Maryam Ovissi is an accredited Trauma-Informed Clinical Yoga Therapist and Yoga Teacher. Her personal mission as an educator is to provide an opportunity for her students to have access to tools that allow healing, empowerment, and self-realization. Maryam founded Beloved Yoga: A Sanctuary for All, located in Reston, VA, offering yoga therapy, trauma-informed yoga, and a range of accessible classes to share the indigenous teachings of Yoga and Ayurveda with reverence, integrity and accessibility for the community at large, locally and internationally. Maryam’s teachers are the Mohans, and she is honored to be a lead teacher in their Svastha Yoga Therapy Program.
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Part 1: Core needs of an individual within a collective story
In this video, Maryam reflects on how the COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of issues to the surface, including our concerns about our well-being, relationship with information and science, and choices of care. It was also accompanied by social unrest, understanding of the power dynamics and privilege. Within our yoga space, it brought us face to face with choices on what and who we choose to uplift. All these collective changes and upheaval inevitably impact our students; should we consider them in our initial assessment and private yoga work?
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Part 2: Using self-touch and community connection to overcome anxiety and loneliness
In this video, Maryam shares a story of an elderly student who felt fearful and lonely at the height of the pandemic. She would guide him in a self-touch exploration of his upper body at the beginning of each session to overcome his anxiety and get more comfortable trusting his body.
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Part 3: Using interval practices throughout the day to settle the nervous system
In this video, Maryam shares her experience working with a young military veteran who was suffering from PTSD and didn’t respond well to any movements that were reminiscent of boot camp or military training. This client benefited most from short movement and mindfulness routines throughout the day that helped ground her nervous system and empowered her to make her own choices for self-care.
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Part 4: Combining movement with humming to both empower and calm the system
In this video, Maryam talks about working with a student who was overwhelmed by the constant news stream and had to learn to manage her sensory intake. She used simple chair movement in combination with humming, as well as conscious changes in her home environment to reestablish her dignity within her home and be heard, seen, and respected.
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Part 5: Lessons on suffering from Samkhya-Karika
In this final video, Maryam recalls the teaching on three types of suffering from Samkhya-Karita. She reminds us that we only have control over one type of suffering, and we can use yogic tools to try to overcome it by becoming peacefully embodied, creating boundaries, making wise decisions, and uplifting one another.
