234 How To Make Yoga Accessible For All: Interview With Jivana Heyman

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That every client feels welcome and empowered in the practice. Joining the podcast is Jina Haman, founder and director of Accessible Yoga. He brings in many variations and walks you through a seated sun salutation. Tune in to discover how to break down barriers and bring the benefits of yoga. To everyone.

Let's get started on today's episode of Yoga in the Therapy Room Podcast.

Ethically. So whether you're here to expand your skills, enhance your self-care, or both, you are in the right place. Join me on this journey to help you be one step closer to bringing Yoga into your therapy room. Welcome back to Yoga In the Therapy Room podcast, the non-traditional therapist guide to integrating yoga into your therapy practice.

Yoga has the power to heal. Regulate the nervous system and create a deep sense of connection to ourselves, to others, and to our spirit, but only if it's truly accessible to everyone. In today's episode, we're going deep into what it means to make yoga inclusive for all bodies, abilities and backgrounds.

His books include accessible yoga poses and practices for everybody. He offers classes and trainings to support yoga teachers and yoga therapists, and finding ways to bring creativity and collaboration into their teaching while still respecting the ancient yoga traditions. Welcome to the Yoga in the Therapy Room podcast.

Ivana, can you share how you first discovered yoga?

And so I. I'm an AIDS activist and kind of stumbled back into yoga just to care for myself as I was dealing with so much grief and anger and you know, just the devastation of the time. So yoga really saved me. And then I started teaching yoga just 'cause I wanted to share it with my community of people with HIV and aids.

That's how, that's how my work started and how accessible yoga started.

Chris McDonald: So, so what is accessible yoga? What does that mean to you?

Jivana Heyman: It really, for me, it was just the effort to share yoga with my community and, and people who I felt weren't given access to what was happening, especially in the, like in the nineties.

And also it's a nod to the disability community that uses that concept of accessibility. And then my other goal with accessible yoga is to give people access to the fullness of the practice, you know, which sometimes oddly isn't shared. You know, yoga has a very powerful and like deep spiritual background, and I feel like sometimes that part is kind of just like.

Ignored. Um, and we focus just on the physical poses, which are great too, but I just feel like there's this, it's great to give, to find ways to make these practices interesting and available to people where they're at, you know? And so that's a lot of the work we do.

Chris McDonald: And I love in your book too Accessible Yoga, how there's so many different variations of hoses.

Jivana Heyman: Yeah. I think that is definitely a problem that we perceive yoga as this thing that a lot of people think they can't do it because like, oh, I could never do that, that post.

Exactly. I couldn't do that. I can't stand in my head or, you know, whatever. I can't do that. So I can't do yoga. And that's just not true. I mean, yoga, well, as I mentioned, is a spiritual practice that's really focused on working with our minds. So it connects, I think with therapy in that way. It's really, in fact, yoga philosophy is really about that kind of inward focus.

How do we work with the nervous system and the mind to try to get some, I don't know, like peace of mind or relaxation, how to work with that through these physical practices mostly, but also with the breath and meditation, of course. And so the poses themselves. Are offered as tools for that goal. And so I think if we start to perceive the poses in the context of the larger goals of yoga, they make a lot more sense.

Chris McDonald: So what's, what's it about?

Jivana Heyman: Well, it's about this inner connection and make, making a spiritual connection by. Working with the nervous system and the mind through the body. So it's like, you know, I think what's hard to understand from the Western perspective is that yoga comes from, has a different view of the body as an integrated whole.

And so when you work on the body and yoga with physical poses, you're automatically working with the nervous system, with the mind, and even with spirit, it's not, it's not like a separate thing. Do you know what I mean?

Chris McDonald: Oh, yeah.

Jivana Heyman: You know what I mean? It's it's harder

Chris McDonald: for, yeah, it's harder for, I think this, this society to be able to think of it that way.

'cause everything in the medical model's so separate.

Jivana Heyman: Exactly. And so that's not the medical model. And, and emotions of course, too are right in there. Yeah. So you, with the body, you're working with emotions. It's not a separate thing. You're working with energy prana, you're working with mind, and whatever's going on in your mind is automatically part of that.

And actually, I like to say that you can think of Asana. Rather than as a static pose, like headstand or, or tree pose or Cobra, whatever it is, it's, I like to talk about it as a spectrum of possibility. Ooh. I like that each pose exists on a spectrum all the way from the most subtle, which would be a mental experience of the pose not moving the body at all.

You can think that's like one end of the spectrum where it's like visualizing it in your head and then. Very subtle all the way to whatever you might imagine being the quote, advanced physical form might be. And there's literally endless possibilities along that spectrum, and none are any better or worse than the other.

There's different levels of benefit that it can occur from each practice.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, exactly. Can you talk about, I know like tree pose in your book, there's so many different. Ways to do it, variation that spectrum of possibilities. Can you just talk with listeners maybe about one of those poses, like tree pose, like, 'cause pe, most people think you have to do it standing and there's only one way.

What, what are some other variations?

Jivana Heyman: Yeah. Well, again, like to think that you have to do it standing, that's the problem because I, I think that means it's a misunderstanding of what yoga is, right? Yes. Yoga is a spiritual practice. It starts with this idea that we're all whole and that we're just trying to remind ourselves how to get back to that.

By focusing on different things, like you could do a version of tree pose where you're sitting in a chair. I have one. My new, my newest book was the Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga, and there's a picture of me on the cover doing a version of tree pose where I'm sitting with one leg out to the side.

So there's this opening in my hips and uh, then I have a block. A soft block balanced on my head to create the experience, the sensation of balance, which is quite powerful. When you put something on your head, you balance it there and you can say, you can still bring in the element of balance even though you're seated.

So I guess that's what I mean is like if the be, if the focus that you have on that for practicing that pose is to get better at balance. Then you can bring balance into a chair version. You can even bring balance into a reclined bed version if you wanted to, and be really creative. You could probably balance something in bed or lie on your side in bed and try to balance on your side.

Chris McDonald: Oh, I love it.

Jivana Heyman: 30 years I've been, I've been teaching 30 years now, so that's pretty incredible.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, because I, I, somebody had taught me, I think it might've been Eddie Dester said, laying down and doing tree. I never even thought of that. You can just lay down and bring your foot up and make your own tree.

Jivana Heyman: Totally.

Chris McDonald: Yeah.

Jivana Heyman: I suggest if people do standing purposes on the mat lying down like that, you can also think of the wall as a floor, so you could.

Lie down and have your foot against a wall or against a block, and that, that pressure is so nice, you know, to kind of ground into the foot. Yeah. Um, and then feel like, well, well, part of what happens is you're changing your orientation to gravity. And so the pose is different. It's not the same. I'm not sure saying it's the same thing.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, exactly. The spectrum of possibilities. Yes.

Jivana Heyman: You like that phrase?

Chris McDonald: Yeah. No, I think that can really help therapists listening who may not have this, these ideas of different postures. 'cause many people listening don't have. Like a 200 hour yoga training. So some have had some training or they've learned from the podcast some things to do.

So this could open their spectrum of possibility. Yeah, I think for sessions,

Jivana Heyman: and I say, I mean, of course I'd love for people to get my books and to, to, yeah, buy them and see them. But the other place that I offer a lot of free. Content is on Instagram and Facebook. So I have tons of reels with free asana variations.

So, you know, the benefit of yoga comes a lot of just from. The inner focus that can happen when you, when you're working physically just being in the body. So through embodiment. Uh, and that really is supported by yoga's focus on the breath. So when you bring the breath into it and you move with your breath, it really helps to focus the mind and bring it back, you know, from wherever it might be, brings it back into the body.

And that's really the goal, right? To be present, bring your mind back into the body, being conscious of what's going on. And so whatever variation you're doing. I think the way to make some movement yoga is by bringing the mind there through your attention. So focusing on the breath, like I said, or just focusing on focusing on sensation, like how do you feel right now?

Does that help?

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Yeah. Say that again. So mental focused for it to become yoga? Yeah,

Jivana Heyman: because I mean, sometimes what happens is when you create adaptive forms of poses, they don't necessarily look like the poses that we know. And so people say, well, have you lost the yoga? Maybe you might have, but yoga's an internal experience that has to do with bringing the mind there.

And so as long as you're bringing the mind. You're doing yoga and the mind is focused in some way. In fact, I think that you can't really look at someone and tell if they're doing yoga or not from the outside.

Chris McDonald: Okay. Because it's an

Jivana Heyman: internal. Yeah. So like someone, if you look on Instagram or whatever and you see someone doing these fancy poses, what's the difference between that and exercising?

Chris McDonald: Yeah, and I think that interceptive awareness, just bringing clients back in session.

So where do you notice the sensation? What's coming up for you.

Jivana Heyman: In fact, I say that's what we're trying to do in yoga. We're trying to help people build that interceptive awareness because in fact, I wouldn't even go as far as to say that that is the definition of an experienced practitioner in yoga is they have increased their interceptive awareness.

'cause what is it that you're really trying to do in yoga? You're not trying to get perfect health. That's really never gonna happen. You're eventually gonna get sick or die. So really what we're trying to do is just. Become more conscious, become more sensitive, you know? So I think it's very much aligned with therapy, from my understanding.

Chris McDonald: So it sounds like the mind body, spirit integration, which aligns perfectly with holistic therapy, which a lot of therapists listening are more holistic in their direction and therapy.

There isn't a separate. It's not like the mind is separate from the body the way we might perceive in the west, you know? So the yogis, how that kosha model, it's called the poncho May Kosha, I dunno if you're familiar with Koha? Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. So, you know, the Kosha model is really essential to understanding the way yoga works, which is that it's all everywhere.

Like our mind, our emotions, our energy, our spirit, it's all like layers. There. And so there is no, there is no separation. So even though we might perceive there as being one, it's not really true. What the yogis were focused on though is what was the distinction between mind and body, what they perceived as being temporary and spirit, which they said was permanent.

And that's what Patanjali is saying that we need to be doing in yoga is stop identifying with the temporary and shift identification to the permit.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I've never heard it quite that way. But yeah,

Jivana Heyman: I mean it's, it's actually a little weird to think about that way 'cause we always think of yoga as uniting

Chris McDonald: things.

Yeah, for sure. To ylk.

Jivana Heyman: Yeah. But it's kind of the opposite. It's actually trying to yolk to that permanent part

Chris McDonald: to the permanent

Jivana Heyman: identify with the permanent and the, and yoga is, the yoga Su is of Patan. He uses the word perusha for spirit and he says that's. You know, that's our essential nature that we all are have already.

That's just who we are. Like the one who's perceiving consciousness right within us. And then you have Prakriti, which is the body, mind, everything that's part of the natural world and everything that changes. Basically Yoga's says that our suffering is the result of identifying with the temporary body mind.

Yes. Instead of with the permanent spirit.

Jivana Heyman: Yeah. No, I love that part because I just feel like, I don't know, sometimes when you take practices out of context, they lose something. You know what I mean? I mean, for

Chris McDonald: sure. Can you talk about props with accessible yoga and how can props help make it more accessible for clients and sessions?

Jivana Heyman: I mean, a big part of adapting practices as I. Mentioned before is finding safe and effective variations. And so props are essential in doing that. Like you have to use, uh, the things around you, you know, to support the body. Um, it could be a chair, which is a really useful prop because there are so many of them everywhere.

I mean, chair, chair yoga is one of my favorites just because we spend so much time in chairs. Um, so I feel like being able to practice in a chair just makes the practice more available,

Chris McDonald: and I think that's most accessible for therapists who are already in the chair to

Jivana Heyman: start. Exactly.

Chris McDonald: So we can just go right there.

They might not be able to get on the floor or want to get on the floor and be able to practice in a chair just. It's really a game changer. Actually. I really like couch yoga. That could be a therapy thing too, because Ooh,

Chris McDonald: talk about

Jivana Heyman: that. That's my new passion. Well, because I find in my private sessions that the chair is limited in that it's really just an upright plane, and so it's a lot of yoga.

Maybe just with hugging the knees or windshield wiper for the legs, or elevating the feet on a few pillows. Just so they're slightly higher than the body, which is very calming. Or just finding a comfortable position for Shavasana reclined, because Shavasana is quite challenging in a chair, you know? Yeah.

It's hard to relax. Yeah, exactly. So that, that's a great combo. I think Chair and couch. Um, I often teach bed yoga, but you know, it's, it's not usually comfortable to work with people in a bed. It's just too intimate a setting. So obviously the couch is way more available for people, and of course, you know.

The couch. You think about it, it's really an elevated floor. It's very similar to the being flat on the ground.

Chris McDonald: True.

Jivana Heyman: And it's softer.

Chris McDonald: I, I appreciate you saying that. 'cause for me, I have back issues. Shavasana on my back on the floor is so uncomfortable and it hurts my back. Yeah. So much. So I wanna try that recline.

I wanna get in my recliner and try some. Yeah,

I keep looking Exactly. I have a couch right there. You could on the mat, you could also do an incline Shavasana, if you ever tried that, where you take a bolster and Oh

Chris McDonald: yeah.

Jivana Heyman: And kind of, you know, sitting up slightly. But you can do that similar shape in the couch. I would just say if you're doing couch and chair, just always notice.

The spine and like the, the curves of the spine and make sure that you're working on lengthening the spine. Like that's one of them kind of general goals of Asana practice is to work on lengthening and creating space. And the same thing would apply in the chair or in the couch as well. So, yeah, see how that goes.

And I, and your question about props, I mean, it's really great. There's. There's a lot of yoga specific props like bolsters and blocks and straps and blankets. But I think a lot of the items we have around the house can be used in a similar way, you know? So you could use any kind of belt or scarf instead of a strap.

Chris McDonald: nice, but yeah, exactly. So I think being adaptable with that. And if you see clients on telehealth, 'cause we can do yoga on telehealth.

I think a lot of therapists be like, we, we can't do it, but it's possible to do it.

Jivana Heyman: Oh, I teach online all the time. Exactly.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. But just asking, sometimes what I do is I text a client, be like, Hey, can you have your bolster or a couch pillow ready for our session so they don't have to go search for it?

And

Jivana Heyman: that's true. Take that time. That's really helpful. Yeah. What's great about that actually is that people often can relax more in their own space. And so there's, that's true. Tremendous benefit of practicing yoga online. Um, sometimes being in a public space with other people you don't know with strangers can, it can be hard to settle.

Like is this making this practice safer, more effective? Is it supporting the person more? And often what props are doing, I don't wanna like blow your mind, but you're basically raising the floor to the body. Yes. You already knew that one. Okay.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, it's good. It can take

Jivana Heyman: a while to think about that. It does.

Because if, yeah, because the props are basically supporting those spaces under the body that we need to, you know, rather than kind of just be hanging there right. In the space. There's another reason to use props though, which is to create resistance and sometimes surprises people. But one of the things that happens when you take a, when you take asanas off of a yoga mat, well think about it first, that you know most people when you're practicing yoga on the.

Like there might be massage, um, like in Cobra pose, if you have your belly against the floor and you're lifting up, you have a massage on your belly, you're pushing away the earth. That's a resistance of the floors, allowing you to lift up. By pressing into it, you have something to press against. Now, when you move into a chair to do yoga, or even on a couch or a bed, you sometimes don't have that resistance anymore, and especially like a soft surface, like a couch, more challenging to practice because there's a lack of resistance.

So you have to find a way to use props too. Bring that resistance back. I mean, I could show you if you want.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, go ahead.

Jivana Heyman: You want me to? Okay. Maybe I'll get, I'm gonna get my bolster. If you have a bolster. This is an example of Cobra. I was just talking about, you know, Cobra on the, yeah. On the ground. Do y'all know Cobra pose, right?

So I have, you can see I have a bolster on my lap and I have my hand on top of it.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, we can see you.

Jivana Heyman: And then leaning forward, I'm gonna lie over it, so I'm getting some of my, that pressure of the, my belly against the bolster, just like it would on the mat. And I'm holding onto the bolster with my hands, kind of like I would with the gripping the mat with my hands.

And then inhale coming up, pulling the bolster towards me, which creates resistance. And allows me to actually bring my chest forward. So hopefully that makes sense. So as you can, it does in your spine, pull the bolster towards you pressing the belly into the bolster and actually bringing the chest forward.

Chris McDonald: just having your, he has his hands in the air.

Jivana Heyman: Okay. My hand's in the air now. Yeah. Without touching anything.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, it's

Jivana Heyman: a different experience. It's still a nice cobra I could do in the chair.

Chris McDonald: That's true. But it has a

Jivana Heyman: different sensation than that. Bolster creates such a feeling of Yeah. Something to press against from my belly and my hands. Much more grounding.

Grounding. So, so it's interesting to explore resistance and, um, there's so many, I mean, like I said, there's, I could think of a hundred variations of co-pro post, honestly, but, um. It's fun to explore with, with students and clients and really find the thing that works for someone and also to be sensitive to their individual needs.

And they're really not able to create an extension in the upper back that it's just not possible for them. And so the goal for them would be really more just lengthening. And instead, what some people do in Cobra is they tend to bring the headway back because the neck or cervical spine is very flexible.

And so they compensate just with the head coming back instead. And so something, you know, I think yoga teachers consider is like, how can I create a safe experience where we're not over? In one area in instead of the other, like compensation. There's a lot of compensation that happens in the body when there's any limitation at all.

We tend to do more in other places, so Makes sense. Recognizing that. Yeah, recognizing that is helpful too.

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Elevate your wellbeing and become a more mindful counselor today. Check it out at HC podcast.org/workbook. That's HC podcast.org/workbook today. So what about language and queuing? So is there a way to use it to make it feel more? Inclusive and safe.

Jivana Heyman: Yes. Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, language is, is really the main tool of the yoga teacher.

So, you know, I think we become very conscious and of course we always, you know, I always try different things, but I think one thing is to recognize that I wanna remind people of their agency, you know, that they have choice and control over their body and it's hard to do while I'm instructing them to do something.

But I would just say, I think sometimes we overdo that. So invitational language is where every instruction is offered as a question. And that maybe, maybe therapists would like that. I dunno.

Chris McDonald: I think they do. Yeah.

Jivana Heyman: See if you'd like to bend back, see if you do. How and that's. That's good to a point. And I do a little bit of that, but I think, I think it can become overwhelming,

Chris McDonald: true

Jivana Heyman: and confusing.

Chris McDonald: So there can be a balance with that balance. It's a balance. Balance.

Jivana Heyman: That's always a balance. And I think the balance would be balancing that kind of inviting with clarity of instruction. And so I might do, I might start a pose with an invitation and then give some clear instruction how to do it and then come back to another invitation towards the end so that it's not that.

Chris McDonald: I think you're

Jivana Heyman: right. It's a lot.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. 'cause I've, I took trauma sensitive yoga, some training in that, and it got to be too much. Mm-hmm. And it was hard for me to use that. I, it was just like,

Jivana Heyman: I'm glad you say that as a therapist.

'cause I know, I figured that's the one place would work was hard. Yes. I think it was created by therapist, to be honest. Yeah. I think it comes outta therapy a little bit. This idea of trauma informed is very much like a therapist. Perspective, which is awesome, but I agree. I think like everything, it can be too much.

Also because you know what I found? I find my students who've had trauma, or actually the ones who struggle the most with interception, and so then if you then put them in a position to ask. What they want to do with their body. It can become more challenging. Now, maybe that can be used as a therapeutic tool.

Chris McDonald: It's

Jivana Heyman: because it's kind of triggering people potentially by just constantly questioning, questioning, questioning.

So you have to decide where it is that you'd like to focus. I have a yoga therapist who I see personally, and she does that to me. She, she always asks me, but she does it in a very, um, a gentle way. And I think what she does is she, it's not a, it's not a question about do I want to do the pose, although she does kind of offer that also, but it's more like really exploring the sensation when I'm, once I'm there.

Chris McDonald: Yeah.

Jivana Heyman: How does that feel and what does that, what is it trying to say to you? Is there a message that your body would like to share? Something that's an interesting question that's different than invitational language, which is literally just asking if any particular movement or practice is welcome, which is also really beautiful for me.

Statement, command language actually that is clear and easily understood because for a lot of people, especially newer students, it's hard to relate instruction around the body, to movement of the body because of that lack of interceptive awareness. Yeah,

Chris McDonald: that's true.

Jivana Heyman: And I don't wanna make it harder. I also think with queuing can look at using first, second, or third person.

Like some yoga teachers teach, I'm doing this, I'm reaching out my arms. Or you could say, uh, you know, second person I could say, um, reach your arms. Or I could say the arms. I could sometimes yoga teachers remove pronouns. True. Reach the arms. Or third person. Now we are doing this, we are reaching org. So it's like, there's so many options.

So they know that imitation is there in some way.

Jivana Heyman: Right. And to say it often, I think it's a great thing to say often, but I feel like instruction, you know, people are coming to you for yoga, at least in my case. So I feel like my job is to teach them and I want to give them those foundational, that foundational information so they can even do the practice.

And then they decide, do you wanna stop? Do you wanna back up, do you wanna go further? Like those are all questions. Those are things you can choose. But here's the pose, here's the practice. And then you kind of make it your own. That's what make it your own. That's what I offer. Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Can you share a yoga practice with listeners today so they can follow along?

So you kind of, kind of adjust. Either by putting something under your feet, like a blanket or pillow or under your seat, you can put a blanket or pillow for like longer legs so that you kind of end up with this. You know, the, the knees are basically about at a right angle, and then you want your feet about a little wider than you might imagine and forward of the knees slightly.

So what you do is cheerio. You wanna make sure that people don't fall out of their chair. You're creating a wider, broader stance than you might imagine. And that's just good for safety. Alright, and then see if you can sit forward in the chair. And by doing that, you are working on engaging your back muscles and lengthening the spine.

And as you inhale, extend your arms out and up just as high as I comfortably go. Reach up. You can even look up inhaling there. Great. And exhale. Bring your hands to your knees and hinge at your hips with a long spine. Keep your back long. Hinging just as far as you can go. And pause there. And then inhale, raise, back up.

Use your hands to help you. And let's take hold of the right thigh and you can hug that right thigh up just as high as it wants to go. Great. And you can lengthen your spine here a little bit is our lunge. Inhale there. And exhale. Release hands on the knees. Again. We can do a gentle cat cow. So rounding gently exhale.

Inhale there. And then lower the leg As you exhale, hands on the knees, hinging forward with a long spine, and then coming out, inhale with your, use your hands to help you come back up, stretch your arms up, stretch up and exhale palms together at your chest, and then release your arms. That's one. Yeah, kind of variation of.

That's amazing though. I like

Chris McDonald: that. That felt a little different than what I've done with chair yoga before.

Jivana Heyman: Oh, okay.

Chris McDonald: You said lunge in what? I didn't think of that in the chair. That's interesting.

Jivana Heyman: Yeah, and you can also add, you could do down dog, you can put your heels out the legs straight and extend your arms and make a long stretch in your spine.

Chris McDonald: Thank you for sharing that. That was really powerful for a short practice as well. And I think that that's always helpful for therapists that wanna get started with yoga too, is finding some of these chair practices to start out with. And you don't have to have a mat or fancy props. Start with your chair.

Jivana Heyman: That's all you need. All you need is a chair. There's so much you can do. Even some, just some conscious breathing or gentle, um, exactly. Joint,

Chris McDonald: yeah. Shoulder roll. That's like warmups. Those are my

Jivana Heyman: favorite actually. Exactly. Neck movements. Um, gentle twists. Hip movements. You could do hip rotations, leg stretches, working with the feet and the toes.

Then you turn. You're gonna look to the right over, you know, check your blind spot first, and then look back and then turn the other way. Check. Or stirring a bowl of soup, you know, and like getting your whole back involved or picking apples. I love to imagine picking fruit and you reach up and put it down and, you know, cross body movement and visualizing something, you know, smell the apple or making food and then serving it to your guests or what is your favorite food?

Like, engaging people in that process is really fun too. Like, making it a little bit of a, of a story or a a, I don't know, engaging the senses and the mind. I think it can be really, really helpful, especially if someone feels like. It's just too, too much. Like they, if they're real anxious, to be honest, and I like the little mi to be a little hard.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And the

Jivana Heyman: cow. Yeah, exactly. Right. That's what I was gonna ask you.

Chris McDonald: It sounds like you bring like play in like lightness with yoga, which I think makes it more accessible. Right,

So, I mean, I can't, I. I would definitely recommend adding just a little bit of lightness. And also it somehow allows there to be more seriousness. Too true. It does open space like I don't know how doesn't it? Yeah. Because if it's all serious, it can feel stiff and I don't know, like true restrictive.

Mm-hmm. In some way to me. Yeah. So I don't know. I think to find a way to bring in a little bit of humor that's appropriate. That's the challenge where you talk far. No, exactly.

Chris McDonald: But, but even in therapy, I joke with clients, we laugh and I think it does build a therapeutic rapport.

Jivana Heyman: Totally. Well, it builds that rapport where it actually builds that relationship.

Or any less, you know that there's value in being a teacher and a student both ways. It's important to be a student and it's important to be a teacher.

Chris McDonald: So what kind of trainings do you offer, because I, I did look at your website. Can you share the different kinds of offerings you have?

Jivana Heyman: Yeah. Well, it's always different things, so it changes a lot.

But I would say the foundational training is my accessible yoga training, which I do either hybrid in person and online, or just all a hundred percent online. And I do both. That's really like the, I've tried to simplify, make it as short as possible. Usually it's 40 to 50 hours, so it's like as little, I think a yoga teacher needs to know about this, and I even allow, I would allow therapists to come who aren't yoga teachers, by the way.

That could be useful actually for people, because that one's I think just 20 something hours. That can be really great. And also we do series where we have guest presenters. I do like a series of workshops with guests who are, you know, sharing diverse perspectives on topics that I think people need to learn more about.

Like trauma. We have trauma-informed, or trauma and yoga we call it. We just have a series of workshops from different experienced practitioners talking about. Trauma and how it impacts different communities like, like people of color or neurodivergent folks.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I saw you have one with chronically ill folks who I think that would be very, yeah.

Jivana Heyman: That was amazing, that one. And we do them live every year or two. And then the recorded versions are also available if you, you know, if you missed the current live one, like we have one coming up on restorative yoga too. Like we do a restorative yoga series where we take a topic like restorative yoga that people think anyone can do, but we explore the ways that we can make it more accessible to, yeah, like people with larger bodies or people in a wheelchair and stuff like that.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Well, what's the best way for listeners to find you and learn more about you?

Jivana Heyman: Accessible yoga.org is our website, or they can find me on social media, Juna Haman, uh, or at my website, juna haman.com. But

Chris McDonald: yeah, we'll have that in the show notes too, listeners, so you can check him out and check out all those offerings.

But thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This has been great.

Jivana Heyman: Oh, good. I, I hope it was useful. Thanks so much for your great questions and for your interest. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Chris.

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