Join the Global Yoga Therapy Day Celebration: Whether you are new to yoga therapy or a seasoned practitioner, Global Yoga Therapy Day provides a wonderful opportunity to explore this transformative modality and its countless benefits. Seek out local events, workshops, and online resources to deepen your understanding of yoga therapy and somatic psychology.

Seeking out the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco for my doctoral degree was important and has tremendously helped shape my practice today. Started by Haridas Chaudhuri, student of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, this institute offered a lens into ways to address and help the whole person, not merely the mental aspect of the lived experience. Studying in India deepened my understanding of how art, music, body movement, and states of consciousness are as much an integral part of the practice of psychology as much as are the id, ego, superego, transference and countertransference. It was easy to see the archetypes personified before my eyes as I saw 50 foot statutes of Ganesha and Saturn.

I sought out my graduate studies beginning in human sexuality because the body is typically a central part of sexual expression. And then I found my way to the California Institute of Integral Studies, where Indian Psychology was, in part, what the school was founded on and Indian Psychology has a deep understanding that the human lived experience is far beyond the mind and most certainly includes the body, at the very least. Somatic psychology, a western psychology field, is a field that explores the relationship between the mind and body, emphasizing the importance of bodily sensations, movement, and physical experiences in psychological well-being and healing.

Because bodies don’t come with instruction manuals, how the heck are you supposed to know what yours wants?!? Simple: You ask. It may seem like a foreign concept to talk to your body, but the body is ready and waiting for you to talk with it, to consult it. After all, it is an integral part of you. And, it is already communicating with you, even if you aren’t sure how to interpret its messages. Listening to the body, from the inside, and learning what it needs and wants is a skill that takes practice.

Sometimes bodies speak quietly, like through a whisper. And sometimes we miss that whisper and then our bodies speak more loudly, such as through a cold or an illness even. When we dis-associate from the body, the body’s inner wisdom has a way of bringing us back. Sometimes we know our bodies are speaking to us, but we don’t understand the message! It may be hard to decipher the messages from the body as they are encoded in such ways that require some quieting, slowing, or curiosity.

Focusing is subtle and intricate. It has been applied widely in the fields of psychology, medicine, education, conflict resolution, parenting, and decision-making. Perhaps if Focusing was applied to politics, we would see some much-needed improvements in the U.S. in particular.

I’d like to talk about ecstatic dance, which should perhaps be called enstatic dance instead. Continue reading to find out why. First off, what does ecstasy mean? From a research standpoint, not much exists on the philosophical state of ecstasy.

Grief does not know time. And it could be considered an unasked for gift to embrace more of a yin, or feminine, energy. The yin energy is one that creates space, turns inward, and is powerful in its receptivity. This is very different from most societies’ typical ways of operating,

A key component for sexual assault and sexual violence survivors is to remember they are safe in their bodies, in this space and in this present time. In my private practice, a way that I