by Lucinda Staniland
It’s always fascinating to touch base with Dr. Scott Lyons (DO, PhD, MS, MFA, CHT, BMCP/T, RSMT, SME, BMCP, IDME, SEP, CST, BFA, RYT-500), co-founder of Embodied Flow. Scott has done a lot of academic learning (as evidenced in that extremely long string of letters after his name!) but the thing that is so refreshing and surprising about Scott is that, above all else, he prioritises learning and teaching from an embodied, experiential place.
As you’ll quickly notice in the interview below, Scott really is a shining example of what it means to fully live your yoga, in every aspect of life.
In this conversation with Yoga Lunchbox founder Kara-Leah Grant, Scott delves into some hot topics in the yoga and wellbeing world: trauma, stress and boundaries.
He examines how the language we use to talk about these topics can be counter-productive, why stress is a normal part of life (but our response to it can be thwarted) and how we can build our capacity to process stress and trauma in a healthy way, which is something that he shares with others in his Somatic Stress Release workshops, coming to New Zealand in 2020!
It’s fascinating, thought-provoking and ultimately very practical. Enjoy!
Dr Scott Lyons on Somatic Stress Release, Trauma and Boundaries
Events with Dr Scott Lyons in New Zealand
Somatic Stress Release™ Level I: Foundations • Wellington, February 5 – 9, 2020 & Queenstown, February 12 – 16, 2020
This comprehensive 5-day immersion introduces students to Somatic Stress Release™, addressing the underlying psycho-physical patterns associated with stress while promoting well-being through the lens of body-oriented therapies. It is open to anyone (i.e yoga teachers, therapists, parents, teachers, etc) who wishes to addresses stress from a multidisciplinary holistic approach.
Find out more:
Quotes from the interview
On expanding our capacity to meet and be met
“All real living is meeting. To be alive means to be in relationship – to ourself, to another person, and to the environment.”
On fundamental reality & awakening
“Fundamental reality is not a concept, it’s not something we ascend to… We absorb back into flow. Every major religion has a word for this, the process of basically reabsorbing into the essential nature.”
“The process of awakening is opening our eyes to our essential reality and nature. It’s swiping the dust off the lens of our perceptual experience… We are waking up to what is already here. I am already awake. I am already my essential nature.”
On how we construct ourselves in relationship to trauma and stress
“When the language [around stress and trauma] is so heightened and arousal producing, it doesn’t allow us to be with what’s actually happening… If we neutralise the term we can come back into the felt resonance and experience in the now and ask, ‘How do I be in relationship with what’s here as opposed to the concept I have of it’?
“To have a stress response means that you’re living and adapting to stimuli. But when our cycle of response to stimuli gets thwarted or obstructed, that’s when we get disease. Stress is not a disease. It’s our inability to process our biological response to stress that causes disease.”
On experiential education
“I believe in experiential education. If I talk about the sympathetic nervous system we will go and embody it – what does it actually feel like? – instead of me telling you a concept. That categorisation robs you of your empowered embodied experience “
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