What Excites Our Faculty About the Mind-Body Coaching Program?
Starting in April 2023, we’re bringing together some of the world’s most esteemed teachers on Mind-Body and Somatic Coaching for our unique, 120-hr Mind-Body Coaching Certificate. We recently caught up with some of our faculty to discuss what they find unique and exciting about the program.
Kai Cheng Thom
Kai Cheng Thom, MSW, MSc, is a certified Somatic Sex Educator, Qualified Mediator, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Certified Professional Coach based in tkaronto/Toronto. She is also the author of five award-winning books in various genres. Kai Cheng's work focuses on the intersection of social justice, pleasure activism, and transformative approaches to healing conflict. A noted speaker and practitioner of somatic wellness, healing, and group process facilitation, Kai Cheng supports individuals and groups who are seeking to repair relationships and make transformative change.
When we asked Kai what she is most excited about in the Mind-Body Coaching program, she explains how coaching is one of the fastest-growing industries worldwide and has a plethora of applications. There is also a lot of untapped potential that the Mind-Body Coaching program aims to address, such as bringing the body into the work, incorporating transformational change on a cellular level, and keeping in mind the social context of justice, diversity, and anti-oppression. Coaching isn’t about being the expert or having all the answers; it’s about embodying the spirit of an adventurer - stepping into someone else’s world and inviting them to feel that delight in their inner world along with you.
Kai is also thrilled to be working alongside the amazing program faculty. In particular, Kai has a deep admiration for Staci Haines, who has developed many different organizations, is instrumental in the ongoing teaching of the Strozzi method of somatic coaching, and is also the creator of Generative Somatics - a somatic movement that has been instrumental in bringing body-based change work to social justice organizing in the United States and beyond.
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Staci K. Haines
Staci K. Haines is a national leader in the field of Somatics, specializing in intersecting personal and social change. Staci is the co-founder of Generative Somatics (GS), a multiracial social justice organization bringing somatics to social and climate justice leaders and organizations. She leads programs in somatics, trauma and resilience, and embodied leadership for healers, social change leaders, and innovators. She is also a senior teacher at Strozzi Institute and a Certified Master Somatic Coach.
Staci explains that a unique facet of the Mind-Body Coaching Program is that it integrates an understanding of how we’re shaped by our social and economic conditions. It’s important to acknowledge and integrate the understanding of this shaping throughout the program. As most of us will have a diversity of coaching clients, we want to know how can we be skilled and competent in meeting people in their lived experiences.
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Dr Rae Johnson
Rae Johnson, PhD, RSW, RSMT, BCC (they/them) is a social worker, somatic movement therapist, and board-certified coach working at the intersections of embodiment and social justice. The author of several books, including Embodied Social Justice and Embodied Activism, Rae currently teaches in the Somatic Psychology doctoral program at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Rae is excited about working alongside the stellar group of faculty members such as Staci Haines, Kai Cheng Thom, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, and Licia Sky, to name a few. They are doing cutting-edge work and have substantial backgrounds and experience in coaching that will make an amazing team.
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Manuela Mischke-Reeds
Manuela Mischke Reeds, MA, MFT, is an international teacher of somatic psychology and trauma therapy. She is a founder of Hakomi Institute of California and Embodywise (non-profit) and senior Hakomi faculty. Manuela serves as the Chief Mental Health officer at Abroad.io a Human Transformation Platform building human centered organizations. Manuela has 25+ years of clinical experience with trauma psychotherapy clients, coaching executives, first responders, and executive leadership coaching. She is the author of Somatic Psychotherapy Toolbox (PESI, 2019) and 8 keys to Practicing Mindfulness (W.W.Norton, 2015) and contributing author Hakomi Mindfulness centered Psychotherapy. (W.W.Norton, 2015)
Manuela discusses how the Mind-Body Coaching Program differs from other coaching programs in that there’s a focus on the mind-body - you're constantly looking at what is the embodied experience. Most coaching programs tend to focus on intentions, goals, solutions, and milestones, which are very important and are incorporated into this program as well. However, the Mind-Body Coaching Program is also focusing on the client’s lived experience in the body. It's a very different information base to get answers because it is more bottom-up from lived experience in the soma versus top-down from thinking.
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Learn more about how you can become a certified Mind-Body Coach and harness the power of somatics to help others transform their lives, actualize their goals, and live a life of authenticity, freedom and wellbeing with our 120-hr Mind-Body Coaching Certificate.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS UNIQUE AND TRANSFORMATIVE PROGRAM AT OUR FREE INFORMATION SESSION ON APRIL 2ND
Join us live and online. Meet our faculty, have your questions answered and discover if this program is right for you! The sessions will be recorded so if you can’t make the live event, register anyway and we’ll send you the recording.
