Envision Yoga is a neuroscience-backed mental fitness method in Los Angeles that pairs calming left-right audio with yoga, visualization, and affirmations. It is not therapy and it is not hypnosis. The idea is simple. First you settle the nervous system into a calm, receptive state. Then, while you are in that state, you practice being the version of you who already believes the thing you want to believe. I am Leah Davis, I have taught yoga since 2011, and this is the method I built once I understood how the calm part and the practice part fit together.
Envision Yoga is mental fitness that uses a calm brain state to make new beliefs easier to build. Most of us try to change how we think while our stress response is still running hot, which is like trying to plant a garden in a windstorm. Envision Yoga does the settling first. The alternating left-right sound quiets the part of your brain that scans for danger, and in that quieter state, yoga postures, visualization, and affirmations have somewhere soft to land. You can read the full science and lineage on the where this comes from page.
Regular yoga trains your body. Envision Yoga trains your default response. A strong yoga practice will make you more flexible and calmer for an afternoon, and that is a real and good thing. But Envision Yoga is aimed at something more stubborn: the way you talk to yourself before a hard conversation, the way you brace when things go sideways, the story that runs in the background. Those patterns are not personality. They are habits, and habits can be retrained. So the postures are there, but they are in service of the rehearsal, not the other way around.
The audio alternates between your left and right sides, and that back-and-forth rhythm settles the nervous system into a state that looks a lot like REM sleep, the phase where the brain sorts and integrates. This is bilateral stimulation, the same mechanism inside EMDR therapy, which the psychologist Francine Shapiro first described in 1987. Envision Yoga is not EMDR and not therapy. It borrows the calming engine and points it forward, toward who you are becoming, rather than backward at anything painful. If you want the deeper version, I wrote a whole piece on how Envision Yoga works and another on the benefits of bilateral stimulation.
A session, which we call an Envisioning, runs about an hour and moves through a few stages:
If you want the minute-by-minute version, here is what to expect in your first session. You do not need to be flexible and you do not need to be spiritual. You need to be willing to try.
Envision Yoga is for people who are functioning fine but stuck, or standing at some kind of turning point. New job, new city, a decision they keep circling. People who overthink, who want more self-trust, who are high-achieving and quietly tense. It is not treatment and it is not a substitute for care. If you are working through trauma or in real distress, a licensed therapist is the right first call. What Envision Yoga offers is closer to strength training for your inner life: not fixing what is broken, but building toward who you want to be.
Students most often mention the same handful of things: less anxiety, steadier sleep, clearer decisions, and a calmer baseline that holds up between sessions. I collect what they say verbatim, every one of them, on the testimonials page, and I never paraphrase a word of it. The honest frame is this: one session tends to feel good, and consistent practice is what shifts the baseline, the same way one workout feels good but a habit is what changes your body.
The easiest way in is a weekly class. I teach Wednesdays at 7:30pm in Echo Park (Light and Space Yoga). Times and sign-up are on the classes page. If you want deeper one-on-one work, there are private sessions in Los Angeles or over Zoom. Start wherever the friction is lowest.
Is Envision Yoga therapy? No. It is a mental fitness method, not treatment, and it does not diagnose or treat anything. It shares a calming mechanism with EMDR therapy but is not the therapy. If you are in distress, see a licensed clinician first.
Do I need yoga experience? No. The postures are accessible and the point is the practice inside them, not performance. First-timers are welcome in every class.
What does bilateral stimulation feel like? Like sound moving gently from your left side to your right and back, building and easing. Most people find it calming and a little hypnotic, though it is not hypnosis.
How much does it cost to try? A weekly class is the low-commitment way in. Private sessions are 200 dollars for 60 minutes, with packages available, in person in Los Angeles or over Zoom.
Can I do it online? Yes. Private sessions run over Zoom, and you will need stereo headphones or earbuds because the left-right alternation is the whole point.
Envision Yoga is a neuroscience-backed mental fitness method in Los Angeles, created by Leah Davis, E-RYT 500. It is not therapy and not a substitute for it. Questions? Read the FAQs or book a 15-minute intro call.
Reading only gets you so far. A private session is one hour, built around one thing you want sharper. $200, and I come to you in LA. Or Zoom.
Want to talk first? Book a free 15-minute call. In LA? Come to the Wednesday class.