Tana Saler self care

Tana Saler teaches relational skills to individuals, couples and groups who seek to connect with others deeper, with greater ease and elegance, and with greater fulfillment. Teaching style is experiential, embodied, and playful.

Tana's Philosophy

The ultimate quest is a life that is rich, fulfilling and liberated, filled with enriching experiences, meeting all the needs from the basic to the most complex, and having the freedom to be fully human. 

The main obstacles in our way to a good life are our distortions and wounds. 

The body is a manifestation of the mind, and the mind is an emanation of Spirit, or the Ground of Being. Personal history becomes biology, and remains imprinted in the body until the right transformative inner and outer work is being done.

For most of us, wounds are rooted in some kind of relational pain or disconnect. It is more likely to have been neglected, rejected, abandoned, abused or not tuned in our mind and emotions than it is likely that we have been hurt by natural cataclysms. The body remembers the hurts, and it takes body awareness, movement, voice, breath and touch to undo the hurts and imprint the body with resources such as love, care, joy, peace and pleasure. 

To make sustainable changes for well-being, both inner work and outer work is required. Inner work addresses the human interiors, thoughts, emotions, views, attitudes, motives, values, impulses and urges; the outer work consists of behaviours, both individual behaviours: eating, sleeping, exercising, doing something creative, and establishing habits; and relational: listening, inquiring, telling stories to reveal oneself, asking or granting favours. 

For most of us, wounds are rooted in some kind of relational pain or disconnect. It is more likely to have been neglected, rejected, abandoned, abused or not tuned in our mind and emotions than it is likely that we have been hurt by natural cataclysms. The body remembers the hurts, and it takes body awareness, movement, voice, breath and touch to undo the hurts and imprint the body with resources such as love, care, joy, peace and pleasure. 

To make sustainable changes for well-being, both inner work and outer work is required. Inner work addresses the human interiors, thoughts, emotions, views, attitudes, motives, values, impulses and urges; the outer work consists of behaviours, both individual behaviours: eating, sleeping, exercising, doing something creative, and establishing habits; and relational: listening, inquiring, telling stories to reveal oneself, asking or granting favours. 

The way to a rich, fulfilling & liberated life

is achieved through:

• Appreciation
- Having heart-felt gratitude for everything beautiful, good and true

• Improvement
- Developing psychologically by taking on more and more perspectives besides the self’s, and developing useful skills for the betterment of oneself, one’s family and circle of care, and one’s community and more

• Transcendence
- going beyond the sole identification with a self that is separate from others

To live a rich, fulfilling and liberated life

as a functional, fully integrated human being it helps to have the support of:

1
- The right views: having an accurate map to navigate life

2
- The right practices: activities you do in a controlled environment in order to develop skills

3
- The right facilitation: therapy, healing and coaching that facilitate your well-being and development

My personal views influencers include

Ken Wilber, and the AQAL Integral Model which is a highly accurate map for navigating life; Shinzen Young, the founder of the Unified Mindfulness system of teaching mindfulness meditation; Ken Cohen, Taoist QiGong teacher; and a number of healing arts rooted in Ancient Wisdom Traditions including Reiki, Holistic Reflexology and more. Also Paul Linden, founder of Being In Movement, Aikidoist, philosopher and linguist; Tad Hargrave, Marketing for Hippies, who teaches ethical, authentic, Point of View Marketing; Mark Walsh, Embodiment Unlimited, who models and teaches purpose, generosity and clarity with authenticity and humour and more. 

Among my routine practices are

QiGong, Meditation, Metta / Prayer, Reiki, dance, comedy improvisation, Shadow Work, Voice Dialogue, singing and play (with my dog, and also with other people). I have also done some years of yoga, a few months of Aikido (yes, I have translucent belt!), and Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM) classes. 

 

Facilitation:

In regards to support for well-being and growth, I am grateful to say that I have a network of support which includes or have included in the past: osteopathy, Rolfing, acupuncture, relationship therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Holistic Reflexology (the Grinberg method), Constellation work, Brainspotting, facilitated Voice Dialogue, chiropractic, Cranio-Sacral, Reiki, Massage Therapy, Feldenkrais.

My views regarding facilitation

The main benefit of facilitation is relationship. Even mastering self-care disciplines through regular practice isn’t enough to replace facilitation. Some facilitation is method-based, and some facilitation is solely relationship-based, as long-term talk psychotherapy is. The relationship with the therapist or facilitator is a venue for making amends; where parents neglected and tuned out a child, the therapist pays attention and tunes in the person’s psyche. Where parents judged and criticized, the facilitator accepts and appreciates. Where parents or teachers highlighted one’s limitations and punished them, the facilitator (or therapist or coach) focuses on strengths and appreciates them. In the long term, the relationship proves itself therapeutic, and new circumstances inform the body, mind and energy of the client. Where there was disconnect, connection is established, with trust, appreciation and support, which encourage growth, freedom of expression, clarity, and resourcefulness. Connection becomes the medicine that undoes the wounds of the disconnect. 

 

“Connection becomes the medicine that undoes the wounds of the disconnect.”

Connection is medicine

And facilitation is the delivery system for the medicine - at least for the fortunate ones who can afford its high costs. Even when within one’s means, the therapeutic relationship lasts for fifty minutes once a week, and for the rest of the time the client faces personal and professional relationships that may or may not be blessed with loving presence and skillful communication. Therapists are trained to embody loving presence, to communicated compassionately and skilfully, to hold the client in high regard, to identify and appreciate the client’s values, and to embrace and accept the client as they are. 

Sadly, spouses, parents, siblings, co-workers, bosses, friends and lovers lack such training. A therapy client may feel seen, validated and affirmed during the therapy hour, then go home to a complaining spouse, to work to a negative boss, or to a friend whose pessimism depletes the client in less than thirty minutes. 

Imagine what would it be life if spouses, parents, siblings, co-workers, bosses, friends and lovers developed the relational skills that facilitate connection in ways that enliven, affirm, enrich, encourage, uplift, fulfill and liberate. What would it be like to go home and hear first everything that went well today; to go to work and hear your boss appreciate your strengths and achievements; to hear from your friends with every piece of good news and celebrations they have; to have a lover feel you, touch you with loving presence, feel what you need and know how to meet your needs and yearning.

I don’t know exactly how one can teach relational skills to everyone in their family, workplace and community. But I know that you can be the spouse, parent, sibling, co-worker, boss, friend and lover who knows how to connect, masters the art of connecting at all the human levels - body, language and energy - and is able and willing to show up with loving presence for everyone in their circle of care. 

A comprehensive and sustainable approach to well-being includes the healing of past relationship wounds, healing the body and the mind, and developing the relational skills necessary to prevent past hurts from taking place again, relational skills that nurture the life force in you and in your relationships, relational skills that connect, fulfill, enrich, and liberate. 

As such my work is educational. People come to see me because they have a chronic symptom which is not responding to conventional treatments, or they come to see me because some personal or professional relationship is causing them distress. Working with the body is central to my sessions and using body awareness, breath, touch, gentle movement and voice, the client addresses the body-memory of painful past events, and learns custom-tailored skills that would have helped to prevent the original hurts, and that will help those hurts from repeating themselves in the future.