How to Be a Yoga Instructor

1. We are curious about your previous experiences (e.g., personal, professional, and academic) and would like to know how these experiences have led you toward the choice to apply to the Couple and Family Therapy Program at Antioch University Seattle. Please describe a few of those fundamental experiences.

I am from India, I have now been living in the United States for 10 years. I have my Master’s degree in Communication and Human Resource Development which prepared me for analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation of programs to increase capabilities in multicultural setting.

Courses like Nature of Communication, Multicultural Communication etc. has made me understood the role that communication play when it comes to having a healthy relationship, healthy work environment at work and bridging gap between two cultures. I was still lacking working with people for resolving their personal issues in life. To bridge the gap to some extent I volunteered with the Aegis School Of Business while I was in India for 6 months.

I observed the HR department where employees where given counselling on job dissatisfaction, frustrations, anxiety, stress, and disorientation etc.

I have been working as a Yoga Instructor for the last 3 years and have worked with people with all sorts of physical and mental disorders. My principle responsibilities are to go through an initial talk to understand their need, to asses and record their weekly functioning status, to provide guided practice to combat physical and emotional distress. I am a Co-Founder of NGO called as “Safe-N-Happy Periods” based out of India where we conduct educational drive on menstrual education and awareness.

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I work very closely with the counselors who does interventions in the community of marginalized populations to understand the challenges so we can better cater to them. It gives me an advantage to learn about the importance of striking a balance between individual counselling and social justice advocacy.

Putting together my various experiences together, I can affirmatively say that I lot of the issues arises from one’s own home. There was a lot of commonality when data was tallied, that job dissatisfaction, frustrations, anxiety, stress, and disorientation certainly arises at the workplace but gets worse when there is less harmony at home, conflicts between family members or the spouse. Even as a yoga instructor, physical illness manifest because of emotional agony that people go through. There have bene several days where people are sharing their relationship issues with me but because I am not professional trained in resolving them, I try to be a good listener and that alone has helped my client.

These are the reasons, I have decided to focus my further studies in the area of Marriage and Family Therapy and your well recognized program at Antioch University is my choice. The strength of your Counselling Psychology course will help me excel in this field.

2. Antioch University Seattle and the Couple and Family Therapy Program are committed to preparing professional clinicians to be culturally responsive and advocates for social, economic, and environmental justice. How does social justice and becoming a culturally responsive clinician align with your interest in becoming a couple and family therapist?

After coming to the US, it was not uncommon to hear and feel words like: Linguistic bias, Stereotyping, Exclusion, Bias and so on. They were all taken in a good stride mainly because my brain wanted to quickly jump into the process of acculturation (which is still going on). This process gave me the ability to think about myself as a learner and an individual who makes impact on the community. An individual’s belief is shaped by the experiences from childhood to adulthood, Exposure to media decides what is believed as truth. Social constructs are taken into consideration to decide what is right or wrong. To be a successful culturally responsive practitioner, It is important to realize that Culture incorporates a broad range by which clients might affiliate with. As there is more diversification in our society clients will seek to build cultural identity.

For example, Many families might see acculturation challenges, and, Coming from a different culture myself I realized importance of maintaining a balance between the home culture and the new culture an individual is stepping into. As a counselor, I can be a source for client’s empowerment and be sensitive about discrimination or oppression a client Has potentially gone through. Through empowerment and using cross cultural counseling I can help my clients to swiftly get through negative effects of cultural prejudice, ethical or racial discrimination, Geographic labeling (northerner, southern, more educated, less educated), Media perception (Liberal, conservative), gender, personal biases, religious affiliations, clothing & manners etc.

Social Justice is about making sure that society gets equal access to freedom, rights, opportunities and helping the underprivileged people in the society. As a counselor, I can be a social justice advocate because sometimes therapy can be combined with add on service. For example, an employed immigrant mom who is looking for assistance with getting a job or have no medical insurance for her kids and she is constantly worried about these concerns. In addition to treating this mom’s stress and anxiety, the counselor can get her linked to various non-profits or community resources to keep her more at ease. Through advocating for social justice, counselors can stand against discrimination and oppression of minority groups and those who are being treated with micro and macro aggressions.

3. The Couple and Family Therapy Program is both academically and emotionally rigorous. What challenges, if any, do you foresee encountering during your studies? What forms of support will you use to meet those challenges? Family, education, yoga medication and willingness to help others.

The challenges that I might face:

•  First would be striking a balance between family life and academic life and not critically applying theoretical concepts learned in class in my personal life.
•  Keeping myself neutral and objective without bringing my bias while studying theories and application.
•  Keeping myself guarded against the emotional spillover in my personal life.

The forms of that I would use:

•  Being a yoga instructor I am an ardent practitioner which helps to keep me focused and stay aligned with my goals. Even today I hear emotional stories from my clients and nothing has travelled to my home. What happens during the session, stays in the session. Having a supportive husband will make my life even better when I would be needed to give extra time at school.
•  To keep my biases away while studying or providing counselling sessions, it would be imperative for me to understand cultural diversity and have the openness to hear out. Generalizations about a certain group can be dangerous in treating an individual and might increase the time of the healing process.
•  I can keep myself guarded from the emotional spillover by getting engaged in some spiritual practice which I am already involved in, keeping up with my everyday exercise which keeps my brain function better and helps me keep harmful things at bay.
•  Also, my willingness to help other will take me a long way.

4. What are your professional goals in relation to the Couple and Family Therapy Program and how will this program specifically help you to reach those goals?

Professionally I see myself offering guidance to groups, families, and couples who are encountering issues that are affecting their well-being and mental health. I would like to approach my work holistically and use “wellness” model rather than using illness model which encourages and highlight client’s strengths. Few areas where I would like to put emphasis on are:

•  Develop and validate precise understanding of the basic motivations of oneself, which includes the relationship between professional functioning, feelings, beliefs, actions, and thoughts.
•  Professional Participation: Staying connected with Organizations like American Psychological Association and American Counseling Association, I would be able to network with professional in the same field, revive the passion for my work, attain new skills. As I stay more in my tenure, I would eventually like to advocate for the necessity and importance of my profession, and potentially train new professionals.