When I was in high school, my meditation teacher and mentor Bob recounted to me a recent experience he’d had. It was simple, and my youthful self didn’t quite understand the significance of it back then. But for some reason it stuck with me, and I made meaning of it over time. It was the beginning of Fall, and he went for one last swim in the neighborhood pool before it closed for the winter. As he was swimming in the waning late afternoon light, he wept. His body was moving, active, alive, yet he was simultaneously feeling his own mortality and the sense of closure in nature that Fall brings. It was a convergence of emotion, physicality, philosophy and the laws of nature. One of those rare moments when it all comes together in catharsis. Maybe you’ve experienced something similar. I hope so, because it can be incredibly healing and meaningful. This full mind-body experience of life is why we created the Indigo108 program at BeWELL Psychotherapy.
WHAT IS INDIGO108?
Indigo108 is a health coaching modality built expressly to complement the mental health work you’ve been doing. Whether you do the program as an individual health and wellness practice or by coupling it with talk therapy, Indigo108 will help you address the places where you are stuck and cultivate your natural strengths. Our goal is to offer you a team of care providers to assist you in feeling and being your best self.
Based on the principles of Ayurveda and Yoga (the Indian sister sciences of physical, mental and spiritual wellness), using movement and mindfulness, we have created a health map that is individually tailored to you.
THE BACK STORY
As a yoga practitioner and former teacher, Diana (Founder and CEO of BeWELL Psychotherapy) often speaks about becoming a psychotherapist as her dharma, or life’s purpose, to help people cultivate mental health. Her personal experience of tending to both mind and body informs the way she works and her vision for BeWELL.
Over many years of working with folks in the therapy room, Diana repeatedly observed the ways that people’s emotions were experienced and felt physically. She dreamed of adding on to the therapy services which had proven effective for the clients and patients of BeWELL and creating an in-house program that matched the quality of the therapy to offer holistic, embodied well-being services.
And that’s where I came in (lucky for me!), when a conversation over dinner with Diana and other friends prompted me to express some of the limitations I was finding in my own work with Yoga and Ayurveda. Over two decades of my career, it became harder and harder to facilitate and transmit the potency of these Indian systems of well-being within the structure of group drop-in classes alongside the fitness model. I’ve also experienced many times personally and as a facilitator that when these powerful practices free up old patterns, emotions, and memories in the body to release, I yearn for a capable and qualified colleague to guide people to for safe and appropriate emotional processing.
INDIGO108: WHY IT’S SPECIAL
The conversation we had that night at dinner re-ignited Diana’s desire for an embodied program to complement the therapy at BeWELL. Indigo108 was co-created by Diana and me from personal experience and long-standing belief that mental health and physical wellness are inextricably bound. Diana chose to bring the physical piece into BeWELL with Indigo108 and anchor it to the mental emotional therapy. It makes for truly holistic care, with each provider working in their area of expertise plus internal communication, with consent, among providers for continuity of care.
In “The Body Keeps the Score”, Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk writes “Agency starts with what scientists call interoception, our awareness of our subtle sensory, body-based feelings: the greater the awareness, the greater our potential to control our lives. Knowing what we feel is the first step to knowing why we feel that way. If we are aware of the constant changes in our inner and outer environment, we can mobilize to manage them.”
Indigo108 offers you practical techniques to bring balance to your sleep, digestion, creativity, physical resilience, and mental clarity. It’s a program designed to support you in unearthing the what so you can explore the why in therapy from an embodied place of strength and confidence.
WHY THE NAME INDIGO108?
As mentioned before, this health coaching program uses the framework of Yoga and Ayurveda from India as its foundation. The personal nature of those systems partners perfectly with the intimate work of therapy. Because Indigo108 is holistic, we are working not just with the most obvious parts of ourselves but also with the subtle energies of the body, mind and spirit. The chakras, or energy centers of the body, are included in that subtle work.
Parita Shah, Reiki Practitioner and Energy Healer, explains “Chakras store the energy of thoughts, feelings, memories, experiences, and actions. They influence and direct our present and future mindset, behavior, emotional health, and actions.” Each chakra has a color associated with it. The color for Ajna Chakra is Indigo. The Ajna (Third Eye) Chakra is the seat of intuition and the energy center that integrates all aspects of your living; it’s where it all “comes together”. We chose to name our program Indigo to evoke your own true understanding and your entry into the vibrancy of living in full color.
The number 108 also holds significance in Yoga and Ayurveda as the number of spiritual completion. One example of this number being used is the 108 mala beads used for meditation and devotional chanting of mantras. We included it in the name of our program as a way to honor the repetition and commitment that a liberatory practice asks of us, as well as the fulfillment that results from your dedicated effort. It is our promise to show up for you as you commit to showing up fully for yourself, your relationships and your world.
HOW INDIGO108 WORKS
After a comprehensive intake, where we look at the full spectrum of your life, Biology/Psychology/Social, we design a BluePrint that is UNIQUE to you and your lived experience. You can then follow through with a 1-month, 3-month, or seasonal deep dive into understanding your patterns and cultivating healthy behaviors. For some people this sparks big forward motion in decision making, and for others it means slowing down enough to feel and heal. The beauty of it is that we can focus on where you are and what you need at this particular time in your life. Your Indigo Health Counselor (IHC) is your accountability partner for as long as you feel you need the support; she will guide you with personalized in-depth sessions in person or virtually as well as weekly virtual check-ins, video content and interactive digital communication.
Additionally, the work done with your IHC is a direct complement to the work you do in the therapy room. Your BeWELL Therapist will have access to your BluePrint as well, and you and she will be able to explore more deeply the emotions that have been trapped in the body either from past trauma, preverbal experiences or simply from living a life as a human.
A PERSONAL ROAD MAP FOR YOU
There are so many ways that life’s struggles can pull us away from ourselves and each other, that separate and distract us from knowing and being our most vivacious and impactful selves. Luckily, there is a road map back to yourself by using embodied practices alongside mental emotional therapeutics. Sometimes it happens spontaneously, like when Bob felt the rush of his own humanity linked with the changing of the seasons during his end of summer swim, and other times it requires a little more guidance.
Indigo108 offers that guidance to forge and clear the pathways to your integrated, empowered and self-determined life experiences. So that whether you have a spontaneous expression of your own life’s fullness or a conscious shift into how you want to live, you can feel it, know it and go with where it takes you.
Sources:
“The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma” by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score
“A Primer of the Chakra System” by Parita Shah, Reiki Practitioner and Energy Healer
