Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
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Dancing Mindfulness focuses on "coming as you are," self-discovery, and noticing whatever may happen as part of the experience. Developed by Dr. Jamie Marich, a clinical counselor and expert in traumatic stress studies and spiritual issues, Dancing Mindfulness strives to honor the safety and integrity of each participant.
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
1y ago
Hello friends! This final post is to announce that we are no longer keeping a separate and distinct expressive arts therapy blog at this site. Rather, all of the blog content connected to Dancing Mindfulness, expressive arts therapy, trauma-informed interventions, and my work will be housed on the ICM site's Redefine Therapy Blog.
You are free to check out our content on that site:
https://www.instituteforcreativemindfulness.com/icm-blog-redefine-therapy/
-Jamie ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
The tree was big.
The tree was huge.
The tree was constant.
The tree saw everything.
The tree did not change.
The people changed.
The people suffered.
The people ran.
The people hid.
The people moved away.
The people returned.
The people cried.
The people laughed.
The people shut down.
The tree remained.
The people cried.
The people fought.
The people sought escape.
The tree remained.
The people suffered.
The people soothed.
The tree was there for everything.
Photograph by Jamie Marich ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
If you share yoga or conscious practices like Dancing Mindfulness in any way, please check out my new interview with Malika Rajan, an Indian yoga teacher and one of my dear friends. Malika is also a Dancing Mindfulnes facilitator! She offers numerous insights on adaptation, trauma-informing yoga, and cultural appropriation.
Information appears about a fundraiser that Malika has organized for people in India at the end of the video. You can also read more about it at:
www.malikarajan.com ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
Manigusto (n.): The resolve to enjoy life more; a combination of “manifesto,” a mission statement that comes from the same Latin root where we get both “a ship’s manifest, or list of inventory,” and “gusto,” now an English word with multiple meanings (also the same root as “a gust of wind”). In many Romance languages derived from Latin, “gusto” means “pleasure.”
Deep dives in the ocean of life with
People I love and cherish
In this life I’ve been entrusted to
Care for the ocean
To help save it and to
Rescue the people drowning in it
Yet what is the sense in accepting
This life vocation if I ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
I wanted to write you a think piece
A cogent reflection on an issue of
Great social import—
What it’s like to be raised in the
Culture of conspiracy
Yet my brain is still a bit too scrambled
To weave coherent sentences together
Probably because phrases like
“Deep state” and “high cabal”
Were a regular part of my childhood diet
Long before YouTube was even a thing
But just as toxic voices coming
Through the radio flooded my tender heart
Sometime before my brain broke
Beyond repair
I wanted to write you a think piece
But my brain can no longer think straight
Not like anything ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
Dr. Jamie was proud to interview one of her role models and "legends" of expressive arts therapy, Dr. Cathy Malchiodi on January 6, 2021. Listen as they chat about the expressive arts and the needed paradigm shifts within our field.
To learn more about Dr. Malchiodi's work, go to: www.cathymalchiodi.com ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
Artwork credit: Debra Sowald
“We need to be in dark soil to grow. There is no spotlight in the womb. Darkness is incubation.”
Not separate
Darkness and light is whole in its contrast but
also one in its wholeness of the same…
Darkness and light are a continuum
All is required for life and growth
Transformation from one to the other
Both And
The swirling, the deepening, the opening
reconciled within
The sun, the storm, the journey, the challenge
Brought us together today
Seeds push up through the black soil
Evolving ev ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
Do you spit or do you swallow?
What! How dare you ask me that!
The question is relevant
Do you spit or do you swallow…
The shame.
Some women seem to have a natural gift
To spit it out, to reject it
Or they simply refused to be dicked around
In the first place
I am in awe of these women because for years
I swallowed and
Swallowed and
Swallowed
“Taking it like a woman” to
Keep the connection
To secure the attachment
To be a good girl
For the men I wanted ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
“The heart is an organ of fire.” ~Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
The limbic brain, the seat of our emotions and learning as human beings, can be destroyed by unhealed trauma. Ancient Christian mystics, often called the desert fathers and desert mothers, referred to this brain as the heart brain. Our emotional world, governed by the limbic brain, can feel like a fire that is raging out of control. Some trauma survivors are affected oppositely—they become shut off to feeling altogether. Often we shut ourselves off from emotion by choice, afraid of what feeling them might do to us ..read more
Dancing Mindfulness - Expressive Arts Blog
3y ago
Dear Friends
Do not fall back asleep
Although the days are short
And the night is long.
Do not fall back asleep
If your heart still beats for humanity
I beg you.
Go find your kindling
Reignite the flame within your heart.
Do not fall back asleep
Remember 401 years of terror for Black Lives.
Reaffirm your commitment to justice
Do not fall back asleep
Remember we still can’t breathe -
even though we find a way to keep smiling, laughing, drumming, crying,
working, marching
  ..read more