We were lucky to catch up with Annie Melzer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Annie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea for this business was created as a way for me to do my authentic work in the world that I love. The idea for Integrative Studios came into full fruition when I began working in the western medicinal setting, particularly in the areas of Family and Community Medicine, Yoga Therapy and Integrative Medicine. For years, in undergraduate and graduate school, I had been studying ethnomedicine and medical anthropology using academic, applied and fieldwork approaches and perspectives. I have always felt very passionate about these fields of study, which is what led me to want to teach the therapeutic benefits of yoga asana, meditation, intentional breathing, mindfulness, somatic embodiment, and human creativity in thoughts, words, behaviors, and movement in the first place in the western medicinal setting. I recognize the profound importance of seeing and witnessing humans as whole beings who are both biological and cultural. Ethnomedicine, if you are not aware, is the study of how health, wellness, illness, disease, and healing are interpreted, believed, and understood from within the context of a specific culture and cultural tradition. Medical anthropology more broadly looks at how health, illness, and disease are shaped, understood and experienced within the larger contexts of culture, history, and political forces. Today, there are over 7,100 languages in use on the planet. When we consider the importance of language, we can begin to recognize how languages are bodies of knowledge of which ideas and understandings about medicine and health and wellbeing exist.

When I began to work in Integrative Medicine, I began to look around within the broader hospital and clinical setting using the lens of anthropology. The western medicinal system model, whether we like it or not, is political. There are power structures in place that make the system very effective and function well at treating a large number of people (of which I have also been served by and am grateful for) but not always as effective at treating the whole individual person in regards to their whole self in culturally sensitive ways (of which I have also authentically experienced). I am so grateful to be able to witness the shifts that are finally happening as a result of more humans becoming patients within integrative medicinal and therapeutic settings. There is also a shift in many ways toward more culturally sensitive approaches in western medicine and for this type of approach I am grateful. As I chose the name for my brand and the style of work that I am doing with multiple modalities for somatic embodiment practice, I chose to come from the integrative whole person perspective. Integrative Studios particularly moves within a therapeutic space where the science, evidence-based practices, cultural, mind-body, the spiritual and the whole person in somatic embodiment practice are acknowledged and welcomed in whole self exploration, in whole self healing, and in the cultivation and curation of daily life with intentionality and purpose.

I knew that this business offering and endeavor was a worthwhile endeavor for me to continue to move toward as my life’s work when I began to more openly witness the transformations that my yoga students were having in my regular yoga asana, meditation, and breathwork classes. I specifically have taught and teach from a perspective of somatic embodiment practice. Coupled with this witnessing of great transformation among my yoga, meditation, and mindfulness students, I was also teaching aspects of the Intentional Creativity Method® and whole-self inquiry-based therapeutic medicine painting classes to other non-yoga students. With them, I was witnessing the deep work that people were doing for themselves with gentle instruction through biofeedback in the spaces that I was working in. I became the recipient of their deeply sincere gratitude through their own words for making this style of work with their own whole self, working with their own internal narrative, and the positive and powerful healing that they were experiencing with their own inner voice. I then began working with some clients as a one on one Whole-Self Somatic Embodiment Coach from the perspective of integrative (body-mind), movement, creativity, and somatic embodiment therapeutics. I came to the realization that there are so many humans living today that are not aware of the many modalities, both evidence-based and creative, that have emerged from human life on the planet that provide enhanced access to a purpose-filled and intentional embodied life through integrative practices with mindfulness, positive and conscious self-talk, and imagination. As an anthropologist, I began to harness greater insight related to what I was witnessing within the context of the great transitions that humans have been biologically and culturally moving through and navigating over the past hundreds of thousands of years and more particularly in the past few hundreds of years as a human species on the planet. As humans, we are all creatives, we are all of the natural world, and with the ability to practice tuning into the wholeness of self through creative modalities and practices using whole-self perspectives in daily life, there begins and continues to open up spaces and places for more intentional daily and embodied living to happen and to be brought into fruition on the landscape of the living earth.

I also began to embody the positive impact that I was having in the communities where I was doing my work. I began to realize, in my own journey, that there is so much work yet to be actively done with enhancing human practices that provide spaces for humans to remember and to reconnect with their own wholeness, fullness, and completeness. I realized that there was so much more real work yet to be done in providing human inter-cultural access to experiential educational practices with authentic whole-self mindfulness and somatic embodiment in culturally sensitive ways. I realized and witnessed the positive outcomes that the access to educational instruction and guided practice in these areas provided for humans. This type of integrative whole-self education allowed for a greater ability to learn, to be exposed to, and to practice methods of tuning into their own inner sensations within their own body. I realized through observation, learning, and experience that this was very important for humans to be aware of as they navigate embodiment and awareness in social and cultural spaces and places within the global world. Finally, I had the realization that greater practice with embodiment allowed for greater authentic and whole-self human orientation within their own integrative body-mind-spirit aspect of self on the planet and that education about orientation in social and cultural spaces and places provided an enhanced means to begin or continue to increase their own felt sense of access to their own deep listening from within their whole-self, greater empathy, less anxiety and fear of the unknown, and toward a greater ability to connect on more real level with others regardless of cultural differences.

Indeed, there is so much work yet to be done in providing spaces and places for humans to learn and practice a reconnection with their own intuition and deeper inner-knowing through somatic embodiment modalities. These integrative and integrated practices that are part of my own chosen path of practice in my own life and in my coaching and educational business model, allow individuals to work with and identify practice-based access points to their own whole-self healing, to the cultivation and curation of intentional awareness and shifts in their own life, and/or to enhanced cultivation of the internal narrative that they are telling themselves as result of socialization and culture. It is about empowering oneself toward a liberation in wholeness, fullness, and completeness. Practice in these areas provides access for sovereign humans to reclaim their own sovereignty, to tune into their whole self in authentic and intentional lifeways while increasing access to their conscious awareness of their own interconnection with all of life and with all of the natural resources of the earth that are essential for human life to be able to exist and to be lived in the first place.

I am very grateful for the advancements in technologies in medicine and also very aware that there is a wealth of ways to be human in this culturally diverse world that continue to contribute to whole self health, wellness, and the curing and the treating of disease (dis-ease) that may work in tandem with the western medicinal model. Somatic embodiment practices invite this iterative practice of occupying your full self as much as is able in any given moment so that there is greater access for a human to feel the sensations and felt sense of wholeness, fullness, and completeness whether times are not so easy or filled with ease. I love this work that I am doing in the world as it feels truly authentic to me and allows me to be with other humans in the most real way that I am able to be with them. For this practice, to my teachers, my colleagues, students, and friends, I am very grateful.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My creative and life work in the world is in the area of applied and cultural anthropology with a focus in integrative medicinal perspectives and somatic embodiment. I specifically draw from teachings in embodied yoga, meditation, mindfulness, ethnomedicine, and the Intentional Creativity Method® as I work with clients and students in somatic embodiment therapeutics. I recently moved through a rite of passage in my own life that has inspired me to reflect fully on how my life journey, my body of soul and intentional work in the world, and my experiences have informed the chosen path of practice that I have taken. You see, I have this felt sense that I came into this world as a deeply spiritual person. From a very young age, I was very interested in what it meant to be human amidst the amazing cultural diversity that exists on the planet. I have always been drawn to the pleasure that I have found in reading, in research, in talking on a very real level with others, and in finding the answers to the questions that I have had about what it means to be human. I have iteratively harnessed and embraced leadership qualities and roles, and have enjoyed sharing what I have studied in the form of public speaking, education (k-12, in higher education, and adult learning settings), and community engagement with others as this has always felt very natural and rewarding for me in the work that I do and in the life that I live.

I was raised in the Catholic Schools – k-12 and within a devout Catholic family. I learned a lot about being of service to humanity as part of my socialization. I also really enjoyed the altered state of consciousness that came with the prayerful meditative state. When I was in the sixth grade, my family moved to a different city and it just so happened that I landed in my first Buddhist style meditation class with the school’s religion teacher. With the current movement that we have now in the United States that recognizes the profound importance of the evidence-based meditation and mindfulness and mind-body practices for all humans in the global world – youth to the elders- I continue to be filled with much gratitude for this early life experience in learning seated Zen-style Buddhist meditation. I feel that it was at that time when I began my journey with somatic embodiment even though I did not have the language that I have now to articulate what it was or what I was experiencing with my meditation practice. In that religion class, every Friday we were instructed to come into the classroom, to place our feet flat on the floor, to sit up straight in our seat, and to place the palms of our hands on our desktop. The teacher would then guide us in an eastern style meditation practice, which was pretty progressive in the Midwest in the 1990’s. He would read stories, guide us through meditative visualization practices using themes in the natural world (one of them in particular I can still remember experiencing as I write this commentary today), play music like Tommy James and the Shondells Crystal Blue Persuasion, Jimi Hendrix, or some form of gentle music, and more. He would guide us in meditations like the dispersing of the clouds meditation. We (all of the students in my class) would all go to the window or walk outside in the school yard, which was surrounded by beautiful trees and the class would be guided to look toward the sky and to practice the art of paying attention to the clouds as they dispersed in the sky. He taught us about intentional spiritual practice. He would gather all of his most precious belongings on his desk and invite us to each come up one by one to take whatever we thought would serve us while teaching us through experience the lesson that material possessions are not what life is really about. For whatever reason, these practices fully resonated within me and he was a very important spiritual teacher of mine for close to a decade.

Overall, I had a very interesting experience with Catholicism with many positives and some negative experiences as well. I wondered as a young woman about all of the violence and harmful ways that humans were treating one another and the earth when they held so much staunch contention with the doctrines of religious traditions that were fundamentally rooted in what I was considering was supposed to be peace and love. Nonetheless, I continued on my journey. I loved singing, joined a choir taught by another amazing teacher, which allowed me greater access to my own voice, and it was around this time in my youth that I also read The Color Purple. The writings of Mark Twain and Aesop’s Fables had been some of my favorite readings to go to, however, when I read Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, I was significantly changed forever. I loved writing and it was when I read her work that I truly felt the awesome power of the written word. At this time, my parents often took us to reenactment festivals and museums. I was fascinated and intrigued by history and how people had lived on and in relationship with the land in regards to the tools that they used, the stories that they told, the food that they ate, and the diversity of spiritual practices that existed. I became very interested in Native North American Indigenous cultures. Within my own experience, I also grew up learning about gardening from my Great Grandmother and about having fun and loving and caring for others. I am especially grateful for being able to be around gardens when I was a kid, picking large plump grapes off of the vine, picking tomatoes and walking through rows of corn, harvesting, and eating from the earth.

Now life was not always easy. I was always a very determined youth in my wanting to live my authentic life. This was not something that everyone around me could understand and yet it was my self-awareness and sense of self as part of my spiritual practice that allowed me to continue to forge forward in life, to enjoy life, and to continue to iteratively understand what it means to be human in all of its diversity. By the age of 16, I began reading anthropological texts even though I did not know necessarily what the field of anthropology was. An elder professional artist friend shared an anthropological text with me and I was fascinated. I began reading about indigenous cultures, plant medicine, shamanic journeying, and diverse worldviews and daily life that were very much different from my own. I already had a profound love and interest in learning about humanity across space and over time and a deep connection to the natural world. I also became even more and more profoundly aware of the great difficulties that humanity was facing on the planet in regards to power over structures and access to resources and their own cultural ways of life within the diversity of ecosystems on the planet.

When I began college, I shared with a friend my interests in culture and cultural diversity and she suggested that I take an anthropology class on Native North American Indians. I did and it was during that semester that I declared my major in anthropology. From my situated place of deep interest in learning more about spiritual traditions, I also majored in Philosophy where I could study the world’s religions. I loved the field of anthropology, learning about daily ways of life in diverse cultures, languages, cultural stories, and ways of healing in different cultures and knew that I wanted to teach anthropology someday. At the age of 19, as I started my studies in Anthropology and Philosophy, I also took my first yoga asana class. Again, knowing about my interests in diverse cultural experiences, another friend took me to an outdoor yoga class on the banks of the Ohio River. It was a sunny summer day and I was in complete awe, intrigue and amazement of those practicing and moving in space and breath around me. I was amazed at how I felt in my body after the class was over, and what amazed me most was how I felt in my mind after the practice. I am an active and visionary thinker and this practice really allowed me to calm my whole self in a connected way that I had never felt before. I knew on that day that I also wanted to be a yoga instructor and be able to guide others toward that felt sense of wholeness, fullness, and completeness that I felt during that first yoga class. I continued my yoga practice in the college rec center. In the early 2000’s yoga was not extremely popular in the Midwest. I can remember being asked by a devout Catholic in the early 2000’s if practicing yoga was connected with some sort of idol or demonic style worship. I gently guided that conversation with great intention that yoga as I was experiencing it was so beautiful and beneficial for my whole body, mind, and spirit. It was beneficial for my whole self and well-being. In that particular rec center where I began attending classes, the instructor began to cause me to feel discomfort during classes. I can remember her walking by during class and informing me that I was doing my downward dog incorrectly as my heels were not touching the ground. I did not feel like I was doing yoga “incorrectly”. I came to find out much later in my studies that the practice of yoga is about what is going on on the inside and not aesthetics. Nonetheless, these words from that particular teacher caused me to feel a little discouraged and so after contemplation, I took my yoga practice into my own home. I found Wai Lana Yoga (who I still love to this day!) on public access television and with the use of VHS tapes. I then found Shiva Rea (of whom I am forever grateful for!) on videos at the library. I began my own authentic practice that was very much my own. I also continued my meditation studies in college in the Zen club.

As I continued on my journey, knowing that I wanted to teach anthropology, I set an appointment with a faculty member who I dearly admired for her wealth of knowledge. I was hoping that she would give me great advice on what to do to make that happen, but she didn’t. I said that I wanted to teach anthropology and all that I can remember her saying is, “Well go do it.” I continued on by acquiring certification in all of the methods courses in anthropology that were accessible. I am certified in anthropological museum methods, as an archaeological field technician, and in ethnographic methods. Within my studies of the world’s religions under the blanket of Philosophy classes, I started to become interested in metaphysics and what we now know as neuroplasticity. This was around the same time when the film “What the Bleep Do We Know” had emerged on the landscape of the earth. I wanted to know more!

Thanks to my mom and dad, I had developed a lifelong love of music and dance and post college I spent a lot of time going to see live music so that I could practice the art of authentic dance. I danced specifically to release the stress of daily life and to become and be more embodied. I began my own practice with what I now call dance and movement therapeutics. I had specifically studied styles of movement and dance within the context of different cultures within my studies of anthropology, often through film studies. I knew that if I chose to safely be in a space (a live concert), that I could dance in a socially acceptable context while also releasing stress and access my flow state, in what was becoming a very self-centered and materialistic United States that I did not resonate with in my own longing and seeking in daily life.

After a few years post undergrad, I found a local archaeological company and began working on a late woodland Indian site as an archaeological field technician. You see, as a result of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) federal legislation of 1990, there was the emergence and acknowledgement that all human cultural artifacts and remains in all cultures and ancestry must be treated with dignity and respect. In the context of the archaeological site that I was working on, a power plant wanted to build more buildings on the land that they were occupying. As a result of NAGPRA legislation, the company that I worked for was contracted as there was indeed a Late Woodland Indigenous village dating from 400-800 C.E. (Common Era) below the terra firma (landscape of the earth) at the power plant. It was an amazing honor to be on that archaeological fieldwork team with some 30 other students of anthropology. After completing that work, I returned home from the field and enrolled in graduate school.

Being a graduate student was an amazing experience! I worked with a diversity of researchers at a very important time when the effects of globalization, global warming, and human impact on the earth was really beginning to take form in new and interesting ways. I also did some work in Family and Community Medicine as an ethnographic graduate assistant researcher, studying the impact of the mind and how one rates their own health as an important factor in one’s whole self wellness. I also spent some time working in Africana Studies as a qualitative research editor exploring sexual life histories and the impacts of HIV/AIDS, and sexual partner selection in urban communities. Ultimately, it was at this time when I co-developed and worked on my own research project studying ethnobotany (relationships between humans and plants), Native North American Indian language reclamation and cultural revitalization, and educational resource development under an amazing advisor and with an amazing research team. I spent several years working on this project with our team working to reclaim 17th century linguistic ethnobotanical data and to actively do the work to translate the historical French Jesuit documentation of the indigenous language into the contemporary form of the indigenous language that continues to be used in revitalization education for indigenous community youth today. I am so grateful for that experience to the community that allowed me to do this work with them and on their behalf as a form of educational resource development. I can remember during my time studying, reading, and researching in the area of indigenous language and culture revitalization about the importance of metacognition or how one thinks about what they are thinking about as a form of self-identity and worldview from within a cultural context. During graduate school, I also began working in program development and co-created and co-facilitated programming for graduate students to learn pedagogical practices in teaching at an R1 educational institution. After going to conferences, speaking and presenting research posters, here, I was able to hone the use of strategic program development using my creative and visionary processes to be a catalyst for change.

I finished my graduate studies and continued to be intrigued by creative aspects of myself and how my own creativity made me feel whole. I also very much valued my connection to the natural world. I began writing creative poetry and reading my work in public spaces. During graduate school, I can remember mentioning to a professor that I had strong interest in the impact of anthropology and neuroscience studies in the realm of medical anthropology and wanted to know more. He gently laughed at my mention of this. I did not allow it to impact my work as my life’s experience thus far had provided ample space within me to want to continue to know more. Neuroplasticity and how the brain, body, and whole self are impacted by biological and cultural experiences throughout one’s lifetime was not yet as much a prominent focus in our culture nor in modern medicine. Holistic and contemporary and alternative medicine had continued to gain popularity among mainstream American culture at that time but the impact that we are currently seeing in Integrative Medicine within western medicinal settings had not yet taken root.

I had been following the work of Anna Ferguson at World Peace Yoga in Cincinnati, OH for about 15 years at that time. I had known since the age of 19 that I wanted to teach yoga and by this point in my life had embodied a very steady yoga and meditation practice. I had begun teaching anthropology at the college level and knew that I had some personal healing to do and that this particular yoga studio was where I wanted to study. I already had a strong background in anthropology and cultural studies and needed to be in a community where I was able to do some deep spiritual work that I needed to do in my life. After completing the 300 hour foundational training, I enrolled in the 350 hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training followed by a mentorship focused on the teaching of yoga asana, philosophy, breathwork, meditation, and spiritual practice. It was during this teacher training experience that I found and began to independently study within the field of Somatic Embodiment. In addition to my training at World Peace Yoga, I then began to enroll in classes and attend conferences with contemporary leaders in somatic embodiment practice and this became and still is my primary field of study. It just so happened that amidst this very deep personal and transformative work that I was doing with yoga, meditation, breathwork, and somatic embodiment, that a friend took me to a paint and sip class. I had never painted on a canvas before and didn’t even know what acrylic vs. oil paints were. However, after moving through this 2 hour guided painting class, I knew that I had come across a creative practice and experience that felt really amazing to me. My completed painting did not look like anyone else’s painting in the class. It felt really good to allow this aspect of my perception and creativity to be manifested through creative practice onto something tangible outside of my body that had nothing to do with words. I had to tune in more and really begin to work more intentionally with creative practice as it felt amazing in my whole being.

A few weeks after attending the painting class, Shiloh Sophia, co-founder of MUSEA: Center for Intentional Creativity showed up on one of my online feeds. There she was. I was intrigued. Here was a woman in Northern California, teaching to the importance of the story that you are telling yourself, teaching to metacognitive practices, to somatic embodiment and leaning into sensations in the body, and the importance of the intention that you bring into daily life to cultivating and curating your life using intentional creativity. I began tuning in to her free community offerings, began to have the experience of meeting with women around the globe who were practicing the Intentional Creativity Method®, who cared about both the science and the spiritual, and who were painting and witnessing one another in an intercultural space with love and intention, authentically and in community, around the globe. The practices and the teachings of Shiloh Sophia McCloud related to language, image, and inquiry became so healing in my whole self in ways that I had never experienced before. I had been a seeker for this type of deep whole self healing work. Also, it just so happened that Alice Walker, author of the Color Purple amongst many other books and collections, was one of Shiloh’s lifelong teachers. Shiloh was also taught in the art of Intentional Creativity by Sue Hoya Sellars who had spent a significant portion of her working life illustrating anthropology and biology texts. Sue would ask questions related to the soul, the body and to the whole self that were extremely inspiring and engaging for me. I began studying the Intentional Creativity Method® and became certified as a Coach in this area.

This brings me to the present. I am now the owner and operator of Integrative Studios, an emergent business which is my brand of soul work in the world. After teaching Yoga Therapy in Integrative Medicine, Anthropology in higher education, and doing so much of this deep work using the Intentional Creativity Method®, Somatic Embodiment, yoga, meditation, breathwork, and movement studies that I have found my life’s purpose in the world. I am no longer seeking as I have come to witness the benefits for myself of the great importance of doing the work that I love in the world with students, beloved humans that I care for, and clients. I am actively teaching yoga asana, mindfulness, somatic embodiment, breathwork, philosophy and meditation at World Peace Yoga to students and to those training to be certified yoga teachers where the practice of cultivating your most authentic self is welcomed and where yoga as modern practice is understood to be for all interested people who breathe.

I offer students, clients (individuals, groups, organizations, businesses in both in-person and remote settings) and beloved humans methods and approaches through movement studies and experience, through yogic practices for all, practices with metacognition, inquiry, language, and image through process-based art and creativity, medicine painting and writing, and creative practices that are not concerned with the outcome, for example of a painting, but with the deep whole self connection and/or healing work that is happening in real time process. In addition, I guide and work with the concepts of life as practice, mindfulness and process through guided somatic-style meditation, embodied yoga, consciousness, awareness, enhanced access to flow state, and with actual movement and mind-body-spirit (soul/anima) work with becoming and being unstuck in body, mind, or spirit, and/or healing from trauma, physical and/or emotional discomfort. I guide visualization, love public speaking to share ideas, creative and evidence-based practices, connect in community and educate others, facilitate classes, workshops, and one-on-one therapeutic and whole self integrative experiential learning.

The work that I do provides space for real people who have lived real lives and dealt with real life experiences, problems and scenarios in body-mind-spirit that are unique to their own selves to heal, to be witnessed, and to be more conscious about their own healing and their whole life through embodiment practices. I provide space for the healing from inner and outer fragmentation that has commonly been a result of cultural experiences to be addressed in brave and conscious space. I am a conduit for the teachings and practices that I have embodied to be a catalyst for positive change. I thoroughly enjoy teaching, speaking, guiding and holding space for students, clients and beloved humans as they learn to practice or consciously work with occupying their wholeness, fullness, and completeness and to bring more creative abundance and intentional living to their whole self within their own daily life as an authentic and interconnected human being.

The space of somatic embodiment is a brave space to work within as it can be difficult to practice occupying your whole self in the global world. This is why I choose to guide from within my own practice of positive self-talk, from the perspective that we all make mistakes, the practice of coming back to the practice of embodiment with awareness of the whole self, and from a perspective of no judgement or releasing judgement and being present. Life is a practice and a life with greater attention, intention and conscious awareness with love and care for self enhances greater empathy and whole self regulation within the integrative systems in the body and orientation within the global world. When we can find greater healing, love, and care for self, we enhance the capacity for greater empathy, love, and care for others and the natural world. Again, from my perspective as a teacher, facilitator, coach, and catalyst for positive change in embodying your whole self and the wholeness of your beingness is that life is a practice and when we can lean in to surfing the waves of life instead of being tossed around by the undertow and the pulls and pushes of life, that we gain greater access to a life lived with intention and with care.

I am most proud of my own journey and my persistence in arriving at this place where I may hold space and be a catalyst for others to do their own work with their own healing within the integrative self, learning to lean into the sensations within their own body and to trust and reconnect with their body, mind, and spirit as the integrated whole that is them. I am proud of my work in the study and the application of anthropology and in creating my own niche and space with my abundant life experience to do this style of work in the world. I am proud of the time that I have given and dedicated to learning about the study of what it means to be human across space and time in all of our cultural diversity and inherent interconnectedness on the planet in lived human experience. I am proud that I continued on my path of study even though others throughout my life journey were not quite sure of what I was doing or what problem I was working to address with my work. You see, it is because of my extensive study and dedication to learning about humanity using the holistic and integrated lens of anthropology that I can be witness to and share the following. At this point in human history, we have gone from nearly 1 billion people living on the planet to nearly 8 billion people in a mere 200 some years (perhaps think here about the time of the Industrial Revolution through present). This era of change is incredibly significant in terms of very rapid changes in the human relationship to self, to what daily life means, to what it means to meet human needs, and to being in relationship with each other and to the planet. These rapid changes in what it means to be human within the context of the global world, within the context of local communities and on the planet have led to great misunderstandings, disconnection and dissociation with how to live harmonious lives within self, each other, with the earth and the earth’s resources. As a global community, we have an intergenerational and intercultural need to address human’s felt sensations of physical, emotional, and/or spiritual trauma that is being held in bodies, minds, and in the whole selves of all humans that are being impacted around the planet. Humanity is one species and our positive relationships with ourselves, with one another, and with the planet matter for the survival of humanity, of culture, of natural bio-eco diversity, and the world. We are all connected and authentically diverse and the more that we may begin to lift our heads back up from the screens, to look at ourselves with less judgement as human, to connect with nature, and to calm nervous systems enough to see one another as fellow humans, the greater positive impact that we may have in connecting with ourselves, with one another, and repair and reconnect to our relationship with the earth authentically and in community.

As part of my body of work, I have chosen to continue to bring to the forefront of awareness through an applied perspective, that if you have felt any trauma or anxiety (which is the fear of the unknown) related to what it means to be a human in daily life within this global world of the present, that you are not alone. The changes that have taken place on the planet have been rapid in a way that humans have never experienced on the earth before. By coming back to the body, back to feeling and listening to the sensations in the body, we are coming back into a space of mending fragmentation that might have happened in body, mind, and/or spirit as a result of your cultural experiences and intergenerational experiences on the planet. Doing this type of somatic embodiment work allows greater access to a place of personal inquiry into how you are going to consciously live in relationship with yourself from a place of the felt sense of fullness, wholeness, and completeness, with how we are going to live in community (be it local, national, or global) with one another, and to how you will live in relationship with earth and natural resources like clean water, soil, and the trees that clean our air. In some ways, I feel like my work is just beginning, however, I have been with this content of what it means to be human and the exploration of feelings of wholeness, fullness, and completeness and living life with intention for decades. My work provides access points through somatic embodiment using various modalities as one person’s way of accessing a reclamation or a healing of the relationship with their own inner voice and whole self will be different from others. As one begins to feel and reclaim their ability to feel again more deeply with intention we continue to (as Shiloh Sophia so eloquently puts it) enhance our capacity, as humans, to love.

We are at a point in human history when we must come back to leaning into our own sensations in the body as these sensations in the body are the primary language of humanity. The connection between the mind and the body and your whole self is real and is absolutely and beautifully deserving of your attention. The relationship between the body, mind, and spirit/soul/anima is integral in creating and co-creating well individuals, who are healed enough, to be able to be in community in co-creative ways with others, and with the natural world. I am proud that I have reclaimed access to my own inner voice, that I have enhanced my access to my own intuition, and have had and continue to have the great privilege of doing this level of deep whole self work with others so that they may do their healing and their own life’s work in the world. This is my chosen path of practice. Again, it has not essentially been an easy path as somatic embodiment is a brave space and practice to work within. However, it is in this practice that one may find mini-acts of liberation in reclaiming access in an embodied way to your wholeness, fullness, and completeness in daily life and lived experience. I am very proud of this work that I do in the world and of this chosen path in life and in professional practice.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the primary lessons that I have had to unlearn as I shifted into adulthood and beyond on this life journey is the fundamental importance of being aware of the story that I am telling myself, my internal narrative, within my own being. As part of becoming resilient in doing my soulwork in the world, I have had to do a lot of work on being conscious and aware of my deep inner knowing and my inner voice that is uniquely mine. Once I began the journey in my foundational yoga teacher training program and then later coupling this yoga work with my work with the Intentional Creativity Method®, I became iteratively even more aware of the narrative that I was telling myself in daily life. Often times, in the field of somatic embodiment and internal narrative studies, we explain the harmful cultural aspects of the internal narrative that one is telling themself to be associated with the felt sense of “not being enough” or “why do something if someone else is going to do it better”. Within my own yoga studies coursework and as part of my own practice, I began to very intentionally study Patanjali’s text and commentary on the yoga sutras, or threads of yogic knowledge and wisdom. As a note, I myself share a perspective with many other yoga practitioners, the belief that within the yoga practice you take and embody what serves you and kindly release the rest. There was one thread of yogic knowledge, in particular, from within the Yoga Sutras that reads something like, “if you think a negative thought, immediately think the opposite positive thought”. In my journey, this thread of knowledge really resonated with me. It took me about two full years of working with this thread of knowledge in my own conscious daily life to become really present to the importance of the internal narrative or story that I was telling my own self about who I was/am in my own thoughts throughout any given day. I had to unlearn cultural stories and ways of thinking about myself that were negatively impacting me that I was holding onto in my mind, body, and spirit related to what others “wanted me to know” about myself as I had moved through various experiences and aspects of my life thus far. I very deeply recognized that I needed to develop an even deeper level of conscious awareness and practice with being present to my own internal narrative. I took to the practice of focusing my intentional awareness and intentional time to practice and to come back to my own deep sense of inner knowing, intuition, and to enhance awareness of the sensations that were happening inside of my body to reorient myself very actively and consciously in daily life in a state of feeling whole as I am, full, and complete.

At first, in my practice with this profoundly important piece of wisdom, I had periods where I would be stuck in a circling pattern of thoughts. When I would eventually become conscious of being stuck, I would remind myself in an affirmative, mantra-like, and without judgement way, “if I think a negative thought, immediately think the opposite positive thought.” Then I would think the opposite positive thought, release the felt sense of being stuck in a negative thought pattern, and continue living my life from a place of wholeness, fullness, and completeness with conscious awareness and the felt sense of movement and flow in my life. Yogic breathwork, here, helped a lot too! After time, with much practice, I was able to become even more aware of what I was thinking and how I was choosing to think in moments of my day. Through practice, I finally arrived at a place where much less time was spent during the waking time of my day in my mind, circling or spiraling in thoughts while not fully connected in that state of being to my body, my mind, my whole self, and the physical, social and cultural environment that I was inhabiting. I then was able to experience even greater access to time spent in being alive, aware, and in an active flow state of being within my wholeness of self, more empathy in being with others and more care for my relationship with nature with greater mind-body-spirit-whole-self comfort. I gained enhanced access to my own natural and internal rhythm in my life and greater connection to my own intuition. It was a brave space to work through and although not necessarily easy throughout the process, it was a very positive and a fully life changing experience. I do consider myself to be a positive person and I like to think positively. However, by the time I was in my mid-late 30’s, culture and some not so fun relationships over the course of my life experience by that time had really done some work on me, even as an anthropologist. I had to unlearn certain ways of being and thinking in various areas of my life that were not leading me toward that felt sense of wholeness, fullness, and completeness with exactly who I am in the present moment to moment beingness of my life as a human on this planet.

Through developing a path of practice in the present (especially even more recently informed by work with Curate Shiloh Sophia McCloud in a course offered within MUSEA: Center for Intentional Creativity called Tempo), I continue on with this life’s journey, iteratively practicing being whole, full, and complete and oriented in my body and in the world at any given moment with intention. Sometimes, like everyone I forget. However, through the process of intentionally unlearning, I have learned to be gentle with myself as a part of my chosen practice and to continue on with my life in wholeness, fullness, and completeness. I continue to share with anyone interested in these types of integrative practices, modalities, and areas of self-study, through the work of Integrative Studios, the integrative healing and practice-based modalities that I have intentionally studied and embodied with others who have interest in exploring, embodying, and experiencing these modalities in their own way.

Although the process of unlearning certain ways/patterns of thinking that were not serving me was very intentional and not so easy at times, it was my persistence in practice, and also all of the amazing teachers and guides that held space for me in community and within their own small businesses that allowed me to do what I needed to do to unlearn what did not contribute to my whole sense of fullness and completeness. I continue to be grateful for those teachers and practitioners that have held space for me to do my own work. Doing this work within myself has allowed me to hold space for, to guide, to educate, to consult, and to counsel other individuals and groups who value authentic human experience, human life, the natural world, and in co-creating an intergenerational and intercultural world where the whole person is acknowledged as authentic, sovereign, and deeply interconnected in very real and meaningful ways.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

A significant amount of my more recent collaborative work has been in partnership with World Peace Yoga. I find it to be absolutely amazing to work within collaborative contexts. As part of my own path of professional practice, I have come to realize and to understand the phenomenal benefits of working collaboratively in small-business community contexts with one another toward a common goal. As a student of World Peace Yoga for over 650 hours of teacher training, I developed a chosen relationship with the studio owners through the lens of collaboration and co-creation. I deeply honor and value each of the small business owners (Anna Ferguson and Mark Stroud) as authentic human beings with their own lives and own authentic experiences who have chosen to establish a yoga studio that I love in an area of the world that I also love. I have found that working in partnership, in having conversations, in communicating about ideas and insights instead of hoarding them in one’s own mind as a business owner, enhances access to greater creative flow and the ability to serve a greater number of people who are interested in the type of work that we are doing together.

One of my favorite collaborative projects that we have co-created is a Mindful Book Circle. The book circle iteratively emerged into a co-creative partnership as an exploration of bringing into a Cincinnati space, intentionally within a yoga studio, conversations that brought to the forefront deeper levels of somatic, educational, trauma-based healing, and enhanced community building work. I am grateful to this partnership with my colleagues, to their willingness to meet, to share ideas, and space. I am grateful for their whole hearted willingness, from within the context of collaborative visioning into the possibilities of how the work of World Peace Yoga and my own authentic work with Integrative Studios as an embodied yoga and somatic embodiment instructor, could contribute to enhancing conversations and access to somatic embodiment practices within the community.

With this particular Mindful Book Circle project, we brought into the World Peace Yoga space a morning asana practice, followed by a mindful breathwork and guided meditation session, followed by a trauma-informed care book circle. We would listen to the audio version of the particular book that we were focusing on during the book circle. Following the listening session (where community members could attend both in-person or online), we would co-facilitate and hold space for community conversation and insight related to the very deep textual content that we were covering. After a session on the vagus nerve, I began collaborating in partnership with World Peace Yoga in the community facilitation of the text “How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal From the Past, and Create Your Self” by Dr. Nicole Lepera followed by Resmaa Menakem’s “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts”. This indeed was amazing work to be present to authentically and was an awesome experience to move through with the support and co-creative energy of partnership, collaboration and community with World Peace Yoga.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected] I am currently rebranding with a new website that will open fully on August 15, 2023. www.integrativestudios.com is my newly rebranded website that I am creating….I am opening new social media sites as well. I am grateful to Anna Ferguson and to Canvas Rebel for inviting me to share my story! Anyone interested in being added to my email list and newsletter may send me a personal email at [email protected]. I am currently accepting coaching, corporate, individual and group clients and beloved humans in both in-person and remote settings. I am also booking for consulting and public speaking engagements around the world.

Image Credits
Caroline Caldwell