Meet Christine Devereaux of Spectrum Yoga in Littleton

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christine Devereaux.

Christine, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
By background, I am a recreation therapist and started out working with seniors in a skilled nursing facility. I then worked with people with developmental disabilities and adults recovering from a stroke and traumatic brain injury. As I practiced yoga more in my personal life, I was discovering amazing benefits like decreased anxiety and stress as well as enhanced overall well-being. I started getting into meditation, participating in a sesshin, and realizing that yoga is a vast topic and much more than poses. I thought this practice should be accessible to those with disabilities and began my journey through yoga therapy training in an effort to bring it to this community – people with autism and developmental disabilities.

There isn’t training for therapeutic yoga for people with autism and so with my 200hr integrative yoga therapy training and my background in recreation therapy, I merged the two fields to create Spectrum Yoga. Initially, it was rough. I had no clue what I was doing. A couple of parents offered some insight into what they would like for their children and I began working with parents and children with autism very closely to fine-tune this program. Together we were able to make it specific to their needs, interests, and preferences. After two years of this – it finally came to life.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Definitely not. In most trainings, it’s common to take the information and techniques learned and start applying them immediately. Yogic concepts and yoga therapy techniques cannot just be applied to children, let alone children with autism. The first and main struggle was adapting this practice to make it accessible, beneficial, safe, and relevant to this population. This process took two years. There were a lot of “failures,” mistakes, and lessons learned in this time and all were necessary to go through to get to a solid foundation which I feel I have finally arrived upon.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Spectrum Yoga is a specialized therapeutic yoga service for people with autism and related diversities. What sets Spectrum Yoga apart from others is the yoga therapy training and specializing in autism. I am most proud of the hard work of the students I see. Students that come to Spectrum Yoga are the hardest workers I know and I learn so much from them each time I see them.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up I had lots of energy and was very active. I loved to play and laugh and loved all sports.

Pricing:

• $15/drop-in group class
• $65/private session

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.spectrumyoga.co/
• Email: spectrumyogaco@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spectrumyoga.co/

Image Credit:
Kenzie Wyman (photo of feet with yoga cards)

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