Join Me on Substack

In anticipation of my upcoming book The Whole Mother: Developing Awareness in Service of Postpartum Healing, I’ve started a substack site where I write about parenting while walking a spiritual path, the lessons and challenges of motherhood, and the postpartum period through the yoga therapy lens. Join me for the conversation: juliaromano.substack.com.

The Yoga Therapy Lens: Seeing Health Through the Pancamayakosha Model

The following pages are a response to the question I'm often asked: "What makes yoga therapy different from other kinds of therapy?" Yoga Therapy views the individual as far more than a physical body, or that fuzzy thing called "the mind." Seeing the individual as the composite of several interrelated parts offers additional entry points for healing, and the complimentary multi-faceted tools of therapeutic yoga offer means for seeking healing where unilateral treatments may fall short.

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The Work of the Light: All Roads Lead — Where Buddhism, and the Yogic Path Intersect

A yogic practice can be informed classical yogic texts, such as Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, as well as other philosophies that also address the construction of the mind, such as Buddhism. Ultimately, both Buddhism and Yoga are both technology more than philosophy.  Just as pencil and pastel may sketch the same landscape, though with different tone and shape, so too do these two mediums offer complementary ways of viewing the same path. Each road leads to the liberation of the self from suffering.

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Between Strength, and Softness: The Power of Exploring the Space in Between

Enjoy this example of a kind of sequence that could be employed in order to help a practitioner experience strength, and ease, and his or her own capacity to move between these two, seemingly disperate states. The experience that we can be simultaneously receptive and strong is one of the most empowering experiences one can have. In strength, there is ease. In ease, there is strength,

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The Work of the Light: Explaining the Benefits of Yoga as Therapy

The Work of the Light: Explaining the Benefits of Yoga as Therapy

Yoga as therapy has tremendous benefits for mind, body and Spirit. From injury of the body, to a wounded mind, yoga heals. The following post is an explination of the benefits of this great practice geared toward a potential yoga therapy client. If you're seeking healing and increased well-being, and wondering about how yoga as therapy might support that process, you'll enjoy this read. 

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The Work of the Light: Meditation, and the Science Behind Why it Works

The Work of the Light: Meditation, and the Science Behind Why it Works

That yoga and meditation “work” to help free us from the suffering-inducing habit patterns of the mind is supported by millennia of qualitative data.  Awesomely, modern science is increasingly able to illuminate the physiological mechanisms behind why yoga works. The following paragraphs look at current research through the lens of my own experience of the power of practicing the Practice.

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Flowers of Odanadi

Flowers of Odanadi

The following is a re-publication of a piece originally published in the 2010 publication Intercept: Johns Hopkins University SAIS Visual Journal of International Relations.  It tells the story of my time volunteering as an art teacher at an anti-trafficking organization, Odanadi Seva Trust in Mysore, India. Funny thing about teaching: you often learn far more than you could ever impart.

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The Work of the Light: Making Yoga Your Business

The Work of the Light: Making Yoga Your Business

The "on the mat" practice of yoga asana is only a conduit for what is ultimately a practice of learning to live a more joyful life. This first posting of "The Work of the Light," my writings around this blessed practice, examines what it means  – as students and teachers – to truly take yoga "off the mat," and make it the business of your daily life.

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