Programs
Through the practices of yoga and meditation, Living Yoga teaches the valuable life skills of: self-determination, mindfulness/awareness, impulse control, distress tolerance, discernment in decision-making, and emotional regulation. Yoga is an ages old practice that systemically re-balances the nervous, endocrine, digestive and immune systems, balancing the fight-flight-freeze reaction that many people live in habitually.
With our programs, we aim to motivate and encourage our students to utilize these skills in their lives outside of the classroom. That is, to regulate emotions on their unit, to bring more awareness to their actions and the consequences of their actions, to make decisions based on short and long term outcomes, and to, daily, create an internal emotional state of ease, acceptance and accountability.
Living Yoga acknowledges that all people have an underlying potential for greatness in their lives, which includes contributing positively to the communities in which they live. Recognizing that the ability to contribute to the lives around you means first valuing one’s own life, our volunteer teachers make every effort to enhance the self-awareness, self-esteem and life-affirming decision making skills for the students in our programs.
Our volunteers are trained to recognize that people are all the same underneath and to support people where they are in their lives and where they are headed with their practice.
We have programs located at the following sites:
- Coffee Creek Correctional Facility
- Columbia River Correctional Institution
- Central City Concern, Old Town Clinic
- DePaul Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center for Adults
- DePaul Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center for Teens
- Oregon State Correctional Institution
- Oregon State Penitentiary
- Donald E. Long Home
- Raphael House of Portland
- Healing Roots
- Council for Prostitution Alternatives
- Volunteers of America
