Lately I have been thinking about neuroscience and Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT). As a practitioner I have had many iterations of how I explain to potential clients and interested folks, exactly what is PRYT?
Sometimes when I try I get what I call the blank stare. How do use words to make the connection to what my body knows and has experienced through the Phoenix Rising Process.
In PRYT training, students spend time on this very question. As many times as I have done or watched the exercise of trying to name what happens in a session, the outcome often results in this very conundrum, how can PRYT be explained in a few sentences? How can a process that involves our whole being and way of being be summed up. How can we do justice to it when explaining the process to potential clients?
Recently I was asked to give a talk to a group of Respiratory Therapists and Sleep Technologists at a regional conference. I wanted to speak about the mind/body connection. The president of the sponsoring Sleep Society replied, “We’ve never had a talk about that”. Several days later she gave me the go ahead.
I began with neuroscience. I reviewed the research that speaks to the mind body connection. I was pleasantly surprised at the volume and scope of research and how it completely supports the principles and practice of PRYT. Reading the research about the connection between trauma and chronic diseases and the chemical process that supports this further cemented my belief in the connection of mind to body, and how essential being present to and treating a person in their entirety is.
Coming from my health professional side, I was puzzled. Why aren’t health professionals hearing more about this? Why would this be such a foreign topic for a symposium about patients and their care?
The part of me that is a PRYT practitioner feels at home with the concept that what we think believe and feel can make us sick, give us pain and ultimately lead to autoimmune and other diseases. Additionally, addressing those beliefs and releasing body memory with the process used in Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy can have a profound impact on our total well being.
I began speaking to the group from a place of science, as I thought they could relate best on familiar ground. (The group I was speaking to work directly with patients in a diagnostic and in-patient setting.)
The outcome was interesting. Only a few looked puzzled and many approached me and thanked me for speaking to the emotional/ spiritual lives and the impact that has on the lives of the patients we serve.
What happened for me was a bonus. It gave me the connection! Now when I speak to new clients, potential clients or groups about, what I do, I can make the science connection. The connection to familiar ground is there and it’s provided by real science. That connection lifts the haze of esoteric, and moves into a grounded understanding for clients that, yes chronic stress can make me sick, and having a conversation with all of me can make life better!
