Becoming an Embodied Practitioner

Katarina Gadjanski and Tasha Colbert
  • 5.0 (24)
  • Mental Health
  • Monthly

'Becoming an Embodied Practitioner' is a podcast by the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy. The co-founders Katarina Gadjanski and Tasha Colbert discuss various topics related to the field of body - orientated approaches to therapy and address questions in relation to their therapeutic model: Integrative Embodied Psychotherapy. The aim of this podcast is to offer guidance, resources and support to therapists who wish to become more embodied in their clinical practice; and those interested in somatic approaches to psychotherapy and the therapeutic benefits they offer.

  1. Reset Your Nervous System in 10 Minutes - Embodied Psychotherapy Guided Exercise

    16 Jun

    Reset Your Nervous System in 10 Minutes - Embodied Psychotherapy Guided Exercise

    In this short guided practice, Katarina Gadjanski, co-founder of the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy, will guide you through a 3-step Embodied Psychotherapy exercise designed to help calm sympathetic arousal in the body. Sympathetic arousal occurs when we experience a fight-or-flight response to life's challenges, as well as during periods of stress, fear, or anxiety. Through this practice, your body can begin to release some of this accumulated activation, allowing the parasympathetic nervous system to become more active and support a greater sense of calm, regulation, and ease in both body and mind. 1:38 - Intro Quick body scan - taking inner inventory of your inner state - how is your body feeling before we begin 3:35 – Step 1: Shaking This step mimics how animals in the wild release trauma and accumulated tension. By standing with your feet shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent, you bounce and shake your limbs, spine, and shoulders while using rhythmic breathing (in through the nose, out through the mouth) to shake out some of the sympathetic/arousal energy from the body. 8:05 – Step 2: Parasympathetic Breathing This stage focuses on stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, using breath to send a message to the brain that in the here and now - you are safe. This encourages sense of calm and safety. This step involves a specific breathing pattern: inhale for a count of 4 and exhale for a count of 8 (or 6, if 8 is too difficult). The exhale is performed through the mouth, as if blowing through a thin straw, to help prolong the out-breath. 12:00 – Step 3: Self-Holding This self-soothing technique involves a gentle self-hug, to further bring sense of safety and relaxation. You place your right hand under your left armpit, your right arm is crossed over your heart, your left arm crossed over your right arm and your left hand holding your right shoulder or upper arm. 13:50 – Ending: Gentle Rocking The practice concludes with deep, natural breaths and gentle rocking, which signals to the nervous system that you are safe. For more FREE embodied guided practices visit our website: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/guided-practices To find out more about Embodied Psychotherapy and courses that we run at the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk To listen to IEP's Becoming an Embodied Practitioner podcast: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/podcast Sound engineering: Benny Lewis https://bennysoundengineer.co.uk/

    17 min
  2. # Bonus: Body Scan in Stillness and Movement & Finding a Safe Place in the Body

    03/09/2025

    # Bonus: Body Scan in Stillness and Movement & Finding a Safe Place in the Body

    In this guided embodied practice, Katarina Gadjanski will take you through a full body scan, bringing mindful awareness to sensations in different parts of the body. She guides this mindfulness of body practice first in stillness and then in movement. This will help you come into sensations and find a safe place in the body, which is important for self-regulation and stabilisation. Being anchored in this safe place in the body we can then start to explore more 'difficult' sensations that different body parts might be holding: like tension/pain/constriction and painful emotions. We teach this practice during Module 1 of our Certificate in Integrative Embodied psychotherapy at IEP: This is a basic practice and part of the ‘ABC’ of working with the body in Psychotherapy. In the introduction to this exercise - Katarina explains how, why and when it is appropriate to use this exercise with psychotherapy clients - as well as when it is not appropriate. Before guiding the body scan, Katarina also guides ‘parasympathetic breathing’ for calming the body and mind. Timestamps: 0:38 - intro 04:40 parasympathetic breathing for calming the body - in on 4 out on 8 07:05 - body scan in stillness - exploring what different parts of your body are holding - noticing and observing sensations non - judgementally 16:40 - Body scan in movement - becoming aware of different parts of the body, while moving 21:40 - Returning to stillness - mindfulness of the whole body 22:22 - finding a safe place in the body 25:15 - exploring difficult sensations in the body - tension/pain/constriction 26:55 back to a safe place in the body 28:05 - drawing a body map If you find this practice helpful please leave us a comment below and subscribe to our channel To find out more about Embodied Psychotherapy and courses that we run at the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk To listen to IEP's Becoming an Embodied Practitioner podcast: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/podcast For more FREE embodied guided practices please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/guided-practices Sound engineering: Benny Lewis https://bennysoundengineer.co.uk/ Music: Malte Marten Starseeds (1111 Hz)

    30 min
  3. # Bonus: Morning Movement Practice - Guided Movement Meditation

    03/09/2025

    # Bonus: Morning Movement Practice - Guided Movement Meditation

    In this gentle movement exploration, facilitated by Tasha Colbert, you will be invited to slow down through connecting with your body This guided journey will support you to ground, orientate to your environment, connect with your centre and embodied wellbeing. It will help to regulate your nervous system if you are feeling disconnected, low in energy, ungrounded or overwhelmed. If you find this practice helpful please leave us a comment below and subscribe to our channel. To find out more about Embodied Psychotherapy and courses that we run at the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk To listen to IEP's Becoming an Embodied Practitioner podcast: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/podcast For more FREE embodied guided practices please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/guided-practices Sound engineering: Benny Lewis https://bennysoundengineer.co.uk/ Music: Hang Massive - Heritage of Kings and Queens

    16 min
  4. # Bonus: Breathwork for Anxiety and Stress - Guided Meditation Practice

    30/04/2025

    # Bonus: Breathwork for Anxiety and Stress - Guided Meditation Practice

    In this short 8min guided practice Katarina Gadjanski will take you through a simple breathwork exercise, a practice that in Embodied Psychotherapy we call ‘parasympathetic breathing’. This type of breathing is known to calm down sympathetic arousal in the body - which happens when we are feeling anxious and stressed. Just a few rounds of this parasympathetic breathing will start to regulate your nervous system and calm your body and mind. This practice can be done anywhere - sitting, lying down or walking (you can also try to synchronise your breathing/counting with your steps if you are walking). If you find this practice helpful please leave us a comment below and subscribe to our channel to receive more of our Embodied Psychotherapy free guided practices To find out more about Embodied Psychotherapy and courses that we run at the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk For more FREE embodied guided practices please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/guided-practices

    11 min
  5. # Bonus: Mindfulness of Movement Zen Meditation - Guided Movement Practice

    25/04/2025

    # Bonus: Mindfulness of Movement Zen Meditation - Guided Movement Practice

    In this 15 min guided movement practice Katarina Gadjanski will take you through mindfulness of body movement meditation. In this meditation we will be using awareness of the breath and moving body parts as an 'object' of the meditation. The aim of this movement practice is to connect with the sensations in the body - to start releasing with the in-breath and out-breath and an intuitive movement of different body parts.... this is in order to help you find expression for anything that your body might be holding (any tension, constriction, emotional pain, etc) This guided practice is accompanied by Mindfulness Bells from Plum Village (community of Thich Nhat Hanh) and chanting by Vietnamese monk - Brother Phap Niem Music: 'The End of Suffering' by:Gary Malkin Chanting: Brother Phap Niem Mindfulness Bell: Plum Village Sound engineering for this video: Benny Lewis

    17 min
  6. # Bonus - 'Finding a way out of 'difficulty' through embodiment and movement’ - Guided Movement Practice

    18/02/2025

    # Bonus - 'Finding a way out of 'difficulty' through embodiment and movement’ - Guided Movement Practice

    In this 30 minute embodied movement practice, facilitated by Tasha Colbert, you will be guided to connect with your body and tap into your body wisdom. In this experiential session Tasha will first help you find grounding through your body and then connect to different body parts and realise any tension and constriction that you might be holding - through breath, movement and dance. Finally she will guide you through finding expression for some difficulty/problem/challenge in your life - and finding an "antidote" and a way out of it - using the intuitive wisdom or the body and movement. This was recorded and broadcasted live on 15th December 2024 - a special episode (Season 1 Finale) of Becoming an Embodied Practitioner Podcast. To find out more about Embodied Psychotherapy and courses that we run at the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk To listen to Becoming an Embodied Practitioner podcast: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org... For more FREE embodied guided practices please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org... Music: Various Sound Engineering: Benny Lewis

    31 min
  7. Episode 10: Live Q&A - Season 1 FINALE of Becoming an Embodied Practitioner

    01/01/2025

    Episode 10: Live Q&A - Season 1 FINALE of Becoming an Embodied Practitioner

    In this special episode (broadcasted live on 15th December 2024) Tasha and Katarina answer questions from the listeners as well as share some comments from the wider community of embodied therapists about their thoughts about 'What does it take to become an embodied practitioner?’  In this live Q&A session Tasha and Katarina address the questions about the 'bottom up' approach and the importance of creating safety and the therapeutic alliance first; they also address how to start to use movement in psychotherapy practice (if you are used to just doing 'talking therapy' and if you have limited space in the room) and also answer a question: how to recognise if a client starts to dissociate in a session when they close their eyes and go inward to explore sensations. Katarina and Tasha also discuss how embodied psychotherapy approach can be useful in couples therapy and sexual issues resulting from sexual trauma. They complete this last episode of Season 1 - by taking the listeners through some experiential embodied practices that they've been talking about in this podcast, so that you can have the direct experience of the benefits of this type of work. For these videos please click on the links below Experiential Embodied Practice 1, Guided by Tasha Colbert: https://youtu.be/U3RKGV1kQb0 Experiential Embodied Practice 2, Guided by Katarina Gadjanski: This would be released later this month To find out more about Embodied Psychotherapy and courses that we run at the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk To listen to all other episodes of Becoming an Embodied Practitioner: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/podcast For more FREE embodied guided practices please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/guided-practices Podcast intro music: Olafur Arnalds Sound engineering: Benny Lewis

    34 min
  8. Episode 9 - Embodied Approach to Attachment Trauma

    05/10/2024

    Episode 9 - Embodied Approach to Attachment Trauma

    In this episode Tasha and Katarina discuss the topic of attachment trauma and why working with the body is crucial. They discuss how the clients attachment experiences are reflected in the clients  posturing, use of eye contact and non-verbal communication with the therapist. They also reflect on some of the core qualities involved in being the co-regulating ‘other’ to their clients. They go on to reflect on different ways of working somatically with attachment wounds,  such as exploring developmental movement patterns and how to work with abandonment trauma through the body.  They also discuss how early developmental trauma and abandonment trauma affect the nervous system and how to help the client re-wire the nervous system, change survival patterns and practice self-regulation. Becoming an Embodied Practitioner SEASON 1 FINALE SPECIAL LIVE ONLINE SESSION ON 15th DECEMBER 6pm UK time/ 7pm Europe/ 1pm US Eastern/ 10am US Pacific Book your place HERE: https://forms.gle/tgYeEUZWogBDPG1Q8 More info: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/podcast-live To find out more about Embodied Psychotherapy and courses that we run at the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk To listen to all other episodes of Becoming an Embodied Practitioner: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/podcast For more FREE embodied guided practices please visit: https://www.embodiedpsychotherapy.org.uk/guided-practices Podcast intro music: Olafur Arnalds Sound engineering: Benny Lewis

    53 min
See All (26)

5
out of 5
24 Ratings

About

'Becoming an Embodied Practitioner' is a podcast by the Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy. The co-founders Katarina Gadjanski and Tasha Colbert discuss various topics related to the field of body - orientated approaches to therapy and address questions in relation to their therapeutic model: Integrative Embodied Psychotherapy. The aim of this podcast is to offer guidance, resources and support to therapists who wish to become more embodied in their clinical practice; and those interested in somatic approaches to psychotherapy and the therapeutic benefits they offer.

Information

  • Creator
    Katarina Gadjanski and Tasha Colbert
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    26
  • Copyright
    © Institute of Embodied Psychotherapy
  • Show Website
    Becoming an Embodied Practitioner

You Might Also Like