Yoga in the Therapy Room: Tips for integrating trauma informed yoga

What are some of the scientifically proven benefits of yoga? Why is it important to find the correct yoga instructor for you and your mental health needs? Can you practice yoga in session with your client?

Kristine Weber, MA, C-IAYT, eRYT500 is a leading world authority on the neuroscientific benefits of slow, mindful yoga and an advocate for the use of these practices as an integral part of the solution to the healthcare crisis.

She is leading the charge to get slow, mindful practices to people who desperately need them through her Subtle® Yoga Revolution series of online courses and training for yoga teachers - which have been praised by thousands all over the world. She has been training mental health professionals to use yoga in their clinical practices for over a decade at the Mountain Area Health Education Center which is associated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Find out more at www.subtleyoga.com

• Benefits of yoga for anxiety and depression
• Yoga as a whole is not defined by one teacher
• Benefits of clinician self-care with yoga for clients

The German researcher Holger Kramer has conducted numerous meta-analyses and reviews of the benefits of yoga through a scientific lens to prove its effectiveness to the Western world.

It has been concluded that slow, mindful yoga is one of the best treatments for depression.

The world is beginning to move towards an evidence-informed practice of proving the efficiency of new treatments, which is necessary, but the yoga world does need to push more for more research credibility.

There are still many people who discredit the benefits of yoga, but that is simply because science needs to find the correct tools on how to prove yoga's benefits.

Many people have been put off by yoga or discredit the entire practice of yoga when they encounter a misinformed or brash instructor. It takes many hours of teaching a certain kind of person to lead a yoga class with patience and calmness.

One cannot bring aggression or tension into the yoga space. The yoga space is the place where those things are worked out of the body, and it is not possible to relieve tension with even more tension.

For trauma-informed yoga practices, it is vital for yoga instructors that assist patients with anxiety and depression to be correctly trained. It is also important for doctors who refer patients to yoga instructors to know who they are sending patients to, and if this instructor will be good for guiding them on their treatment.

As the clinician it is sometimes better for the client, and for you, to practice yoga in-session with your client. This creates not only a deeper connection between you and the client, but it creates a shared space of accountability.

You can encourage the client to let go and be an active part of their healing by being an active member alongside them.

You can use two to five minutes – brief interventions – at the beginning of the session, maybe another five in the middle of the session when there has been some traumatic sharing, and then another few minutes to close the session.

In the clinician and mental health profession, self-care – as a counselor and general care provider – is imperative.

Can you make your self-care as daily and as important as brushing your teeth?

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

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Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Have you heard of qigong? What are some important lessons that you can learn from Chinese medicine? Are there benefits to adding embodied healing into talk therapy?

Nick Loffree teaches Bioenergetic health practices - Using Qigong, biohacking, functional training, and dietary therapy to bring people to their highest potential. Nick started on this path while healing from paranoid psychosis and chronic skin and gut disease that began in adolescence.

He now helps thousands of people around the world to achieve optimal health through his videos, coaching, workshops, and programs. Find Nick on Youtube or head to his website Nickloffree.com for more.

Visit his website. Connect on Instagram, Facebook and subscribe to his YouTube channel.

Access Nick's online courses here.

• Lessons from Chinese medicine
• Nick's experience with Qigong healing mental health
• Benefits of qigong in counseling
• Advice to listeners starting their holistic journey

The underlying philosophy of Chinese medicine is that the notion of chi, life energy, is supporting the body's structures. There's a balance between structure and energy so when you have good structure, say in Qigong [pronounced chi-gong], you have good posture or in diet, giving your body the right building blocks, then those structures support the flow of energy and when that energy is flowing, it supports the structures of the body in maintaining themselves. (Nick Loffree)

Alongside the philosophy of good posture and a healthy diet to provide good energy flow and building blocks for the body, there are other lessons we can learn from Chinese medicine:

• The idea that stress is a "natural" part of being in a high-energy process is not found in Chinese medicine.
• In Chinese medicine, stress gives you a temporary boost of energy that ultimately depletes your energy over time, causing you to crash or become fatigued far quicker.
• If you have low stress, you are able to better manage your energy consumption over time: you can think more clearly, your emotions are stable and everything you do becomes more efficient.

It's amazing how much control we have. I could basically choose whether I want to be depressed, anxious, or even full-blown paranoid psychotic, or go to the total other end and feel totally blissful, loads of energy, relaxed, happy, and you can really choose that based on just lifestyle stuff, based on just how you move, how you breathe, how you organize your life, what you are eating. You can go from one end of the spectrum to completely the other just based on your actions. (Nick Loffree)

Using the philosophy and principles from Chinese medicine, yoga, and other lifestyle changes, Nick was able to completely turn around where he was years ago and create a life that gave him energy and health.

Once we come to understand how our bodies work, and how we can serve them correctly and adequately, we can biohack our way into heath and wholeness because by taking care of our mind, health, diet, and body we are able to build the foundational blocks we need to create a life that brings us joy and possibility.

Talk-based therapy is good and helpful to patients who need to mentally and verbally process their experiences, however, when therapists can incorporate body-based wellness and healing into counseling, it opens up more holistic and wholesome healing possibilities for the patient.

Providing physical cues and physical healing practices to help patients "reset" on their own provides them with agency, and empowers them, by bringing their actions into their own healing.

Start small. Pick one or two things that you would like to add to your life and start slow and small.

It can get confusing, especially finding the nutritional balance in your diet that suits your body best. If you need any nutritional advice, Nick recommends cutting out poly-unsaturated fatty acids such as canola and sunflower oil.

Use coconut oil, olive oil, and butter as alternatives – not all animal fats are good for you.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

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Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

What are some top marketing tips that can help you to expand your client base? How can Google My Business help you to grow your business?

Jadi Fergen is a counselor and the owner of a private pay group practice named Altitude Counseling. They are located in Colorado Springs, CO.

They offer a collaborative approach to healing.

Visit her website.

• Tips on marketing a holistic group practice
• SEO and online marketing

1: What is the pain point that you speak to within your clients?

This is an important first step to take because it is very clear on what you provide to your clients in order to help them on their healing journey that you make important business decisions.

2: What is it about your group practice that makes it holistic?

What are some specific modalities that you offer, or an approach to counseling and healing, that is unique to you and to your group practice?

3: Encourage your practitioners to market themselves

Encourage your therapists to market themselves as well, to put their unique skillsets forward, so that the group practice and each therapist involved is marketed to their ideal clients.

4: Connect with other health practitioners

As a holistic group practice that offers therapy with a multitude of other modalities, it is always a good idea to network, and to become business acquaintances with other medical centers around you that could be places where your ideal client may go it.

One thing I found with marketing my practice as a holistic practice … as far as marketing goes, I always try to look at where do they turn to for people that I may be connecting with … I do connect a lot with other holistic providers in the area. (Chris McDonald)

Networking is also a good way to encourage other medical centers to refer patients to you for therapy.

By building relationships with other medical centers around your business, you foster a mutually beneficial relationship where you can both refer out to one another if and when needed.

Building those relationships with other therapists … I would just focus on that because that brought me the most referrals because we all connect with these other therapists in the area … especially people who are just like us because when they get full, and you have a dip, then they can refer to you and vice versa. (Chris McDonald)

Working on your online marketing can bring in a lot of potential clients and works passively for you online:

• SEO
• Google My Business

Use Google My Business and place content for your business on there so that Google can see that you are active and can then make your website more visible.

Ask your clients to give you reviews on Google as well, as this all adds to building your online presence and visibility.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

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Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Are you looking to incorporate new treatment modalities into your counseling practice? How can you assess a new modality to make sure that it would be beneficial to your clients and to your practice? Can you incorporate your new modality alongside medical care?

Shery has had a long career in healthcare. Before training in counseling, she worked in several areas other than mental health for large hospitals and trauma centers in the Triangle.

That diversity gave her a unique understanding of how biopsychosocial factors interact in our lives. In addition to private practice, Shery volunteers with the American Red Cross Disaster Mental Health, prior to Covid she was an active founding member of the Raleigh chapter of Death Cafe and Drag Queen Story Hour.

She also shares her life with 3 purebred Labrador Retrievers that she shows in AKC competition obedience and confirmation.

• Assessing new treatment modalities
• Do research

You can look at a wide range of empirical evidence:

• Is this treatment modality working for your clients?
• Read a range of online reviews from both practitioners and clients,
• Do some research into how long this modality has been around,
• How long has this modality been in the counseling field?
• How much experience does the mentor who would teach you about this modality have?
• Asking others.

I just feel like talking to people … asking questions and getting more information from people [to figure] that out. Networking is important … [to find] other people that might be trained in that, but if you can't find anybody trained in that, I might be a little hesitant. (Chris McDonald)

If you are looking to add another or new treatment modalities into your counseling practice, do as much research as you can. Look at books, check out online reviews and testimonies, network and find other counselors who have used it before.

Grounding yourself in the available research will enable you to make a clear decision as to how you want to incorporate this modality into your practice.

You can discuss them with your clients as well to see if these new modalities might be something that they would like to incorporate into their therapy with you.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

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Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

What can counselors do when they are feeling fatigued? Is there a way for counselors to find a balance between helping their patients and helping themselves? How do you know when to turn off the faucet?

Jaclyn has clinical experience working with anxiety, family conflict, and domestic violence recovery. She specializes in working with women, adolescents, and families.

She works with techniques that are evidence-based and proven to alleviate issues such as relationship conflict, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress.

Jaclyn has extensive experience working in a clinical recovery setting with trauma, addictions, and domestic violence prevention.

Jaclyn is the practice owner of Carolina Counseling Wellness Associates, PLLC. Which offers outpatient mental health care and private practice office support for licensed counselors practicing at our Center. Jaclyn offers business consultation services to mental health counselors with coaching for private practice services.

Jaclyn also offers clinical supervision for North Carolina associate counselors working towards full licensure and is a qualified supervisor through the NC-BLCMHC.

Visit her website.

• Finding balance between healing others while evading burnout
• What can you do to break up your day a little more?
• When do you turn the faucet off?

I think that's where it starts: looking at your day and structuring it … when I created my private practice many years ago, I created it around my self-care, so I don't work Monday nights because that's my yoga time, and I don't work Wednesday and Friday because that is my other workout time. (Chris McDonald)

By working 12-hour days without a break, non-stop, you will run right into fatigue. That is why structuring your day is important, even if it is a delicate suggestion of when you will take a break and pencil in a cup of tea by yourself in the midst of the deadlines.

Through creating a structure, you can begin to place boundaries around your time. The work is to try to stick to them as much as possible because your rest is as important as your work.

Ask yourself how you can add breaks into your day. These could range from:

• Eating your lunch away from your desk, or
• Taking a walk around the block for 10-minutes, or
• Having coffee with a friend in between clients.
• Make time in between clients so that you have time to release energy and emotions from the first client before heading right into the next session with another.

What can you do in between your sessions, besides going to the bathroom? … do whatever you connect with to take those minutes [for yourself]. (Chris McDonald)

Think about your movement throughout the day. If you are sitting a lot or for most of the day, try taking moments to do some light physical activity such as walking around, doing quick yoga, or stretching at your desk.

If you work through telehealth, take eye breaks away from the screen as well to give your eyes a chance to refocus and rest because your eyes are also muscles.

People all have different signals that their body sends them for when they need to slow down and take some time to rest and recuperate.

For most people, this comes in the form of fatigue, both mental and physical.

• Do you feel mental fog?
• Do you feel the tension in the back, neck, or shoulders?
• Are you feeling overly emotional or irritable?

You [have to] turn that awareness in to ask "what is my sign? How do I know?" because sometimes if you are not focused on that, you are not really going to pay attention and you are going to push yourself too far. (Chris McDonald)

It is important to have the awareness first, of your bodily sensations, because when you are aware of your fluctuations then you can act accordingly at the right time.

Chris McDonald – Self-Care for the Counselor: A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

How can you use holistic therapy in an environment where prescribing medication has become the norm? What should you explain to a client when they are misinformed and think that medication can be used as a substitute to therapy? How can you approach the topic of medication to a client who is nervous about it?

Sabrina Basquez is a therapist and consultant specializing in burnout, secondary/vicarious trauma, trauma-sensitive mindfulness, and self-compassion.

After a decade of working with vulnerable populations, Sabrina personally experienced burnout and secondary traumatic stress. In the final year of her master's degree, she lost her best friend, in part due to burnout. Over the years Sabrina has observed the personal suffering of countless professionals as they over-dedicated themselves, to often noble work, without realizing the damage they were doing to themselves or their professional efficacy.

These experiences reinforced within Sabrina a passion to collaborate with other professionals in high-demand careers to learn to self-manage burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and workplace bullying through healing past traumas, cultivating self-compassion, interpersonal skills acquisition, conflict resolution, and cognitive mastery.

Visit her website. Connect on Facebook and Instagram.

• It goes back to psychoeducation
• Educating your client about medication
• What to do when a patient nervous about medication

In the counseling world, there can be differences in approach: although between the holistic counseling approach and the medical-scientific community approach there can not only be differences but even some conflicts.

This comes down to psychoeducation and some damaging myths that holistic counseling does not use any medication whatsoever, and this is not true.

When [a patient] is that severe, I'm going to talk to them about [medication] and see if it is something [they] are open to, always considering what they want to do with their treatment, and going from there. I believe medication can be helpful as a part of a holistic treatment regime because … some holistic strategies, think of them as complementary … they are part of the greater package. (Chris McDonald)

Holistic therapy uses medication alongside other strategies in a way so that they complement one another, and they do not privilege one above the other as a primary treatment option for a patient.

The medical model and open-mindedness do not need to be mutually exclusive. They can work together and be used together in order to provide the highest quality treatment to a patient.

I think as holistic providers we are open-minded that we don't want to eliminate medication totally … even if you are totally against it, what is in the best interest of this client? To ask yourself that. (Chris McDonald)

This starts in the first session. If a client is new to therapy then it is important to fully explain to them how the medication works and what they can expect from it.

Explain to your client that some people need medication and that, if the client would like, it can be an option for them should they feel it is necessary alongside your diagnosis. Although, some clients do not want medication and then that is alright as well.

I do talk about [that] sometimes if you do need medication, the best course of treatment research shows is if you have medication and therapy for the best outcomes, and to keep in mind that some people will start medication and stop therapy … but that is only part of it. (Chris McDonald)

Some people think that the medication will help them more than the therapy, or they think that the medication can work in place of the therapy. Therefore, it is important to explain to your clients that the best results come from a joint practice between taking medication – if necessary – and going to therapy regularly.

If you have a patient that may need medication in your opinion, but they are afraid of it, you can gently approach the topic with them.

Let them know that they do not have to take it now, and in the meantime, you can try other treatment modalities that they feel comfortable with to build them up to feeling confident to try medication.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

What is the connection between consciousness, energy, and blood? How deep does the connection go between the physiological and the psychological? Is talk therapy not be enough in the long run when achieving holistic recovery and long-term healing?

Dr. Alison J Kay has secrets no one else uses to upgrade, inspire & disrupt old paradigms within her community & the collective. She is an Award-Winning, #1 International. Best Selling Author and the Founder of the Vibrational UPgrade™ System. She is an experienced subtle energies practitioner and natural healer with a holistic approach towards helping others thrive in mind, body, and spirit. This is reinforced by her ten years in Asia studying subtle energies & ancient wisdom. With 20+ years working in & teaching Yoga, Meditation, Energy Medicine, MindBody Fitness, Longevity, and Holistic Health with a specialized focus on the Chakra System, Dr. Alison brings a unique perspective that facilitates massive change.

Dr. Alison's mission is to support the next higher evolution of the collective & create change for the health of this planet and those who are ready to unleash every part of the magic within them. Backed by the potency of her Vibrational UPgrade™ container, she hosts a wildly popular Activate Your Magic monthly program synced with the potency and support of the moon. and offering Group Clearings & Activations. Her signature program, Magic, Manifestation & Money Flows facilitates massive money, health, spiritual & life-enhancing shifts to 100's of clients worldwide. While her advanced clients are supported by her Vibrational Upgrade™ Mastermind Group, Certification Program & International Retreat Programs. You don't need to believe in this in order for it to work… that's the beauty of what Dr. Alison accesses – as soon as you experience her work, you will feel the shift within you.

Visit her website. Connect on Facebook and Instagram.

Book a 45 min call with one of Dr. Kay's team members.

• Where energy goes, blood follows
• How talk therapy can cement trauma
• Intuition
• Advice to listeners

If where vital life force energy [energy] goes, blood follows, meaning where energy goes then the physical manifests in that form, in that place, and for anything to exist in matter is has to first exist in energy. What moves the energy? And that is the focus of our consciousness, and that is where meditation comes in. (Dr. Alison Kay)

The combination of meditation and energy work is what can lead to a serious change in one's health. By spending time moving your body and moving the energies in your body through the connection you have between your mind and your physical being, you can learn a lot about what your body holds – by becoming in tune with your intuition.

By becoming in touch with your intuition and focusing your consciousness you are better able to understand and navigate the choices that you make because you are no longer, or less so, acting unconsciously, or without awareness.

I don't believe that psychotherapy is very functional because from what I see the talk therapy just reinforces energy: it just locks down more energy into the same pathway, the same neurological pathway [which is] therefore the same physiological pathway and that is the same energetic pathway. So we carve something in stone even more … [making] it even more solid and real and harder to redirect through meditation practice. (Dr. Alison Kay)

Energy healing is focused on breaking up what has already materialized whereas talk therapy simply cements what was materialized that you are trying to undo. To break up and heal trauma takes a lot more subtle energy healing than only talking about it.

Through incorporating subtle energy healing practices such as exercise, meditation, energy healing itself can have much more of a holistic healing influence on the body and mind than only practicing talk therapy.

By moving our bodies in conjunction with moving through a painful trauma, exercise can help us release these stored or stuck energies.

Following one's intuition has become a foreign concept for many people in the current generations, although it is a powerful and meaningful tool that people can use and become familiar with to guide their lives, or to seek guidance in it.

Coming into flow with one's intuition comes from a place of trust: trusting yourself and your heart, but many people have been taught to doubt, rather than trust, themselves and so this leaves everyone seeking external validation and not believing in their own abilities.

This also leads to people not knowing how to approach their intuition and so they follow external prompts when they may need something different.

These [posts] that make people think "I just have to let go of control more" … hell no! You need to be front and center, be conscious, mindful, in your body, and leading your life. Absolutely in control but in co-creation with your higher self and source. (Dr. Alison Kay)

It is about trust but it is also about releasing the ego, surrendering as well as being present and taking action in your life: working with an energy healer and someone who understands or who can guide you will help this work be more beneficial to you than only following someone on social media.

There are so many teachers out there talking about this now and sometimes a person can follow multiple teachers at once, but if you really want to make some serious headway in your healing, you need to work closely with one person.

Dr. Kay's tips on redirecting thoughts and working with neuroplasticity:

• You are conscious, mindful enough to practice detachment to your thoughts so that you can exist in an observer-role to your thoughts. You observe a thought that makes you contract,
• You can acknowledge it and ask "is that even true" if it is an old thought that has come up automatically from an old wound,
• Ask it: "how does it get better than this?"
• Ask it: "what else is possible?"

This last question causes a vacuum that questions your ego and allows yourself to perceive other things that can be created and fill that space.

• Dr. Alison Kay – Vibrational UPgrade: A Conspiracy for Your Bliss
• Dr. Alison Kay – Reasonable Dragons: How to Activate the Field of Possibilities Where Logical Magic is the New Normal

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

How can you create an effective magnet to attract your ideal clients? What are some marketing mistakes that holistic counselors make when trying to market their practices? Why is your 'why' more important than your 'how'?

Michelle is a "unicorn" in the clinical world - with an MBA in strategic management AND as Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor/Private Practice owner - she is kinda unique!! Plus, as a Certified Daring Way Facilitator, teaching curricula based on the research of Dr. Brené Brown, her business coaching and productivity tools incorporate powerful components of this body of work.

She is SO passionate about helping you FLOURISH because she KNOWS you went into private practice with your own passion for creating a healing space for others!!

Michelle coaches clinicians, just like you, with a vales-based approach to business ensuring your practice's marketing and branding efforts are authentic and effective! This way, you can be sure to attract YOUR ideal clients and build a thriving practice you love.

Visit her website. Book a free 20-minute chat by clicking here.

Email Michelle at [email protected]

Get 15% off with the promo code 'hcp15' on the Get Out Of Your Own Way' marketing course

• Differences between marketing for holistic group practices and other group practices
• Talk about your 'why', not the 'how'
• Some mistakes holistic therapists make when marketing their practices
• How to connect to your ideal client

The main difference between the marketing strategies of holistic group practices and other more conventional group practices is that they will both market to two different kinds of ideal clients.

It may not be the same client who is reaching out to a CBT clinician … so I think that being keenly aware of who your dream client is, what they're going to look for and language that resonates with them is probably one of the first things to think about when you're marketing a holistic private practice. (Michelle Hardman)

As a holistic counseling practice, be aware of:

• Who your ideal client is,
• What the language is that you can use to connect with them, and
• What their unique pain points are that you can help them with.

This is because these aspects may be different from how a CBT clinician will market to their ideal clients, and when you can become clear on these aspects you are then able to weed out the people that you may not work well with and find the people that will fit in well with your treatment modalities.

Often people who are coming in for treatment do not always care much for the medical or holistic jargon behind your practice. Some terminology will be beneficial, but often what a client really wants to hear is your 'why' and why this work will benefit them.

It resonates more with people on an emotional level to talk about why you are passionate about the work, and why holistic is the approach and the modality of your practice because I think that's when we get that real connection and that spark with somebody who might be reading a brochure or the copy on your website and that is going to feel a lot more genuine and authentic. (Michelle Hardman)

By owning what you do and why it is important to you, it flows from a genuine and sincere place. Therefore, when you write your copy or talk about your work on podcasts and so forth, people can feel the energy you have behind the work you do when you explain 'why' you enjoy it, work with it, and believe in it, instead of only using medical jargon.

• Here in your marketing, you can talk about your core values as the overlay of your practice.

Authentically being you is a really great thing and that means, by definition, you are not going to treat every single person that calls you or reaches out … it can be painful and that's where I love the idea as a holistic practitioner, peeling off that clinician piece and overlaying it on building your business. How can you do it metaphorically in a holistic way, just as you would tell your clients, how can you talk to yourself in that same fashion so that you don't feel like you have to take on every client that calls. (Michelle Hardman)

• Be mindful of networking and referral sources because this builds on and brings in the ideal clients that you want your practice to work with.

1 – "Ugh, I can't market myself": Sales does not equal marketing and marketing does not equal sales. When you market your practice, that is about the client, not about you.

Sales is about me as the business owner. Sales is about 'I met this many new clients, I hit these targets, these are my goals. Sales is about me'. That is why when we think about trying to talk to people from that perspective it feels so gross because it's not about them, it's about me … because sales are about my goals. Marketing on the other hand is about your client's pain points. (Michelle Hardman)

Marketing is being able to understand your ideal client's pain points and being able to articulate that you understand their pain points, that you know how to assist them and bring relief to them.

The key is to be mindful and aware … so that we can catch that and stop the [anxiety] going into the words and the messages we are creating, but instead staying aligned with 'why' you started this holistic practice, being able to speak from there with your core values, keeping in mind what your ideal client's pain points are and how you can address them … that's where the marketing magic happens. (Michelle Hardman)

2 – Not networking: being able to create relationships with therapists – even therapists that specialize in the same area as you – can be helpful because then you begin to create strong bonds. These bonds allow you to refer out to one another, bring one another into meaningful change and evolution where it brings positive ripple effects into your own practice.

This can happen when there is courage because when we slip into the scarcity mindset we become antagonists but in reality, there are definitely enough clients to go around.

Slow down to figure it out. This may seem counterintuitive because you might think that you are losing money, but when you slow down to figure out how to connect with your ideal client, your business and practice becomes so much stronger and in more need, because you have now introduced it to the very people who need it, instead of blindly marketing it to anyone.

Write some of your core mission values down and work around them, work them into your practice, so that you know you are building your business around the very people you want to assist.

When folks are new in their own private practice, I get it, you want to go as fast as possible because you want to make money and you are excited about what you are doing … if we spend some time on the front end ironing out those details and being specific then we have created a really strong filter … and we've created a really strong magnet to attract the right [clients] and that's going to pay off in dividends. (Michelle Hardman)

Download this free worksheet to give you a starting point to create or "re-imagine" your marketing efforts.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

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Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

What stops you from achieving healing? Why do some people hold onto their trauma? Is the spiritual and path of awareness more difficult?

Ronen Divon speaks about finding out who the healer is

Ronen Divon had been walking spiritual and holistic paths for well over three decades. Born in Israel, educated in New York, and currently residing in Cary, North Carolina, Ronen had traveled the world, spending time with teachers, masters, healers, and guides. With wisdom that spans multiple traditions, including the Far-East, India, Israel, Brazil, Peru, and Indigenous America, Ronen remains a student, learning and adding modalities that will best serve his clients; each according to their own unique needs. Ronen is a Reiki Master, a channeling healer working in mediumship, and a Yoga and Tai Chi instructor.

He is also an ordained minister with the Sanctuary of the Beloved, a non-denominational church in the Order of Melcheizedek. In his Plant Medicine work, he is a Medicine Carrier affiliated with the CA-based Church of the Celestial Heart. Other than his work as a healer, Ronen is also a published author, a Yoga, Meditation, and Tai Chi instructor

Visit his website. Connect on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

• What stops you from giving true healing to someone?
• What can slow you down from achieving your own healing?

Something to be wary of when it comes to that is the notion of "I'm here to heal the world" and really the first thing that anybody on this path needs to realize is that you have to start with work on yourself. Don't do for anybody else what you are not ready to do for yourself. (Ronen Divon)

If you have the urge to save and heal others always, have you evaluated that urge? For many people, even though they have benevolent intentions, the want to heal others does come from an egotistical place.

I really want to encourage people [working in therapy] to ask these questions, always ask permission before [giving advice]. (Ronen Divon)

Making sure that you receive consent, and that the person knows you are trying to help them, allows them to understand that you are doing the work to help them and that they are taking an active role in doing the work as well.

We are the biggest [saboteurs] of our own healing … I find that every single situation that we face we create, and it's not resolved until we're ready to let it go. (Ronen Divon)

We can only grow and expand into better, wiser, and stronger people through experiencing suffering. When everything is smooth, calm, and stable we can enjoy it but we remain stagnant in our progression.

Therefore, there is friction between our comfortable, ego-centered selves that seek comfort and predictability and the people who we want to become, the lessons we need to learn, and ultimately the healing that we need.

Our healing lies beyond the limit of our comfort zone. In this way, you remaining in your comfort zone is what slows you down and stops you from achieving healing.

If we can really understand that, then the issue is going to get resolved. If we do not, then it's going to continue. (Ronen Divon)

You have to release the "dirt" that gathers at the bottom of your mind and heart so that you can "clean" what you have within you.

"There is a modern misperception that when one walks a Spiritual path, life is smooth, good, easy, and joyful; it may be more accurate to say that today's Spiritual path is changeable, dynamic, rugged, challenging, and sometimes chaotic. It is your choice whether to walk this path with grace, love, joy, and power." *SOURCE UNKNOWN

Words from Kai Karrel's Medium's Creed

"May my words and actions reflect my inner beauty and the personal journey of my own healing."

"I ask that if I make mistakes or if I am unaware of acting in disharmony, please God, inspire others to instruct me and bring this to my attention. I ask that you give me the humility to accept correction and criticism so I can keep on shining within this light."

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)

Have you come into contact with energy work? Do you know what reiki and healing touch are? Are you aware of the mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical benefits?

I speak with Sarah Granahan about the benefits of energy work.

Sarah Granahan is the Founder of Color My Spirit, LLC -an organization she created in 2012 to offer inspiration, motivation & self-healing to people by helping them explore the messages their bodies are sending them. Sarah is an Energy & Intuitive Coach with training as a Holy Fire® Reiki Master/Teacher (RMT), Healing Touch Practitioner Apprentice (HTP-A), Hypnotherapist, Integrative Health Coach trained at Duke Integrative Medicine and Healy Practitioner. Her gifting includes being an Intuitive Empath, Shaman, Medium, Animal & Child Messages & Energy Worker, and Wellness Coach.

Sarah treats people with sleep disturbances, anxiety, pain, grief, wound healing, fatigue, or side-effects from medication and chemotherapy. She also offers sessions for people who want to explore their shadows and clear old energy to support their general well-being. In 2020, Sarah expanded her practice and opened Color My Spirit Wellness - a place where alternative & holistic practitioners can gather to treat clients on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels to encourage alignment and balance.

Visit her website. Connect on Facebook and Twitter.

• Reiki and Holy Fire definition
• Healing touch
• Combining energy work with therapy
• Detoxing after energy work
• Taking on other people's (negative) energy

Reiki is a Japanese-based energy modality that works with resetting life force energies and promotes healing and helps you recenter and reground so that you can move forward more clearly. Holy fire is a different energy that came through reiki a couple of years ago. It's basically a higher vibrational current of the same energy modality. Anybody can become trained in reiki and you then become attuned to that healing energy. When somebody comes in for a session, you're just a conduit holding that energetic space for the client and the client is going to heal for their highest good.

Everybody is walking around with baggage. Healing touch is a heart-centered modality. You're holding an intention that you're going to help your clients heal for their highest good from one heart to another. It's a different energy current. But it does the same amount of work that reiki does.

However, with reiki, your detox period will be 5-7 days.

With healing touch, it will be 3-4 days. Healing touch is great for clearing baggage, as well as for removing things in the mental, spiritual and emotional field.

Mental health isn't looked at as closely as it should be. But, taking care of your emotional and mental health is so important. People report feeling lighter and more at peace after reiki sessions.

Sarah would definitely recommend combining this with counseling. Although the client should be ready to do this. Energy work works well on, not just your mental state, but your physical, emotional, and spiritual work as well.

The effectiveness of energy work relies on the client's readiness to receive it. Essentially, the energy will be released and the client then has the free will to do what they will with it.

You also have to be careful with your words (before a session) because those are intentions we set. You may come to a session ready to release everything and then feel flu-like symptoms the next day, such as body aches, etc. This, however, is linked to the energy work and is simply your body detoxing.

As you are detoxing after an energy session, it may be 'extreme' in the beginning but will subside thereafter. Drinking a lot of water after energy work can help with this.

Many counselors/therapists struggle with taking on clients' issues. This can result in therapists becoming confused over what's theirs and what's not. It's important to make time to apply certain energy healing techniques to yourself, especially if you are sensitive.

Sarah teaches how to say hello to other people's energies and then how to say goodbye. Often, consciously you may think you have let things go, but subconsciously you are still carrying baggage around.

Download the Free guide: How to build confidence and competence bringing yoga into the therapy room

The Yoga in Therapy Collective —where therapists learn, grow, and get support with yoga-informed practices

Explore the Yoga Basics for Therapists course—designed to help you confidently and ethically integrate yoga into therapy

Yoga Basics: The Therapist's Guide to Integrating Trauma-Informed Yoga into Sessions

Instagram: @chris_mcdonald58

Join the Free Bringing Yoga Into the Therapy Room Facebook group

Leave a review and subscribe to this podcast

Self-Care for the Counselor: A Companion Workbook: An Easy to Use Workbook to Support you on Your Holistic Healing and Counselor Self-Care Journey ... A Holistic Guide for Helping Professionals)