TS05: FOUNDATIONS Yoga Therapy as Reconciliation: Reclaiming the Body as a Vessel for Ancestral Healing

Presenter bio: Lorena Saavedra Smith, C-IAYT

Explore yoga therapy as a living path of reconciliation, an embodied process of returning to wholeness through the body, the land, and the memory it holds. Honoring both ancestral wisdom and contemporary therapeutic science, this session examines how cultural disconnection, migration, and acculturation can manifest as body fragmentation, emotional imbalance, and loss of belonging.

Drawing from her KARE (know, assess, reconcile, engender) methodology, ecopsychology, and intergenerational trauma research woven with Andean teachings on reconnection with the natural world, belonging, and reciprocity, Lorena will guide participants in understanding how yoga therapy offers a somatic map to reintegration. Learn how embodied awareness and mindful inquiry can awaken ancestral memory, regulate the nervous system, and foster emotional sovereignty, key components of therapeutic healing across cultures and essential skills for modern yoga therapists seeking to work ethically and inclusively in diverse settings.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand how interoceptive awareness and somatic regulation, supported by trauma-informed and mind-body research, can enable practitioners to reclaim the body as a source of wisdom, balance, and integration.
2. Describe an integrative framework for emotional sovereignty and reconciliation grounded in evidence-informed yoga therapeutic applications.
3. Recognize how culturally responsive and body-centered yoga therapy strengthens ethical and sustainable therapeutic relationships.