Embody Mental Health

Posts Tagged ‘NARHA’

“The secret to humor is surprise.”

Aristotle

I want to say a sincere thank you to everyone reading this blog and to everyone who has passed through the last, almost, year.  When I began this blog 100 posts ago last August I knew there were going to be seismic shifts in my life–newly married, relocating to Florida from NJ, and beginning new work in a new stage of life, state of the nation, and state of mind.  Much has happened that I expected but most that I never could have fortold.  Which is why, as I always tell my clients, don’t project or ruminate on what may be because, as I am continually learning, whatever our brains could imagine is nothing even close to the life we are given.  Day by day I am surprised, for better or worse, in lessons I wanted to learn and especially those I needed but never wanted, how much of life is surprises and how little works out how we choreograph it in our minds. 

At my 100th post, on the verge of a year “on the air”, virtually speaking, and with a plethora of surprises on my plate of life (good, bad, and really ugly) I marvel at life and am reminded that while Hollywood continues to churn out excellent fictions, the real stuff is the best script of all.  I am trying, difficult as it is with a work schedule that seems to bleed into nights and weekends (at least for now), to get back into my creative landscape and start seriously chipping away at the chapters of my book. 

I have many added rich layers of content especially following my recent visit with Shelley Rosenberg and Nancy Coyne in Arizona and I have still one more installment of my series of posts on my adventures with them–complete with boundary goat and all.  My book, as my life, has taken many surprising turns on this journey, morphing into something unexpected and new at every turn–although my once optomistic deadline of New Year’s 2011 for completion may have been a bit on the ridiculous side as I discover the layers and nuances in writing book-length prose. 

The chapters of my book, and the chapters of my life, reveal new material with every page, with every day and I am left thinking and quoting (as I have before) the punk rock song line, “All I know is that I don’t know.  All I know is that I don’t know nothing.”  My blog, as with everything right now in my life, is beginning a metamorphasis and a facelift of sorts.  I have branched off of wordpress.com and their free blog into an exciting and daunting self-run (eek) wordpress.org blog!  I am excited for what comes although bear with my learning curve on the nuances of a page run by these tech-savvy-less hands. 

I hope to explore so much more in the world of mental health, trauma healing, and mind, body, and spirit wellness in the next 100 posts.  Here is a quick teaser of a few of the fun things on the horizon!

• Interview with Margaret Burns Vap of Big Sky Yoga Retreats & Cowgirl Yoga!
• Interview with Elizabeth Plapinger, lawyer, Columbia School of Law professor, and co-creator of the Yoga for Mental Health & Wellness program at The Breathing Project in NYC!
• Interview with Michael Stone, co-founder of Center of Gravity Sangha, author, yogi, psychotherapist, and international lecturer on yoga, buddhism, and mental health!
• And my upcoming speaking and posts about the Florida NASW Conference (June 11th), Region 5 NARHA Conference (August), National NARHA Conference (November), and my upcoming E-Course at WISHSTUDIO on self-care!  Feel free to come and join for any of these events if you happen to be in Florida, Alabama, Denver, or the virtual world–respectively !

I am looking forward to seeing what the next 100 posts of my life will bring!  Thank you again for all those that are on this virtual journey or the newcomers joining in on the bandwagon of self-care, mental health and wellness, healing from traumatic experience, and dealing with issues of disconnect and finding reconnection in our lives, in our souls, and in our minds!

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Albert Schweitzer

Hello All & An Early Happy Weekend!  Between being sick with a sinus infection since this past weekend and back to the doctor for a second time this afternoon for a nebulizer treatment of albuterol due to serious bronchial issues from a secondary infection I have been a bit of a sick-ful mess this week.  I was, as well as the rest of the sick staff at my job, pretty much ordered to go home and get well which I hope to do!

I have been left with little time, energy, and unfevered brainspace with which to write this week and I missed it.  I really relish the reflective moments on this blog and love to share in the community of the blogosphere!  Next week promises to be HEALTHFUL and BLOGFUL if I can get myself back on track internally and externally to do so.

I had my clients in group today end the week with a statement of gratitude to begin their weekend and I would like to do the same and go back to my enjoyable past time of a Friday LIST! Yay!  Fevers make me a bit punchy and jubilant–when not coughy and curmudgenly (also aliteration inspired apparently).  And I think ESPECIALLY when we feel low and depleted it is important to reflect on the metaphorical food that feeds us.  The literal food that feeds me today is pizza and sinus medication.

10 THINGS I AM GRATEFUL FOR RIGHT NOW ARE….

1. …A husband that will bring me soup on a tray and a seltzer in bed when I am hacking up my lungs.

2. …A wonderful holistic community in South Florida that continues to amaze me with the passionate professionals in mental health and beyond that are working to bring care to people : mind, body, and spirit.

3. …Sunshine.  I don’t think I even want to take for granted to wonders of sunshine and the plentiful sun of South Florida.  To be able to take a therapy group outside and by the beach is an amazing blessing.

4. …To be able to teach what I love to those who want to hear about it.  The other day I mentioned to a co-worker that when I was a child I wanted to be a teacher and a detective.  She replied, “So you sort of did that then didn’t you?”  I laughed and thought that is true–as therapist alone I am sort of an investigator of the psyche and teacher of coping skills.  It is even more rewarding that I get to be part of an academic sphere even beyond that–giving back what I learn as therapist-detective-teacher with my clients to other passionate professionals.

5. …Family.  I have an immediate and extended family and circle of friends that, especially hearing so much about the painful family histories of my clients, I know how lucky I am to have a system of support, caring, and mutual respect that many people struggle long and hard to find one tenth of the same.

6. …Yoga.  Especially lately with changing jobs and getting sick and having almost 3 WEEKS now yoga-less I am reminded again of how much yoga is at the core of my own grounding, self-care, and centering.  I gave a Self Care workshop last Friday (right before getting sick) in Delray Beach and I found myself leaving rejuvenated by the energy of the collective of women giving back a little peace to themselves–and found myself hungry for more moments of the same for myself.  I am so thankful for my yoga practice and cannot wait to stop hacking up my lungs and start down-dogging myself and my  limbs back to limber bliss.

7. …Virtual Communities & Live Communities.  There is so much power in the intimacy of a collective–whether in cyberspace or in physical presence–the healing power of communities and sharing constantly astounds me.  There is such a profoundness in group therapy–I love leading groups in collective healing and love any form of collective healing–community acupuncture, community EMDR (both which are done at my current job for patients), group equine facilitated psychotherapy programs, group creative arts workshops (like are being explored at the WISH STUDIO), and all avenues of sharing life experience and the journeys with others.

8. …The beautiful ANGEL SMILE FARMS in Loxahatchee where I cannot wait to begin presenting PRANA EQUUS workshops for self-care through yoga, creative arts, mindfulness, and equine relational activities!

9. …What I learn daily from others.  My clients are so profound–and often most profound when they don’t even intend it.  I love being able to take their journeys with them and in the process move forward on my own path with the richness of their experiences and their own revelations about life, self, and happiness.

10. Being asked to present at the 2010 National NARHA Conference in Denver!  I just found out today & I cannot wait.  Both because I always miss Colorado since I moved away in 2003 and because I cannot wait to talk with a national audience of equine mental health professionals about this integrative programming I am so passionate for–bringing yoga, horses, and mental health together in a creative package.  Check out this link for more information on the conference (I will also be speaking with Maurette Hanson at the Region 5 NARHA Conference in Alabama in August): http://www.narha.org/Conference/2010/Conference2010Home.asp

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now.”   Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have had one of those weeks that has been enlightening, invigorating, and inspiring on every human level possible.  From the human to the equine I have heard the journeys of survivors, thrivers, and those who have a story to tell that is so profound it wells tears and lapses breathe just in having heard it. 

In the Rumpus (yes I saw Where The Wild Things Are last weekend) of it all I found synapses blasting and neural paths sparking with a realization of how much all of my work, all of my passions, and all of my life seemed to have been leading to this point of alignment (not to be too dramatic about it) in some way.  If someone had told me before this moment that I would be in a position to both love and align yoga, horses, and psychotherapy together I would have laughed at the incredulousness of the idea.  Today I will say that nothing makes more sense or is more clear to me than how these three worlds collide and echo with sound bites and fragments of each other.

I spent last week (Wednesday to Saturday) at the NARHA Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.  I learned about “Prey Psychology” and the corollaries between Winnicottian Theory and Self-Psychology and Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy.  I found an entire world that had blended so many of the ideas and passions I had been working with into a body of therapeutic work that had been alive for 10-20 years without my even being aware of it.  I was invigorated by the passion of the people in this profession and the well-thought academics behind their practices.  It wasn’t just teaching horsemanship to people in hopes of effecting change in some emotional way it was a full basis of therapeutic practices working with horses as partners in effecting change in people’s lives.  One woman even referred to her equine counterparts as “colleagues” in a context that made it seem absolutely an apt description. 

I heard people discussing the importance of mindfulness, self-soothing techniques, and even horseback yoga as a means of creating emotional wellness not just through the client’s relationship with the horse but also their body, mind, and emotional awareness of themselves.  It was a wonderful experience to be amid people in a world of therapy, present centered living, and holistic treatment for people in emotional distress that I never before knew existed.  I found myself hoping with more earnestness and a real sense that  it was possible for a world of therapy that broke down the four walls of a therapy room and can, will, take people’s healing to creative and intuitive new heights. 

I heard one particular horse trainer describe the horse as a very “present oriented” being stating that as an animal of prey a horse is instinctually imbedded in the present moment, needing to focus on those things that bring them safety, security, and comfort and make them feel wholly well.  I was instantly drawn to consider the two parallels of that–trauma and yoga.  The horse is a great balancer in that it represents a healthy reflection of the traumatized person–it manages its present centered quest for survival while the traumatized person cannot moderate their “prey” experience and feels overwhelmed with their survival needs and unable to find the comfort in the present moment.  I thought also of how the horse is such an excellent metaphor for the perfect yogi/ni.  The horse is able to look at the now, live in the now, and be comforted by what they are given that helps maintain their sense of balance–rejecting that, that does not help them maintain that homeostasis.  They are the perfect mirror to the traumatized person of both what they are and what they want/need to be.  I was fascinated by this beautiful parallel and how the horse is the bridge between emotional disarray and yogic, spiritual centeredness. 

I feel on the precipice of breaking through my own glass ceiling of sorts–personally, professionally, philosophically.  Ever moment I turn around I find a new bread crumb, rich metaphor, deep symbology of this shift–in the good, the bad, and the ugly in my life.  I am grateful for this journey and excited for the next bread crumb that will lead to the next discovery. 

In the world of wordless connection I see horses as the symbol of something ancient, mystical, beautiful, and simple all in one.  As Linda Kohanov states so eloquently in her book The Tao of Equus speaking about her young new horse, “She was standing in a box stall smelling of pine shavings, and she spoke to me more eloquently in silence than anyone ever had in words.”  This is the kind of connection I could only hope for all of us to have–in life, in healing, in growth of self. 

“The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears.”             Arabian Proverb