Donna Martin

In psoma yoga therapy we are looking for how someone’s habitual embodiment reveals the way they are looking at, making meaning of, and reacting to their experience. In fact, the very experience they are having is a kind of virtual reality for the “self” or “embodiment” that is showing up. Experience is organized by habits and beliefs and by mostly unconscious models - models about self, about others, about the world, about how to get needs met, about what is real and what is possible. I love this verse translated from the ancient Upanishads: “Lift up the self by the Self and don’t let the self droop low, for the Self is the self’s only friend and the self is the Self’s only foe.” Our habitual reactions are organized by old coping strategies that are embodied, while it is our Wise Self that has the most creative and appropriate responses to others and to life. When we want to help someone to tap into their “inner wisdom”, we look for how an embodied part with more reactivity than wisdom is organizing their way of perceiving or choosing or acting. We want to recognize the embodied shift that happens naturally and spontaneously when someone moves from a reactive place to a place of wisdom. One definition of enlightenment is “an appropriate response”. In psoma yoga therapy we are helping others to develop more self awareness through a practice of embodied mindfulness In order to let their inner wisdom express itself in a new embodiment and more appropriate responses to life.