The other day I was stoked to go out for a run in a new pair of running shoes that I really liked. As I jogged, I could feel signs of the shoes not quite fitting me, which I hadn’t wanted to face before because they were on sale. Upon getting back home and taking off the shoes, I found some good-sized blisters. I really wanted to like the new shoes, but these blisters were telling me something that I’m better off listening to.
It's a Wednesday afternoon and I'm already late to our weekly yoga class. Much like other people, I have tried to fit too many things into a short amount of time. After hosting a staff breakfast at my house I had decided to schedule a pest control appointment during a 10 minute window, I only sort of had, before I needed to head to yoga. You can imagine my added stress and frustration when the employee arrived late to my house. I hustled him as quickly as I could and rushed over to participate in yoga. We provide this class for our employees every Wednesday as an opportunity for them to engage in their own practice of health and wellness and bring that back into the field. After struggling to find where I needed to be, I wandered into class late and was warmly welcomed by our Health and Wellness Coordinator, Elise Mitchell, who has a phenomenal ability to incorporate inconveniences and distractions into her yoga and mindfulness classes.
Last week I received another call from a law office looking for background information about Evoke’s Wilderness Therapy Program. She let me know her client, a previous parent of our program, was bringing a suit against their family’s insurance company. As I got off the phone I noted this case would make 7 current cases I’m aware of just this year, and 3 more already settled in favor of the families. Wilderness Therapy is making significant headway in getting families insurance coverage.
Several weeks ago I began a new job as a Wilderness Therapist at Evoke. Previous to my start date, I had been working as a psychotherapist in Madison, Wisconsin, working with individuals, couples, and families; all with issues and challenges not unlike the ones that present with clients coming to wilderness programs. How I came to Evoke and wilderness therapy is a story in itself, and relates directly to the amazing process wilderness therapy provides for hundreds of adolescents and young adults attending these programs year after year, with, from what I read in the research, high levels of success.
In an effort to meet clients with compassion and understanding, the mental health industry has made a shift and replaced the often negatively referred to term, Failure-to-Launch, with a more empathetic term, Emerging Adulthood.
Group One, our adolescent boy’s group in Evoke's Wilderness program, recently completed another successful trip to Smith Rock State Park for a day of rock climbing.
It seems like more now than ever before in my work as a health coach or Health and Wellness Coordinator for Evoke do I find the need to teach more compassion practices. Our world can, at times, feel like it's fraught with so much division, stress, lack consciousness, greed, misunderstanding, and fear. All of these feelings wreak havoc on our psyches, our hearts, and even our bodies. Today, over 40 million people in the US alone suffer from an anxiety disorder.
“Wilderness? What’s Wilderness Therapy?” When telling people where I work I frequently get this question. After explaining they often follow up with, “Wow, that sounds amazing!”
“How could a handstand invite so much emotional upheaval?” I thought as I came down softly, with the help of my instructor, resting and sobbing in Child’s Pose. I was back in another yoga teacher training after breaking my neck only 9 months earlier. I had done so much work healing the body and mind after my near-fatal car accident. My upper body was stronger than it was before the accident. I had gone to a therapist to deal with some of the fear and anxiety I felt from the experience. Had even undergone Rapid Eye Therapy to help “unlock” more subconscious levels of the trauma. But here, in a moment of turning my body upside down which I had done hundreds of times in my life, I was pouring tears like a geyser erupting from somewhere unspeakably deep within me. And my teacher was amazing. He was gentle, present, compassionate. I rested and spoke little the remainder of the day while still being with my peers of the teacher training.