Yoga as Therapy? You bet!

I was so pleased when Corinne mentioned she'd like to do an article on yoga. I know from my work as a body psychotherapist that most people have no idea of the enormous potential in using the body to transform emotions.

If your therapy doesn't include using the body in your work, consider yoga as a way to help you move through what gets triggered in your sessions. Your nervous system will thank-you! 
Dr. Suzanne LaCombe

By: Corinne Scholtz MFT
September 30, 2009.

From many years of studying and applying various therapies I've learned that we sometimes need more than words in order to heal. How we talk about ourselves, our lives and relationships, our problems and successes, will determine the story that we tell about our lives. 

But even though we often like the story we are living, sometimes that story can be our worst nightmare.   

Talk therapy is essentially a left brain experience, but there is a crucial component that is missing - the right brain! The right brain is responsible for our creativity and imagination. It's also a tool for transcending the chatter of the left brain. 

Sometimes the right brain will be activated while undergoing hypnosis, relaxation, visualization techniques, or mindfulness therapy. However, a shortcut to accessing this healing, calming, and expanding relationship with the world is through the breath and the body.

It's true - something as simple as breath awareness has the potential to shift not only your experience of your body, but your whole approach to life as well. 

Being in your body - really connecting with your hips, thighs, arms, and shoulders - can be both a scary and enlightening experience.

Scary, because we lock tension and old memories in the cells of our bodies, which literally affects how we move in the world.

Enlightening, because working through these blockages in the body will transform both mind and body - simultaneously.

Yoga, a centuries-old tradition, holds the potential to do just that.  

I know from personal experience how transformative it can be. 

To deal with stress and anxiety while I pursued my PhD while working full-time, I went to traditional talk therapy. I also experimented with natural supplements to energize my adrenal glands.

My exercise of choice during these years was running on the beach. It was calming for me to listen to the waves and breathe fresh air as I stretched my body. And for a time this worked for me - along with a glass of wine (or two) each night to relax.

But last December I hit a wall.  A really thick wall.  Everything about my life that wasn't working, or had eased to work, was staring me in the face.

I was thirty years old - a time of transition from one decade to the next.  I had a choice - to continue to avoid the changes that I needed to make (and stay small within my life) or to begin to address, one by one, the areas that were in most need of repair.

A personal crisis can be a great motivator for change! 

In January, I began doing hot yoga three times a week. Yoga became a high priority on my list.  I was exhausted, exhilarated, sore, but calm.

I quit drinking altogether. I changed my eating habits.

And I was losing weight! 

As I began to monitor my thoughts, I learned that negative ones predominated.

My body, my mind, and my relationships were transformed. 

I was transformed.  

There's no question that yoga practice is the sole reason why my life is back on track.

I learned how I hold stress, pain, sadness and anger in different areas of my body.

I learned how hard it is to first find the pain, accept it, stop fighting it, and finally relax into it. Relaxing into the pain means not avoiding it, not resisting, not distracting, but being in the present moment with the sensation. 

I learned in a authentic and non-intellectual way what it means to honor what greets us, to relax into sensations, to let go, and to breathe. 

It's an ongoing process. Many times I want to skip yoga class, but I ignore my mind and all the reasons it gives me for not going. But usually I look forward to class all day.

If therapy means to grow into ourselves and into acceptance of ourselves and our lives, then yoga can be a healing path.

Yoga as therapy? 

Absolutely! 

With Love,

Corinne

P.S. If you thinking of starting here's a video of beginner yoga positions.

Other articles by Corinne Scholtz

Family Therapy Counseling

Family Therapy Issues (Questions from visitors)

A Family Therapy Approach (Case example)

Becoming a Family Therapist