Trauma Informed Yoga & Movement Therapy & Holistic Pelvic Care™ in Ōtautahi, Christchurch & Online
Healing begins with befriending your own body.
The mind is like the wind and the body is like sand; if you want to know how the wind is blowing look at the sand.
Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
Yoga Therapy is an embodied approach to therapy that can support you to meet your life's unique unfolding; by offering personalised practices that help you reduce stress, pain and suffering, skilled guidance to learn the intelligence of your body's experiences and responses, whilst helping you to feel more resourced, rested and accepting of where you are now; what you are longing to call forward.
People often ask me what Yoga Therapy is and how it differs from talking therapy, counselling or 1:1 coaching. In some ways a Yoga Therapy session might look like these modalities, however the main difference is the focus on somatic (body centred) awareness, alongside the integration of Yoga frameworks and practices that support health and healing as a multi-layered, full bodied process.
Whilst we are taught that our brain holds the most intelligence and influence over our being,
pain, stress and dis-ease are influenced greatly by what is held in both the conscious and unconscious nature of the body, which speaks it's own vital wisdom. In both Celtic and Yogic belief, it is understood that what happens through our body can be a mirror back to Soul (Atman), our unique expression of life energy. Through my own health challenges and experiences with space holding, I have found this often to be true, which also means that our body can be an ally in our healing, if we can offer it the space to be heard.
By integrating body sensing (mindful awareness), conscious movement and breathing, nervous and hormonal system education that is largely experiential (felt rather than intellectualised), these sessions aim to help reintegrate the body, brain connection, reduce and manage pain and move you towards a greater sense of safety, trust, and soulful authorship over your life.
My main areas of specialty are
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women's health at all stages of life
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pelvic health and healing
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witnessing grief and offering space to honour loss
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creating embodied safety and empowerment with life transitions or creative thresholds
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digestive disorders
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nervous system support and embodied events like anxiety and depression
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recovery from trauma or sustained periods of stress
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support with insomnia and disrupted sleep patterns
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working with sexuality and sexual specific concerns like anorgasmia or vaginismus
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working with the voice for women who have felt silenced
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space for the emotional body to express fully
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wanting to befriend and feel more intimacy with your own body

There are tunnels now in the soil of me,
thin channels of recovery—
a blessed loosening,
a gradual renewal. It’s unhurried, but
I feel the air, the rain,
the life coming in.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Prices & how I work
One to one sessions are $120 and last between 60-75 minutes. Once we settle on a time, it is yours weekly for as long as you would like it.
The time frame we work together really depends on what you are coming for. Developing relationship is part of a healing process which is why I believe in longer term work, however some people prefer a short dose, 3-6 weeks to really centre on one thing.
For those I haven't worked with before, I offer a free connection call to hear about your needs and see if it's we are a good fit. Contact me to arrange this here or direct at ellenaster3@gmail.com.
Sessions are held at SOMA Centre for Somatics and online.