In this conversation, Breathing Deeply Founder and Lead Teacher Brandt Passalacqua speaks with Maeka Wright, manual osteopath, PTA, and Breathing Deeply graduate, about yoga therapy for pelvic floor dysfunction.
Maeka shares how they combine their background as a PT and Osteopath with yoga therapy to address the whole person, not just the symptoms, and why awareness-based practices often succeed where traditional pelvic floor therapy falls short.
Pelvic floor dysfunction affects millions of people and touches far more than just the physical body. Incontinence, pelvic pain, sexual dysfunction, as well as confidence and emotional well-being, can all be experienced alongside Pelvic Floor Dysfunction. These experiences carry real emotional weight, and the standard treatments often miss that entirely.
Traditional pelvic floor therapy typically prescribes targeted exercises in isolation. But yoga therapy starts with awareness. Because you cannot effectively strengthen or release what you cannot feel, the ability to sense and understand your pelvic floor is where real healing begins.
Yoga therapy treats the pelvic floor as part of a whole system, working in coordination with breath, posture, and the body’s deeper patterns. It also recognizes that receiving a diagnosis can trigger feelings of being broken, which creates stress that compounds the physical symptoms. A yoga therapy approach normalizes these experiences rather than pathologizing them.
Yoga therapy is so powerful as it offers each individual many solutions, meeting each person exactly where they are. This therapeutic approach can be adapted as conditions change and also address other conditions at the same time. Yoga therapy gives people agency over their own health by offering practical ways for people to heal themselves.
If you feel called to support others through complex physical and mental health challenges, our professional Yoga Therapy Training provides mentorship, clinical thinking skills, and whole-person education.
If you are navigating physical and/or mental health challenges, Breathing Deeply Wellness offers accessible programs rooted in yoga therapy principles to support meaningful change.
Breathing Deeply is a Yoga Therapy and Meditation School co-founded by lead teacher Brandt Passalacqua in 2011. Breathing Deeply offers two levels of certification: Foundations of Yoga Therapy and an IAYT-accredited Advanced Program, offering C-IAYT eligibility.
Other offerings include Breathing Deeply Wellness, a service-driven community of Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapists dedicated to helping the public optimize their physical, mental, and spiritual health, an annual online meditation teacher training certification, and specialized yoga therapy courses. Breathing Deeply is an active and thriving community of meditators and yogis, caregivers, therapists, teachers, medical professionals, parents & children with the same intention—to serve others, lessen suffering, and co-create a new paradigm in wellness.
Brandt talks about common questions applicants have about the Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapy Program. Tune in to get the full program details.