Hi, I'm Vaishnavi.
I'm a Yoga Therapist, which is a fancy way of saying I sit with people while they come home to themselves. I've been doing the inner work for over two decades, on myself first, and I won't ask you to go anywhere I haven't already been.
I found yoga at twelve. It has walked with me through everything since: the years that nearly broke me and the years that lit me up. I was born, raised, and trained in India, learned from my childhood Gurus, and later crossed the world to train formally in the West.
Today I'm registered with the International Association of Yoga Therapy (IAYT 800), having completed my formal yoga therapy program in Canada. My formal yoga teacher training was in an ashram in Kerala, India (Yoga Alliance Certified RYT 500). I hold a BA in Psychology, a Master's in Sociology, and have training in NLP, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, and REBT. I also teach in the 300 RYT teacher training program and the 300 and 500 hr yoga therapy programs.
That's the resume. Here's the rest of it.
I didn't come to this work from the calm side of the river. I came to it from the water.
Over twenty-something years, yoga has held me through some genuinely beautiful seasons and some deeply painful ones. Loss, fear, the kind of inner turmoil that doesn't have a tidy name. I've sat in therapy rooms. I've spent months in an Ashram. I've done the slow, unglamorous work of healing, the kind nobody posts about.
Somewhere along the way, something shifted. Not into permanent bliss (I'm a human being, not a greeting card), but into a quieter knowing: that obstacles can become steppingstones, that I can feel the full spectrum of being human without drowning in it. Serious and powerful one moment, silly and goofy the next, dark humour and a lot of Love running underneath all of it.
I know the courage it takes to turn and face your own shadows, because I've had to find that courage myself. So when you sit with me, you're not sitting with someone who learned this from a textbook. You're sitting with someone who knows the terrain.
A class can change your week. This is meant to change your relationship with yourself.
There are a lot of beautiful yoga teachers in the world. I trained to become a therapist for a specific reason: I wanted to go deeper than the mat.
In a session with me, the asana, the breath, the philosophy are doorways, not the destination. We use them to get at the real thing: the pattern that keeps repeating, the place in your body where you brace, the story underneath the story. I work with the whole of you. The emotions, the nervous system, the koshas (the five layers of the self), and the quiet psychology of why we do what we do.
It's deeply therapeutic, and it's surprisingly relatable. We'll talk about real things. Boundaries. Anger. Safety. The places in your life where you've shrunk yourself to keep the peace. None of it is too heavy to bring here, and none of it makes you too much.
Rooted in India. At home in both worlds.
I was born into this. Not the watered-down, studio-fluorescent version, but yoga as a living philosophy, learned from teachers and Gurus from childhood, in the land it came from.
Then I went West, trained formally, and stayed long enough to understand that world from the inside too. I've worked with people across Asia, Europe, and North America. I've lived in the East and the West, and I don't think you have to choose between them.
That's the heart of how I work: I weave the deep, classical Indian traditions together with modern Western psychology and science. Not because the ancient wisdom needs fixing, but because meeting you where you actually live, in a modern mind with a modern life, is how the wisdom becomes usable.
So in one session you might find Vedantic philosophy and a chakra framework sitting comfortably beside a tool from NLP or Gestalt. Two languages for the same human truth.
The credentials, for those who like them:
- ✦Registered with the International Association of Yoga Therapy (IAYT)
- ✦Formal Yoga Therapy Program (Canada, IAYT 800)
- ✦Yoga Alliance Certified RYT 500 (Kerala, India)
- ✦BA in Psychology & Master's in Sociology
- ✦Training in NLP, Gestalt, Transactional Analysis & REBT
- ✦Teacher in the 300 RYT and 300/500 hr Yoga Therapy programs
Anandoham. I am Bliss.
The name of this work comes from an ancient declaration: Anandoham, I am Bliss. It sits alongside phrases like Aham Brahmasmi and Shivoham.
And here's the thing people misunderstand: Bliss, in this sense, isn't a mood. It isn't the high you chase and then lose. It's the ground underneath everything. A quality of Being itself. The sense, even in the middle of something hard, that nothing essential is missing. That you are whole, already, underneath the noise.
Most of us have just forgotten. We live cut off from that Source, distracted, braced, running. My work, simply put, is to help you remember. Not to hand you bliss, but to clear the path back to the part of you that was never actually lost.
That's the why behind all of this. The disconnection from Source is real and it's everywhere, and I'd like to be one small, steady way back.
Honest, warm, and entirely yours.
I'm not going to perform serenity at you. I'll meet you as a real person, with humour and directness and a great deal of care.
When people work with me, they tell me they leave feeling:
Empowered
to step into the places, inside themselves and in their lives, they've been longing to reach.
Aligned
with their own feelings, needs, desires, and purpose, instead of the version of themselves they think they're supposed to be.
Connected
to their own wisdom, and to something larger than themselves.
Courageous
enough to face their shadows, because the courage was already theirs. I just help them find it.
Cared for
held the way you're held by a mother. Loved, simply for being.
I won't pressure you, manufacture urgency, or sell you a lack you didn't walk in with. If this is for you, you'll feel it. And if it is, I'd be honoured to walk with you.