When we feel overwhelmed by negative emotions and stressful thoughts, talk therapy (psychotherapy) is one of the best ways to eventually reach a more bearable state of mind. However, sometimes, the difficult feelings and overwhelming anxiety we struggle with daily have their roots in our childhood and teenage years. This presents an added problem. When we feel overwhelmed mentally and emotionally – especially as children and teenagers when we don’t have the mental capacity to fully grasp what is going on around us and why we are treated in certain ways – we often either dissociate from unbearable emotions and feel numb, cut off from our feelings and others (hypo-arousal); or we are propelled into a constant state of hypervigilance, always on the lookout for imminent catastrophe (hyper-arousal). But more often, we alternate between the two, and after a while these adaptive mental and physical states of hypo- and hyper-arousal can become traits: they become a way of coping with the world, ingrained in our nervous system as automatic responses, persisting into adulthood.
The task, then, is to complement relationship-based psychotherapy with a so-called ‘limbic system therapy’ such as yoga, dance, martial arts, or meditation, which can be thought of as bodily interventions to decrease and transform automatic nervous system responses by focusing on the body and learning to bear and process whatever arises in the present moment.
The Yoga Synergy Method was created specifically for this purpose. It is a dynamic, fluid, moving meditation, using special postures, movement, and breathing to create physiological states that can help reduce stress and overcome negative emotions and anxiety. This method helps you connect your brain with your gut (the enteric nervous system that is intimately associated with regulating immunity, digestion, reproduction, and cellular regeneration), creating beautiful, fluid movements by mobilising your core without over-tensing and over-stretching, so that you feel energised and calm at the same time. Connecting with your body and yourself this way helps you to soothe yourself and makes you able to regulate difficult emotions in healthy ways.
The Yoga Synergy method has been developed by Australian physiotherapists and yoga teachers of more than thirty years, Simon Borg-Olivier and Bianca Machliss. In my classes, I’d like to impart Simon’s teachings and make people experience the flow state that it can create. With its focus on spinal movements and core mobilisation, it is highly recommended for everyone who wants to manage anxiety, emotional distress, and trauma, while also wanting to have a strong and flexible body.
I have been practising yoga since 2007, practising the Yoga Synergy Method since 2011, and have been teaching it since 2017.