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. 

Our minds have a natural tendency to meander, jumping from one thought to another, often leaving us feeling scatterbrained and unable to sustain our focus for more than a fleeting moment. However, it's important to realize that this wandering mind is not a sign of doom or an inherent flaw. In fact, it's a common experience for many of us. Rather than viewing this tendency with harsh judgment or frustration, it's more helpful to approach it with compassion and understanding. Our minds wander, especially when they are burdened by fear, anxiety, or excessive thoughts. This is where meditation comes in as a valuable practice. Through meditation, we can train our minds to rein in their wandering tendencies and cultivate the ability to focus on one thing at a time. It's a gentle and transformative process that empowers us to harness the potential of our minds, ultimately leading to greater clarity and peace.

Trauma can disrupt an individual's life story, making it difficult to find meaning or purpose. Astrology and human design present a narrative framework that weaves together past experiences, present circumstances, and future possibilities. By incorporating these belief systems into their healing journey, individuals can create a cohesive narrative of their lives, which can serve as a catalyst for growth, transformation, and resolution of trauma. It is crucial to recognize that they are not substitutes for professional therapeutic interventions when dealing with unresolved trauma. It is advisable to seek the guidance of mental health professional.

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.

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.

The Spiral Dance invokes nature by acknowledging the presence of our environment as a living being that we interact with. In that way, the Spiral Dance is spiritual, but also it mirrors healing taking place among community because people are joined together, holding hands, and supporting one another in the process.

Healing is also not swift, despite the numerous people in the world trying to tell you otherwise with their quick-fix products and programs. Awareness of an issue is one thing – something afforded by the use of psychedelics, for instance – but integration is another.

The breath tells us something if we notice it. It can give profound insight into the inner landscape of a person.

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.

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: