We’ve all experienced it – a racing heart from excitement or a churning stomach from nerves – those moments when emotions are made manifest. It’s these feelings that prompt many alternative health practitioners in Providence to embrace a holistic approach to wellness, dedicating their careers to helping clients achieve balance by aligning the three pillars of health: mind, body, and spirit.
Nikolai Blinow, a licensed mental health counselor and life coach, opened OMpowerment Psychotherapy to help people move through burnout and create more balance between their work life and time spent off the clock. As an adult diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), she has a particular interest in working with neurodivergent entrepreneurs and executives.
“Neurodivergent people are more vulnerable to burnout because we experience stress differently than others,” Blinow explains. “We’re prone to getting overstimulated.” She points to research showing that as many as 70 percent of CEOs could have adult ADHD because that neurodivergency makes them particularly talented at problem-solving and seeing the big picture – but they also have a hard time detaching. “We burn out because we’re passionate about our work and become hyperfocused,” Blinow says. “We dive in deep and then realize we forgot to eat lunch or do the laundry or do any of the other things essential to running a household.”
Although Blinow specializes in working with those with neurodivergencies, she theorizes that because our tech-heavy culture constantly bombards us with stimuli, our ability to focus has shifted, and as a result, even people who don’t have ADHD often present as if they did. This means anyone can benefit from her methods.
Her first recommendation for those seeking improved mental wellness is to care for the physical body. “Drink water because if your brain is dehydrated, it can’t function properly,” she says. “Eat, exercise, and get enough sleep.” Blinow also recommends setting boundaries around the use of social media and technology. “Apps are designed to reinforce those parts of our brain that make us feel overstimulated, out of touch, and not grounded. They definitely impact brain function.” She continues that everyone can benefit from turning inward, too. “It’s so important to counteract the natural impulses of your brain. Mindfulness helps you be in control of your mind. It increases clarity and it decreases suffering. Mindfulness won’t solve your problems, but it will change your relationship with them.”
Kristin Kolesar Fabris is a Doctor of Chiropractic who runs the wellness collaborative Be Well Chiropractic + Health, and much like Blinow, she believes answers to problems may lie within. “People often look outward for solutions to their physical pain,” she says. “We encourage them to look inward and empower them to heal.”
Under the collaborative’s umbrella are a number of health practitioners who work together to help their clients find healing. In addition to chiropractic care, Be Well offers two types of energy healing – reiki and medical qigong – in addition to massage and craniosacral therapy, some of which is offered on an income-based scale. The collaborative also offers workshops and yoga classes in its group space. “Our mission is to hold pain with love. And there’s a lot of pain right now,” Kolesar Fabris says. “We form relationships and try to get to the root cause of our clients’ pain.”
Sometimes that root cause is physical, but sometimes it’s emotional or energetic. “We hold a lot of trauma in the body,” Kolesar Fabris explains. “All of the practitioners in our collaborative work together to heal it. For example, I’m a chiropractor, so my job is to get joints and spines to work properly. But if I’m working on someone’s SI joint and can’t get it to move, I might refer them to our craniosacral therapist or suggest meditation to help them clear a block. This is physical medicine, but it’s also energetic.”
For those looking for a more robust self-care practice in the new year, Kolesar Fabris offers a definition that goes beyond bubble baths and sheet masks. “True self care is getting really quiet with yourself and asking yourself what you need, what you desire, and what you can give. That’s what I give to my patients in my practice. We’re just trying to hold people and provide a safe space where all are welcome.”
Much like at Be Well, inclusiveness is one of the key tenets of Full Radiance Yoga, which opened less than two years ago. Sara Davidson Flanders, founder and owner of the space, laments the stereotype of the yoga practitioner. “The media would have us believe you have to be young and thin with the ability to buy expensive workout clothes,” she says, “but the reality is that yoga is for anybody with a body – because we all benefit from breathing and moving, from connecting our breath, body, mind, and heart. Our nervous systems need that.”
To ensure everyone feels welcome at Full Radiance Yoga, the studio is wheelchair accessible, teachers are well versed in modifying poses for different body types, and classes are offered on a sliding scale that starts at one dollar. “At certain times of my life, I couldn’t afford yoga,” says Davidson Flanders. “The stress of that meant those were the times when I needed yoga the most. This model works because the people who can pay the market rate for the class do, and that allows everybody to access yoga.”
The studio offers a range of classes, from those that focus on deep relaxation to those that are more challenging, but despite the different approaches, there’s consistency in how they’re delivered. “Our teachers are dedicated to being welcoming and warm, acknowledging that the people who walk in our door have wisdom about their own body,” says Davidson Flanders. “We want our students to find the balance between building resilience and strength and creating openness and freedom in the body. All of our teachers cue students to listen to their body and search for inner consent.”
Practicing trust in their own wisdom is a skill that students can carry with them when they leave the studio. Davidson Flanders explains, “Whatever we do intentionally is more powerful than what we do unintentionally. If we have a practice that inquires about what’s happening internally and we meet the answer with kindness and respect, that helps us be wise and compassionate off the mat.”
In addition to yoga, Full Radiance offers several different workshops on meditation, chanting, body alignment, and deep relaxation accompanied by live music that allows people to approach yoga or other devotional practices in the way that most speaks to them. This also ties into the studio’s commitment to inclusiveness. Davidson Flanders says, “We make anyone who is interested in yoga feel welcome, worthy, valued, capable, and powerful.”
Be Well Chiropractic + Health
255 Hope Street,
BeWellProvidence.com
Full Radiance Yoga
112 Douglas Avenue,
FullRadianceYoga.com
OMpowerment Psychotherapy
897 Reservoir Avenue, Cranston,
OMpowermentPsych.com
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here