A Whole-Self Practitioner

Devorah Sacks - Whole-Self PractitionerI earned my degree in somatic psychotherapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies and I am a licensed somatic psychotherapist. My graduate studies have given me the skills, tools and language to facilitate the healing process for others in a holistic way.

I am a certified yoga nidra teacher and yoga therapist through the Integrative Restoration Institute. I am also a graduate of the Somatics and Trauma course through Generative Somatics, and a trained trauma therapist. I am also trained in Trauma Sensitive Yoga.

My studies in Yoga continue to be a big influence on my work with clients. I have been a yoga practitioner and teacher for the past 30 years and I am authorized to teach the Ashtanga Yoga method. I taught in and around the San Francisco Bay Area since 1998. I owned and operated one of San Francisco’s first and largest mysore programs and I most recently moved to Grass Valley California and opened Atha Yoga, a school dedicated to the teachings of all things yoga.

My own personal journey toward whole-self healing has been the impetus for all that I do but my interest in facilitating a healing process for others began as a response to all of the emotions, mental states, and disorganized energies that were showing up in my yoga classes each morning. Observing both the reactivity as well as this sense of stuck-ness or shut down that was being revealed through the physical body as a result of the different shapes the body made on the yoga mat further validated how essential it was to offer an integrated approach to healing that helped people connect more deeply and authentically to all parts of themselves. Optimal health relies on this understanding. My somatic psychotherapy practice comes directly out of this understanding.

A Whole-Self Practitioner

Photo of Devorah Sacks
I earned my degree in somatic psychotherapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies and I am a licensed somatic psychotherapist. My graduate studies have given me the skills, tools and language to facilitate the healing process for others in a holistic way.

 

I am a certified yoga nidra teacher and yoga therapist through the Integrative Restoration Institute. I am also a graduate of the Somatics and Trauma course through Generative Somatics, and a trained trauma therapist. I am also trained in Trauma Sensitive Yoga.

My studies in Yoga continue to be a big influence on my work with clients. I have been a yoga practitioner and teacher for the past 30 years and I am authorized to teach the Ashtanga Yoga method. I taught in and around the San Francisco Bay Area since 1998. I owned and operated one of San Francisco’s first and largest mysore programs and I most recently moved to Grass Valley California and opened Atha Yoga, a school dedicated to the teachings of all things yoga.

My own personal journey toward whole-self healing has been the impetus for all that I do but my interest in facilitating a healing process for others began as a response to all of the emotions, mental states, and disorganized energies that were showing up in my yoga classes each morning. Observing both the reactivity as well as this sense of stuck-ness or shut down that was being revealed through the physical body as a result of the different shapes the body made on the yoga mat further validated how essential it was to offer an integrated approach to healing that helped people connect more deeply and authentically to all parts of themselves. Optimal health relies on this understanding. My somatic psychotherapy practice comes directly out of this understanding. Learn more about my personal journey

 

My Story

I started practicing yoga when I was eighteen years old.Five years later, I made my first of many trips to India for deeper study. I needed to immerse myself into something. I was young and struggling with some physical challenges and pain but most acutely I felt the immense emotional pain and distress that I had known for most of my life. I was searching for myself. During my many extended stays in India I was able to grow my tolerance to what was coming up inside of me and to not turn away from the pain, physical or emotional. My practice taught me to meet whatever discomfort was there, to breathe into it, and to work with it. As counterintuitive as this sounded, when I did this, the pain shifted, and some new understanding always emerged. This process taught me about deep surrender, a lesson that has helped me to move beyond what I had previously believed to be my limitations.

In 1999 I began formal study of the classical source texts of Yoga and Tantra. The main focus of my work involved the integration of the practice of Yoga Nidra, a traditional meditation technique that provides us with the necessary tools we need to stay in contact with the sense of health and well being that is constantly within us. I use this practice as a foundation for my work because of its emphasis on the mind-body connection and the wholeness and ease that is always present.

My practices and my dearest teachers have helped model for me the true ease and authenticity that comes with the full understanding of who we truly are…beyond all of our pain and suffering.

This is the most valuable teaching I have ever been given, and my hope is to offer this to others as it has been offered to me.

I started practicing yoga when I was eighteen years old.Five years later, I made my first of many trips to India for deeper study. I needed to immerse myself into something. I was young and struggling with some physical challenges and pain but most acutely I felt the immense emotional pain and distress that I had known for most of my life. I was searching for myself. During my many extended stays in India I was able to grow my tolerance to what was coming up inside of me and to not turn away from the pain, physical or emotional. My practice taught me to meet whatever discomfort was there, to breathe into it, and to work with it. As counterintuitive as this sounded, when I did this, the pain shifted, and some new understanding always emerged. This process taught me about deep surrender, a lesson that has helped me to move beyond what I had previously believed to be my limitations.

In 1999 I began formal study of the classical source texts of Yoga and Tantra. The main focus of my work involved the integration of the practice of Yoga Nidra, a traditional meditation technique that provides us with the necessary tools we need to stay in contact with the sense of health and well being that is constantly within us. I use this practice as a foundation for my work because of its emphasis on the mind-body connection and the wholeness and ease that is always present.

My practices and my dearest teachers have helped model for me the true ease and authenticity that comes with the full understanding of who we truly are…beyond all of our pain and suffering.

This is the most valuable teaching I have ever been given, and my hope is to offer this to others as igt has been offered to me.

The Value of Working in Relationship

Throughout my years of study, I have been guided, supported and inspired by many wonderful teachers mentors, and guides. They all modeled discipline, unyielding commitment, and embodied practice — three guiding principles of my life. They all shared a relentless willingness to face all that is present and that modeled for me an incredible tenacity of spirit that has helped me trust in both the healing process and in myself. Each one of them in their own way offered authenticity, humility, a commitment to process and a fierce determination, and they inspired me to find these qualities inside myself. My time with each of them has been life-changing.

My teachers and the practices they taught have helped me discover a deep pool of inner wisdom that I wasn’t able to contact on my own. I carry this same tradition. in my own work. I am sharing what I’ve been given, so others can find the wisdom and healing within themselves.