Shama trained with Mukunda Stiles as a certified Structural Yoga Therapist and  is a Hatha Yoga teacher (Sivananda Advanced Teacher training). She teaches and offers yoga therapy sessions and workshops in the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat Bahamas (www.sivanandabahamas.org) In the UK, Shama offers individual sessions in Stratford-Upon-Avon and London.

Shama is also trained in Yoga for Cardiac Disease and Cancer with Nischala Joy Devi, and pregnancy yoga with Kashi Richardson. She has studied Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy with Mukunda Stiles and Dr. David Frawley and is trained in aromatherapy and The Journey mind-body medicine technique.

For nearly 20 years, Shama has travelled across the globe, learning and working with healing and spiritual practices in Japan, India, Thailand, Canada, USA, UK and Bahamas. When not teaching, Shama spends much time researching yoga and healing, for which she draws from modern mind-body medicine and traditional yogic, vedic and tantric texts.

Yoga therapy workshops and individual yoga therapy sessions with Shama take into account the physical, mental-emotional and energetic layers of our being, based on teachings from physical therapy, yoga, ayurveda, macrobiotics and Traditional Chinese medicine. Healing practices include mind-body awareness techniques, gentle movement with breath, asanas (yoga postures), pranayamas (breathing practices), and healing meditations. These practices  mainly address the three doshas of Ayurveda and the five koshas (veils covering our True Self) of Vedanta: that is, the physical, energetic, mental/emotional, wisdom and bliss layers of our being.

I first experienced the benefits of yoga as a teenager, having learned asana (yoga postures) and pranayama (yogic breathing) at home from my mother. After university, I felt very much the call toward an inner search. I went to Japan to learn meditation and to experience the teachings of Zen and Buddhism. During this time, I met many inspiring healers, spiritual teachers and monks.

Also whilst in Japan, I came across the teachings of the enlightened mystic, Osho. His teachings instantly resonated with me: I felt he was speaking to the deepest core of my being. I went to India to spend time in Osho’s ashram in Pune. Here I lived, worked and practiced meditation for five months: Osho’s active meditations, vipassana and zazen meditations, and therapeutic group processes.

Returning to London, I started some studies in the healing arts which took me to work in an integrated health clinic in central London, where I soon became manager. During my time as manager of this health clinic, I met and was inspired by many people living with pain in the body, in the mind, in their life: many had terminal illnesses, others were carers for people with terminal illness, parents of children with illness. I saw many remarkable healing stories. I was also touched by others who did not seem to be getting better, but who still tried one healing approach after another in an endeavour to become well again. Their courage was immense, and also their mental anguish and frustration often all too apparent.  

Seeing them, I remembered the healing power of yoga, how my mother had benefited and helped me to benefit from the transformative power of the breath and asana. Even if people could not recover from illness, I knew yoga could give tools for creating mental quiet, an inner calm in the face of stress and suffering, a connection with that deeper part of ourselves that is not of the body, not of the mind. And so came the inspiration to train in yoga and the longing to bring yoga and healing together, as a means not only for relieving dis-ease in body, mind and spirit, but also for that ultimate healing: that returning home, returning to the spiritual heart, to a remembrance of who we truly are and an exploration of our purpose on this planet.

My time at the clinic came to an end and I went to the Bahamas to do the Sivananda Teacher Training Course. During one part of the training, whilst doing advanced pranayama practices I had a powerful experience: it was like stepping into another time, into something very ancient, another dimension. I could not understand with this consciousness what this experience was, what was happening but some resolve arose in my heart to return to this ashram in the Bahamas, to spend time there and to move more deeply into the teachings of yoga. I completed my teacher training, returned to England, sold my flat in London and soon left again for the Bahamas. I started to live and work a yoga way of life in the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat. Since then, yoga has become a way of life for me, the yogic teachings like my protectors, guardian angels. And with the yogic way of life has come more wholeness, happiness, health, and more blessings than I could ever have imagined. Through yoga has come a richer, more abundant, joyful, heartful, healthful living….and so much gratitude in my heart for this.

I continue my learning, traveling and spending time whenever I can to learn more about yoga and healing  – for my own evolution and for the benefit of others, in the hope that I can share whatever I learn and experience that might be beneficial.

In deep reverence and gratitude to my yoga lineage and teachers, and in remembrance of Osho and his request that we, his devotees, “leave this earth a little more beautiful than we found it.”

Namaste

“Om, Purnamadah, Purnamidam,
Purnat Purnamadachyate,
Purnasya, Purnamadaya,
Purnameva Vashishyate.” Isha Upanishad

“Om That is Whole, This is Whole,
From Wholeness Emerges Wholeness.
Wholeness coming from Wholeness,

Even when Wholeness is negated,
Wholeness still remains.”