Yoga Therapy for Mental Health
Reconnect to the healer within you
For Upcoming MAD YOGA Events, including Free Peer Support Groups for Neurodivergent Yoga Teachers, Go To The Mad Yoga Page
Yoga Therapy for Mental Health, Bipolar Disorder + Neurodivergence
Open to all. No experience necessary. Innovative education and lifestyle for mood stabilization and behavioral transformation. Private weekly yoga therapy sessions; ayurveda for symptom management; peer support and spiritual counseling; philosophy; special events and much more. 90-day minimum program. No other program of its kind exists.
Conversation October 12, 2024 on Mad Yoga Network page
Restorative Yoga Training Program
Trauma-informed Restorative Yoga, Yoga nidra and meditation training open to all, including yoga teachers and health practitioners. Twelve fundamental Restorative Yoga poses; sequences for Balancing Chakras; Anxiety Relief; Depression Release and more.
12-, 30- and 60-hour trainings online and in person.
Coming Winter 2025
1:1 Yoga Therapy Sessions & Programs
Open to all. No experience necessary. Yoga tailored to your goals. 90-day programs include an educational assessment; weekly private yoga sessions; trauma interventions; spiritual counseling; group classes; ayurveda strategies designed specifically for you and so much more.
This is like coaching, with deep-rest-training at its core. Single sessions, mentorship and continuing education consultations for yoga teachers, too.
Therapeutic Classes & Workshops
Open to all. No experience necessary. Weekly trauma-sensitive restorative yoga classes and monthly workshops. Specialties include yoga for bipolar disorder;' sleep, stress management, anxiety relief, depression release, lymphatic health; Sensory-Enhanced Yoga® for Self-regulation and Trauma Recovery; Yoga for Cardiac and Cancer Survivors and more.
“She is a true healer.”
— Nancy Walker, Director of The Wellness Kitchen, Templeton, CA
"You made me feel safe..."
— Lori O'Toole, Retired Corrections Officer, Los Osos, California
"I slept for ten hours after class last night and needed less medication to sleep!!”
— M.K., Sydney, Australia
“I felt the effects of a single class for two weeks.”
— C. Portin, Atascadero, California
“Brooke is a master… and has a way to make everyone comfortable... She makes restorative yoga extremely accessible... What I learned gave me lifelong tools.”
— J. Dubin, San Luis Obispo, California
“Brooke is a mystic who inspires people to look within themselves. She leads people to a higher state of consciousness.”
— J. G. van Buerden, Los Osos, California
Hi! I'm Brooke.
Clients describe working with me as "life-saving," "magic," "shamanic," "nurturing," and "transformational." My work is based on my own life experience. My approach is sensitive, casual, serious, compassionate, bright, fun, gentle and relaxed.
Click here for more about me. I hope to support your healing journey in any way I can.
I am a certified Yoga Therapist and meditation teacher. I work one on one and in small groups with people seeking recovery from traumatic stress, spiritual emergency, anxiety, depression and transformational crises. I have lived experience of all these, qualifying me to offer peer support, expert mentorship and unconventional mental health education.
Some of my training includes:
International Association of Yoga Therapists-Certified Ananda Yoga® Therapist
Ananda Yoga® Instructor, 2005
Ananda Restorative Yoga Instructor, 2006
Ananda Meditation™ Instructor, 2006
Yoga of the Heart® Instructor for cardiac and cancer patients, 2006
Certified Level Two Warriors At Ease® Advanced Teacher: Teaching Trauma-Sensitive Yoga and Meditation in Military Communities, 2015
Registered Yoga Alliance® E-RYT Yoga Teacher and Yoga Alliance® Continuing Education Provider
A bit of my story:
I was introduced to Hatha Yoga as a child. I began an earnest practice of Bikram Yoga in 2002. I have studied and practiced Raja Yoga since 2005. In 2013, I was initiated in the Kriya Yoga meditation tradition of Paramahansa Yogananda. I practice Yoga and meditate daily.
I hold a Bachelor of Science degree in Ornamental Horticulture from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. I have studied ayurveda and herbalism, homeopathy and astrology. I have been privileged to travel extensively. I currently live on unceded Washoe land, colonized as Lake Tahoe, California.
I harness Divine energy to accomplish my highest potential through Yoga.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. My sisters and my friends and I grew up in a privileged community in Hollywood. Most of our parents were a part of the entertainment or fashion industries: creative, educated and driven.
Traumatic stress and spiritual emergence during college, in 1995, changed my life. At the time, I did not know about spiritual emergence, psychiatric institutions or protocol, symptoms, standards of care or self-advocacy. My father, my aunt and my older sister, D’Arcy, all lived with addiction and distress, untreated or mistreated because of stigma and misunderstanding.
All her life, my dear and brilliant sister suffered with cyclical depressions, social problems and substance abuse issues that began in her teens, plus financial issues and low self-worth. She continued to suffer in her own way until her suicide in 1999, by way of a drug overdose, at the age of 30.
~~~~~
Two years after D’Arcy’s crushing death, grace brought me to the Yoga mat and to Al-Anon, a 12-Step Recovery program for friends and families affected by the diseases of alcoholism and addiction.
I enjoy greater self-awareness because of these practices. I became better able to self-regulate emotions and behaviors. I can better self-advocate – especially important while negotiating treatments that would be best for me.
These secondary benefits of my Yoga and recovery practice – self-awareness, self-regulation, self-advocacy – were key for me to find and begin to trust relationships, the medical community and a lifestyle that worked for me in a synergistic way. I overcome the traumas navigating life on a daily basis.
I have become an expert at integrating social ignorance, fear, shame, stigma, labeling and trauma; transforming the disenfranchisement of involuntary institutionalization and medication, corruption, bullying and the public health care system. I have discovered how to transmute a questionable standard of care into something enormously purposeful for myself and in service to others.
I now thrive as a leader, teacher and psychiatric survivor, having nearly arrested what has been called a chronic, progressive and potentially deadly disorder.
I live a radically different life today; a wholesome, empowered, modern life based on universal, spiritual principles. Yoga has slowed and reversed significant personal health challenges for me, including the aging process. I have built and maintained strength, flexibility and balance. Mindfulness is my compass every step of the way. I have improved my heart-rate variability. I am able to rest my mind and relax my body now, at will. I have learned to control my weight, compulsive and self-destructive behaviors and troubling thoughts through the practices of Yoga.
I found a community through Yoga. I am part of an international movement. I experience a healthy sense of self-identity and the joy that comes with selfless service. I enjoy the serenity of living a rich, structured, faith-based, non-conformist, spiritual life. The satisfaction of being an educator, advocate and activist for survivors of trauma has reframed my recovery experience.
~~~~~
My Yoga teachers saw a spark in me and encouraged me to attend a Yoga Teacher Training. I chose The Expanding Light at Ananda for a month-long immersion in ashram life. I was 33. I have not been hospitalized since.
I surprised myself by becoming a talented and well-liked Yoga instructor, and returned to Ananda Village the following year for a summer-long residential stay and more training at The Expanding Light.
I had not set out to become a Yoga therapist, nor a meditation teacher, researcher or activist.
I expected that, in Yoga Teacher Training, I would learn why Yoga brought my anxiety and depressive symptoms toward balance. While evidence was not immediately available, a Yoga therapy and research tide was building.
I encourage engaged conversation. The connection of talking about the metamorphosis that I experience helps me to interact with life in a new, illuminated way. Through the models of Yoga and 12-Step Recovery, I live the experience of recovery and know the potential of this path for recovery for people like me and, more profoundly, like my sister, who seemed to struggle under every circumstance, despite intelligence, talent and beauty and despite access to the best medical care in our society.
In refining my own life-management skills, I have shattered deep isolation, denial, shame, and fear. I use my curiosity and my courage to stand up for myself in the face of injustice.
My paradigm has shifted. I have been granted powerful, incremental and safe transformation. I am gifted to share this learning with others.
Self-exploration, my attitude of willingness and the peace that I have found in service has stretched, strengthened and balanced me. Yoga-based practices have enhanced the quality of my life and empowered myself and my community in ways that I could not have predicted. I hope this for you, and dedicate my life in service to your hope, health and healing.
FREE RESOURCES
If you are in crisis, please seek local support. The Wildflower Alliance is a grassroots Peer Support, Advocacy, and Training organization with a focus on harm reduction and human rights. Online and phone supports can be accessed here.
The Sashbear Foundation empowers family members and communities with life transforming skills and hope through workshops and evidence-based programs at no charge. Access their education series here.
Brooke in August 2023 at Yoga with Avery's Ghost Ranch Retreat, Abuiqui, New Mexico.
I study, practice and teach a method of Self-realization called Kriya Yoga, which originates from a culture other than my own.
I instruct, mentor and counsel, in service, with an awareness of the responsibility and complexities of modern culture, of colonization and of the commodification of Yoga.
As a white, queer, non-binary, disabled person with class and education privilege, I am committed to learning how to teach more accessibly, with sensitivity.
The active practice and performance of a complete Yoga philosophy, beyond physical exercise, is taught to inspire peace, including racial and social equity.
Yoga Is Dead Podcast is a great starting point for more information on the cultural appropriation of Yoga.
May Yoga bring you health and happiness.
Brooke