy vs. Yoga Teaching
A yoga teacher typically holds a 200-hour certification to begin teaching group and private sessions, with many advanced teachers completing 500 hours of training. That's a solid foundation for leading classes.
Someone offering yoga therapy can be certified by the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) and holds a minimum of 800 hours of specialized study… most completing over 1,000 hours. To put that in perspective, a licensed massage therapist requires 600–650 hours for state accreditation.
This additional training is what allows a yoga therapist to work clinically — to assess, prescribe, and monitor a personalized healing protocol the way a therapist in any other modality would. It is a fundamentally different scope of practice.
That said, many experienced yoga teachers…especially those with additional certifications in areas like trauma-informed yoga, Ayurveda, or prenatal care… do beautiful therapeutic work in private sessions. The key difference with yoga therapy is the long-term, personalized approach to your healing. We're not just addressing why you came in today. We're building a practice that changes how you live.
Yoga therapy is not about becoming more flexible or more calm. It is about getting to know yourself so deeply that healing becomes a way of life… not something you schedule, but something you carry with you.
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Not even a little bit. I hear this one all the time and I want to put it to rest — yoga therapy is not about what your body can do on a mat. It's about what your body needs to heal. I've worked with clients who have never taken a yoga class in their life, clients in wheelchairs, clients post-surgery. We meet your body exactly where it is. If you can breathe, we can work together.
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A yoga class is designed for a group. The teacher creates a sequence and everyone follows it. That's great for a lot of things, but it's not personalized care. Yoga therapy is one-on-one, clinical work. I assess your specific body, your nervous system, your health concerns, and your emotional landscape, and I build a practice designed specifically for you. We work together over time the same way you'd work with any therapist — tracking progress, making adjustments, and going deeper as your body opens up. It's a completely different scope of practice.
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Your first session begins with a thorough intake consultation. I want to know everything — what's going on physically, mentally, emotionally, what your sleep looks like, where you hold stress, what your daily life feels like. From there I develop a personalized wellness plan that might include specific movement sequences, breathwork, meditation, and lifestyle or Ayurvedic recommendations. Follow-up sessions are where the real work happens. We practice together, I observe how your body responds, and I adjust the plan as you progress. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It's built around you.
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This is one of my favorite questions because this is where the magic really happens. Reiki clears your energy body — it moves the stagnation, dissolves the blockages, releases what's been weighing you down. But yoga therapy does something different. Yoga therapy changes the actual shape of your energy body. It builds new pathways for how energy moves through you, restructures your nervous system's patterns, and gives your body the tools to hold and circulate energy differently. Reiki creates the space. Yoga therapy fills that space with something new. When you combine both, you're not just clearing old energy — you're fundamentally transforming how your body processes energy going forward. That's the difference between temporary relief and lasting change.
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Yes. While in-person sessions allow me to observe your body more closely, virtual yoga therapy works beautifully — especially for ongoing clients whose patterns I already know. It also makes this work accessible no matter where you are. We connect over video and I guide you through your personalized practice in real time, making adjustments as I observe your movement and breath. Many of my long-term clients prefer the convenience of virtual sessions and the results speak for themselves.
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Wear whatever lets you move comfortably. This isn't a performance — we're not doing anything that requires special gear. For in-person sessions, I have everything we need. For virtual sessions, all you really need is enough floor space to lie down and a yoga mat if you have one. I may recommend a few props over time — a bolster, a block, a strap — but nothing is required to get started.