ReSourcing™

ReSourcing™

a simple practice to optimize your daily experience of living

In 2020, in response to my students’ needs during the COVID 19 pandemic I founded ReSourcing™. Based on evidence and best-practices, ReSourcing™ is a system of somatic techniques for nervous system regulation and mind-body integration.

Problem

The WHO lists depression as the number one cause of global disability. Anxiety is ranked 6th. 1 in 3 of us takes medication for our mental health, including our children. Something is not right.

Modern life overloads us with information and responsibility, and disconnects us from our sense of community and purpose. Burdened by unresolved stress and chronic pain it can be hard to make choices that provide us a sense of connection, reverence, and play. Though we know there are practical tools and lifestyle adjustments that can help, we tend to gravitate towards more readily available distractions and even addiction.

Possibility

If we are anything we are resilient and adaptable; we are wired to seek safety, nourishment, and comfort and regularly do, even if the choices we make are not always the most soul satisfying, community enriching, or sustainable.

To enjoy full access to our intelligence, creativity, and compassion we need to transform our moment-to-moment AND big picture duress into a sense of integration and clarity.

Insight

Resourcing™ draws from the field of neuropsychology, and from my decades of experience working with individuals exploring embodied somatic practice. It is a collection of simple, playful movement, breathwork and visualization exercises specifically designed to help us cultivate what might be referred to as a ‘resourced’ state of being.

When we experience this level of integration —when we’re resourced— not only can we more readily problem solve, but we’re better set up to navigate our lives with intention, clarity, and joy.

Each simple practice is an opportunity to access and strengthen our inner resources —and ‘touch into’ what’s most important to us. Ideally we leave the experience feeling refreshed and ready for whatever is coming next.  

Interested?

Book a 30-minute Discovery Session with Valerie.

an accessible wellness tool to support health and wellbeing.

You may have noticed, the buzz about Breathwork is everywhere. If your goal is mental clarity, certain breathing patterns can be integrated into the flow of your workday. If your goal is to process grief or heal from a trauma, other breathwork techniques can encourage emotional release and relief.

One significant takeaway from the plethora of research done in recent years on breathing is that breathwork can help us resolve stress and calm an overactive nervous system. Because stress, especially chronic stress, is a risk factor for disease, the relevance of breathwork to our overall health should not be underestimated.

Let’s dig a little deeper, though.

Perhaps you have also heard of the benefits of meditation. You may even have tried to start a meditation practice, only to give up after a few weeks. One could argue that like breathwork, meditation is also a way to access relaxation and calm. But stopping there would be to oversimplify the opportunity of both practices, which is not only to improve our physical and mental wellbeing, but something far more profound.

ReSourcing™ Breathwork

is a blend of techniques from eastern traditions informed by evidence-based insights from breathwork research that promote a sense of ease-fulness and connection. It is a somatic mindfulness practice that remains coupled with the play of physical sensation, emotion, and thought that naturally emerge when we pause and pay attention. Using our breathing we learn to self-regulate our nervous system and refine our focus. Regular practice impacts how we meet life’s daily challenges as we naturally begin to find ourselves less reactive and brimming with renewed perspective.

My breathwork background is rooted in over 25 years of experience with a set of practices from the yoga tradition known as pranayama (breath control). The philosophy highlights the importance of breathing practices as preparation for deeper states of meditation, and meditation’s necessary role as a gateway to elevated consciousness. Pranayama practice is often introduced in western yoga settings, but rarely shared in any depth.

When we first sit for meditation the majority of us are quickly overwhelmed with persistent thoughts, distractions, restlessness, and boredom. Most of us will give up after only a few sessions. ReSourcing™ Breathwork cultivates the physiological integration necessary to ease into deeper states of meditation. With practice, the restlessness and distraction that interfere with our ability to sit quietly loosen their hold on us, and we gain access to a deeper process of self-discovery.

It’s not that we avoid the self-care part of breathwork, or deprioritize the emotional complexity within us —or that nervous system regulation is no longer a priority. Quite the opposite. But to practice only for those reasons would be to miss the point. I share ReSourcing™ Breathwork as a complete breathing practice. It is a powerful self care tool for health and healing. Most certainly. As you work with your breath you will find those benefits come relatively quickly.

Curiously though, you may also find yourself exploring a more profound relationship with insight, meaning and personal growth that can only serve to further uplift your connection and engagement with your life and with the world around you. I’m here for that too.

move your body, calm your mind, build community

ReSourcing™ Yoga Classes are a playful combination of yoga inspired movement and breathing exercises and somatic awareness techniques that promote mind-body integration and nervous system regulation. Inspired by insights from the fields of psychology, neurobiology and mindfulness, ReSourcing™ Yoga classes address stress and chronic burnout, build physical strength, improve motor control, germinate new, positive neural pathways and help us recover some of the old ones we used to enjoy.

If you’ve ever taken yoga, classes will feel familiar, but also different. In addition to working with postures, I blend functional movement inquiries with various somatic awareness techniques. We finish each practice with a restful guided meditation specifically focused on strengthening inner resources.

Classes are accessible to most. This group offering is a moderately-paced physical practice that will ask you to get up and down from the floor and use your arms and legs in various weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing positions. We do not overheat the room, but you will probably break a sweat most days. Everyone is welcome regardless of age, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, cultural heritage, or socioeconomic circumstance. Sliding scale pricing options are available. I am sensitive to the cultural appropriation of indigenous practices and other social justice issues. I am also still learning.

Each class is available either in-person in Santa Cruz, CA, via livestream on Zoom, or on-demand. One of the most important benefits of ReSourcing™ Yoga is community. Whether virtual or in-person we practice together, and that matters.