I’ve also ruffled some parents’ feathers in the process, as a number of them are adamant (and also prided themselves) that they have “trained” their child to sit and stand sooner than their peers.
The proliferation of chronic neck, shoulder, mid, lower back pain and spinal issues are not just happening amongst the adults I’ve worked with, but increasingly manifesting in children and adolescents as well. With most adults not being able to get to the ground and staying there comfortably, babies are often coaxed out of rolling, crawling, creeping sooner than they are ready for with sitters and walkers, as well as being trained to interact with a world that mostly hovers above them rather than at a level closer to the ground.
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A lot of the rehabilitation and movement education work I’m exploring centres around developmental patterns. It involves getting back onto the floor to rediscover and relearn our gross motor skills from the ground up. This is also important in rewiring neural pathways in the brain stem (heart rate, blood pressure etc) and limbic system (emotion, learning, memory) that offer us a sense of safety in our body’s relationship to gravity and the environment. We learn how to move through different planes, and also learn how to fall with ease and grace. This has a profound effect on our nervous system’s ability to self-organise, self-soothe, and build resilience.

This post was originally posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on November 18th 2019

The post Creep, crawl, walk appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

How often in your day do you, can you, will you, dedicate time for yourself?

How often in life can you, will you, do you, set aside a whole week, or maybe even two, to retreat and reconnect?

How often will you, can you, do you, let your nervous system reset, to tune into a more subtle awareness that’s guided by intuition.

Visualise…
A time to rest, rejuvenate, rewire, relearn.
A time to rediscover your body, move, dance, self-inquire, befriend yourself again.

This is the kind of work we do at the annual Embodiment & Bodywork Immersion. 
And yes, I call it work 🙂 

If you know me, you’d know I’m not one who gives formulaic answers or quick fixes.
I can’t offer you a 10-step guide to bliss and enlightenment.
Nor can I offer you a sequence to perfect your handstand. 

I can’t do the work for you.

BUT.

I love bringing people together to co-create within a container of a retreat.
I love creating a safe space to facilitate the uncovering of deep and meaningful questions.
I love offering a therapeutic framework to support one another through a shedding of layers, a deep dive into shadow work, one in which we return to the basics, of remembering who are.
I love bearing witness to the unexpected creative expressions that are often borne out of this work – poetry, dance, drawings, and most of all – connections.

This is the flame that’s burning in my heart, a conviction that there’s an art to living well that’s beyond being busy and a nice glass of wine after a long day, a desire to learn and share and relearn about who we are, why are we here, what makes us Us.

To call this journey an immersion is my best attempt in trying to describe the phenomena that occur every year when a group of people come together to push a reset button.
To move, breath, inquire into our mind, our body, our actions, our relationships.
To be empowered in our own healing process by truly listening to what’s within and without…
And then to leave with just a little bit more clarity, intention, and wonderment in their life, an embodied experience imprinted into our cellular being.

“Daphne’s embodiment and immersion retreat had me seeing the true state of my humanity – a difficult time, yet arriving at a return to central love. If you are seeking truth in your existence you will find what you are looking for in the realm created by Daphne’s course.”
~ Geoff Nichols, Poet, Australia

Access to full details

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on April 24th 2019

The post Journey to an Embodied Self appeared first on Somatic Therapy Asia.

This program keeps evolving year after year as I continue to morph and grow as an educator, therapist, practitioner, and most importantly, a human being. Many people ask me what kind of Yoga do I teach now, and what do I mean by calling it Embodiment. So this is my attempt to shed some more light on this immersion.

Movement. Inquiry. Embodiment. These 3 words have been the guiding pillars of my content and offerings the last 3 years. In these deeply personal journeys, I hope to hold a sacred space for inquiries to take place, through movement, through touch, through curiosity, through connections – to delve into the relationships with our body, with our self and with others. To offer a safe space to explore, to question, to challenge and to let go. 

This program is NOT about scoring quick fixes.
It is NOT about perfecting your alignment in Yoga poses.
It is NOT a promise package to finding your bliss.

BUT.
This program will help you –
Learn more about your habitual patterns in the body-mind
Cultivate awareness, acceptance and spaciousness from within
Learn to listen so you can transition from a dogma / goal-oriented movement approach to one that is informed by body intelligence 
Rest / Restore / Rejuvenate 
Learn / Relearn / Retrain / Rewire 

And therefore, it is not Yoga of any lineage or any style. It is about coming home to our being, curated through the lens of wholeness, an embodiment of body-mind-spirit.

Not for the faint-hearted.

http://www.yogawithdaphne.com/embodimentyogabodyworkimmersion.html​

This post was previously posted on Yogawithdaphne.com on February 20th 2019

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