When Practice Brings Up the Past
Practising yoga, pranayama, and meditation is deeply healing, but it can also act as a mirror that brings hidden emotional pain to the surface. When we slow down, breathe deeply, and quiet the chaotic mind, the emotional walls we have built over a lifetime often begin to soften.
This profound stillness can cause suppressed feelings, painful memories, and stored trauma to suddenly rise into our awareness. You might find yourself crying on your yoga mat, feeling unexpected spikes of anxiety after breathwork, or confronting repetitive mental loops that you cannot seem to out-meditate.
Seeking specialized psychotherapy during this process is a courageous step. It provides a safe, grounded container to help you process, understand, and integrate these intense emotional experiences without feeling overwhelmed or losing your footing.
These moments should not be seen as failures of your spirituality, but as invitations to heal. In my work, I draw on the brilliant blueprints of yoga psychology and the somatic wisdom of Kundalini Yoga to help you navigate what is arising, so you can move from raw discomfort into lasting transformation.
My Approach: Psychotherapy That Takes Yoga Psychology Into Account
I am a psychotherapist, not a yoga teacher, and I do not teach yoga or lead practice in our sessions. What I offer is psychotherapy that takes yoga psychology into account, so the language of your practice is understood rather than explained away.
Traditional talk therapy often focuses on talking through problems. That has real value, but it can fall short when you are working through deep energetic, somatic, or spiritual shifts. As a registered psychotherapist and trained multifaith chaplain, I bring modern clinical psychotherapy together with Eastern philosophy, built on two pillars.
- Spiritually integrated psychotherapy: I welcome your spiritual beliefs, frameworks, and personal practices into our sessions. Your worldview is a strength we draw on, and it is treated as a powerful source of healing. You can read more about spiritually integrated psychotherapy.
- Somatic Experiencing®: Emotional release is physical, so we use body awareness to track and release stress and trauma held in your nervous system, at a pace your system can manage. Learn more about Somatic Experiencing®.
This blend is what makes yoga psychology informed psychotherapy different from talk therapy alone. It speaks your language and honours your whole system.
The Foundations of Yoga Psychology: How Your Mind Operates
The Three Gunas: Recognizing Your Mental States
The Five Kleshas: Uncovering the Roots of Suffering
The Four Layers of the Mind: How You Process Stress
Breaking the Cycle of Samskaras
Integrating the Kundalini Experience: Grounding Your Kundalini Awakening
If your personal practice includes Kundalini or intensive energy work, you know how powerful, and sometimes disorienting, the results can be. Kundalini awakening symptoms vary from person to person, and many people describe a tight chest, a knot in the stomach, waves of anxiety, or strong emotion that seems to come from nowhere. While I do not facilitate Kundalini exercises or interventions in our sessions, therapy provides the vital psychological anchor you need to process the intense somatic and energetic shifts triggered by your practice. If you are also noticing physical symptoms, it is wise to see your doctor as well.
The Chakra System: Where Emotion Lives in the Body
Unresolved trauma, unexpressed grief, and unvoiced truths can pool in the body's energy centres. A tight chest or a knot in the stomach during your personal practice often points to an energetic block. In therapy, we translate these raw physical sensations into psychological insights, helping you safely unpack the emotional material your body is releasing.
The Ten Bodies Framework: Your Mind, Body, and Energy
When intensive practices trigger shifts across your mental, physical, and energetic fields, it can feel like your worldview is fracturing. I offer a supportive space that respects this holistic framework, helping you ground your experiences so your protective, expansive, and physical selves feel unified rather than fragmented.
Somatic Kriyas and Practices: Settling Your Nervous System
Powerful sequences of movement, breath, and sound are designed to shatter old defences, which can sometimes leave your nervous system feeling raw or hypersensitive. Therapy acts as a cooling, stabilizing counterweight: a place to slow down, anchor your nervous system, and integrate the intense energy generated on your mat.
Awakening Your Inner Potential: Integrating a Spiritual Awakening Safely
As your personal practice unlocks dormant vitality and potential, the psychological adjustment can be intense. We work together to ensure your growth feels stable, safe, and deeply rooted in everyday reality, turning what once felt like overwhelming emotional discomfort into a structured path toward personal empowerment.
Who Yoga Psychology Informed Psychotherapy Is For
This integrative approach is designed for people whose spiritual practice has opened something that needs professional support.
- Yoga practitioners and teachers who are going through an emotional purge or burnout and want a therapist who understands the psychology behind their practice.
- Meditators and breathwork enthusiasts who are facing painful childhood memories or intense anxiety brought up by stillness.
- People in a spiritual awakening or spiritual emergence, including a kundalini awakening, who feel disconnected from conventional mental health models and want a therapist who honours Eastern metaphysics.
- Anyone seeking deeper healing who wants to move beyond managing symptoms and address the root psychological and somatic causes of their suffering.
I work with individuals, in person in Peterborough and online across Ontario.
Yoga Psychology and Kundalini Informed Psychotherapy FAQs
Yoga psychology is the psychological framework within yoga philosophy. It describes how the mind works through ideas such as the gunas, kleshas, and samskaras. I draw on it alongside clinical psychotherapy to help you understand what is arising for you.
It means I understand the somatic and energetic shifts that can follow intensive practice, and I help you ground them psychologically. I do not facilitate Kundalini exercises or kriyas in sessions.
No. I am a psychotherapist, not a yoga teacher. I do not teach yoga or prescribe Kundalini exercises. I take the psychology of yoga into account so I can support you with what your practice brings up.
In yoga traditions, a kundalini awakening is described as life-force energy rising through the body, often after intensive practice. Some traditions describe it in stages, and people experience it very differently. It can feel exhilarating, disorienting, or both. I do not guide the awakening itself. I help you ground and make sense of it.
People describe physical tension in the chest or stomach, spikes of anxiety, strong emotion, and repetitive thoughts. These can have other causes, so please see your doctor about any physical symptoms. In therapy, I help you understand and settle the emotional and nervous system side of what you are experiencing.
Slowing down and breathing deeply can soften emotional defences, so stored feelings and memories may surface. Many practitioners experience this, and it does not mean you are doing something wrong. Therapy can help you make sense of it and settle your nervous system.
That is a conversation we have together, and many people continue at a gentler pace. My focus is on helping you ground and make sense of what comes up, rather than directing your practice.
A spiritual awakening, also called spiritual emergence, is a period of rapid inner change that can follow practices such as yoga, meditation, and breathwork. It can feel disorienting, and therapy can support you through it. If you feel unsafe or are thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 in Canada, or go to your nearest emergency department.
No. This is an interfaith space open to people from any tradition or none. You do not need a yoga practice, a particular belief, or one path to book a session.
Yes. I meet with clients in person in Peterborough and online across Ontario through a secure video platform.
Ready to Make Sense of What Your Practice Is Showing You?
Reach out to book a session, in person in Peterborough or online across Ontario.
