“How do I support someone, in their full human potential, to feel embodied and liberated and free?” ~ Dr Scott Lyons
by Lucinda Staniland,
It’s always a joy to come across someone who takes real pleasure in the work they do in the world.
Without a doubt, Dr Scott Lyons is such a person and I could tell so immediately when I began watching his conversation with Kara-Leah Grant. Although he clearly takes a serious and earnest approach to his work, there is also an overflowing sense of delight and lightness to him, which I couldn’t help but be enchanted by.
Dr Scott Lyons is a Clinical Psychologist and Mind-Body Medicine practitioner. Motivated by the need to more deeply understand the human experience, he has explored Yoga, somatics, neural developmental training, craniosacral therapy, osteopathy, dance, opera, and art therapy, to name but a few of the paths he has taken.
These explorations led him to co-found Embodied Flow™ Yoga with Tara Judelle, a holistic school of Yoga that combines somatics, tantric philosophy, physical therapy, and experiential anatomy, and asks the beautiful question,
“How do I support someone, in their full human potential, to feel embodied and liberated and free and in a state of flow, which is our natural state of being?”
Dr Scott Lyons is coming to New Zealand in February to lead a 6-day Embodied Flow™ Yin Yoga Immersion & Teacher Training with Adele Kinghan, so Kara-Leah Grant caught up with him to talk about his approach to Yoga and healing, why we cry on the Yoga mat and what Embodied Yin is all about.
Editor’s Note: The video freezes for just over ten seconds from 31:13 – 31:24. Don’t panic! It’s only temporary. At other times the visuals lag slightly behind the audio. Again, no need to panic. The audio quality remains fine throughout.
Quotes From The Interview
On the skill of being with another human being
“To really be with someone wherever they are as a human being I needed more skillsets, I needed more tools. And those tools weren’t just in a clinical psychology program, they weren’t just in an expressive arts therapy program, they weren’t just in an osteopathy program… I really felt a call to keep finding and gathering resources and tools until I felt like I could see and experience another human being from a multitude of directions.”
“When someone walks into my office the absolute first thing I think is “Wow, I’m sitting in a room with another human being and that’s amazing.” Somehow that in itself is a beautiful ritual, something sacred… That took me years to be able to do. It’s not easy.”
On the end of hierarchy
“We’re trying to remove the hierarchy. We’re here together. In this horizontal teaching, I have perspective as a facilitator, but I’m not the expert of you.”
“It takes a lot of courage to let go of the ego of the expert. I will admit it is a lifelong process.”
“I can’t make someone feel more embodied or more whole, but I can help create the environment to help them find that.”
On what happens when we repress emotion
Emotion is in motion… When we stagnate motion it is the place of dis-ease. In a water system, where there is stagnation the eco-system tends to fade… Any place where there is stagnation of unprocessed biological energy, that is a place of dis-ease”
“What we’re conscious of at any given moment is about 8% of what’s happening.”
“An emotion doesn’t last that long. Biochemically [it lasts] 60 – 90 seconds, that’s it. It’s meant to be information, a compass, a guide that is directing us. Our relationship to it is the thing that might bind us.”
On what it means to be human
“To just sunbathe in bliss is cool, if that’s your thing, but it’s not the full picture of what it is to be human… We want the full gamut of what it is to be human, which includes anger and sadness.”
“I am with you in all your perfection and all your beauty and all that’s happening, even the challenges, I am just with you.”
On Embodied Flow™ Yin Yoga
“It really allows an expansive sense of time and a real, luscious space. The amount of time we get to spend in one place with one singular focus, without having to change into another shape, creates a certain amount of spaciousness.”
*** Proudly sponsored by Rise Yoga ***
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