You can be the parent you needed and perhaps didn’t get. While you can’t rewrite history, you can heal by giving yourself a “do-over.” You can reimagine an upsetting situation and provide a different outcome. This form of active imagination may work wonders because the body doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality. When you imagine a different outcome for yourself, you are essentially reliving the experience and rewiring your brain to think about it in a new way. 

In a world where we are increasingly encouraged to divorce our bodies and minds, Eugene Gendlin's work on focusing and felt sensing offers a powerful antidote. These practices not only facilitate the reconnection of body and mind but also serve as transformative tools for communication. For folx who have been oppressed, these practices are particularly valuable, as they provide a means to speak from a place of authenticity and empowerment. By embracing these techniques, individuals can unlock their true selves, paving the way for healing, personal growth, and societal change.

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.

Brother Thay, as he was known, asked us to use all our senses when eating the tangerine, to let each bite hit the tongue and to notice the juice washing over it – the acidity, the sweetness, the tinge of sourness. He said, “Each time you look at a tangerine, you can see deeply into it. You can see everything in the universe in one tangerine. When you peel it and smell it, it’s wonderful. You can take your time eating a tangerine and be very happy.” There is true and pure happiness in each and every tangerine if you just be with it.

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.

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.

The breath is a powerful process and can be understood even as a mind-body tool. It can both indicate an emotional/mental state as well as encourage one. For instance, when a person is calm and relaxed, often their breathing slows. It gets deeper, in the belly, and even out almost through the ribs and down the back. When a person is stressed and tensed, often their breathing quickens. It gets shallower and in the chest. However, you can also facilitate each of those emotional states by changing your breathing. Meaning if you start breathing more slowly, taking belly breaths, you may start to feel more relaxed and at ease.

The body is its own boundary. The body contains us, holds us, keeps our organs intact. Our skin especially separates us from the rest of the world. It designates where we end and others begin. The skin is what differentiates the inside from the outside.

Psychedelics offer the possibility of a mystical experience or connecting with something greater than the self. However, psychedelics can also heal intergenerational as well as ancestral trauma.

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.

Just as the mind and body registers an event (or events) as traumatic, the mind and body can also release those traumatic events. Here are some techniques I’ve found are helpful for releasing trauma from the body: