Kripalu - The Expressive Body and the Contemplative Mind: A SomaSoul® Workshop -

Find a Program

Dan Leven

Dan Leven, RSMT, has been a faculty member at Kripalu for more than 30 years, and is the founder/director of the Leven Institute for Expressive Movement, where he trains practitioners and teachers to become registered…
Full Bio & Programs

show presenter details hide presenter details

SomaSoul®: Somatic Expressive Therapy is a therapeutic process that brings healing and vitality to our bodies, minds, and emotions.

Through an integration of mindfulness, the expressive arts and therapeutic dialogue with the body, we gain access to the unconscious blocks that live within our body-mind and move limitation towards freedom, trauma toward healing, difficult emotions toward acceptance and transformation.

The SomaSoul Training is a series of four 5-day modules offered over the course of seven months that can be taken individually for your own self-discovery and personal growth or leading to certification as a SomaSoul Practitioner and a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist (RSMT).

In the course of this training, you access your body intelligence to expand your well-being and heal the tensions and unprocessed emotions that live in your body. Through these four modules, learn how to facilitate this powerful healing modality for both yourself and others. Over the course of the year, you learn a dynamic and creative process that will transform your way of living in your body and open your mind to your body and soul’s wisdom.

Together, we explore and heal ourselves through a dynamic integration of the expressive arts with body-mindfulness. Through the expressive arts, our intuitive knowing emerges and we are able to directly perceive and manifest what our spirit is urging us to transform.

Through the groundbreaking work of Body-Centered Gestalt Psychotherapy also presented in SomaSoul, gain a powerful lens that enables you to perceive and face the challenges, difficulties, and stuck places in your mind-body process, moving you toward meaning, freedom, and healing.

In each module,

Learn an integrative way to employ the expressive arts with body-mindfulness that awakens self-discovery and inner healing
Gain body wisdom as you learn the skill of translating body sensation into body information
Discover the power of movement to discharge the "held" mind-body tensions we have carried within us and recharge our souls with meaning and love
Learn how to witness, facilitate, and support each other as we open to our depths and realize our body’s truth
Experience greater levels of vitality, humanness, connectedness with others, and open-heartedness.

Note The modules may be taken in any order. The power in this work is most fully experienced through taking all four modules, but if you wish to immerse yourself in just one of the modules, you are most welcome to join the journey.

The Leven Institute for Expressive Movement is approved as a training center by ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association). Those interested in becoming a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist (RSMT) through the Leven Institute need to complete Level Two SomaSoul as well as training in Shake Your Soul®. For more information, visit www.shakeyoursoul.com.

SomaSoul is a mind-body healing therapy that integrates the expressive arts, body psychotherapy, and somatics for self-discovery and healing.

In this workshop we integrate the skill of mindfulness of the body with a colorful and rich expressive arts process that opens neural pathways to unite mind and body. Develop your ability to listen to your body, work through body tensions that harbor the stresses from our lives, and expand body-centered intuition.

Experience the core tools of SomaSoul through an engaging and integrative sequence of expressive arts and body awareness, as you learn to

Experience your authentic self by balancing self-expression and self-reflection
Awaken your vitality through the expressive arts
Calm your mind by grounding in physical sensations
Discover how to release tension and free up energy through expressive movement
Access body wisdom for greater well-being.

Learn to exercise the creative functions of your right brain to connect with your visceral feelings, blazing a trail of mind-body connection and self-discovery in the process.

Note This training is for anyone interested in their own personal and professional development. This workshop can be taken as one module of the SomaSoul Somatic Expressive Therapy Level One certification, or as an empowering stand-alone course. For more information, visit www.shakeyoursoul.com.

Special pricing Receive a 10 percent tuition discount off the entire series if you sign up for all four modules prior to the first training. Please call to register.