Wellness. What does it mean to you? We live in a World occupied by the idea of wellness, but have you ever felt confused figuring out how to find it for yourself? That was me! and that journey began and continues with Yoga.

There must be over a hundred ways to find and maintain wellness, but my journey brought me to Yoga. In my teens, I suffered a snowboarding accident which resulted in several injuries including a broken wrist, knee damage and a concussion. I have a history of trauma and mood disorders in my family, and as such, my physician was concerned that this accident would take root and control over my mental health. My doctor was right, not only was I dealing with the physical symptoms and pain from my accident, but I also began to struggle with my mood and levels of concentration. I then started to suffer with a common side effects of stress on the body including the onset of several other genetic medical conditions. Given I was struggling with both my mind and my body, at the advice of healthcare providers, I tried Yoga. To be honest, even though the practice was recommended and research was promising, in my first class, I was skeptical. How could stretching help so much? Albeit, being 17 years old, I had a lot left to learn about the body and how it functioned. I also learned, Yoga is far more than stretching.

I was pleasantly shocked at the eventual impact Yoga had on my mood, medical conditions and general recovery from trauma.

There are several beneficial impacts of a regular Yoga practice, including significant physical benefits, but specific to my story is the impact of Yoga generated mindfulness on wellness. Indeed, research and the number of healthcare providers that continue to recommend daily mindfulness practices speaks volumes on the importance of the mind body connection for wellness. Yoga is one route to maintaining a mind body connection and it is the route I found to support accomplishing my wellness goals. I won’t say that my story will separate me from the rest of the wellness practitioners out there and I don’t intend it to. When I sat down to write this, I wondered about sharing my CV with everyone or if it would prove more useful to share the story of how I found yoga on my wellness journey. This is the story that brought me to Yoga. It is an important story, but it isn’t the only thing that keeps me connected to Yoga and desiring to share my practice with others. After years working as a trauma therapist, I continue to see the significant impacts of mindfulness and yoga on the body. Don’t get me wrong - talk therapy can definitely help and there exists a significant body of literature that agrees! But sometimes we need more, sometimes we can’t connect to words. I found yoga was the outlet that allowed this for me and I started Yoga Bliss as a way to share the benefit of this practice with others.

What drives your wellness journey? Whether it is to maintain your health due to the busy-ness of our World or to help promote healing, Yoga Bliss can help!