Embodied Self: Yoga, Trauma, Zen
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
California Institute of Integral Studies
1453 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
This workshop explores aspects of embodiment from the perspective of eastern and western traditions. David Emerson, the founder and director of the yoga program at the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, is joined by Zen priest and teacher, Sarah Emerson to share insights from their respective traditions as well as contemporary research about the benefits of cultivating a conscious engagement with our embodied experience that not only enhances our human experience, but increases our capacity to meet our world with skillfulness and compassion.
This workshop offers a mixture of didactic presentations and practical exercises including:
- Neuroscience
- Trauma Theory
- Theories of Embodiment from a Buddhist perspective
- Seated and Standing yoga
- Seated and Walking Meditation
- A survey of relevant studies
and welcomes:
- Clinicians who want new ways to treat patients
- Yoga teachers, body-workers, meditators looking for new insights
- Anyone curious about what it is like to cultivate a conscious relationship between mind and body
Register here Enter code SFYOGAMAG to save $50 on advance registration!
David Emerson, E-RYT, TCTSY-F is the Founder and Director of Yoga Services for the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute in Brookline Massachusetts, where he coined the term "trauma-sensitive yoga". He was responsible for curriculum development, supervision, and oversight of the yoga intervention component which was the first of its kind, NIH funded study, conducted by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk to assess the utility and feasibility of yoga for adults with treatment-resistant PTSD. Their model, Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga(TCTSY), was listed in the United States as an evidence-based treatment for trauma in 2017. David has developed, facilitated, and supervised TCTSY groups for rape crisis centers, domestic violence programs, residential programs for youth, military bases, survivors of terrorism, and Veterans Administration centers and clinics. In addition to co-authoring several articles on the subject of yoga and trauma, he is the co-author of Overcoming Trauma through Yoga, released in 2011 by North Atlantic Books and author of Trauma-Sensitive Yoga in Therapy (Norton, 2015).
Sarah Emerson trained in residential and monastic Soto Zen Buddhist practice from 1997-2007 at the San Francisco Zen Center. She was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest in 2007, and empowered as a teacher in this lineage in 2015. Sarah completed an MA In Counseling Psychology through the ICP program at CIIS in 2016. Currently, Sarah is a Head Priest at Stone Creek Zen Center in Sonoma County, where she also works in the fields of mental health and pastoral care as a grief counselor and educator.