1 hr 1 min
21. Resting in the inner work, with Gail Parker The Weeks Well
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- Health & Fitness
Gail Parker is a trailblazer, and the paths she's opening up are those not in the exterior world but of the interior body. Like most who visit with me on this show, she has been practicing yoga for many decades. She started yoga in Detroit the year after the riots there, and the peace she found in the practice was as immediate as it was thorough.
Gail's work is groundbreaking because it's specifically about how restorative yoga as a practice, like the practice of psychotherapy (she's a yoga teacher and a psychologist!), offers the opportunity to engage with trauma in a humanistic way. As in therapy, the long, gentle, gravity-based holding of restorative poses offer the chance to cultivate your own interoceptive awareness, which is awareness of what your body needs from one moment to the next. As you learn to recognize these messages and sensations, you open yourself up to what Gail talks a lot about in our conversation: the true Self, that's self with a capital S. After reading her groundbreaking book Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma, my teaching—and thinking—have never been the same since. I hope this conversation is also transformative for you.
____
Terms:
1. Yoga nidra: a form of guided meditation
2. Ayurveda: an ancient Indian medical system that relies on a natural and holistic approach
3. Vata: one of the doshas (a mind-body type) in Ayurveda; controls movement in the body, the activities in the nervous system, and the process of elimination
4. Pitta: one of the doshas; controls digestion, metabolism, and energy production
5. Svadhyaya: self-study and recitation of sacred texts
____
References:
1. Gail Parker
2. Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma, by Gail Parker
3. Transforming Ethnic and Race-Based Traumatic Stress with Yoga, by Gail Parker
4. Practicing Well with Cyndi Lee
5. Practicing Well with Jivana Heyman
6. Practicing Well with Judith and Lizzie Lasater
7. The Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda
8. Oliver Black
9. Song of the Morning
10. Detroit Institute of Arts
11. Acharya
13. Existentialism
14. Humanistic psychology
15. The Untethered Soul, by Michael A. Singer
16. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
17. International Association of Yoga Therapists
18. The Surrender Experiment, by Michael A. Singer
19. Deep Listening, by Jillian Pransky
20. Octavia Raheem
21. Tracee Stanley
22. The Nap Ministry and Tricia Hersey
23. Rhonda Mageee
____
Original music by Kim's band Governess.
Produced by Alyssa Yeroshefsky and Kim Weeks.
____
www.weekswell.com.
Follow Kim on Instagram (@weeks.well), Facebook (@weeks.well), Twitter (@weeks_well), YouTube (@weekswell), Patreon (Weeks Well), and TikTok (@weekswell).
Copyright © 2023 Weeks Well®.
---
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-weeks-well/support
Gail Parker is a trailblazer, and the paths she's opening up are those not in the exterior world but of the interior body. Like most who visit with me on this show, she has been practicing yoga for many decades. She started yoga in Detroit the year after the riots there, and the peace she found in the practice was as immediate as it was thorough.
Gail's work is groundbreaking because it's specifically about how restorative yoga as a practice, like the practice of psychotherapy (she's a yoga teacher and a psychologist!), offers the opportunity to engage with trauma in a humanistic way. As in therapy, the long, gentle, gravity-based holding of restorative poses offer the chance to cultivate your own interoceptive awareness, which is awareness of what your body needs from one moment to the next. As you learn to recognize these messages and sensations, you open yourself up to what Gail talks a lot about in our conversation: the true Self, that's self with a capital S. After reading her groundbreaking book Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma, my teaching—and thinking—have never been the same since. I hope this conversation is also transformative for you.
____
Terms:
1. Yoga nidra: a form of guided meditation
2. Ayurveda: an ancient Indian medical system that relies on a natural and holistic approach
3. Vata: one of the doshas (a mind-body type) in Ayurveda; controls movement in the body, the activities in the nervous system, and the process of elimination
4. Pitta: one of the doshas; controls digestion, metabolism, and energy production
5. Svadhyaya: self-study and recitation of sacred texts
____
References:
1. Gail Parker
2. Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma, by Gail Parker
3. Transforming Ethnic and Race-Based Traumatic Stress with Yoga, by Gail Parker
4. Practicing Well with Cyndi Lee
5. Practicing Well with Jivana Heyman
6. Practicing Well with Judith and Lizzie Lasater
7. The Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda
8. Oliver Black
9. Song of the Morning
10. Detroit Institute of Arts
11. Acharya
13. Existentialism
14. Humanistic psychology
15. The Untethered Soul, by Michael A. Singer
16. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
17. International Association of Yoga Therapists
18. The Surrender Experiment, by Michael A. Singer
19. Deep Listening, by Jillian Pransky
20. Octavia Raheem
21. Tracee Stanley
22. The Nap Ministry and Tricia Hersey
23. Rhonda Mageee
____
Original music by Kim's band Governess.
Produced by Alyssa Yeroshefsky and Kim Weeks.
____
www.weekswell.com.
Follow Kim on Instagram (@weeks.well), Facebook (@weeks.well), Twitter (@weeks_well), YouTube (@weekswell), Patreon (Weeks Well), and TikTok (@weekswell).
Copyright © 2023 Weeks Well®.
---
Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-weeks-well/support
1 hr 1 min