"Doing these movement meditations, overtime, changes how the body and mind function."
- Carrie Heeter
PhD, Author, Co-founder of Yoga Mind Tools LLC, & Former Professor of Media and Information at Michigan State University
Episode 14: Mind-Body Practices for Your Patients and Clients: Appropriateness and Effectiveness
A Conversation with Carrie Heeter
How do the mind and the body become more integrated? How do you assist the "natural intelligence" of your body function in concert with your mind? In this episode, Marcel welcomes back Carrie Heeter, and together they discuss some essential factors of effective mind-body practices. They emphasize how mind-body practices must be accessible, appropriate, and must contain a method of progression specific to each individual.
Learning about mind-body practices involves skills that can be learned and practiced. This content is helpful for therapists that want to gain a deeper understanding of mind-body practices and recommend techniques to their clients that will be more appropriate and effective.
For therapists, it is not only important to experience these techniques but to also understand how others experiences them. Carrie and Marcel go in depth about how the mind and body interface. They share their experiences in learning about mind-body practices and how to apply them appropriately and effectively. Carrie and Marcel also discuss a five week research program they developed and conducted that allows for the understanding and integration of these techniques.
If you are interested in mentoring about mind-body practices with Marcel, visit his Yoga for Practitioners web site.
Here are some highlights from the conversation with Carrie that will help you understand how meditation, breath, and movement can build stronger connections between the body and the mind:
Marcel shares three big points about meditation, breath, and movement:
1. It's an experiential process
2. The understanding of mind-body practices needs to be integrated within us
3. We must take that understanding and share it with others and observe how it works
When these functions are appropriate for the individual, the relationship between the body and the mind improves
When it comes to breathing, attention, and movement, the accessibility is a huge point
The experiences that therapists design needs to be accessible
Must be appropriate and resonate with the individuals
There's a progression that happens- this is super important
Interoceptive Awareness- when attention is brought to what's going on inside the body
Exteroceptive Awareness- the senses we are used to (sight, sound, etc.)
Marcel and Carrie developed movement meditation to help burnout
Structured movement and breathing exercises multiple times a week for a group of individuals
Five weeks of people doing meditations at least twice a week
Multi-dimensional Interoceptive Awareness Scale- used by University of San Francisco researchers
The individuals in the research group were:
More oriented towards noticing bodily sensations
Actively listening to their body for insight
Experiencing their body as safe and trustworthy
Being more aware of the connection between body sensations and emotions
The effectiveness of these techniques depends a lot on the person's state of the system and how they are using these techniques
Check out Carrie's book: An Inside Look at Meditation: Experiences for Healing, Support, and Transformation
To find out more about Carrie's new book, be sure to check out Episode 10: Writing Differently: An Inside Look at Meditation and learn about how Carrie used meditation methods to write her book.
Carrie Heeter, PhD, is a recently retired professor of Media and Information at Michigan State University. She conducted scientific research on the process and outcomes of yoga-based meditation. Her book, An Inside Look at Meditation: Experiences for Healing, Support, and Transformation, is now available on Amazon.
Carrie is also the founding director of Yoga Mind Tools and a certified yoga and meditation teacher.
Yoga Mind Tools
Yoga Mind Tools meditations support stress management, healing, personal growth, and transformation.
Our meditations are custom-made for specific individuals, groups, and needs.
Yoga Mind meditations are are different from what most people think of as yoga and meditation. We use yogic tools of movement synchronized with breathing, attention, and unique meditation objects.
This podcast is sponsored by Core Resonance Works.
Want to learn more about Core Resonance Works?
Please check out our website:
Doing Differently- Episode Fourteen- Transcript
Please excuse any typos. This script was generated by an AI program.
Transcript will be available soon
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