Barb Gibson
Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT), E-RYT 500, M.S.
Hello! I’m Barb Gibson, a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) for 10 years and experienced 500-hour yoga teacher, have taught yoga since 1999, practiced yoga for 33 years, and am a published yoga researcher. Since I was a child, I loved helping others and my desire grew into my calling through yoga therapy. I have faced mental and physical challenges and was able to help myself through yoga and am passionate to share yoga with others to help them too. Yoga helped me improve my overall well-being and live my life with more joy, meaning, and clarity of direction. I’m devoted to helping others do the same.
I strive to help others become strong advocates for their health
I wholeheartedly believe that everyone has the power to help themselves heal and grow into the person they choose to be. Most people will face some challenges in their lives and yoga was created for us to be able to meet and ascend these challenges through the use of multi-faceted tools. My first priority is to understand who my clients and students are and what they may be interested in learning to better prioritize the tools for them. I strive to make my clients feel seen and heard as I direct my energy towards matching the techniques with the individual in front of me. In every situation, I work from my yoga toolbox to support my clients, and I offer encouragement for their inner healer to arise. Because of my personal experience using yoga to help myself with emotional and physical difficulties including trauma, grief, chronic illness, pain, and aging, I can offer techniques to my clients from yoga therapy and also those that have worked for me deepening my ability to connect to and help others. I earnestly study yoga and yoga therapy, and I find great joy in using my extensive knowledge and experience to better help my clients cultivate and deepen positive and meaningful outcomes from yoga.
My background in yoga helps support my clients and students with their healing
I greatly draw from classical yoga, yoga research, and my own experiences with yoga for guidance with my work. I am an avid student of yoga, and my goal is to continue to merge the Eastern and Western mind-body frameworks together to offer a more comprehensive experience for my clients and students. Also, I am trained and worked in academic research for 20 years before I transitioned to yoga therapy full-time, and I strongly rely upon my research skills to better help my clients and students. My background allows me to stay current with yoga research, which helps me offer my clients and students leading techniques for their specific conditions. See my research page for more details
Yoga helps me with my mental and physical health
In my late teens, I suffered from severe anxiety, and yoga immediately helped me so that I could function better in my life. After experiencing early childhood trauma, I was relieved to feel grounded and calm in my body and mind, and I was learning to befriend and empower myself. The more I practiced yoga, the more I fell in love with how I felt helping me become more physically and emotionally stable and confident. I started studying with renowned teachers including Richard Freeman, Sarah Powers, Max Strom, and Mark Whitwell to continue my yoga studies and provide a broad backdrop to improve my mental and physical health. I wanted to share yoga with others to help them experience what I was witnessing in myself and I started teaching yoga in 1999. Later that year, I was involved in a car accident sustaining life-changing injuries including a traumatic brain injury, extensive neck and shoulder injuries, and post-traumatic stress. I could not practice as I did before the accident, but this experience led me to explore other yoga techniques beyond the physical aspects deepening my connection to myself and helping recover from my injuries.
Finding my calling in yoga therapy
The car accident became the catalyst for me to pursue therapeutic yoga and yoga therapy. I earned my RYT200 in 2007, my E-RYT 500 in 2009, became a yoga therapist under the tutelage of Gary Kraftsow through the American Viniyoga Institute in 2013, and was certified as a yoga therapist, C-IAYT, through the International Association of Yoga Therapists in 2016. This path has truly been a gift for me to help others go through their own challenges and inspires me to help others live meaningful and joyful lives.
Yoga is my anchor
In 2014, I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia with symptoms of extreme exhaustion and chronic pain, migraines, depression, decreased brain functioning, and a sense of loss of who I was as a person. I used my yoga practice in conjunction with working with a Functional Medicine MD to help me cope with and manage my symptoms. Through my yoga practice, I learned to use and adapt tools and techniques to help me with symptoms, tailor yoga to manage and reduce symptoms, and create good health despite living with the uncertainty of symptoms that come with chronic illness. I still have to manage symptoms, and my experience taught me how to live more fluidly with things that change and how to be open to the shifts in life. I continue to use yoga for my health, and my experiences inspire me to share with others how to do the same.
Relationships are key to my success
I love spending time with my husband, our two crazy and adorable cats, our extended families with adored nieces and nephews, and cherished friends. I also love being outside and feel there is a lot to learn from the natural world. I am trained as an ecologist and am an avid gardener; I am home in a garden as well as in nature. My friends and family love to tease me about how many things I can marvel at on a hike or walk! My bicycle, Bluebell, and I are great friends either dodging traffic on a commute or on a longer ride enjoying the landscape and breeze. I love to travel to learn about new places and cultures to help me become the well-rounded and compassionate person I strive to be.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear from you!
