NIMA Yoga Therapy
The Approach
If you can breathe, you can do yoga. Yoga therapy is a personal journey that only requires your willingness. It targets areas of illness, injury and dis-harmony in the mind, body and spirit, using many threads of yoga that don’t require you to touch your toes.
I look at a combination of breath, daily routine, sleep hygiene, stress and the physical body to facilitate change little by little. My job is to listen, assess areas of stresses and strains, and offer tools that work around the area of pain for you to self-heal.
Yoga Therapy pulls up common threads of suffering and joy within us that needs tending. Together, we tilt the light on anxiety, depression, fatigue, stress and dis-ease with the thousand year old practices of yoga. Together, we find a way to be comforted and curious about your unique human experience and how to tend to anything unresolved in your heart with the multifaceted practice of yoga.
Meet Nicole.
Private Yoga Therapy || 500hr RYT
I believe in the power of the body, mind and spirit and their interconnected relationship to heal, support and guide. I’ve been teaching yoga for ten years through North Carolina, Arkansas and Northern Virginia. I love to write poetry, create pockets of feeling by elaborating on the essence of home design, and use yoga as a source of that creativity. My favorite places that bring joy is this one cove by the sea in Cassis, a wild bluebell forrest by a small river in Virginia, and walks to school with my son.
My yoga journey began in 2014, but the search for healing began much earlier. I found healing through writing and poetry, which held space for my mind, while yoga began the connection to my body. I became a mom in 2017 faced with the beauty of new life and postpartum depression. I unraveled with my own yoga therapist in 2018 at the hands of depression, anxiety and debilitating fear. I chose, and continue to choose, to heal with the loving process of yoga and “an essence” greater than myself.
What is Yoga Therapy?
Yoga therapy is a self-empowering process, where the care-seeker, with the help of the Yoga therapist, implements a personalized and evolving Yoga practice, that not only addresses the illness in a multi-dimensional manner, but also aims to alleviate his/her suffering in a progressive, non-invasive and complementary manner. Depending upon the nature of the illness, Yoga therapy can not only be preventative or curative, but also serve a means to manage the illness, or facilitate healing in the person at all levels.
- TKV Desikachar
Yoga therapy is difficult to define, in part because of the breadth and depth of the tradition itself, and because, like Yoga, the discipline can be approached in so many different ways. 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.
-IAYT (International Association of Yoga Therapists)
FAQ
What does a session look like?
Each session is completely individualized and unique for each person. Generally a session consists of:
Going over your intake form
Discussing the area of pain/concern
Assessment with intention to find movements that do NOT cause pain
Work above or below area of pain or, if applicable, build strength to the area
Talk about your goals, ways you’d like to grow, etc.
Who is yoga therapy for?
Yoga therapy is for everyone! Clients range from young adults to senior adults. If you can breathe, you can do yoga. Increasing the quality of the breath will play a major roll in increasing the quality of life. When you learn a new way, you are unlearning an old way. Old patterns and old stories can be replaced with new ones through an environment of learning and self-inquiry. Yoga therapy can serve as compliment self-care to anyone working through:
Physical conditions: Arthritis, Scoliosis, Sacro Illiac joint pain, Cancer, High Blood Pressure, Musculoskeletal issues, autoimmune, pregnancy, etc.
Mental health: Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, etc.
Career and relationship
Stress and fatigue
Anything you consider out of balance for yourself
How is this different than a yoga class or other health practitioners?
A yoga class is geared toward a group setting where the teacher’s main focus is to provide movement and yoga postures within a particular class style.
Yoga is not one size fits all. Yoga therapists are trained to use yoga in a therapeutic setting to alleviate states of “dis”-ease. A yoga therapist aims to meet you where you are and adapt a practice to meet your individual needs. This ensures that each person’s Yoga is their own, rather than striving to replicate someone else’s ideal.
Yoga Therapy encourages an atmosphere of learning and self-inquiry, as opposed to merely offering mechanical techniques. You will leave with tools you can put into practice on your own, feeling self-aware, self-sufficient, and empowered.
How long is a yoga therapy session?
Our session will typically last one hour in person or over Google Meet.
“That even at 77 years old, I can increase my agency over my physical and emotional health. Nicole’s affirmations have motivated me to engage in my practice with energy and enthusiasm.”
— MARLA P., NIMA CLIENT