Lesley Ann Wernsdorfer

About You:  You are curious, creative, dedicated, logical, and intuitive. All those traits will help you apply the principles and techniques of yoga therapy physically while your brain grapples with the cognitive bits. Or maybe the other way around: Your brain will see patterns in your movement that need to be decluttered, and it will help your body feel into a new way of moving, breathing, and being. About Me: I’m Lesley Ann, your Certified AIP Coach. I’ve been on the autoimmunity road since 1978 when I noticed a patch of white flaking skin just inside the hairline above my forehead. For many years these patches would come and go with the seasons, literally, and every autumn, I'd feel embarrassed and somehow like I'd done something to bring it on. Then one day many years later I found myself stuck in a stressful situation that would end up taking years to unwind, and the psoriasis began to spread. And stay through the summers. Eventually I would go on to develop lichen planus, eczema, and occasional hives as well. Through many trials and even more errors, I figured out what helped and what didn’t. Discovering the AIP protocol helped me consolidate what I’d learned on my own over the years and refine and stick with an evidence-based program. About Peace:  1978 was a big year for me. Besides first noticing that patch of psoriasis, it’s also the year I began practicing yoga, and I also got an inkling into what I might want to be when I grew up—a translator at the UN. I think we can safely say yoga won out on that career path since I never became a UN translator, but I am a Certified Yoga Therapist, the common thread there being I found a way to work for Peace. I am deeply committed to helping my clients learn actionable ways to practice Peace in their lives. That commitment extends to all my clients, but as a Certified AIP Coach, I have specific experience, knowledge, and skills that can help folks dealing with the fallout of a diagnosis of autoimmunity find and maintain Peace in all aspects of their lives—body, mind, soul, spirit, and social connection. About Be Bodiful: It’s just a term I coined to capture the essence of what I teach. It’s the physical equivalent of being mindful: You pay attention to how you feel when you move in particular way, and if it doesn’t feel good, you learn how to move in a different way. To do that, we’ll reduce yoga movements to their components and practice in the range that feels comfortable, easy, and peaceful to lay that as the foundation from which progress will arise. Over the past three years, I've used the principles and techniques of yoga therapy, including self-massage, to help tame my skin flares. My experience has been that consistent practice of pure movement is the keystone of the healing process for autoimmune skin disorders. Certainly calming the central nervous system is a big part of that effect, but I hypothesize that moving in the comfortable, easy, and peaceful range allows collagen fibers to realign and strengthen, which allows nerve fibers to send messages more efficiently, which reintegrates and strengthens neuromuscular connections, in a positive feedback loop. I aim to guide folks with autoimmunity through an exploration to help them build a personalized toolkit of healing methods.  About Starting: Are you ready to be bodiful? To feel comfortable, easy, and peaceful in every aspect of your being? To be confident that even if you overdo, you have a way to come back to comfort, ease, and peace? You can read more about the initial private session  here . Having a chronic illness doesn’t have to mean being chronically ill. Let’s get you back to a full, engaged life. We’ll transform worry into care, shame into compassion, and overwork into love.