Why Whole Soul Wellness Yoga?

Have you ever wondered what is behind the name of a business? Some names in the past were clearly chosen to be found first in the phone book, like A1 Cleaning or AAA Lawn Care. Then there are the businesses named after a beloved dog, I can think of three of those in our tiny little community alone.

When I was pondering what to call this new business of mine I thought a lot about what it was I wanted to offer that was different and how I might use a name to narrow a kind of big concept into a few words. Luckily, in my training as a scientist I learned to be clear and concise, and I hope that comes across in the name I landed on.

Wellness Yoga

The yoga part of the name is obvious, so let’s talk about the wellness portion of the name. I ran some name options across many friends and colleagues and the common suggestion was what about Whole Soul Yoga & Wellness. It is after all common to see names like ABC Yoga & Wellness or My Favorite Dog Yoga & Wellness. Those businesses usually offer yoga classes, maybe have a boutique store, offer one:one yoga classes and offer other types of treatments such as massage or reiki.

In my case, I did not want to separate the word yoga from wellness, I wanted to specifically marry the two words together. The choice to put the word wellness before yoga was very intentional, as what I am passionate about offering truly is Wellness Yoga. Here are two definitions of wellness from dictionary.com:

1. the quality or state of being healthy in body and mind, especially as the result of deliberate effort.

2. an approach to healthcare that emphasizes preventing illness and prolonging life, as opposed to emphasizing treating diseases.
Other definitions of wellness also include social and spiritual well-being in the mix, which brings the meaning even closer to my intention, and which brings us to the other half of the name.

Whole Soul

At the time I was founding Whole Soul Wellness Yoga, I had just completed my training as a Professional Yoga Therapist through the Kripalu School of Integrative Yoga Therapy (KSIYT). The KSIYT program focuses on using the tools of yoga to assist clients with finding optimal wellbeing. Just like the definitions above, the emphasis of the program was NOT the treatment and diagnosis of disease, the focus was on increasing wellness (more on that in an upcoming blog) and understanding the challenges people with various diagnoses face.
In yoga therapy when we talk about improving wellness, it is wellness of all aspects of a person, which from the yogic perspective includes the five koshas. So, I could have called my business Five Koshas Wellness Yoga, and left a lot of people wondering what the heck is a Kosha, but I didn’t think that would be very effective.
Just so I don’t leave you hanging the koshas are the layers of each person – often described like the layers of an onion – each person is said to be made up of the physical body, energetic body, mental/emotional body, wisdom body, and bliss body. To find true wellbeing yoga philosophy  and yoga psychology tell us we need to be well on all of these levels.
This is what I hope to always be offering at Whole Soul, an approach to yoga which speaks to your Whole Soul – all of your layers – and helps you find improved wellness through the process.

The Logo

Just a last note on the logo…I began the process with five circles for the five layers, and that just became too complicated. So I narrowed it down, we often speak about yoga as a mind, body and spirit practice, and that is what those circles represent. They are overlapping as a reminder that although we separate these different aspects out, we know that they are all intertwined and always working together.