Last weekend, I was at a workshop with Bo Forbes entitled "Yoga for Emotional Balance: Simple Practices to Help Relieve Anxiety & Depression." To be honest, I'm not entirely sure yet what and how I might incorporate the workshop into my own life and into my clinical practice, but I wanted to share some initial thoughts. There were some ideas which seemed relatively straightforward:
These ideas fit with my frameworks for depression, anxiety, trauma, and the nervous systems. And they seem relatively accessible to share with the women, men, and adolescents with whom I work. Certainly any practice that encourages people to inhabit their body with conscious and compassionate attention is beneficial - especially when I think about women who've experienced birth traumas or losses, clients with chronic pain, or adolescents with body image struggles. Other aspects of the training elicited more bewildering discomfort. But to paraphrase Forbes: awkward is good; awkward is where the learning happens. So, I'm still mulling over interoception (briefly, this means the sense of the physiological condition of the body), the enteric nervous system in the gut, and how shifting visceral (or, body-based) resilience to change through slow, deliberate movement actually affects emotional resilience. I'm excited to integrate some of these concepts in my learning and practice. I think that there are also some valuable connections to make with new research about the role of inflammation, depression, and the consequences for perinatal mental health. And I'm feeling quite grateful for the opportunities that I have to go and take workshops outside my comfort zone and learn from other communities! Here's a quick little video of Bo Forbes talking about the nervous system - not from the training I went to, but it gives a sense of her framework.
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, particularly if you're a clinician incorporating more body-based interventions in your practice. Comments are closed.
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