Friday, November 4, 2011

Heart Spirit Therapy

“Embrace Your Anger.” This was just one of the many powerful workshops I attended at the Heart Spirit Therapy Symposium, facilitated by The Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center in San Francisco on Saturday October 22, 2011. The event was free and open to all healing professionals--psychotherapists, yoga teachers, massage therapists, holistic practitioners, doulas, chiropractors, and lots of others. The day consisted of ten 30 minute sessions with a smorgasbord of topics, exploring the ways we connect with the heart and spirit to allow ourselves to heal. I was overwhelmed with joy, excitement, and eagerness to soak up as much information as I could, as well as connect with the amazing healers around me.

Being a yoga teacher and bodyworker myself, I attended “Yoga for Emotions” by Lexi Frank, and “Yoga for Trauma Healing” by Raia Kogan. These workshops really opened my eyes more to the “languaging” required when teaching and working with individuals, who have suffered from severe trauma. I learned how people who have suffered from severe trauma have little or no connection to their body, and a simple, but effective exercise to do in a yoga group is to let them feel their feet on the ground.

“Embrace Your Anger”, by Yael Melamed & Jyoti Kalmar, took me back to my Non-Violent Communication training days, which had both triggers for me, but wonderful insights to how I respond to anger, feel/experience it, and the strategies I use in a situation.

All the workshop facilitators were bursting with knowledge, wisdom and passion for their fields, that I wanted the workshops to be longer in length. I felt like it was a tease, but a great way to give a taste of what each individual is working on and contributing to the world. I hope Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center holds another event like this soon.

Golden Gate Integral Counseling Center offers quality, affordable counseling on a sliding scale basis and is a counseling center of the California Institute of Integral Studies (www.ciis.edu). Contact them today, www.goldengatecounseling.org.

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