Are you looking for a yoga practice for increasing your awareness and empowering yourself to live more fully? Phoenix Rising Yoga, a process-based therapeutic yoga experience, may be a good fit for you. The practice is done either one-on-one or in a class with a certified practitioner. Through this process, clients have the opportunity to release old traumas, personal beliefs and out-of-date habits and patterns to then move more fully into life with a new perspective.

During one-on-one sessions, practitioner-assisted yoga postures and open-ended, non-directive dialogue is used to touch upon things that may not come up in normal talk therapy. The client is guided thru a physical experience in the present moment and whatever happens in that moment, be it physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual, is then discussed and processed. The connection between what showed up on the mat and how that intertwines with your daily life, thru work, play, family and relationships is explored.

In a class setting, the practitioner guides clients thru a sequence of postures and experiences with individual body and breath. Clients are encouraged, through language, to find their own expression of a posture, not an ideal expression of it. It’s about individual interpretation, not perfection. Eyes are closed to maximize the internal experience. The class typically has a theme and the postures and language support that theme. Connections between daily life and life on the mat are explored during the class.

Many clients that have tried Pheonix Rising Yoga report gaining a new perspective, a powerful experience, and being able to feel deeper into themselves, to feel places and emotions they normally wouldn’t. Classes are taught at Mandala Yoga in Amagansett. Michelle Beebee is a psychotherapist and Phoenix Rising Yoga Teacher in Sag Harbor. (If you are interested in contacting her, email kiley@onehealthyhamptons.com for contact information.)

One Healthy Breakdown: As a social worker turned fitness junkie, I can totally appreciate the power of integrating yoga into therapy. This is BIG, Pheonix Rising is here to stay.