Tina Siler

It has been a while since my last post.  While I was away I visited many different cultures, meet interesting people, relaxed, spent time with loved ones, and worked on integrating yoga into everything I did, on and off the mat.

While traveling, I thought about what type of job I would like to have when I returned to the United States.  I knew in my heart that I wanted to go back to working with young people.  I had enjoyed my last few jobs in residential, day treatment, and as a school therapist.  It was challenging and rewarding but most of all I found that in this line of work creativity is key.

However, the mental health field can be full of labeling, limited resources, bad vs. good, and burn out.  It took a few months to shed the traumas that I had carried around with me from my former clients and I am very aware of how stressful it can be while in the field of “helping”.  But knowing all this didn’t keep me from searching for the same type of job when I returned.  As it turns out, I got what I was searching for.

My new job has a lot of paperwork requirements which request my mind to think in the medical model.  The medical model basically views the client as a patient who has a problem that the therapist is trying to eliminate.  It leaves little room for strength based or skill based thinking.  Let me be clear that this is the paperwork, not the expected way we deal with the patients, I mean clients.

I have given it a good solid two months.  I have found that it has been hard to be creative in a culture that has limited resources, medical model, and a pile of paperwork.  So I am taking a step out of the “mental health” world and back into the yoga world.

On November 3, I will be attending Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy level 1 in San Diego.

Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, through a combination of classical yoga techniques and elements of contemporary body-mind psychology, encourages this deeper connection with self. Through this deeper connection, we are able to know ourselves more fully. And out of this knowing, we are more easily moved to embrace the opportunity for change, growth and enhanced well being in body, feelings, thought, and spirit.

They say Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy changes lives from the inside out.

I am hoping it is a place for my creativity to be reborn.