About

THE OPEN DOOR OF YOGA

FINDING MY HEALING PATH

I had just completed a graduate program in psychobiology followed shortly thereafter by completing another graduate training as a social worker psychotherapist. I felt chronically stressed, anxious, and sometimes even depressed. I really couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong with me. When I first began taking yoga classes at the Ann Arbor Y over 30 years ago, I immediately loved the way I felt when I stretched my body into the alignments of the rigorous Iyengar yoga tradition. Not only did the tension in my body begin to unwind, my mind started to unwind, too.  In fact, the two unwound together.

I began to feel a calm, clear energy that I hadn’t felt recently or as an adult. I experienced this calm, letting go of the tensions of body and mind as a turning point, an awakening. Yoga practice felt to me like “psychotherapy for the body”.

I had a sense that yoga practice was like an open door, calling me to step through it and onto a path that promised freedom and wholeness.

This “open door” of yoga has fulfilled its promise to me- and to many other people, too. Over these last 30+ years, I have learned how yoga is psychotherapy for the body, both for myself and professionally. On a personal level, I experience myself as calmer, more grounded, regulated , and aware than I was before I began the practices of yoga and meditation. With a more stable, focussed baseline of experience, I sense limiting patterns in my own life as they arise, and claim my power to choose to love and nourish my authentic SELF through my practice. Each time I come to my mat, I experience a practice that fulfills yoga’s promise of freedom and wholeness.

At present, whether I am teaching yoga classes, guiding mindfulness hikes, or supporting people through my wellness coaching program, I offer an embodied, practical approach to calm anxiety, regulate the nervous system, and support habit change. I empower clients and students with the skills and practices to tap into their natural , inner capacities for healing and growth, greater awareness and compassion, and a sense of deep connection with all of life.

I hope to support you in finding an “Open Door” in your life, in creating a practice that fits your unique needs and gifts so that you may create your path to greater happiness and wellbeing.