250 How Trauma-Aware Yoga Therapy Offers a “Next Step” For Women Beyond Traditional Talk Therapy

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Regulate their nervous systems and experience healing in a deeper, embodied way. Let's discover more about going further beyond traditional therapy in today's episode of Yoga in the Therapy Room podcast. Welcome to Yoga in the Therapy Room, the non-traditional therapist guide to integrating yoga into your therapy practice.

Join me on this journey to help you be one step closer to bringing yoga into your therapy room.

Welcome back. To the yoga in the Therapy Room podcast, the non-traditional therapist guide to integrating yoga into your therapy practice. I'm your guide Chris McDonald, licensed therapist and yogi. Today we're taking a closer look at how trauma aware yoga therapy can be an powerful step for women who've already done some of the work of talk therapy, but are longing for something more.

Joining us today is Carrie Marino. She is a certified somatic yoga therapist. She's on a mission to help you feel more coal confident and love yourself more. Over the past 16 years, she's worked with thousands and thousands of people across the US and guided them through yogic life transformation.

Carrie is the person you hire when you're ready to go deep and want an offbeat path approach. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's begin. Welcome to the Yoga in the Therapy Room podcast. Carrie, thank you for having

Keri Merino: me today. It's good to sit across from you.

Chris McDonald: Yay. Awesome. And I love that we are both connected with North Carolina and that we talked a little bit about your training before we hit record.

I love that, that you started so early, right? With the yoga therapy.

Keri Merino: Yes. It's been interesting watching that yoga therapy career path unfold from like we're, we're creating that as a new way to. To share yoga with the world to an actual full-blown field.

Keri Merino: Yes. So I was, as we say in the south, a hot mess in my hot mess, express, hot mess express in my late teens, and I had a lot of different health issues going on. I had chronic pain, I had headaches, anxiety, eating disorders. There was just a lot that my little body was suffering with, and so that. Led me to seek for answers, and it ultimately took me to a Barnes and Noble, which is a bookstore for anybody that doesn't know.

And I found some chanting and meditation CDs. And so my yoga practice started with sound and just listening to these CDs, and I felt so peaceful inside like this. This was helping me to access a part of myself that I wasn't able to before. And I was like, well, if these are really good for me, what would a physical practice of yoga do?

And so it just kind of continued to unfold from there of moving from CDs to DVDs to an in-person class. And when I took an in-person class. It changed my life. I walked out of that class and I had never felt that good, ever that I remembered. Like I felt like I was floating.

Chris McDonald: So powerful, isn't it?

Keri Merino: It is.

There's nothing like it. I love the quote by Timothy McCall. He says, yoga is one. Stop shopping.

Chris McDonald: Ooh.

Keri Merino: I haven't heard that. Let's just get all in there. Let's go.

Chris McDonald: Yes, you are speaking my language. Well, I know you mentioned on your website too, that you bridge the gap between the power of yoga and the mental health world.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

But then also it's just where professionally my clients have come in from. I've done partnerships with eating disorder facilities. I have a lot of collaborations with mental health facilities. So it's like my professional work moved towards that. Naturally, and I saw very clearly that there were these big gaps.

So the mental health world was working so much with holding space and allowing for emotional processing and brain retraining, but it was largely leaving out body and spirit. And so yoga was this place where it got to all come together. And so my work at this stage in my life is really about taking and working with women who have already done therapy.

So these women are then walking through life from this really integrated place of, I've done the inner work, but now I've also done the somatic and the nervous system and the spiritual work to where I really feel whole.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, sounds like a lot of that holistic healing and perspective, which I think is just so needed.

Keri Merino: Yeah, it is. It really

Chris McDonald: is.

Keri Merino: And a lot of people, once they're not new at therapy anymore, they're looking. For that next thing to help them. Like a lot of times it's like, okay, I did therapy, but now what? Because yeah, I'm still getting mad about the peanut butter jar being in the wrong place in the pantry or I'm, whatever's happening in my life, I'm still seeing those patterns.

And so this is where yoga can be such a magnificent piece of the puzzle that brings it all together.

We need more, which is why we bring yoga in the therapy room to as therapists. But I love that you offer even more in depth practices. And do you use anything with nervous system regulation as part of yoga therapy? It's

Keri Merino: huge.

Chris McDonald: It's huge

Keri Merino: for my practice. So there's really like different pillars of the work that I do, and it, it all weaves together yoga, therapy and somatic healing, which is heavily influenced by nervous system medicine.

And so I'm both teaching women how to use the yoga practices for nervous system healing, but also teaching them. Nervous system, like how do we tend to our nervous system throughout the day in small little steps That increases my window of tolerance and allows me to show up with more resiliency as I'm moving through my days.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And can you talk about the difference between, like, I know you said before we hit record about the 200 hour and then you went onto the yoga therapy training. So what is the difference between someone getting like a 200 hour and then what is yoga therapy?

Keri Merino: Sure. So the yoga teacher credentialing pathways through Yoga Alliance, and there's a 200 hour and 300 hour program.

Then there's. Like continuing education and stuff on top of that, and the goal of a yoga teacher training program is to teach you a lineage of yoga and how to apply that in class settings or in private sessions or teacher trainings and things of that nature. But you're really pulling from whatever school or teacher you're learning from and then learning how to transmit that particular stuff.

And you can't just sign up for yoga therapy training. You have to go through yoga teacher trainings, and then you can enroll in a yoga therapy program afterwards. So it is. More like a, if we equated it to higher education, it's like your PhD in yoga. Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Not all, because how many hours? Yeah. Talk about the hours involved.

Keri Merino: So yoga therapy training programs are generally 800 hours of commitment of time, and you're gonna learn. How to work with a broad array of yoga skills and tools. So it's like, it's not just Raja Yoga, but it's Bhati and Nana Yoga and all, and Karma Yoga and all these other aspects. But you're also learning about medical applications of yoga.

And in yoga therapy school, we get to learn in high detail, especially if you focus on a particular audience rather than like, I offer yoga therapy to anyone. But if you're focused on a particular segment of people, you can develop a high level of mastery and skills, both medically and also. Just meeting people where they are.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that distinction. 'cause I knew a little bit about it, but I gotta say I learned something today too. And I think that helps for listeners too. 'cause many have either started training or finished yoga training or considering it. So this might be able to give them a little perspective too.

Keri Merino: Yes. I specialize in supporting women who are on a growth and healing journey. So that's everything from just learning how to embody their body and having the sensing of like, what am I feeling in my body to emotional skill building. And healing the nervous system. It's also things like really looking at how we manage our energy and show up in the world, recovering from trauma, all the different aspects of what comes up in a mental health environment.

I tell people that I can work with the same thing that a therapist will work with you on, but my tools are completely different. Okay.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, I love that. So it can be just another way for them to really get more into their bodies and more in depth. Yeah. What makes it difficult for women to embody?

Themselves and what have you noticed? So

You know? Women also know that we have to be a little more careful as we move through the world, and so between like. Puritanical teachings about our body needing to be like our worth is measured in what we do with our bodies, that kind of stuff. Or how we dress or how we express ourselves sexually to this dynamic of like, I don't feel as safe as a man moving through the world.

Those are all things that influence it, but also. The experience of hard things like when we experience a trauma, whether it's a little T trauma or a big T trauma, we automatically disconnect from our body as part of our coping strategies. And so when that's when a person is carrying that and they're moving through life, they've basically had these.

And then we can do yoga and we can feel what connection feels like.

Chris McDonald: We can feel what connection feels like. Yeah, love that. What would you say to therapists listening who may have clients who struggle to get into their bodies? What's a good starting space for that?

Keri Merino: So it's always good to start gently, particularly with the physical environment because a physical environment.

Is a is in relationship to your own body automatically. So for example, I invite my clients to walk around my space and to just look at it like, if you wanna pull out the yoga props and look through them, go for it. Or if you wanna grab a particular prop and sit on it. So it could be as simple as, Hey, you're in this room.

Oh, you need a tissue right now. How about you grab yourself a tissue? Like all those little small actions where we bring them into their body and we let them know that they're witnessing it. And then once they're feeling more safe. In a therapy environment, you can start to bring awareness to their body.

Oh, where do you feel that in your body? Oh, what does that sensation feel like to you? How would you describe it in words or images? Because our somatic language is not just about the felt sense of your body, it's also our emotions. It's what we visualize. It's those sort of inner knowings that come up in addition to all the body sensations.

So it's like, how do we dance our way in and meet this person where they are?

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I love it and I love how you're kind of moving back and forth, like dancing, you say dancing in, but it is kind of like tiptoe a little bit. We don't wanna. Jump into the deep end of the pool. Right. We wanna just kind of pace ourselves.

Notice, and I love how you talked about the extra ception. So looking around the external environment, what would make you feel more comfortable grabbing a prop? And I always tell therapists too, to have the openness right? With yoga props and have that in your office. And yes, that can open discussion too about yoga and therapy, what that could look like, and if you use tarot, have the cards available.

Keri Merino: Yeah, so I do really prefer that all of my mentoring clients have, have done or are currently working with a therapist because it.

Brings them up to a baseline. Like my particular work, I call it the deep end of the pool. So if you're just getting started with trauma recovery, I'm probably not your gal, but if you've got some reps, if you've got some practice in, I'm a good place to go. And so how I do trauma recovery work is by creating gentle relationships with my clients where they feel like they can explore parts of themselves.

Bring 'em into the light, the shadow self, but also through allowing them to move while they process so they can be talking through something or working through something that they feel in their body and then actually moving along with it. So we're not seated necessarily. They might be doing a yoga practice or I might be leading them through some somatic tools, and they're just sort of letting that not necessarily be all about cognitive acknowledgement, but through body acknowledgement.

Chris McDonald: Mm-hmm. And how do we

Keri Merino: find self nurturance? So there's no one size fits all. Darn it. I know. It would be so much easier. We just all immune to the same thing.

This is where I use the language of intuition and nervous system. So what is their inner knowing, drawing them towards? Because some of my clients. Like a really feeling like led towards meditation. And other ones are like, I don't wanna meditate. That sounds terrible. Can I move? Or, I don't wanna be still, or whatever.

It's, so we use their inner knowing and what it's calling them towards. And then we use nervous system as a language. So what are, what patterns are we seeing in your nervous system? And then that automatically gives us information about what your needs are. So for example, if you're experiencing a lot of fun, which a lot of the women that come through my practice have a lot of fun, nervous system default patterning, then we're gonna need to be asking ourselves What do I want?

Chris McDonald: Yeah.

Keri Merino: And then just covering those bases like, am I drinking water? Am I prioritizing my sleep? Am I eating? We look at all those different areas in my practice.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And I love to hear how you look at all parts and not, it's not just, let's just jump in with some yoga therapy and move and breathe.

Yeah. And the pacing sounds incredible. It's very

Keri Merino: gentle,

Chris McDonald: but it's

Keri Merino: very

Chris McDonald: deep, if that makes sense.

Keri Merino: Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. So even if you are starting gently, it's not like you are gonna stay there. You still go deep with things.

Keri Merino: Yes. I think people know when they hire me that I'm not, I'm here for the bold growth.

Chris McDonald: Ooh, bold growth.

Yeah. Powerful. Yeah. And that's what I love too with therapy is, you know, there's different kinds of mental health therapists and I like to go deeper with clients and I let them know that that's where the healing is.

Keri Merino: Mm-hmm. That's the

Chris McDonald: long term impact. Because we can just sit here and shoot the shit. Yes.

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Keri Merino: Absolutely. I would love to do so. The type of yoga therapy that I offer is somatic yoga therapy, and so you'll find that it weaves all that together. So let's all come into a seated position, or if you'd prefer to stand, you could even stand and look out a window, and then with your eyes opened or closed, bring your hands together and start to rub them together and go really slow at first.

and then whenever your hands feel the right amount of warmth to you. Ask your body where it wants to be touched and try to be totally open-minded, even if it makes no sense at all where your hands wanna go. Maybe you lay your hands over your eyes, maybe you put your hands on your neck and you do a little bit of self massage.

Continue to breathe in that slow, mindful way, and you might imagine that this warmth is spreading throughout your body. Nourishing whatever parts need it and see if you might relax into this a little bit more. Perhaps you soften your shoulders, perhaps you relax the muscles of your eyes, and I really do mean that relax the muscles of of your eyes.

And then lastly, go into that part of you. That is the observer. This neutral place within that is deeply in touch with you, your spirit, and see if you can feel that all these parts of you make up your whole, your spirit and your mind, and your body, and even the life that you're living outside of this moment.

These are all just parts of your whole take. Three more breaths.

Perhaps letting go of anything that you're holding, anything that you're carrying, any of the ways that you're putting pressure on yourself, and just returning to that wholeness, a sense of safety and connection from within. And then whenever that feels complete, go ahead and open up your eyes if they were closed.

I was like, wow, this, this really feels like a good way to start the day to, to hold ourselves in that safety. Right. Self nurturing. Yes. That presence. And then I had this, this intuitive download came in about that this is a shell. Mm. And it made me think about, I know you're talking about spirituality, so it is like we're spirits.

Right. And this, our physical body is our shell.

Keri Merino: Right. I like to call it the soul vehicle.

'cause it always feels like the beginning of the week instead of the Sunday scaries, I get the Monday morning, like, what am I doing this week? Like getting my footing right? Yes. And getting that the week moving and shifting and, mm-hmm. But yeah, that was a good way to bring the settled energy for the week.

I hope listeners felt the same. It resources us,

Keri Merino: right? Because if we're living up here, we're always. Just kind of moving from our programming and yoga and somatics, they offer this way to interrupt that and just say like to, oh no, wait, I'm actually a soul. Back. Back. I'm actually a soul.

Chris McDonald: Yes. Soul vehicle.

Yeah. How can we take care of our soul vehicle? Yeah. But then connect to the spiritual side too

Keri Merino: and Right. It's such an important question. How do we tend to this soul vehicle?

Chris McDonald: So it sounds like with yoga therapy, so it does bring in some of the spiritual components as well.

Keri Merino: It depends on the yoga therapist, just like yoga teachers, right?

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Yeah, true. So you're, you combine all it sounds like.

Keri Merino: Yeah. The four pillars of my approach are body, mind, spirit, and life. Because that's, yoga is actually interested in all of it, but for the purpose of U, like unification and yoking and bringing it all together and then helping us operate from that sense of wholeness so that we can go out and share our spirit, our gifts, our devotion into the world.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So where do you see the future going with yoga therapy and the mental health world?

How can we bridge the gap between the medical system and yoga therapy? Interestingly, I'm not a massive fan of that because I feel like the more we integrate into a medical system, the less we have opportunity to use the diverse tools of yoga. I call it the mystical toolbox. And in a medical system, we kind of have to, like, I've worked in hospitals before.

We kind of have to box ourselves down. I know. Into what they agree that you can offer. Right. Yeah. I

Chris McDonald: worked in the school system. I know.

Keri Merino: Yes. And so I don't, I don't want that because yoga therapy, I, I hear that is so broad. So that's one of the trends that I'm like, let's stop, let's not go there.

Chris McDonald: That's funny.

And so I'm, I'm excited about that trend. Yeah,

Chris McDonald: for sure. '

Keri Merino: cause we need well fed yoga therapist in the world with retirement plans.

Chris McDonald: Absolutely.

Keri Merino: In the mental health world. I continue to see more exploration into somatics and nervous system and integrative approaches, and I think that is really beautiful to see that unfolding.

And there are also like limitations to that, right? Because when people come to mental health therapy, they're looking for spaces to talk through things and you can weave some of that in. But it's not necessarily gonna be an hour of doing yoga with them. Right. So it's, it's like all these beautiful ways that it's expanding and then how to merge it together.

Definitely mental health and yoga therapy is a big trend as well.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. 'cause I wondered, yeah. Do you partner with any mental health therapists and.

I have therapists that know about me and they refer their clients to me because they can weave yoga into their sessions. But ultimately, sometimes you need somebody who can just take, like, let's just be targeted in that particular approach to go even deeper.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I, I also partner with holistic folks in my community too, to refer for reiki, you know, past life regression.

Like there's a lot that I don't offer too. And so we can, you know, work together to, to help clients that may need, and then they refer to me for clients that may need more, that mental health therapy route. So it, so it's kind of building that community with others who offer this. I could see how that could be a great way for you to integrate with other mental health therapists.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, it just made me think, 'cause I offer therapy intensives, which are, I don't know if you've heard of those yet, but, but, so it's just a longer extended period of time for therapy.

I do three hour sessions, one to three sessions with clients. So I integrate yoga as part of that for a longer period of time. But I could see how this could partner very well with yoga therapy. Mm-hmm. Because what I've done is refer people for holistic massage or reiki or anything like that after the intensive.

But I could see how that could weave really well with a yoga therapist, like, which got me thinking, I'm gonna look into that.

Keri Merino: Yeah. It's a nice way to bridge the gap. It's, and some of those things that as, as mental health providers are becoming more aware of things like nervous system. Yes. And yoga as a therapeutic tool, like when we just refer somebody to a class, they're not necessarily gonna get the education and the skills to apply that.

And then. Like in my practice, they're going to get that directly.

Chris McDonald: Absolutely. Can you share with listeners about your Nourished woman membership?

Like what are the areas that women really need the most support around? And so things like digestive health are in there, or teaching women how to come into their pelvic bowl and really be rooted in their sacral area. I have different practice series that are based on where your nervous system is. So when people log in, it assesses, where's your nervous system right now?

And then here are these experiential practices that you can use that are literally doing the tending of the nervous system and the yoga, the body, mind, and spirit to make a big difference for them. There's meditations, there's chanting, there's breath work, there's all these different resources in there that they can access.

Chris McDonald: Ooh, a little hug. I love

Keri Merino: that. Yes. And then it's also a space for mentoring. So I gather with these women once a month and we all come together and people can talk about their journey.

They can ask questions, they can listen to other people's stories. And then I also lead them in real time through an experience. So it gives them both this resource they can come to anytime they want, as well as that container to be guided and directed.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, because I know you mentioned that you gear towards women, so I'm someone in menopause and I know lots of listeners are in perimenopause or menopause.

Is that something that you also consider, I guess, with clients that you serve?

Keri Merino: It is, absolutely. And part of the, the future of the membership is more practices. Like right now I have ones for pregnant women and for when you're on your period, but I'm gonna be adding to that wonderful, very menopause and menopause.

Chris McDonald: because I think we're left out a lot with women's care. There's just not enough research and not enough help out there and And people need it so much during this

Keri Merino: time of

Chris McDonald: life.

Keri Merino: They do. And it's actually like a very beautiful time of life. And our needs change. Like talking about self nurturance. When we're in perimenopause or menopausal seasons of life, our needs are different. Exactly. And so our yoga practice. Needs to be different to help us through those beautiful, those beautiful graduations that we're making in our life.

Chris McDonald: I love how you called it a graduation. I think it, I, it's think it, it can be a struggle at times, but I know I've talked to other colleagues too that going through similar things. So it is nice to know that there can be other resources out there. I think that could be a wonderful offering if you do add on to that.

Yeah, I love that. So, anything else you wanted to

Point of contention for me to the Wild West for me. Yeah, so definitely looking at referrals when your clients are expressing interest in having these tools more readily available and saying things like, oh my gosh, this yoga that you're sharing with me is really impactful. Where can I get more?

Obviously that's gonna be a great time for you to refer. But referring intelligently, rather than just saying, oh, go look at whatever yoga is out in the community. Pick what suits your schedule, you're, you need to know that you might be encouraging your clients to go to things that will actually intensify body disconnection and nervous system dysregulation, and even encourage things like body shaming.

When they're on the yoga map, not just like this formula that they're following.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so important.

Keri Merino: Yes. And also room for them to go slow, slower yoga practices are gonna be really supportive.

Chris McDonald: One thing that was really eye-opening to me when I did my 200 hour was they had us go to different yoga classes and she had like a checklist to see how it felt as far as trauma informed.

I realized how much is not trauma informed. And I've had traumas in my life, you know, I've, I've worked through a lot, but man, some of that was triggering for me. And I'm not in the depth of overcoming a recent trauma. So I can't imagine some people, and there's just some yoga teachers out there that just have zero awareness and can really push you too hard.

'cause that's the thing, you don't wanna refer somebody who's hyped up right in their nervous system to someone who's not trauma informed. I think. If you can start to build some of those relationships and take their yoga classes, if you refer to yoga, and that's what I've done as well.

Keri Merino: Yes, absolutely.

It's, it's really important. I feel like we have so much more conscious awareness of how good yoga is, but we don't necessarily have the discernment yet, especially if you're newer to yoga, haven't done a training. Or haven't trained outside of like one lineage that we need to be aware of. It's not just yoga is good, it's specific.

Yoga practices and specific approaches to yoga are therapeutic. Not all.

Chris McDonald: Exactly. So what's the best way for listeners to find you to

Shoot me an email. I love connecting with people. I'm a generator on the human design thing, so I just love any way to interact with different people.

Chris McDonald: Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Carrie. This has been great. Thanks for having me, Chris. It's been lovely to talk with you. I wanted to give a big shout out to my listeners for joining us today.

I hope you found some inspiration and got some ideas from today's episode with Carrie. Remember, healing happens not just in the mind, but through the body too. And are you ready to integrate yoga into your work and connect with other like-minded therapists? In my Yoga The Therapy Collective, you get immediate access to practices, tools, and a community who gets it.

Till next time, take care. Thanks for listening to today's episode. The information in this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are giving legal, medical, psychological, or any other kind of professional advice.

We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities. That may arise from the use of this podcast. Yoga is not recommended for everyone and is not safe under certain medical conditions. Always check with your doctor to see if it's safe for you. If you need a professional, please find the right one for you.