Why Yoga Therapy?
Witnessing your child face mental health, behavioural or emotional challenges can be incredibly painful as a parent or carer. Thankfully today there are countless skilled and compassionate people and services who can offer your child therapeutic support. But which type of therapy do you choose? Talking therapies? Play Therapy? Music, Art or Drama Therapy? Or perhaps Yoga Therapy?
It’s a very good question and there’s no one answer. Every child is gloriously unique, so they will each respond to therapy in their own way. I believe each of the above approaches have a huge amount to offer and can bring tremendous benefits to children and young people. So why did I choose to offer Yoga Therapy?
Because I have experienced first-hand the healing power and joy that Yoga brings. I have felt it in my own body, mind and soul.
The beautiful thing about Yoga is that it nourishes every level of our being. No part of us is overlooked. We tend to our minds through mindfulness practices, sensory explorations and visualisations. We tend to our bodies through soothing somatic movement, breathing practices and deep rest. We tend to our souls by coming together to chant and experience pure, present moment awareness. And particularly in Yoga as Therapy, there is time and space to be seen, heard, welcomed and held, exactly as we are.
For children and teenagers, who are so often striving to ‘fit in’ or are expected to conform to rules at school and home, this can be a real gift. Yoga Therapy sessions are always child-led and compassion-focused. Children are given choices so that they learn to listen to their own bodies and minds and build confidence and inner trust. It can be incredibly freeing for a child to know that if they don’t feel like speaking much, or at all, they don’t have to. They don’t have to find the words to have an intense conversation each week. But likewise, if they feel to talk a lot, that is welcome too. If they are feeling tired and need to rest, then that’s exactly what we do. Equally, if they are feeling low and would like to feel uplifted, we can work to bring energy and vitality into the body. Perhaps they don’t have any idea what it is that they want or need, and we can also work with that. There is never any pressure or expectation.
In recent years there has been a growing awareness of how strongly linked our mental and physical wellbeing are. This is something the Yogis have known for thousands of years! In fact in Yoga you could argue that body and mind is one and the same thing – there is no separation. So when I’m working with a child, I am not just listening to what they say to me with their words, I am also listening to their body: the way they hold themselves, the way they are breathing, the places they seem tense, stuck or absent. I then gently find appropriate ways to guide the child to attune back into their own body, so that they begin to understand themselves and their emotions better, to trust in themselves and their intuition.
The inclusion of the body in the therapeutic space is particularly key when it comes to trauma. Recent advances in neuroscience have confirmed that as our minds desperately try to leave trauma behind, our bodies keep us trapped in the past with wordless emotions and feelings. These inner disconnections impact everything from self-esteem to concentration, body image to relationships, and from schoolwork to mood. As a Yoga Therapist I have so many tools and practices to hand – gentle, specialised ways of regulating the nervous system and fostering the return to an awareness of the body that allows children to gain an inner sense of safety again.
What’s really wonderful is that once a child has experienced many of these practices within the Yoga Therapy space, they can practice them at home and as they go through their daily lives. These are practices that they can return to again and again to bring comfort and inner peace. Key to this is our approach in Yoga Therapy that a child is always, already completely whole. Whatever has happened to them, whatever they are going through, however ‘broken’ they might feel, there is never anything to ‘fix’. The work is simply to guide them home to themselves.
Please do get in touch if you’d like any more information. I’m always, always happy to explain more about my work.