Michaela Kendall
My experience
For a long time, I thought that if I could just get everything around me in order, I might finally feel settled within myself. Keeping busy, reading the room, trying to meet everyone else needs, staying one step ahead and managing what was happening around me gave me a sense of control. But no matter how much I did, that feeling of safety never quite came.
It wasn't until I began to understand my own patterns through psychotherapy, and reconnect with myself through yoga, that things started to change. I learnt that feeling better wasn't about doing more or finding better ways to manage life around me. It was about learning to feel and process difficult emotions and as a result I learnt to be with myself in a different way.
This understanding sits at the heart of the work I offer today, bringing together psychological understanding and body-based approaches to help others explore what's beneath their patterns and find a different way of relating to themselves.
"I became very good at meeting others needs. Learning to meet my own needs was a different kind of work entirely, and it is the work I now feel privileged to support others in doing."
My Approach
Completing my psychotherapy training gave me a framework for understanding the patterns beneath behaviour, why we do what we do, even when we would rather do something different. But I noticed something in that training and in the therapy room: insight alone often isn't enough.
People could understand their patterns completely and still feel stuck in them. They could know exactly why they were anxious and still feel anxious. The understanding lived in the mind. The feeling lived in the body. And the two weren't always in conversation with each other.
That gap is where my work sits. Psychotherapy to make sense of things. Therapeutic yoga to give the body a different kind of experience. Not as competing approaches, but as two ways of working towards the same thing: helping you feel more at home in yourself.
On yoga and therapy, done thoughtfully
I believe yoga and mindfulness and therapy should support you, not become another thing to get right. Turning your attention inward can sometimes feel uncomfortable, especially when you're used to keeping busy or staying in your head.
My approach is gentle, flexible and guided by you. There's no pressure to push through, sit with something that feels too much or move in a particular way. Choice, curiosity and working at your own pace are at the heart of everything I offer.
The goal is never to push you toward an experience your nervous system isn't ready for. Safety and choice are not just values here. They are the practice itself.
Working with me
What you can expect
To be met where you are
Not where I think you should be, or where you think you should be. Sessions start from where you actually are that day.
No pressure to perform
Whether in therapy or yoga, there is no right way to be here. Silence, uncertainty, and not knowing are all welcome.
An honest space
An honest, supportive space where you can explore things openly, feel understood and gently challenge the patterns that might be keeping you stuck.
A pace that respects your nervous system
We go at a pace your system can follow. Less is often more, and smaller changes compound over time to create lasting change.