Q: Where did you get the idea for this workshop?

A: In my work as a psychotherapist I became aware of people’s unconscious movements when they were telling their stories, and I realized that these movements were soothing for them, alleviating anxiety and allowing them to relax. Through my own practice of yoga, I recognized that some of these movements were spontaneous yoga postures. Bringing that unconscious movement into consciousness by making the person aware of their body’s response to their stories, I encouraged them to hold the posture while telling their story. This holding reduced anxiety, allowing the person to connect to the deeper feelings in their story. This experience brought home to me the powerful connection of body and mind.

I stayed aware of my inner experiences in my personal work by keeping a journal and participating in a writing group. From this work I realized the process of writing also helps to ground us in our own experience. I established an independent writing group, and quickly discovered that writing and reading aloud in a supportive atmosphere reduced students’ anxiety and enabled creativity to flow. Overworked participants came in tired and stressed, but, after connecting to their deeper selves, were relaxed and energized.

My extensive work with dreams has taught me that they help us to understand those parts of ourselves that have been denied, cut off or left unconscious. By actively engaging with our dreams, we gain insight into the significance of our inner images, opening ourselves to the healing power of the imagination and to the acceptance of the many facets of our personalities. Working with dream images, in conjunction with writing and yoga, helps to deepen our understanding of our inner world.

So I put dream work, writing and yoga together and the outcome was this workshop.

Q: What results have you seen?

A: I see participants drastically reducing the stress they brought with them into the workshop. This relief sometimes takes the form of a lessening or even cessation of physical discomfort. For others, it manifests itself as a feeling of calm resulting from the unburdening of turmoil and unresolved tensions.

As for results over the long term, my workshop teaches people the techniques for managing stress—skills that can be integrated into their daily lives. That’s the aspect that is most meaningful to me: the fact that participants leave the workshop with tools for diminishing or alleviating stress at the present and into the future. Through this work they discover ways to approach disturbing, repressed or painful experiences in order to resolve them into coherent narratives.

The outcome is the capacity to express the memory of traumatic events in a coherent story, thus releasing tensions that often lead to stress-related illness.

Q: Can people with ailments like multiple sclerosis, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, asthma, fatigue, troubled sleep patterns and hypertension benefit from this workshop?

A: Many patients with multiple sclerosis practice yoga to decrease the severity of their symptoms. In fact, yoga has been shown to alleviate symptoms of many conditions and ailments. Innerworks is also ideal for asthmatics because the resultant relief of stress allows the lungs to take in more oxygen. Studies show that patients who practice yoga use their asthma medications less frequently than those who don’t. Moreover, yoga practitioners report fewer sleep disturbances and a better quality of sleep. The writing aspect of my workshop helps participants to clarify and resolve long-standing worries, so that they experience less distress and fatigue, and more refreshing sleep.
Actually, this workshop is very beneficial for a whole range of ailments. The exercise and relaxation components of yoga, as well as the stress relief of both yoga and journal writing, play a major role in the treatment and prevention of hypertension and numerous other conditions that plague so many of us these days.

Q: People today are more interested in learning pain management, rather than constantly taking painkillers like aspirin or ibuprofren. Will your workshop address these concerns?

A: Yes. Yoga reduces pain by helping the brain’s pain center regulate the gate-controlling mechanism located in the spinal cord, and the secretion of natural painkillers in the body. Breathing exercises used in yoga also reduce pain. Because muscles tend to relax when you exhale, lengthening the time of exhalation encourages relaxation and reduces tension. Awareness of one’s breathing helps to achieve calmer, slower respiration and aids in relaxation and pain management.

A: Stress, especially chronic stress, initiates a cascade of powerful neurochemicals and hormones that help us deal with danger by making the heart pump faster and the lungs supply more oxygen. But, unfortunately, these substances also suppress the immune system. While they’re effective in helping us to react to physical danger, they also reduce the body’s supply of disease-fighting immune cells, thereby weakening our immune systems and making us less successful in resisting bacteria and viruses.

Uncontrollable, unpredictable, ongoing stress has far-reaching consequences on our physical and mental health. Long-term stress is a risk factor for heart disease: the changes that stress brings about may lead to an increased incidence of heart failure and heart attack and, because stress
also elevates blood pressure, may lead to stroke. In addition, the chronic elevation of stress hormones contributes to a narrowing of the blood vessels.

One of the pathological consequences of stress is the hopelessness and helplessness of clinical depression. Additionally, many illnesses such as high blood pressure, muscle wasting, ulcers, loss of reproductive function, suppression of the immune system, depression, chronic anxiety states, and addictive disorders also seem to be influenced by chronic, overwhelming stress.

Q: When we think and write about bad things in our lives, we tend to get upset. Why would anyone put him or herself in that situation?

A: When people write about the most stressful or traumatic events in their lives, these are always emotionally intense, upsetting experiences. Many become extremely agitated, breaking down and crying. However, later, they feel more relaxed, more peaceful and less depressed, and their physical health improves, sometimes drastically.

Q: How does the Writing Cure work?

A: Writing allows us to transform the unresolved stress and trauma cluttering our minds into coherent stories. Through the process of putting order and structure to our feelings about stressful experiences, we transform them into more organized, coherent stories. In actuality, the people whose health improves the most are those whose writing shows the most increase
in organizational or structural elements.

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