Building A Bridge Into Yoga
Yoga helped Josh Sparks turn his life around after battling addiction and breakdown. Now he is helping others do the same
After yoga gave him a lifeline back from addiction and a mental health breakdown, Josh Sparks, a chiropractic doctor and a yoga instructor, went on to create a holistic wellness clinic on the south coast with a mission to make the practices that transformed his life accessible to all. “I didn’t just want to treat pain, I wanted to help people with all the layers underneath that — physically, mentally, and emotionally. I want to help them to live better,” he tells OM.
This simple idea was the genesis of Natural Healing, a chiropractic and holistic wellbeing clinic in Bournemouth, founded in 2022. Today, the clinic and studio has an eight-strong multidisciplinary team offering chiropractic care, massage, acupuncture, manual lymphatic drainage, reflexology, reiki and strength training alongside a programme of classes including yoga, tai chi, Pilates, meditation and breathwork.
By bringing together treatments and therapies with movement practices, alongside a programme of events and retreats, Sparks has created a wellness community where clients are encouraged to explore different modalities as their needs evolve, building in yoga, movement and meditation alongside hands-on care.
“Often people arrive here thinking yoga isn’t for them. But when they trust me clinically and professionally as a chiropractor, they become more open,” he says. “We help people discover transformative practices they might otherwise never have tried. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Chiropractic is brilliant, but sometimes what people need is to process grief, change their habits, or learn to breathe again. We want to enable change that is long-lasting.”
Healing body and mind
His uniquely holistic approach was forged in his own experience of the healing power of yoga for body and mind. At his lowest point during his teens, when drink and drugs, homelessness and alienation from his family saw him spiral into a mental health crisis, yoga helped him turn his life around.
Sparks grew up in a stable family in Mudeford, Dorset, but when undiagnosed ADHD fuelled tensions at home and school, he turned to drink and drugs to cope – causing a rift with his parents; by 16 he was homeless and sofa-surfing.
Drugs were a way to escape, but he was soon out of control, he adds: “I couldn’t have carried on that way. I think my mind just cracked.” At 17, he was sectioned, spending three weeks in an institution, emerging heavily medicated and feeling “disconnected and numb.”
It was at this point that yoga entered his life almost by accident. On a whim, Sparks joined a yoga class with his mum. The effect was immediate. “For the first time in years, the chaos in my head eased,” he says. “I felt clearer, better – I didn’t feel I needed any medication that day.”
After consulting his psychiatrist, he came off medication. “Yoga was bringing balance to my life – my mind and my body, which I’d also neglected. Trusting in that, I was able to come off all the medication.”
Sparks left his hometown to study chiropractic in Cardiff, and here his weekly yoga practice became daily as he “patched himself back together”. A seed for his future was sown. “I met a male yoga teacher, and then he suggested I should become a yoga instructor. At the time, I couldn’t see myself that way. I remember thinking: who am I to teach yoga?”
Still, that teacher handed him the reins of the university yoga society. By the time he graduated as a chiropractor, he was also a qualified yoga teacher.
Yoga as a foundation
After qualifying, Sparks worked in chiropractic clinics in Cornwall and Bournemouth, all the while deepening his own yoga practice. Vipassana meditation retreats – 10 whole days of silence – became a defining turning point.
“The retreats showed me how much pain is subjective,” he says. “I could feel how mental instability was amplifying physical sensations. Sitting in silence unearthed those patterns very clearly – how unresolved emotional material was making things worse in the body.”
By the third retreat, that process had led to a deeper kind of resolution. “It wasn’t that I was suddenly ‘fine’, it was that I’d accepted all parts of myself – both the light and the dark – and became completely comfortable with who I am. That acceptance brought a real sense of ease.”
That clarity also sharpened his view of the healthcare model he was working within. “I could see the greed in the system,” he says. “People were being reduced to problems to monetise, rather than humans to care for.” When his path at a clinic came to an end, he took it as a sign to do things differently.
Sparks took care to build his life and his business around yoga philosophy, particularly the Yamas and Niyamas, with principles such as truthfulness, non-violence, not stealing, generosity, simplicity, clarity, discipline, self-inquiry and contentment guiding his conduct on and off the mat.
“I didn’t want to build something that was purely profit-focused,” he says. “I wanted to be patient and relationship-focused. Offering support and guidance is part of the ideology.”
At the heart of everything is surrender – īśvara praṇidhāna – and the understanding that suffering is often less about what happens to us, and more about how we relate to it. “Yoga helps you accept where you are,” he adds. “It helps you find gratitude, even in difficult moments, and move through challenges with stronger mental fortitude.”
Helping others find the path
Key to his mission is opening the door to people who might otherwise not have discovered yoga, or even turned away from it: “When people say, ‘I’m not flexible enough for yoga,’ it’s like saying, ‘I’m too dirty for a bath.’ My role is to crush those misconceptions and make yoga accessible for everyone.”
One group he is keen to make space for is men. Having often been ‘the only bloke in the class’ himself, he knows how out of place or excluded they can feel in many yoga spaces.
His men’s yoga classes and monthly men’s meet-ups are designed to feel less intimidating, he says: “I’d never want to gender this tool that’s for everyone. But after getting to know the men who came along, I quickly recognised the need, and the impact it was having.”
He adds: “Lots of blokes will try to drown out challenging emotions or thoughts, maybe with alcohol, excessive exercise or working overtime – and I've experienced all of that. Yoga makes clear what’s going on in your inner world. So, while they might come for their body, they stay for their mind.”
As a qualified yoga therapist, Sparks also offers one-to-one sessions for clients looking to address specific emotional and mental issues, as well as physical needs. “I live for those moments when an ancient, esoteric technique – like nadi shodhana – unlocks something for someone. From my own experience I know how transformative these practices are, and I want to continue sharing them. I’m a different person as a result and I want to give that to others.”
Making a difference
Natural Healing has impacted many lives, from the individual recovering from a stroke who found relief from persistent headaches through a yogic breathing technique, to the client who found that movement classes helped him navigate grief following a bereavement.
Sparks recalls one client who dismissed “all that meditation rubbish and yoga stuff”, only to take up yoga over time, resolve chronic pain and discover renewed vitality. “She’s transformed, not just physically but in her energy, her vibrancy,” he says. “That’s the magic: seeing people going on their own healing journey.”
Whether they arrive seeking treatment for pain, recovery from injury or want to feel fitter, what they discover is “a space to reconnect body and mind” according to Sparks. “By opening up these ancient practices to them, we are empowering people to make lasting changes, to feel better and live with more balance.”
Find out more about Josh Sparks and his clinic at: naturalhealingdorset.com or connect on Instagram: @naturalhealingdorset
Om Magazine
First published in November 2009, OM Yoga magazine has become the most popular yoga title in the UK. Available from all major supermarkets, independents and newsstands across the UK. Also available on all digital platforms.
