Reset Your Breath. Change How You Feel
Your breath is not just a physical function. It is directly connected to how you feel, how you respond to stress, and how your body regulates itself.
Most people are breathing in a way that reflects tension, not ease. Over time, this affects energy levels, focus, and the nervous system as a whole.
This workshop helps you understand how your breathing patterns work and how to change them in a way that is simple, practical, and sustainable.
Understand Your Breathing Patterns
Breathing is often automatic, but not always efficient.
Many people rely on shallow, upper-chest breathing or hold subtle tension in the diaphragm without realizing it. These patterns can contribute to fatigue, restlessness, and a reduced ability to manage stress.
Before trying to “fix” the breath, it is important to observe it.
In this workshop, you will learn how to notice how you breathe in different situations, how your breath changes under stress, and how it supports or limits your movement and stability.
Awareness is the starting point for any meaningful change.
About This Workshop
This workshop is designed for anyone who wants to better understand their breath and its connection to the nervous system.
It is especially relevant if:
- you feel frequently stressed or overwhelmed
- you notice shallow or irregular breathing
- you experience tension in the chest, neck, or shoulders
- you want to improve focus, energy, and recovery
- you are already working with movement and want to integrate breath more effectively
We work through guided exercises and clear explanations that help you build a more functional and responsive breathing pattern.
What You’ll Experience
During the workshop, we explore how breath and body work together.
We focus on:
- how to observe your natural breathing pattern
- how the diaphragm supports both breathing and stability
- how breath influences the nervous system and stress response
- how to shift from tension-based breathing to more efficient patterns
You will learn practical techniques that can be applied in everyday situations, not just during practice.
This is not about controlling your breath all the time. It is about knowing how to work with it when it matters.
Your Benefits
With consistent awareness and practice, this work can help you:
- regulate stress more effectively
- improve energy and mental clarity
- reduce unnecessary tension in the body
- support movement with better internal stability
- feel more grounded and in control of your responses
These changes often begin subtly, but they have a strong cumulative effect over time.
BACKCARE WORKSHOP
Experience the Happy Back Workshop
My goal for this workshop is to give you a clear, accessible understanding of a few common back conditions, so you can better recognize them, work with them, and respond to them intelligently. By the end of the workshop, you will have a practical toolkit of effective approaches and a sequence that I have gathered over many years of working with clients who experience back issues, as well as through my own lived experience with back sensitivity.
Pilates and yoga are often prescribed by doctors for people with lower back pain. And while these practices can be incredibly supportive, I’ve also worked with many people who tell me that their back pain actually increased after practicing yoga or Pilates. This is something I want to address openly and honestly.
In this workshop, I share insights from my perspective as a Pilates and yoga teacher, but also as someone who has lived with a serious back injury affecting my vertebrae. I continue to practice, teach, and move with this condition, and that experience deeply informs how I approach back care and movement.
What I hope you take away from this workshop is a clearer sense of what to watch out for, what supports your back, and how to modify your practice in a way that feels safe, informed, and sustainable for your body.
This workshop is for students who have...
- Back spasms/ pulled muscles
- Tight/ weak back muscles and a weak core
- Disc injuries (Bulges/ Herniations)
- S/I joint dysfunction (just briefly touching on it)
Interested in attending a back workshop?
Subscribe to my mailing list to find out when I will be teaching my next Happy Back workshop
Corporate Workshops
Provide your team with preventative care. Many of our workplace environments, including work-from-home require sitting all day long—here’s a look at how that can affect your back:
Atrophy of back muscles
Stiffness and aching
Muscle fatigue
Spinal instability
Developing poor posture
Pricing: $500 for maximum 10 people, 90 minutes
Own a Studio?
This workshop provides tools and strategies to those clients who suffer from back issues so they can practice yoga/pilates and other movement modalities safely. It's also a great resource for teachers so they can learn how to modify for clients who complain that their backs feel irritated during or after their class.
Pricing can be set by the studio and revenues will be split 50/50
What People are saying about the Happy Back Workshop...
Testimonial:
I attended the Happy Back Workshop because I was dealing with a back injury, muscle spasms, and disc bulges. Elaine, the owner of 2nd Story Pilates & Yoga in Queens, recommended that I work with Monika.
One of the most valuable things I learned was the importance of truly resting and allowing my back the time it needed to heal. The visual examples of what not to do were especially helpful, as they made it easy to recognize habits and movements that were contributing to my discomfort.
Monika’s handout is excellent. I read it as soon as I received it, and the photos and explanations were clear, practical, and easy to follow.
I highly recommend this workshop to anyone experiencing back problems. For me, it was exactly what I needed—both the workshop and the handout provided valuable guidance and support for the issues I was facing.
Thank you again, Monika! Rebecca Haase