YOGA TO MEET PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE AT.
TRAUMA INFORMED YOGA SERVICES THAT PRIORITIZE INCLUSIVITY AND ACCESSIBILITY FOR TREATMENT CENTERS, REHABILITATION FACILITIES, AND CORPORATE WELLNESS IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
WHAT IS TRAUMA INFORMED YOGA?
At its core, trauma-informed yoga is a practice designed to help individuals strengthen the connection between mind and body, promoting nervous system regulation and restoring inner balance. What sets trauma-informed yoga apart is its unique methodology, which integrates mindfulness, gentle movement, breathwork, and the creation of a safe, supportive environment. This approach emphasizes consciousness and groundedness in its teachers, ensuring that each individual is seen, heard, and met with compassion. It requires instructors to offer a practice that is tailored and responsive to the specific needs of each student.
Trauma-informed yoga also emphasizes the importance of empowerment, allowing students to regain agency over their bodies and minds. It encourages individuals to explore their boundaries at their own pace, fostering trust and safety within themselves. By cultivating a non-judgmental space, this practice allows participants to approach healing in a way that feels both gentle and effective, supporting not just physical recovery but emotional and psychological healing as well.
Services
We believe yoga should be accessible and inclusive for everyone and recognize that yoga on a mat in workout clothes isn’t always feasible especially for beginners. Many people, whether it is in the office or in outpatient, are not prepared to roll out yoga mats and get down on the floor which is why we’ve developed special programs to help clients ease into the physical practice of yoga once they've begun to reconnect to the body and become curious about how yoga could be a tool for brining peace back into their lives.
Group Sessions
Reliant offers group programming tailored to the specific needs and setting of each group. No mat? No problem! We can bring yoga tools into any space, including outdoor settings, as long as it’s reasonably quiet and there are comfortable places for everyone to sit, such as chairs. If the group prefers, we can begin with breathwork, meditation, and educational elements, with the physical aspect of yoga gradually introduced as participants become more comfortable.
Private One on One Sessions
One on one sessions with trauma informed yoga teachers/therapists offer a more in depth exploration of yoga in a private studio. In these sessions, clients learn all about their physiology and how stress/trauma effects the brain and nervous system. Most importantly in one on one sessions we develop a customized practice plan consisting of an approachable physical practice, breath work and yogic tools to use every day.
Office Wellness Breaks
We specialize in offering a space to help providers also take care of their nervous systems. We are willing to travel to help you create a mini retreat to promote office wellness. Compassion fatigue and burnout is a real issue and sometimes having that dedicated time set aside to focus on your breath and connection to your body can make all the difference.
METHODOLOGY
PEACE IS ON THE WAY.
When someone chooses therapy, treatment, or self-inquiry, it's often guided by an inner wisdom leading them to that decision. Reliant Yoga Services helps people reconnect with that wisdom by embracing all parts of themselves, turning healing into growing from trauma's impact on the nervous system. We are huge advocates for 'post traumatic growth' and try to focus on the incredible strength, wisdom and compassion that has an opportunity to come forth.
Through Yoga and meditation, we support the union of mind, body, and spirit, helping clients rebuild trust in their ability to rely on themselves.
Our instructors use yogic and somatic practices to promote self-reliance, guiding clients to befriend themselves and utilize the body as a tool for self-regulation.
CALM BODY CALM MIND
Trauma Informed Yoga focuses on the depth of connection between one’s mind and body. The first step in making this connection is developing awareness of how aligned or disconnected we might feel from our bodies through the use of somatic exercises.
As we utilize this approach, we encourage curiosity, acceptance and most importantly, moving from a non-judgemental space of compassion. Oftentimes as the nervous system begins to re-regulate there is a sense of shame around how 'numb' or cut off we may have felt when this has always just been a way in which the nervous system protects us. Our approach emphasizes a gentle 'return home' as we explore topics like self reliance, self acceptance, embodiment and trust.
By connecting more to our physical bodies, we can better release our emotions and allow them to move through rather than hijack us. Mastery of emotions after all is just being able to hold space for whatever we are feeling and let it go, one breath at a time.
As we begin to notice where we are in the present moment, we can cultivate a friendliness and curiosity that allows us to explore all parts of who we are and help us feel at home again with ourselves.
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MASTERY OF EMOTIONS IS BEING ABLE TO ALLOW EMOTIONS TO MOVE THROUGH THE BODY AND NOT GET STUCK.
STAFF
Elise has taught yoga for the past 13 years and considers yoga to be what has made her who she is today. In 2012, she completed her 200 RYT in Shambhava Yoga at Shoshoni ashram outside of Boulder. During her transformational stay at the ashram, Elise developed a deep desire to uncover more about the roots of Yoga which led her to finish her degree in Religious Studies with a focus on eastern traditions from VCU in 2015. While at VCU she founded a Mindfulness and Meditation student organization and explored all different types of meditation and yoga. In 2019 she completed her 500 RYT at Beloved Yoga in Reston, Virginia and dove deeply into how yoga can be utilized as a therapeutic modality.
She has always wanted to find a middle path with yoga- one that is both accessible and transformative. She has a background in Yogic philosophy, Transcendental Meditation (TM), Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and has received a Trauma Informed Yoga certification along with her RPYT Prenatal Yoga Teacher certification. She has a 9 year old son who is her greatest teacher, and apart from teaching yoga is a Hypnobabies™ certified hypno-birth doula and artist always looking for ways to be of service to others.
OUR CLIENTS
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Reliant Yoga Services proudly partners with Odyssey’s Outpatient Network and Eating Disorder Network at Pasadena Villa Outpatient Treatment Center and Aster Springs Eating Disorder Treatment Centers in the Greater Richmond Area.
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Are you an outpatient facility, rehabilitation center, or people-oriented organization looking to connect with compassionate yoga teachers on a mission to help individuals recover from traumatic life events?
Please email us at reliantyogaservices@gmail.com to schedule a discovery call.
