The Return to Embodiment: consciousness, culture, creativity and flourishing

Molly Shanahan is a Canadian-born, U.S.-based choreographer and dancer, educator, thinker, and writer about movement, body, and healing.

She makes dances.

She supports movers in reinhabiting their own bodies in relationship with other movers, prioritizing deep exploration of movement and inquiry into what human experience and response drives our movement choices, especially within the phenomenon of being seen.

For more information about Molly's teaching, performances, writings, and experience, visit https://www.mollyshanahanspiralbody.com/about

Kamahria Hopkins, is a therapist, coach and consultant who offers "online therapy for the modern mystic." Kamahria integrates somatic and transpersonal practices including dance therapy and psychological tarot/astrology. In this conversation, Kamahria shares about her work in hospice, as a doula, and as a journalist and how these roles have prepared her to work with clients to reignite their magic and realign their body, mind and spirit.

As a student of art, yoga and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen's Body-Mind Centering® work since the 1980's, Lisa Clark describes the how the creative process aligns with embodiment as a practice that begins in subtle movement, incubated with patient curiosity, and expands to engage the myriad relationships within and beyond the body. She describes how this lemniscape of self, other, and the broader world apply both within and beyond the studio.

Lisa offers both online and in person learning opportunities to bring fresh persepective and depth to your movement practices. https://www.lisaclarkyoga.com/

In this conversation, I am speaking with Alicia Patterson.  Alicia is a dance/movement therapist, a somatic therapist and a massage therapist trained in abdominal and pelvic massage.  Deep wounding exists in this area, both personal and collective.  The womb and the root have been exploited, neglected, and denied education and support. Shame too often silences desperately needed conversations, and teaches people to over-ride, endure and numb rather than respect, own or understand their own body cues.  

In this personal interview, Alicia traces the origins of her interest in this work, shares about her own resistance to stepping into touch work, and acknowledges the ongoing challenge of providing this desperately needed care, which falls on the fringes of several fields of practice.  Alicia's approach to working with massage clients draws upon all her skills as a somatic therapist so that the psychology of embodied consent becomes an opportunity to dismantle the shame and reaccess the wonder of this region.  

For more information, check out Alicia's website: www.alicianpatterson.com/

Check out Alicia's vlog and interviews with other practitioners on her youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClZy4vQycuMm2QAY0-Gz3dA/videos

Deanna James is a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and a Registered Dance and Movement Therapist. She has worked with clients with Eating Disorders, Trauma, Mood disorders and life adjustment issues for over 15 years, incorporating the creative arts therapies, internal family systems therapy and cognitive behavioral therapies in a holistic approach to healing. Deanna obtained her Master of Arts in Dance Movement Therapy and Counseling from Columbia College Chicago and has completed level I training in the Internal Family Systems model of therapy.  She combines evidence-based approaches with creative interventions, specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, attachment and trauma-based disorders, religious trauma, body image issues and general life adjustment issues. She is a member of the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals as well as the American Dance Movement Therapy Association. She serves on the board for the Oklahoma Eating Disorders Association.

Deanna has a passion for working with clients with eating disorders and trauma and helping them find hope and healing.

Kyle Koch is a former IT software technician turned nature nerd. Since leaving the office in 2011, Kyle has dedicated his life to helping others reconnect with the natural world. He has been facilitating transformative experiences in nature for almost a decade: inspiring youth and adults to connect to their gifts through experiential play and natural curiosity. Kyle has taught nature connection skills to all ages in a multitude of environments all over North America. When not instructing, you can find him exploring ways to deepen his connection with himself, others, and the Earth.   Kyle offers retreats focused on cultivating connection with ecological place, including Core Routines of Nature Connection. (www.evolvemoveplay.com).

To support the labor of love that is The Return to Embodiment, visit https://www.patreon.com/returntoembodiment

Jamila Kekulah Kinney (she/they) is the creator of The Moving Soul, a holistic movement practice that utilizes curiosity, focus and self observation to explore body awareness, body conditioning, and self-inquiry. Jamila's multifacted body and movement training includes GYROTONIC® & GYROKINESIS® methods, Pilates, dance, dance/movement therapy, mindfulness training, somatic meditation, Reiki, yoga and Zen Shiatsu.   As a life long learner they believe that "uncovering the gifts of being human can occur through developing a relationship to self through mindfulness and the body."  In our conversation, Jamila begins by describing her embodiment as originating through suffering and pain; in order to manage the discomfort, Jamila moved. They emphasize the importance of acknowledging what we don't know so that we may "be open and curious to meeting ourselves and what is, in the moment."  Jamila observes and interacts with the forces both internal and external that restrain and constrict how we are allowed to exist and move in our bodies. In follow up conversations, Jamila and I have discussed how internal forces include but are not limited to personal/familial traumas or mental habits of self-criticism or fear. Although Jamila doesn't specify in this conversation the external forces that disempower, this is invitation to identify all conditions –-systemic, intergenerational, social, and cultural-- that live in our collective consciousness and often separate us from the possibility of flourishing together. In particular, I want to call out the dominant cultural forces that oppress bodies, especially for Black, Indigenous and people of color, for women, for LGBTQIA+folks, for those with disabilities and anyone who deviates from the prescribed ideal fostered by industries and structures that capitalize on the insecurity and shaming of our bodies.  As the United States reels from yet another white supremacist act of violence, I want to also remind us all that violence against others begins in the mind, in the consciousness, in how we conceive of bodies of others. This work, the work Jamila does, offers a way through. Jamila offers online and in person classes and individual sessions through her website: "https://www.themovingsoul.com/" https://www.themovingsoul.com/ She can also be found on instagram: @themovingsoul

To support the labor of love that is The Return to Embodiment, visit https://www.patreon.com/returntoembodiment

In this interview, I am speaking with Damien Norris, who I met at an Evolve Move Play retreat in Washington in Fall of 2021.  We were placed in a group together, called the Vikings, and shared interests drew us into conversation about how embodiment within nature can combine to transform individual and collective experience and perspective.   Damien is completing a PhD at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada that explores the links between human movement, philosophy (phenomenology), embodiment, nature connection and human wellness. In his twenties Damien retired from a career in elite gymnastics and began working as a community development and international aid worker and later as a criminal and civil lawyer, public guardian, university lecturer, philosopher and human rights consultant.  After twenty years of working a desk job Damien became a dad and was forced to confront his “fitness”. Desk bound and de-conditioned he reclaimed his fitness through practicing parkour in nature and urban settings. The story of Damien’s return to fitness was captured in a TEDxPerth2018 presentation, “It’s time to rewild”. This project set in motion a much deeper exploration of human movement, world travel and research that lead to his current PhD and a foundational understanding of the meaning of movement.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGNKHmt34gk Damien teaches, presents, mentors and leads workshops, in person and online, on subjects related to his PhD and can be contacted via email: damien_norris@sfu.ca 

To support the labor of love that is The Return to Embodiment, visit https://www.patreon.com/returntoembodiment

Kristen Mennona  is a licensed professional counselor, a board-certified dance/movement therapist, a certified eating disorder specialist (CEDS), a registered yoga instructor (RYT 200) and a BTTI trained clinician for pediatric OCD.  Kristen owns Nurture Family Counseling LLC, a counseling practice designed to treat pediatric eating disorders, ocd and anxiety within the context of the family.  Kristen is offering a course through EEIC titled "Pediatric OCD and Eating Disorders: A DMT Approach to Evidence Based Interventions" for clinicians and aspiring dance/movement therapists.  She also hosts an Instagram account called, “The_Body_As” to inspire others to work on body image acceptance and to pass that acceptance on to the next generation. She has presented nationally on the topics of self- acceptance, eating disorders/body image distress and reconnecting to the body. Kristen combines best clinical practices with ancient, embodied experiences for her clients. She believes in the inherent wisdom of the body to bring forth that which needs healing with humor and courage.   

Become a patreon of the Return to Embodiment Podcast: www.patreon.com/returntoembodiment

Marissa Voytenko seeks to bring comfort and beauty through her paintings and sculptures. Marissa has been painting with encaustic, a molten wax medium, for over a decade.   In this conversation, Marissa shares about how her art practice is a practice of meditation, of prayer in which she holds within her consciosuness the suffering in our world as she creates.  Although our conversation took place before the invasion of the Ukraine, where she lived for three years and has many loved ones, her current instagram shares about her art process during the current tragedies of the war. She is selling art to raise money for Doctors Without Boarders in Ukraine.  Originally from California, Marissa received training at the California State Summer School for the Arts.  In 2003, Marissa earned a Master of Fine Art in Studio Teaching at Boston University. She has exhibited work both nationally and internationally.  Marissa resides with her family in the Chicago area and is an adjunct professor at Wheaton College.   Marissa's work can be found online at www.marissavoytenko.com/ or on instragram at www.instagram.com/marissavoytenko/.  Become a patreon of the Return to Embodiment Podcast: www.patreon.com/returntoembodiment

In this conversation, I am speaking with Grace Bella Harman LPC, R-DMT, an embodied grief guide. Grace traces the origins of her pull to this work, sharing her own experiences of loss and transformation have equipped her to trust that grieving is a sacred process that requires the intentional engagement of the body. Grace holds sacred space for people to utilize their bodies to move through, process and ultimately be transformed by their grief.  In fact, her facilitation is driven by the belief that your body is the most primary, vital and intelligent resource for navigating the waters of grief.  Grace offers individual and group sessions for people who are in the midst of grief, both old and new, and she is offering a training this year for therapists who are interested in deepening their skillfulness and experiencing their own transformtion so that they can better guide others through the waters of grief. For more information on sacred grief groups for therapists and clients, you can visit her website at: https://www.gracebellaharman.com/ 

Become a patreon of the Return to Embodiment Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/returntoembodiment

In this conversation, I am speaking with Melissa Walker MA, LPC, R-DMT about the integration of the worlds of somatic psychotherapy, dance/movement therapy and sex therapy.  Melissa takes us along her personal journey of how a full body "yes," arose in relation to witnessing bellydance as a teenager, which propelled her on the path that lead to publishing of her book, Whole Body Sex: Somatic sex therapy and the lost language of the erotic body in January 2021. Melissa describes the importance of cultivating safe-enough space for conversations and experiences to unwind the harmful conditioning that has been inherited from a sex-negative culture to free us to access pleasure and cultivate intimacy.  She invites us into the magnificence of the body and the language of the erotic self, which is a world of discovery and a foundation for learning to relate lovingly to another. Melissa can be found online at www.embodiedrelationshipscenter.com/, and in addition to clinical work with individuals, couples and groups, Melissa provides trainings for therapists on her method of somatic concentric sex therapy, with trainings coming up in February in Boulder, Colorado and August, 2022 in Bellingham, Washington.  For more information or to join us, visit: 

https://embodiededucationinstituteofchicago.hubspotpagebuilder.com/sex-therapy-training 

For trainings and clinical support, visit Melissa at https://www.embodiedrelationshipscenter.com/concentric-sex-therapy

Become a patron of the Return to Embodiment Podcast at https://www.patreon.com/returntoembodiment

In the fourth season of the podcast, I am so delighted to share the ongoing conversation that inspire and enlighten me, specifically for this episode the importance of ecological belonging.  This season the podcast is full of conversational inqueries about how the lived experience of our bodies informs the essence of how we understand our lives and our being within the world.  Welcome and thank you for joining us.  

In this conversation, I am speaking with Susan Imus MA, LCPC, BC-DMT, GL-CMA, about her attempts to create language and theoretical scaffolding for the field of dance/movement therapy.  Susan was motivated by a question: how does dance/movement therapy work?  In her most recent article, Creating Breeds Creating. In H. Wentgrower and S. Chaiklin (Eds), Dance and Creativity Within Dance Movement Therapy: International Perspectives. Susan suggests several models for understanding the work of dance/movement therapy including Nine Funamental Mechanisms, A-FECT Model of Aesthetics and Culture, and The Continuum of Interdisciplinary Approaches.  Susan writes about how the field of dance/movement therapy spans the realms of the somatic, the aesthetic, and the psychological, and each of these realms explain aspects how dance/movement therapy works. Susan has created these models as offerings to the field, with the hope that they can bolster education, research and collaboration within the field internationally.  

Susan is Associate Professor and the former Chair of the Department of Creative Arts Therapies in the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago. Susan has practiced, educated, and consulted in dance/movement therapy and the creative arts throughout the U.S. and abroad for 33 years. Susan is the former chair of the Education, Research, and Practice Committee for the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA). She received the first Excellence in Education award by the ADTA in 2006. Susan, originally trained in nursing, has been employed as a dance/movement therapist by 10 different hospitals throughout her career in the Midwest and on the East Coast. Prestigious institutions include Harvard University’s McLean Hospital and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, where she was recruited to assist in the development of chronic pain services through the Department of Medical Specialties. Susan teaches a course called Embodiment: A Way to Know Your Patient at Rush University Medical College and in the recent past at the Bioethics and Humanities Department in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Susan is active in the Arts in Health community working with Rush Generations; a wellness program through the Social Work and Community Health Department at Rush University Medical Center. Susan and the studentsa (arts in health minor) received the Community Engagement Award by the organization in 2017.

In this season of the return to embodiment, I welcome you into another season of conversations about embodiment, trusting that learning and knowing in this area is never finished yet many of us dont realize all that we know because we do not take the time to notice.  This year has been one of deceleration, of stalling out, of grieving, of relocating, and retreating from the pressure to create on a time line disconnected from an embodied sense of timing. Although this introductory musing was created in June, I wasnt prepared to publish until July.  Yet, in reclaiming my sense of timing, and giving permission for life to unfold with a different pace, questions arose:  What purpose does living a rushed life serve?  Is being busy a way of making ourselves useful? What if time was a friend, a beloved, rather than something we fight or attempt to wrestle into submission?  Perhaps living into embodiment is a practice of allowing ourselves to decelerate into all that we do not know, moments of 'useless' presence, so that we can begin to know and to move aligned with the flow of time itself.  Could it be that in useless moments, the boredom and the mystery can coexist.

The Return to Embodiment is a love song to the ordinary, the poetic, the implict world of the body itself as a place of knowing, and movement as our very first language. it's a phenomenological exploration of how and what moves us as we travel among the social, cultural, historical, environmental settings in which we find ourselves.  Each individual i interview offers particular experiences grounded in this knowing.   Thank you to Josie Rothwell for the music and acknowledgement that the official title of Joan Fontcuberta's photomosaic mural is El món neix en cada besada, [The world begins with every kiss].

The Return to Embodiment is a love song to the ordinary, the poetic, the implict world of the body itself as a place of knowing, and movement as our very first language. it's a phenomenological exploration of how and what moves us as we travel among the social, cultural, historical, environmental settings in which we find ourselves.  Each individual i interview offers particular experiences grounded in this knowing.