The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino
A space for women on a growth and healing journey — who want to live. joyfully and feel at home in within themselves body, mind and spirit.
Hosted by Keri Marino, somatic yoga therapist, mentor, and mama, this podcast features soulful stories, embodied wisdom, and truth bombs that land soft but go deep.
Each week, you’ll find short, heartfelt episodes designed for listening on the go — from somatic healing and inner work, to nervous system guidance and the real-life ways yoga philosophy can transform your days. On occassion, Keri welcomes guests who share transformative insights on everything from gut health to psychology.
Whether you’re driving to work, washing the dishes, or taking a quiet walk, these conversations will nourish your mind, body, and spirit — and remind you that your life is a love story you get to live every day.
If you like what you're hearing here, learn more about ways Keri can support you at: www.KeriMarino.com on at instagram @the_nourished_woman
The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino
Off the Beaten Path Healing: Grief, Love and Making Bad Art with Courtney Chandler
If your mind “gets it” but your body still feels stuck, this episode is for you. We talk with Courtney from Hearts for Hope Therapy about how art therapy, somatic practices, and yoga reach the places words can’t—helping women soften perfectionism, create nervous system safety, and move through grief and identity shifts with more ease. Through stories of motherhood, intuition, and messy creative expression, you’ll hear practical tools, gentle truth-telling, and real permission to reconnect with your body, feel deeply, and come alive again.
About Keri Marino
Seasoned Somatic Yoga Therapist and mentor Keri Marino helps women feel alive, empowered, and at home in their bodies. Through her gentle, spiritual approach, she invites women back into pleasure, presence, and the deeper truth of who they really are.
Connect on instagram @the_nourished_woman o www.KeriMarino.com.
About Courtney Chandler
Courtney is a Somatic Art Therapist and Trauma-Conscious Yoga Teacher based in Greenville, SC, and the founder of HeARTS for Hope Therapy. She blends art therapy, somatic work, and EMDR to help women, teens, and young adults heal trauma, anxiety, and grief. With over a decade of experience in expressive arts and mindfulness, she guides clients to reconnect with their bodies, build self-trust, and use creativity as a path to resilience. Outside the therapy room, she draws inspiration from art-making, nature, poetry, and quiet moments of reflection
If you love the sound of short daily somatic yoga rituals that help you become a more radiant woman, with bottomless pleasure and aliveness.
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Welcome to the Nourished Woman Podcast, a space for women on a growth and healing journey who want to experience more joy, play, and pleasure while feeling deeply rooted within themselves, body, mind, and spirit. I'm your host, Carrie Marino, somatic yoga therapist, mentor, and mama of three. Let's dive in, love. And she is the founder behind Hearts for Hope Therapy. I met Courtney, gosh, probably four years or so ago, and I she's one of those people that you meet and you're instantly like, this woman's got a really good heart in there. She just she clearly cares deeply about the work that she does, but she also just cares about people. Courtney is one of those people that you feel good when you spend time around, and you can tell that she's a genuine interest in you, and like you're great at connections with people, I would say. You made me feel warm and welcome right from our very first conversation. So thank you for being here today.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, oh my gosh, that was the sweetest thing to hear. I'm so excited to chat with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00:So I'd love to know what is nourishing you right now in your life? Like what is just really feeling so good to you on any level, any topic in your life right now.
SPEAKER_01:So gosh, I love that question. I am in this season of like, I have two very young toddlers. And so it's it's sort of an extended season of early motherhood for me. And I have been doing some later evening works for a grant project lately. And I've noticed since I've been working part-time, since both of my kids have been born, that when I work those longer days, I miss them. And so I guess what that's highlighting for me is what's really lighting me up is that I get the the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my kids and a lot of time doing the work that I do. It's I found this kind of beautiful balance and it's just really precious to me. So that's kind of lighting me up. I just spent uh a week at the beach with my parents that came into town and and our family and the kids, and that was just it's really special.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah. And I'm hearing both the love that you have for your children and how much you value just being present with them, those small little moments that are actually everything, as well as the importance of your work. And I saw something yesterday, and it was of a female business coach that I went through a program with, and she was talking about how our children are watching and your children are seeing you both love them fiercely and prioritize time with them, and love to be a channel for your work and how truly beautiful that is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, it's really special. I feel fortunate that I get to have both at the same time and am still kind of figuring it out. Like, how is my time best spent where I can be really intentional with wherever space I'm in?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I feel that deep in my bones, right? Like, how do I show up fully here and show up fully here and like also show up for me because I have all these needs and like I'm a I'm a woman of my own, not just a mom, not just a business owner who has a cup that needs to be filled into. That yeah. And then marriage too, right? All this, all the stuff. Well, one of the things that I want the women listening, I want you all to know that Courtney has a really cool model of how she works in the mental health arena. I would call it non-traditional. I think you have woven all of these great things together. So you weave together art therapy, you weave together psychotherapy, you weave together somatics and yoga, which, wow, that's incredible. I'd love to know a little bit about your story and how you arrived at that place, that this is the body of work that you're here to steward, and just the kind of the spark behind how you got here and why this is what you show up professionally to serve up to the world.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Gosh, it has been an evolving journey. I certainly am not where I envisioned that I would be. And that is that's great. I love that for myself. Um it's the beginning of my career, I guess. I I actually used to work in finance, which I didn't hate. I was pretty good at it. So I kind of learned a lot about numbers and organization and finance and I guess operating a business. All of those skills lent itself to that. But it wasn't filling my cup, it was paying the bills, right? So I eventually went back to finish my undergraduate degree, and I just sort of wanted to find like I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just wanted to find something that I was interested in. So I did a bachelor's of arts and I just kind of dove into art because I've always loved art making. As a side note, my neighbor, when I was in elementary school, was our high school art teacher in the um neighborhood, and she would do art classes for people in her basement. And so as a little girl, I would like escape over to her house and she would teach me all these cool different art materials, and it really became this like sacred, safe space for me. I wanted to highlight that because that that does play a foundational role in sort of like the journey that I've I've grown into. Yeah. So I got my degree in in arts and minored in psychology, and I finished my minor really quick, and I found that I just loved psychology and kind of wanted to keep learning more. So when I graduated, I I learned that art therapy was a career. So I was like, oh, you can combine art and psychology, and there is a career for that. So I researched some master's programs and decided to do that. All the while I did my yoga teacher training in 2013 after kind of finding my way into a yoga studio when I was really struggling with super challenging, like dark night of the soul seasons and unhealthy relationships and just feeling very lost in my early 20s.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Found my way into a yoga studio and didn't even know how remarkably healing it was going to be. Just kind of found myself there one day. Kept returning, kept returning. So I wanted to keep learning more. I kind of caught the yoga fever, as so to speak. So I was teaching yoga as I was going to school. So these are kind of, I'm explaining two different paths that eventually crisscrossed after I graduated. I just found that both were so healing to me. And the more that I was meeting and working with other people, there's different tools that resonate for different people. But what I find is both yoga and art speak to this spiritual creative embodiment of like the heart and the essence of the soul's passion, love, meaning, sort of the things that spark people's light. That's what it did for me. It rekindled a light within me, both art and yoga. So I just kind of meandered my way through answering that question. But after I graduated from my master's program with a it was a master of art therapy and clinical counseling. So I was set up in that three-year program to become a licensed professional counselor for traditional-ish psychology or psychotherapy, and then the expressive arts specialization. So I kind of have multiple licenses. I started working in addictions counseling for an agency, and I was doing intensive outpatient, primarily for adolescents here in Greenville. Loved working with that population. They're so innately creative that the art therapy worked very well for them when talking wasn't easy or if they were feeling a little bit challenged with not wanting to trust the vulnerability that comes along with the therapeutic relationships. And then I started teaching yoga as sort of an extracurricular for these teens that were in treatment. And that worked really well too. So I sort of initially started the there was like a piecemeal of I would do some yoga, I would do some art therapy, and I would do some counseling. And that's how my career started. When COVID happened in 2020, I had more time at home and sort of in solitude with everything that was going on in the world. I'm sure everyone sort of had their own projects of how do we get through this time right now. And so I this was before I had children, but I birthed my private practice business, Hearts for Hope Therapy, during that time because I was wanting to serve everyone else. It was feeling so disconnected. And so I decided, well, now's as good a time as ever to sort of find a way to integrate all of these different things that are getting us out of our heads and into our bodies, which we so needed, and in community, even if that community was virtual. So yeah. That's sort of how my journey started. I now have a Hearts for Hope Therapy is now a group practice where there's five of us therapists that all specialize in some of these more non-traditional approaches. And we get to do all of those things and we get to personalize that integrative, creative, expressive, non-traditional therapies to the people that are sitting across from us in the room.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Gosh, what a neat journey from the world of finance and kind of numbers and a very binary world in a lot of ways, or very black and white, to it that I love that you just let yourself say, I don't really know what I want to do, but I'm gonna start somewhere. And I know that I love art and I know that I'm interested in psychology. And then how that just sort of led you down the path. Oh, well, you know what? I'm gonna go check out yoga. It feels like you'd followed your own inner knowing many different points during that journey. And each of those was a risk. Like, let's be honest. Even making the decision to go to school and like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with this, and I'm leaving a career that actually pays the bills. Woof, that was a big, you took a risk. You took a chance on yourself, and I'm celebrating you. And then going into a yoga class, that too, like a lot of women, I feel like a lot of modern women who are practicing yoga are doing it online. And so that crossing over to an in-person space, it was different for you back then. But I want those women to hear that you took a chance and that it actually led to something really beautiful because in-person yoga community is an awesome thing to do. And then this sort of duality of like, oh, I do my art therapy here and I do my counseling work here, and then I do yoga, like they were sort of separate and then they all converged into Hearts for Hope therapy. And now you are not just channeling your work, but you're making space for other women to have job creation and to channel their work and to have a space. Holy moly, Courtney. I hope so.
SPEAKER_01:It actually feels really nice to like receive that back. So thank you for what feels nice about it. I guess it's I how do I even know what feels nice? Let me check in. It's still a learning curve for me to receive compliments. And I don't think that you were complimenting me. I think you were reflecting to me, and that felt really good. That felt genuine because I have put following that inner knowing as sort of my my true north compass and and not trusting like, oh, it's gonna work, but just following, following ever, wherever, however, that that next right thing that felt right for me was. And I guess it just feels good because I have put a lot of care and consideration and and heart's work into creating hearts for hope. And so I just love that it is this this space now that exists for healing for more than just me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's kept expanding. That vision within you kept expanding, and now it's a it's something that people are also holding with you, which probably feels good too, that you're not the only person holding hearts for hope therapy. You have these other champions on the team making the magic happen there too.
SPEAKER_01:So I was sorry, uh one quick thing. When I was in grad school, it's kind of funny. I remember we were talking about sort of career development, like what type of specialization for art therapy and all that. And I didn't want to take the private practice class. I was like, I'm not gonna work in private practice, I have zero interest in that, definitely won't have a group practice. And so it's it's just a reminder to myself that there's no way to know what the future will hold if you if you just keep trusting and following what feels right, it will just lead in beautiful ways.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, it makes me curious if your neighbor from childhood knows what you've made. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. So her name, um shout out to Joan Hitchens. I will this podcast link. She used to call herself Joan of Arc, Joan of Art, Joan of Art. Yeah, we keep in touch occasionally because she I think she knows she's made an imprint and knows that I went into art therapy.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know how if she knows exactly where I'm at now, but that might be sweet for her to have that reflected back to her. Yeah, definitely. So you talked about how when you worked with adolescents that they are so naturally creative. And so I'm what I took from that is that they had more accessibility to express themselves. And I feel like, you know, and I've even shared with you personally that sometimes like I want to make art like as part of my own therapeutic process. And then the art that I make is so shitty compared to like what's in my head. And so I wanted to hear you speak a little bit about the vulnerability of expression through art as a medium for your mental health and sort of like so many women, I'll ask them a question in my private mentoring practice: like, you know, what do you want for yourself? And and like that expression of the raw core of like our soul's evolution is tricky for some of them. But I feel like art and yoga and somatics, it offers this bridge to get into that material in a roundabout way rather than just like right in somebody's face trying to get the truthiest truths to come out by talking alone. And so I'd love to hear you kind of riff on the vulnerability of art and the reality of art as a form of therapy and the medicine of that and and what what women would really benefit from that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. So creating art is a vulnerable experience for many, whether you're you're quote unquote skilled at it or you've learned skills for it or not. I I find that creating art in a space where you're then having someone else other than yourself also witness that creation is an added layer of vulnerability. And so there are a lot of a lot of approaches that we need to take in order to create that like safety of the art as a container for expression. And so that's where my work as a somatic art therapist comes into play because we get to use the art making as this really beautiful tool in the space to bring up in the moment. It's not just a mindful practice, but it brings up a mindful, almost like a reflection into your subconscious. We get to create, let's say you want to draw a picture of a tree, right? We all know what a tree looks like. Cross cultures, there's a bunch of varieties. It can look stick figure-ish and it will still resemble a tree. So if I were to have you draw a tree and you just sketch a little tree, there's gonna be different parts of you that show up as you're viewing the process of what you just created in front of you. So a part of you that feels like, gosh, that doesn't look at all like I wanted it to or how I envisioned it to look. So maybe a perfectionist part or a part that has high expectations of self. And so then we get to become curious like, how is that part serving you and how is it getting in the way? It mirrors back that inner curiosity, I guess, is just the best word to describe how we can use art as a tool. And then diving deeper, the art making process always reveals something unexpected and uniquely helpful to guide people into a deeper knowing. So the unexpected, the unintended things that happen in the process of making something that you anticipated would be this type of thing, and then it turns out to be something completely different. It just has such like magic, I guess. I I love sitting across from people where we're both kind of in awe of like, yeah, that that needed to happen. You know, you needed to accidentally tear that paper in that way so that that word off of the collage, you know, stood out, or those colors needed to blend into this muddy mess on purpose. Because what you're feeling right now is that life is messy and it's okay if it's not all, you know, compartmentalized and and beautiful in the way that you expected it to be.
SPEAKER_00:I, you know, I'm I'm just kind of in awe of what you shared there because I feel like my approach as a somatic yoga therapist is really bridging these worlds together that a lot of people put in separate categories. And you talked about this earlier of like the yoga being over here and like the inner work being over here and the somatic therapy being over here. And I I know just from knowing you and seeing your work that you you're a bridge bridger of those worlds too, and how beautifully you do that for them and hold that space and reflect that back to them, and how really those answers are coming from inside of that woman. Like as they're making the art, and you don't just work with women, but you know, you if you're listening, you're a woman. Yeah, like they're channeling that creation, and whatever they make is perfect. Like you have a workshop, or you it maybe it just already happened, but it was like make bad art for good. And I love the permission in that and the the space that you're holding for women to just have that invitation to create something, and that it will inevitably be a mirror and a powerful tool that they can learn something from and access more of their innermost self from. Yeah, absolutely. So I know you know, with your background, you have training in like traditional mental health, and then you also have expressive arts training. And so I'm curious, who do you think like you you use the wording different tools work for different people earlier? So, who are those women who would really benefit from stepping outside of that traditional model of mental health?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I find that a lot of people that gravitate toward working with me, primarily they're women in their 20s to 60s, they have done a lot of a lot of their own inner work. They're they're very intelligent, very, very insightful, and are maybe feeling stuck, like they've maybe done therapy or they've done different things, and yet their nervous systems are still like disconnected from what their mind knows or what the mind thinks that it knows. The body doesn't yet trust that there's some safety. And so I I find that people, if they're committed to doing deeper work, they're already at a place that they've beg began their journey. Or maybe if they're even nervous about talking to somebody if they've never been in therapy before, I find that either of those kind of two categories prime people to be like really well suited for finding a good home within the the more non-traditional, the expressive or the somatic healings.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Our work is for the same person. And of all the women listening, like you're that woman, right? You're the one who's done the inner work on so many different levels. Like you've spent hours and hours probably in therapy, and yet you still see evidence of your nervous system slipping back into old patterning or different visceral responses in your body, or just relational things that are coming up. And so these non-traditional tools, it's kind of funny to even call them non-traditional because how ancient is art and yoga, right? Like these are ancient practices, but they're outside of the mainstream model of like pharmaceutical and talk therapy and all of the psychotherapy tools. And really, sometimes that kind of I want to like shout from the rooftops. So, like, there's other ways to improve your mental health. And I'm so glad that you're out there offering that up. And I want the women listening to hear that if you have done a lot of talk therapy and you've done yoga even, but you haven't bridged these worlds, that there's a way to weave them together with people like you and people like me, and that that actually gets to some of the core things that are really happening, like the nervous system pieces and those disconnections from whole self. Like we kind of have this fragmented approach to mental health and offering something different.
SPEAKER_01:I always say the body comes to therapy too.
SPEAKER_00:The body, the ego, and the spirit all come to therapy. So, one of the things that I was really hoping that we could talk a little bit about was grief. And I'm just gonna like totally drop that into a different topic. But you and I both share a view around grief and love being a part of really every woman's story. So, would you like to jump in, or do you want me to ask you a little bit more specifically about that?
SPEAKER_01:I can just jump in, and as far as what's coming up for me, grief work is something that I hold a lot of tender space and intention around. And grief is not just loss of a person. It certainly is. That's a certain very deep real grief experience. But grief is in all things in life. Grief is grief. If you are living, you are living with grief, whether that be the loss of something in transition that was actually a really positive transition. There was still a loss of what was before. So, you know, grief of early motherhood. You might love being a mother, and you it's everything you've ever wanted. And also, there is some loss of like life that was prior to that. And so big life transitions are important for honoring grief, recognizing that grief is a part of it, so that you're you're getting to witness and move through the whole experience and not just focus on part of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So grief as sort of just a human experience that we're all relating to at any given time to certain degrees. Yeah. And I love that. I love just to hold that frame for a moment because we kind of think of grief as like the stages of grief and bereavement kind of grief. And certainly those are real, and some of you listening are currently navigating that. And also there's no timeline on that, right? Like we can process bereavement grief for the rest of our lives. We are processing that to a certain degree, but also just that the experience of being human is, I call it, one big grief and love story, right? Because we're constantly falling in love and expressing our love and we're constantly experiencing grief. And grief not just being like the loss of a person or a chapter of our lives, but also like the loss of a dream or a hope that we had for ourselves. I feel like grief is just in everything.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Is there anything that you would love to say to any women who are navigating grief? Just like a little intuitive drop of wisdom for them.
SPEAKER_01:It's omnipresent present and ever-changing. Right. Like I think it's it is a part of life. And maybe, maybe others will resonate with how I felt, but grief was something that was always like outsourced, or other people that intend to be supportive and loving toward your pain might say some things that are more comforting to them than actually to the grief itself. And that can feel disingenuous or disconnected, disconnecting. And so I just want to acknowledge that it's it's hard and it's lonely, and it doesn't have to always be that way. You know, so finding that finding a sacred space for your grief, whether that be figuring it out for your for yourself and like giving yourself that time to really feel it and witness it and even acknowledge it rather than brush it off. And then finding safe spaces for it to not be fixed or rushed through or changed, but just to just be just to be held in that.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:One of the things that I offer that actually started as one of my one of my early programmings combining art and yoga therapies together was this group that I run called Bend and Bloom. It's like a six-week program for women that are navigating grief loss, the trauma that comes along with that, because the nervous system gets so disrupted in grief, it's raw and it's unpleasant and it's disorienting. So bringing together that community piece where where women can come and share and just show up however they are. And then we get to move through it literally through yoga and meditation or chanting, expressive arts, talking, sitting in a circle around like candles and you know flowers and making mandalas and just all the things that you would expect could be like extra nourishing. We kind of throw that in there. But the the of it is the connection when when it's like one heart to another heart in the pain, not trying to rush it or change it or fix it and just be with it. It's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:That sounds very beautiful. I have slight envy, like I want that space held for me. That sounds so good. And I also feel like part of what I hear you and I speaking to right now, and I just want to say it explicitly, is that real healing includes holding all the aspects of ourself in love and regard, and that grief is one part of it. And I think as a culture, we have this phobia of grief, and that often leads to shame or hiding or concealing or isolation or depression or whatever it is, and really like coming together in community, giving yourself like community from within to hold your own grief and to explore those like every aspect of what you might feel is all just part of your sacred whole.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00:It's okay to be low. don't have to be like love and light all the time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The good vibes only shirts. I'm like, hire those, please.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Someone burn those. Please.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The holding the duality is something that most of my clients find super helpful. Is this this challenge of self to hold the duality, to hold the sadness, the pain, the grief, the loss, and the love, the joy, the newness, the opportunities that still exist or may now be different, holding them both. It's of course a powerful tool of our nervous systems, our responses to survive and keep going, to kind of deny or push away or from any women that I work with. It's like, let's just power through. I just gotta keep going. I'm just going to keep busying myself and working really hard so that I can avoid feeling the feels. That is an important perhaps survival stepping stool until the the space to be fully ready or the the heart's knowing of okay this isn't working for me any longer. I need to do something different.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, then eventually finding that duality I can be I can be still and and find some softness and slow down and I won't fall apart because I can also keep learn to keep going.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh such a good message there that we can really just trust all the parts of ourselves. I just got off the a call right before our our talk here and it was a woman and she was talking about a transformation that she's going through right now in response to a massive loss and a grief and bereavement. And she was talking about that she feels like there's this clarity coming through in a massive way and she's scared she's going to lose it. And I I I want her and I want you all to hear what Courtney is saying about how like we get to hold it all, but at the center of all of that is our whole self. That's this anchor between it all. And so as we explore those dualities, we're actually really safe exploring all of those parts of us because you're the core whole person in the middle of it. And that we can trust our process like we wake up at the degree that we wake up and at the pace and at the perfect timing and we stay stuck in patterns for as long as they're serving us until one day we're like it's time for a different way. Let's go.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And that that's just that's a beautiful natural part of all of our journeys my journey, your journey, every woman and person that we support their journey to definitely. So I'd love to shine a little bit of light on your work. Is there something that you have coming up or an aspect of your work that you'd love to tell the listeners about.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah I think you kind of mentioned it earlier. It's actually next week so by the time they listen to this it might not be happening but I plan to do it again that make bad art for a good time that's intended to be for those of us who find that part of ourselves that want things to be just right or be perfect and there it feels a little bit rigid. For anyone who is interested in the Enneagram, I am an Enneagram seven and so when I'm stressed I turn into an Enneagram one which likes structure rigidity organization almost to a like like I'm I'm starting to suffer from it. And so I find when I'm in those times of stress the perfectionist part of me gets amplified and so having outlets like let's just make up bad art for a good time like let's just play and that is healing in and of itself. It doesn't have to be really deep heavy therapeutic insightful work. It can be joyful and spontaneous and just let loose and that is also very healing. So um I've got that coming up and I'll be doing it again in the new year. I also hold the Kin Tsugi workshops four times a year which Kintsugi is this Japanese it's a cultural I guess practice but it's also an artistry an artist practice of mending broken ceramics with gold as sort of being able to highlight the seams of the imperfect to show where things were once broken that they can still be whole and beautiful. So metaphorically that's really useful to people and profound and it's a cool art process to learn and I ingrate some reflective poetic journaling with that as well. And then I do grief groups for women and we have a few different like pop-up workshops here and there that are either focused on thematic embodiment work or expressive arts or we also have some more like traditional like wellness boot camp type things.
SPEAKER_00:So sounds like there's a little bit of something for everyone there. Excellent thank you for telling us about what you do and and just holding the space that you do because I know from one business owner to another this is a devotional practice that we are doing and showing up and channeling this work. And so I'm I'm glad you're out there and sharing these good things. As a final question I always like to ask how has yoga been a part of your own growth and healing journey how do you view it how do you how is it this touchstone for you? How would you describe yoga as part of your own growth and healing oh my gosh this could be an hour long answer.
SPEAKER_01:I'll try a very short condensed version. So again I found yoga when I was really at a dark time struggling through a lot of identity collapse I guess and I found through oh gosh I used to be the type of person that silence even for 20 seconds would make my nervous system feel like out of my skin uncomfortable and so through intentional movement and breath work with the asana practices I was able to eventually find that peace and serenity in some stillness where my mind could be quieter. I wouldn't be afraid of that what would show up and so that laid the foundation for me getting to really truly know and trust myself. So I just wanted to learn more and I have taken so many different trainings now luckily to I guess help me support others but it also really helps me support myself. So oh gosh the foundation of my practice now is definitely way less asana than it used to be and the the practice of meditation yoga nitrage gosh just even just being still with myself and and reciting mantra returning home I guess is a short answer. Returning home to self.
SPEAKER_00:Oh so beautiful and what a gift your practice has been through every part of your journey along the way to support you once it became part of your journey right well if people want to look you up on the good old internet where's the best place to do that?
SPEAKER_01:They can find me at heartsforhopetherapy dot com.
SPEAKER_00:That's my website I also have Instagram which is heartsfore art therapy and then Facebook Hearts for Hope Therapy Okay wonderful well I'm going to put some more info about you in the show notes for people who are interested and it's been so great to have you today. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much Carrie this has been a joy if this podcast episode resonated with you I'd love to hear about it. Send me a message on Instagram at theNurishedwoman or through my website carrymarino.com and if you're looking for a space for deeper support mentorship or simply a space to feel helped I'd love to have you join us inside the Nourished Woman Sanctuary. The beautiful music you're hearing is from Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band and you can find them on all streaming platforms I just know I can't without