Working it out

So, I promised to post this – Teresa over at My Embodiment wrote this awesome piece for me, following an email discussion we’d had about how it’s not enough to simply know about the patterns of thinking you hold that may not be so useful, it’s not enough to work through things in your head or talk through things with a therapist. You have to get them out of your body, unwind. Then, you can begin to embody new habits, new samskaras, new patterns. Useful ones.

Yes, we will still go back to the old ones, like a stuck record playing over and over (Kerry wrote a great post about this). But here is the thing: once you start to bring new ways of being into your body, you bring them into your heart, and that, that my dears, is where the deepest intelligence lies. Not the head.

I find this to be particularly true for myself – regular readers will know this! I am a stuck record, but the tune is slowly changing. Yesssssss.

Opening to the New. Photo: Emma-Lou Griffin

So, without further ado, here is what Teresa, who is a psychotherapist, and soon-to-be yoga teacher, has to say on the topic of , um, embodiment.

I always have to remember to breathe.  It is amazing how often such a simple element of bodily functioning can be so difficult to do properly.  As a psychotherapist for trauma survivors I am constantly teaching my clients breathing and relaxation techniques but often with the frenetic pace at which I live my own life I just forget to breathe and release.  For me, that is where yoga comes into play.  It is a mind and body conversation with a focus on remembering to breathe and doing it in synchronicity with your body; it is a dance of breath and motion and it soothes my frenetic soul.  I realized from my own experience at learning to breathe through yoga the potential of this moving art to create a collaboration between mind and body, to calm and pacify, and to be truly healing.

My personal exploration of mind/body healing for self-care has grown into a professional passion for all manner of complimentary and holistic therapies for emotional trauma and overall mental health.  I believe that everything from animal assisted therapies to movement therapies to creative arts therapies has immense potential to help people heal.  These holistic treatment methods are just as the word holistic implies, treat the whole person: mind, body, emotions.   They have the ability to give a person a sense of empowerment for having created something and attunement to oneself wholly.  And gives people a chance to attend to ourselves by using self-soothing methods and creative approaches.  We, so often, forget to take care of ourselves and self-care is a vital element in every life, most especially those that had been touched by emotionally traumatic experiences.

People who have suffered trauma need to reconnect with their own self, inner landscape and outer physicality.  So often trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder leaves people detached: from their emotions, from their bodies, from their mind and memories.  Holistic treatment give back attention to self and in that a sense of wholeness that grows over time.  I think the possibilities for holistic healing and complimentary therapies is endless.  I hope more and more people, from therapists, to yoga teachers, to creative arts professionals, to medical professionals, all begin to explore this vast unending arena of resources and practice.

And if you want to know how you do your yoga so you feel the wisdom in your breath and bones, read Crescence’s advice. If you don’t have someone to sit with you and watch you breathe, it’s the next best thing.

Happy week to you all. Happy List coming, soon.