Interview with Rachel Krentzman, PT, C-IAYT, MBA, author of “As Is: A Memoir on Healing the Past Through Yoga”
Rachel Krentzman PT, C-IAYT, MBA is a practicing yoga and physical therapist and certified Hakomi psychotherapist. Born in Montreal to an Orthodox Jewish family, she experienced the trauma of her rabbi father’s arrest, shed her strict upbringing, and found herself. She specializes in personal healing through somatic, body-centered psychotherapy and yoga therapy. Afflicted with scoliosis and damaged discs, she created a powerful therapy that helps hundreds of students and patients around the world. She now lives with her husband, son and two dogs in Israel. Her numerous books on yoga include Scoliosis, Yoga Therapy and the Art of Letting Go (2016). Her new book is As Is: A Memoir on Healing the Past Through Yoga.
In “As Is: A Memoir on Healing the Past Through Yoga,” Rachel chronicles her own transformation. She shares how she was forced to confront her own inherited and personal beliefs about herself and her family, and find her way beyond a heavy legacy and into her own life. It’s a candid, heartfelt true story with some surprising twists, including the family crisis that shattered her world view. As Rachel searches for healing and self-discovery, she finds sanctuary and inspiration in the practice of yoga, and comes to understand the powerful connection between mind and body. Set in Montreal, San Diego, and Israel, this is a riveting story of a profound self-awakening.
I recently had the chance to talk about to Rachel about her moving book, her creative journey, and how her own revelations led to her powerful, innovative therapy:
Interview Questions:
1. Your father went from being a respected Orthodox rabbi to being arrested—can you describe that pivotal moment and how it shattered your understanding of your family, your faith, and yourself?
I remember the moment as a kind of implosion. Everything I thought I could trust—my father’s integrity, my family’s reputation, my faith—collapsed overnight. It wasn’t just his arrest that broke me; it was realizing how much of my life had been built on appearances and denial. The world I grew up in taught me to suppress doubt, to obey, to look perfect. When that illusion shattered, so did my sense of self. It forced me to start over, to question everything: What is truth? What is love? What is faith without fear? That rupture became the beginning of my awakening, even though it felt like complete ruin at the time.
2. You write about how trauma becomes embedded in the body and can stay hidden for decades. How did you discover the fear and self-doubt that were stored in your own body, and what was the process of releasing them?
I discovered it slowly, through pain—literally. My back pain and herniated disc at age 30 was my teacher before I ever understood the concept of embodied trauma. Every spasm, every contraction held a story I hadn’t yet told myself. Through yoga and later Hakomi therapy, I began to listen instead of override. My body spoke in the language of tension, exhaustion, and collapse, revealing fear, guilt, and grief that had been stored for years. The process of release wasn’t dramatic; it was tender and deliberate—breath by breath, pose by pose, learning to stay present with sensations I once avoided. Over time, the body softened, and with it, the heart opened. Healing came not from “fixing” my pain, but from befriending it.
3. Moving from a strict Orthodox upbringing to embracing yoga and a more compassionate spiritual path is a profound transformation. What were the hardest beliefs to shed, and what did you discover about yourself in the process?
The hardest belief to shed was that love must be earned—that I had to be good, obedient, or self-sacrificing to deserve belonging. That message had shaped my faith, my relationships, even the way I practiced yoga at first. Letting it go required dismantling the entire architecture of fear that had kept me safe. What I discovered in its place was something astonishingly simple: I am already whole. The divine isn’t outside of us, judging or rewarding; it’s within us, quietly waiting for us to listen. True spirituality, I learned, isn’t about control—it’s about presence, honesty, and compassion for our own humanity.
4. You’ve developed a specialized therapy combining yoga, Hakomi, and physical therapy that helps people with scoliosis and chronic back pain. How did your own experience with scoliosis and damaged discs lead you to this approach, and what makes it effective where other treatments fall short?
My own scoliosis and disc injuries were the greatest catalysts for my professional evolution. Traditional physical therapy taught me anatomy and biomechanics, but it couldn’t explain why my pain always returned. Yoga introduced the mind-body connection, and Hakomi gave me the missing piece—the emotional roots of physical holding patterns. My approach works because it honors the person as an integrated system: structure, sensation, and story. When we uncover the unconscious beliefs driving tension—like fear, control, or shame—the body begins to reorganize naturally. It’s not just about alignment of the spine; it’s about alignment of the self. But one cannot exist without the other.
5. Can you explain the connection between fear, anxiety, and physical pain in the body? How does addressing emotional trauma actually change what’s happening physically in conditions like scoliosis or chronic back issues?
Fear and anxiety activate the nervous system—muscles tighten, breath shortens, and the body prepares for danger. When this becomes chronic, those patterns imprint into posture and movement. In scoliosis or back pain, you can literally see fear’s signature in the body: holding one side, collapsing the other, guarding the heart. When we address emotional trauma, the body’s threat response begins to settle. The nervous system learns safety again. Through awareness, touch, and breath, we invite the body to feel what was once unbearable. That’s when real change happens from the inside out—when the body remembers what ease feels like, and the soul begins to trust life again.
6. For readers who are carrying painful childhood legacies or family trauma, what would you say are the first steps toward healing? What does it mean to accept ourselves “as is” while also pursuing transformation?
Healing begins with honesty—with the courage to stop running from your own story. The first step is to turn toward your pain rather than away from it, to witness it with compassion instead of judgment. As is doesn’t mean resignation; it means standing exactly where you are, without shame, and meeting yourself with kindness. True transformation grows out of that acceptance—it cannot come before it. Change rarely happens all at once; it unfolds slowly, through patience, consistency, and the willingness to begin again. Even when you fall back into old patterns, you’re still on the path. Accepting yourself isn’t about giving up—it’s about taking responsibility for your own healing, one honest moment at a time.
To learn more, visit Rachel Krentzman at Happy Back Yoga.
