Shima Bhunjun

Shima is a HCPC registered Counselling Psychologist. She currently works for a prestigious London based university where she is the clinical lead for the student mental health and well-being team and deputy head of her department. She also works in private practice providing psychological therapy for her clients. 

Her interest in yoga was sparked back in 2009 after attending her first yoga class and experiencing the immediate benefits of the yogic practices on her body and her ability to manage stress. After many years of personal practice in various types of yoga, Shima decided to undertake a professional 550-hour training in Yoga therapy with the Minded Institute, which she completed in December of 2021. 

Following this, she was keen to start learning more about traditional yoga and she had already started to attend Himalayan Hatha Yoga classes with Yogi Ashokanada. She became a regular attender of Yogi’s classes and with continued practice she started to feel the transformative benefits of the asana and pranayama on her body and overall health. In 2022 Shima  decided to train with Yogi and completed 300 hours of intensive training with him in October 2023. Shima is now a qualified Himalayan Hatha Yoga teacher, and she is currently also training in Prana Kriya Yoga with Yogi.

Shima remains deeply curious about yoga and the philosophy that underpins it and sees her learning in yoga as being a lifelong process.  She is well versed in working with various mental health difficulties such as depression, anxiety disorders and various presentations of trauma, including PTSD and C-PTSD.  Due to her clinical experience in mental health and psychological training, she is naturally trauma informed and sensitive in her approach to working with the body.  

While Shima is trained in a range of evidence-based therapeutic modalities, she is mindful of respecting the principles of the traditional yogic practices that she has been trained in. She believes yoga to be a healing modality in and of its own right; if practiced correctly and with commitment, one will naturally start to feel the benefits of yoga on both a psychological and physical level. 

She is passionate about helping people and yoga has now become one of the ways that she is also working with to help individuals to overcome some of the challenges that can sometimes bring them to the practice of Yoga.