Welcome to the fifteenth episode of Season Three of Wisdom for Wellbeing Podcast. On this episode I interview Dr. Marlysa Sullivan, Assistant Professor, Physiotherapist & Yoga Therapist.

Dr. Marlysa Sullivan discusses the overlap between Eastern and Western philosophy and science and how Gunas, emotional states from Yogic philosophy, pair well with Polyvagal Theory, a Western framework relating to the nervous system.

Want to keep in touch? Head to @drkaitlin on Instagram or @wisdomforwellbeingpod on Facebook to connect.

What is covered in this episode:

>>Polyvagal Theory was introduced by Dr. Steven Porges and it gives us a way of understanding complex conditions that have physiological, emotional, and behavioural attributes through underlying autonomic states.

>>Eudemonic wellbeing comes from Aristotle and Aristotle’s idea of eudaimonia, which is to reach our highest fulfilment, our highest purpose, and eudemonic wellbeing in research is defined as a steadfast type of contentment that is made up of purpose and meaning, alignment with values, connection to one’s own inner authenticity and quality social relationships.

>>Polyvagal Theory and Yoga are connected in that the three Gunas in Yoga: tamas (stability), rajas (activity), and sattva (consciousness) can be related to the physiological, emotional and behavioural attributes in Polyvagal Theory.

Links Discussed

• marlysasullivan.com
• Discussed Article written with Dr Steven Porges: Yoga Therapy and Polyvagal Theory: The Convergence of Traditional Wisdom and Contemporary Neuroscience for Self-Regulation and Resilience
• Marlysa’s books: Understanding Yoga Therapy and Yoga and Science in Pain Care
• accessibleyoga.org
• yogatherapy.health
• International Association of Yoga Therapists: IYAT.org
• yogauonline.com

You’ll find a copy of the Episode Transcript below.

Transcript

Marlysa Sullivan: It allows us this space and this practice to really become clear of all of these different aspects of ourselves. So clear about what’s happening in our body, what’s happening in our mind, our memory, our emotions, and the ability to really sit back and notice and observe, and how to interact with ourselves and with life in a way, that’s both compassionate, and kind, but also, strong and meaningful.

Intro: You’re listening to the Wisdom for Wellbeing podcast, the show that blends science and heart to bring you evidence-based tips and tricks for cultivating a healthy, wealthy, and meaningful life. Now, here’s your host therapist, Yogi, and fellow full life balancer, Dr. Kaitlin Harkess.

Kaitlin Harkess: Hi there. Welcome back to Wisdom for Wellbeing. I am really excited about our time together today, because we’re talking yoga therapy along with looking at how Polyvagal Theory, which is the conceptualization of how the fight and flight response integrate with the freeze response, and the social engagement response. Social engagement, just means this experience, we have of connecting with other individuals and that this ability that this experience is related to our vagus nerve which is also related to our freeze response when everything just shuts down essentially in a situation where that sympathetic nervous system, that fight and flight response didn’t work. I’m not going to go into it in too much details now because this is really the topic of my conversation with Marlysa Sullivan today. Now Marlysa is a physiotherapist and yoga therapist with over 15 years of experience, working with people suffering with chronic pain conditions. She is an assistant professor in Yoga Therapy and Integrative Health Sciences at Maryland University of Integrative Health, and holds an adjunct position at Emory University where she teaches the integration of yoga and mindfulness into physical therapy in the DPT program. She is the head of research for the iRest Institute and she is also the author of Understanding Yoga Therapy, Applied Philosophy and Science for Wellbeing and the co-editor of Yoga and Science in Pain Care: Treating the Person in Pain, as well as several peer-reviewed articles. Marlysa has been involved in the professionalism of the field of yoga therapy through the Education Standards Committee of the IAYT which helped to define competencies for the field. And in characterizing the yoga therapy workforce through research, her research interests focus on defining the frameworks and explanatory model for yoga therapy based on philosophical and neurophysiological perspectives. So I think this gives a bit of a background as to, you know, the incredible body of knowledge that Marlysa holds. And I think the conversation today is going to really, you know, light up the part of you that enjoys acting in, you know, Yoga Nerd territory. It certainly lit me up and really inspired me. Before we do not jump into the conversation I just want to flag that, yes, I am continuing to work on getting the yoga and mental health course that I’ve ran historically in person into an online framework so get on to my yoga nerd mailing list if you do want to hear more about that and hear a bit more about the pre-sale or just flick me an email or connect with me via social media so you can just head to drkaitlin.com to pop in your email address to to hear a bit more about these offerings that are going to be coming forward in a few weeks time. But without further ado, I’m so excited about this conversation so I want to jump in and introduce you to Marlysa now.

Kaitlin Harkess: Hi Marlysa, so welcome to the Wisdom for Wellbeing podcast. I am delighted to be sitting down with you today. This is a conversation that I’ve been excited for months. So it’s really wonderful to be here with you now to talk about all things yoga and yoga therapy. So thank you.

Marlysa Sullivan: Thank you. I’m really excited to talk with you.

Kaitlin Harkess: And just so listeners have a bit of an understanding, you know, of who you are and what you’ve been up to. Would you mind just sharing about the amazing work that you’re involved in?

Kaitlin Harkess: Yeah, so I’ve been a physical therapist for about 20 years and I’ve integrated yoga therapy and yoga into my work. And so right now, I’m an assistant professor at Maryland University of Integrative Health, where I teach in the Masters of Science in Yoga Therapy Program. And I currently involved in some research on yoga with dementia populations, as well as chronic low back pain. And you know, we were talking about, I’ve written an article with Stephen Porges on the intersection of yoga therapy and Polyvagal Theory. So some of my passions and the work of yoga has been these frameworks of Polyvagal Theory and purpose and meaning.

Kaitlin Harkess: That’s going to be really the hub of our conversation today, yoga therapy, purpose and meaning how this is different from Physical Therapy. I’m so excited about it and just to flag with listeners as well. You know, also in the time that you’ve been doing this work, you know, you’ve written two amazing books on, you know, understanding yoga therapy and yoga and science in pain care as well. So, you know, there’s a lot of, a lot of wisdom here isn’t there?

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah, I really yeah, writing I think was such an interesting experience. I felt like I spent like two years writing those books. Like just you know, completely devoted to writing and writing really became a yoga practice for me of like you just start putting things on the page and you have to let go of attachment to what it’s going to look like or where it’s going to go. And just just the way of clarifying your thoughts. So I felt like writing was one of the best yoga practices I’ve ever done.

Kaitlin Harkess: I’d love to hear more about that because what what is yoga to you? You know, the purpose and meaning I know comes into it, but would you mind just giving us a bit of a philosophical kind of starting point for what yoga really means to you Marlysa.

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah I love that. So what yoga has meant to me and what yoga means to me as far as just personally and as well as like the way I see integrating it into work with people is that it allows us this space and this practice to really become clear of all of these different aspects of ourselves. So clear about what’s happening in our body. What’s happening in our mind, our memory, our emotions and the ability to really sit back and notice and observe and how to interact with ourselves. And with life in a way, that’s both compassionate, and kind, but also strong and meaningful.

Kaitlin Harkess: That’s a nice balance that strong and meaningful with compassionate and kind that there’s this this clarity that we have. And I guess in kind of highlighting that it’s, it’s strong as well. It’s not just all candles and you know, bubble baths perhaps. Going on the other side of things that there’s a strength and a groundedness to it.

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah. And I think that’s hugely important, you know, sometimes, I’ve heard people use the term like spiritual bypassing and and I’ve seen that happen in the yoga community and it with people time, you know, we’ve all seen it where there’s this kind of unhealthy detachment or passivity that can happen. As you know, we sit back and notice our emotions and thoughts and things that are occurring in life. And I think what’s really power, one of the powerful things about yoga is when you’re reading texts like the Bhagavad Gita, that it really speaks to the action of yoga. And that, that yoga is this really active path of not just noticing, but also right action. And how do you like, we use the discernment that we learn in yoga to actually, cultivate compassionate, right action.

Kaitlin Harkess: So, there’s a dynamicness to it and and what you kind of highlight in there, the right action, because that’s not always easy. And that can bring up, uncomfortable emotions, we might have to sit with them. We might move into them, and that’s very different. So we’ve got the spiritual bypassing. And I’ve also heard this like, you know, listeners. You can’t see my air quotes, but, you know, there’s “good vibes only” mentality that sometimes shows up in yoga circles as well, that sounds like your, your philosophy, your framework is kind of pulling away from that, this idea that we can have uncomfortable feelings and it still may be a yoga practice.

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah. And if it’s okay just to, because what you’re saying, I think just aligns with. I know one thing that we’re going to talk about which was the article about what Stephen Porges. And you know, one of the things yoga teaches is that like so one of the philosophies of yoga is that we have these three qualities that are constantly shifting and changing. So that we have this this quality of clarity, which is sattva,this quality of movement which is rajas, and this quality of stillness which is tamas, and in yoga we’re not supposed to just stay in sattva all the time. This like clarity, luminosity, calmness, but that life is really about being able to notice when we’re in that clarity. But also when agitation arises or when lethargy arises and how to how to, you know, really shift between these states of being. And so, so the yoga practice is really about embracing and noticing and being with all of those different layers.

Kaitlin Harkess: So the three qualities sattva, rajas, and tamas and it’s linking to Polyvagal Theory. I think we’ll come back to these three qualities, these three Gunas because they link in so wonderfully to Polyvagal Theory, but should we introduce Polyvagal Theory for listeners, first? Would you mind guiding us there?

Marlysa Sullivan: So Polyvagal Theory was developed by Stephen Porges and there’s many amazing things about the theory, but some of the aspects of it that to me have been most important in my work personally and professionally has been this idea that there are these underlying autonomic nervous system states that give rise to shared physiological, psychological, and behavioral attributes. So a really easy way to understand that is through the whole idea of the fight or flight response that when we’re in a fight or flight response for physiologically, mobilized for action, heart rate is increased, respiratory rate has increased, muscles are tensed. At the same time, the emotions that are going to be more likely to emerge are things like anxiety or fear or worry and the behaviors are fight or flight. And when we’re in physiological, when we’re in the relaxation response, we’re in these rest and relax states physiologically and those coexist with emotions like peacefulness, joy, happiness, and you know, behaviors that are like compassion and empathy. So Polyvagal Theory gives us a way to understand complex conditions that have physiological, emotional, and behavioral attributes through these underlying autonomic states. So, in something, like, irritable bowel syndrome or chronic pain, or, or even trauma, we can begin to, we can begin to instead of like treating the physiologies, emotions, and the behavior, we can actually come underneath to address what’s happening in the autonomic nervous system. So it gives us this really beautiful framework to work with all of these aspects of ourselves in a really integrated fashion. The other thing that I really take from Polyvagal Theory is the idea of what he calls neuroception which is that our nervous system is constantly subconsciously detecting safety or threat. So right now, without you being consciously aware, all of your five senses are taking in information from the environment as well as interoceptively, you’re taking in information, like how hungry you are, how hydrated you are, all those kinds of things, how tired you are and that’s creating an autonomic nervous system state underneath your awareness. So we’re constantly detecting safety or danger. So in our in our focus group about yoga for chronic pain, one of the things we talked about is that yoga can can really help someone to cultivate safety musculoskeletaly, autonomic nervous system wise as well as emotionally.

Kaitlin Harkess: Incredible isn’t it? How how there’s, you know, this awareness that’s happening beneath our awareness which perhaps we all to some extent kind of know, you know, there’s this uh senseness – that we experience, but having a language to it, this idea of neuroception I think is really interesting and when you mention the autonomic nervous system just so listeners, you know, I think they’ve heard enough about it probably in these episodes, but just in case it’s something that’s less familiar to a listener, right now. So autonomic nervous system means automatic like it’s not something we have control and we don’t choose how you know, quick, our heart rate is going or if our pupils are going to dilate and something like the fight, or flight response or you know, how our digestion will be affected. So, there’s something that happens in our body and when you describe the fight or flight response and you know, the physical emotional and behavioral elements of it that links so perfectly to psychological theory, which I work as a psychologist, so, you know, there’s so much, so much overlap here, between what’s happening in our physical body and our emotional body, isn’t there? And our behavioral body that we can’t separate them anymore.

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah and it’s really, you know, one of the things I think that Polyvagal Theory has really helped clinicians and researchers to open into the conversation about is that that they are so intricately connected and we can’t, you know, for for most conditions or for most things that are arising in people’s lives that it’s not of benefit to try to see him as, like, here’s a physiological condition separate from an emotional experience.

Kaitlin Harkess: So, we’ve got then in the polyvegal theory, three elements, we talked about the fight or flight response and we talked about sort of a rest and digest response or, you know, a relaxation response. How do how do we get three elements?

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah, so one of the things that Dr. Porges found is that, so the vagus nerve and which is used named after Polyvagal Theory, the vagus nerve is one of the largest nerves in our body. It goes from our brain stem and they goes really to like all of our organs. So it’s called the word vegus means wandering nerve because it just wanders throughout. And what’s one of the cool things about the nerve is that it’s 80% interoceptive. Meaning that 80% of the nerve fibers are devoted to taking information from the body to the brain. So it’s just sensing the state of all of your organs to let your brain know what the state of your organs are in. The rest of it, just 20% is then responsible for the slowing down of the system. This parasympathetic response. So I remember I read this part in his book Polyvagal Theory and it talks about how there was a like, neonatal doctor, I think it was that asked him about that brought up the point that we always think about the parasympathetic rest and digest, relaxation as this optimal thing that we want. But in babies, there’s this fetal distress that can happen if they have too much parasympathetic outflow, where they slow down to such an extent that it shuts down their systems down and they can die. And so what Dr. Porges found is that there’s actually two origination sites for the vagus nerve. They come from the brain stem one is a nucleus ambiguous and the other one is a dorsal motor nucleus, I don’t know how important it is that people know that.

Kaitlin Harkess: Listeners who are interested in that can look that up.

Marlysa Sullivan: But so one of the one of the origination sites is responsible for what we think of as the relaxation response, it connects to the heart, it slows the heart rate, creates heart rate variability, and all of that. So what he also found is that this other origination site is responsible for a slowing down of our systems to the barest enough needed for survival. So you know, it lowers our body temperature. It lowers our respiratory rate so the least amount that we need, our heart rates. And so it’s similar to when a cat catches a mouse and the mouse feigns death, and when it’s feigning death, you know it’s not doing it consciously but what happens to it system is that like the cat really thinks the mouse has died because the body temperature is lowered. Respiratory rate has lowered its gone limp, it’s not freeze, it’s gone limp. So once it so the this other part of the parasympathetic nervous system is really about when the nervous system perceives life threats. There’s a shutting down of the systems that can happen. So he talks about. So these three platforms are the fighter flights or defensive mobilization. This optimal relaxation response, which he calls social engagements, and this dorsal vagal, which it can be called defensive immobilization. He also talks about combined States. So if you look at the state of freeze that people sometimes speak about, freeze has some sympathetic activation because you’re in this mobilized state but you’re also in your also immobilized so you have that dorsal motor nucleus with it.

Kaitlin Harkess: So it’s this idea that there’s these three sort of components based on these two parts of our nervous system because there’s the differentiation within the parasympathetic nervous system. But then there can be some combined experiences, like a freeze response, which, you know, we might see we’ve probably all experienced at a time where we were startled and we kind of, you know, have that, that, that frozen moment as to what’s going on. But there’s some like tension in the system versus with that mouse when you described it as really limp that that’s very different. And that’s that real that real sort of total shutdown, you know?

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah. And I think, you know, clinicians I think psychotherapists have really adopted the series even more than physical therapists because it seems to describe not a psychotherapist but it seems to describe something that psychotherapists see where when people have experienced really extreme trauma that their system responded as life threats that there was this shutting down of the ystem or dissociative types of states.

Kaitlin Harkess: And I guess with that. So, you know, you mentioned, neuroception earlier because that’s quite empowering for people to realize that they didn’t do something wrong, if they didn’t respond to a threat or a difficult situation. That actually, you know, we don’t have control over these things. This this word, neuroception kind of catches the idea that our body’s experiencing something and responds in the best way it can in the moment. Is that, is that accurate?

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah and I think that’s a really wonderful point and something that I really love learning from Dr. Porges is every so often I would say like our nervous system or the person and he would say no it’s like it’s the nervous system that is perceiving the safety or threat so that it’s really not. It really takes the judgment out of it so that the person can really disconnect from that disconnect or detach from that judgment in a healthy way to see it as like their body having a natural response to threat.

Kaitlin Harkess: Yeah so it’s all about our body doing what it needs to to survive. And then this this pairs on to the three gunas that you mentioned earlier. So how does it how does it link? Because you know what, I read your article and so listeners, I’ll link to the scientific article on which, you know, this conversation right now is sort of being being based but I was I was like that makes so much sense. So tell me, tell me more, tell the listeners more. How do those link?

Marlysa Sullivan: So, one of the things that I think it’s really important to think about is, like, in making this parallel between Polyvagal Theory and yoga, I’m not trying to say they’re the exact same thing. Like they’re not one is not, you know, they’re not there and I’m not trying to. Anyway, I’m not trying to say that they’re the exact same thing or trying to like lessen what either one of them are independently, what I think is really phenomenal about it is that they both describe this idea that there’s an underlying thing in Polyvagal Theory, theory is the autonomic nervous system activation and yoga is these energies or these qualities. And that when we address the underlying theme we affect physiology, emotion, and behavior together. So they both have this idea that instead of seeing the person as these disparate aspects of physiology, emotion, and behavior, we see them as a cohesive whole by understanding what’s underlying. And then we direct our interventions of what’s underlying. Then, from a deeper level, and there are convergence, is that they both describe three main platforms. So, in, in Polyvagal Theory, they describe the platform of social engagement as is physiological, rest and digest this place where the emotions are things like, peacefulness, calm. And there’s pro-social behaviours, like, compassion, and empathy. In yoga, they talk about the quality of supper as this clarity and this luminosity where the body is clear and relaxed where the mind is calm and joyful and the behavior is that someone sees the connection between all beings. So we could say that when someone is in a sattva state that this social engagement mural platform is probably going to be activated or vice versa by activating that neural platform of social engagement, you’re going to help cultivate satva. So they’re not the same thing but that one intersects with the other one and one helps the other to emerge. And then from the neural, so from in the Polyvagal Theory, we have the sympathetic system as a neural platform and in yoga, we have rajas as this energy of mobilization. In Polyvagal Theory, they talk about how when the sympathetic nervous system co- activates with social engagements, we have states of play. So when you’re like playing a sport, you’re perceiving safety but your system is mobilized when you’re in a yoga posture like bridge or a warrior or sun salutation, you’re perceiving safety but your physiologically mobilized. When you’re writing, when you’re doing some creative endeavor. So similarly yoga talks about when rajas is activated in balance with the other gunas, it allows for creativity and allows for that motivation for change. However, when rajas becomes imbalanced, then it’s the state of physiological mobilization anxiety, agitation, those things. And then the, the other state is in yoga called tamas, which is the state of lethargy, or inertia, or obscuration, which again, is similar to this idea of the dorsal vegal system where the body becomes, where it’s associated with kind of dissociative states. So just like when sattva like sattva is when sattva is cultivated, there’s more likelihood for the social engagement neural platform and vice versa. When rajas is activated, the sympathetic nervous system and when tamas is activated this dorsal vagal complex.

Kaitlin Harkess: You mentioned how they overlap and you gave us examples of how it comes out in our own lives that, you know, it’s not so discreet that there’s only these three states or experiences that we have, but that there’s a lot of overlap and use the word balance and ideally movement towards balancing between them and that, you know, our gunas, our energetic state might then sort of predict then where we sort of rest in in regards to these polyvagal states and vice versa that there’s a connection between them, although they’re not synonymous for each other.

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah. And like, so, as a yoga therapist, what a yoga therapist can do with this philosophy and this theory is that they can evaluate and create an intervention for someone in line with their own philosophy. So that when they evaluate, they can look for these qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas and they can help the person to cultivate sattva or to balance rajas or balance tamas but they can also go explain it to someone in the autonomic nervous system terminology so that the biomedical community understands what they’re saying. So the the language of both allows it to be distinctly yoga therapy, tied to the philosophical foundation yet translatable.

Kaitlin Harkess: That’s important, isn’t it? Because I suppose otherwise, when we just hear, oh yeah, there’s like energy floating around, it sounds a little bit woowoo but here we’re actually going, okay no, like this is, this is the science that underpins it and this is how it relates and gives a different language in a different context that makes sense depending on someone’s yeah, philosophical sort of leanings or vantage point. Yeah, so when a yoga therapist works with someone like, let’s say they’re working with someone with chronic pain and that’s something I work with a lot. But you know, their viewpoint, their intention is to evaluate and see is this person imbalanced in rajas, are they in balance in tamas? How do I help them cultivates sattva in order to regulate their system and so they can, you know, they can do the full evaluation and work with someone in a way that’s very different than a physical therapist or a psychotherapist. So then you can really see the the team that the psychotherapist would focus on this. The physical therapist would focus on this and the yoga therapist would be focusing on this autonomic regulation and resilience or this guna regulation and resilience.

Kaitlin Harkess: So with that kind of, in mind, you know where, while working with a yoga therapist is one avenue, is there anything that listeners could kind of do on their own, just to start to think, you know, how are they balanced? Or, you know, is there anything they could be mindful of, in terms of moving towards cultivating this balance, or awareness, of where there might be imbalance in regards to their energy?

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things that like when you read research about chronic pain or about irritable bowel syndrome or things like this. Like this idea of autonomic regulation is something that is really coming forward as a big contributor to these kinds of complex conditions. So there are things that we could do and, you know, so that the practices of the first practice is really becoming aware, you know, so taking a moment to notice, like in this moment, are you activated? If you scan your musculoskeletal system, are you holding tension in places that you don’t need to hold tension? What is your breath length? A relaxed breath or a parasympatheticly activating breath is one where the exhales are a little longer than the inhales. So what are your exhales and inhales like? Can you lengthen the exhale a little bit. Noticing the kinds of emotions and thoughts that are arising and even noticing how the body responds to those emotions and then using something like the breath or using intention or imagery to shift those.

Kaitlin Harkess: That’s beautiful. So the breath is a great place to start. Something that we hear a lot about, don’t we? You know, it’s something that’s become quite topical in terms of a healing practice. So noticing, cultivating awareness and I wonder if you could perhaps link us to or talk to how we cultivate, you know, purpose and intention in our yoga practice? Because you know, you’ve highlighted you’re a physical therapist but yoga is different than physical therapy and I’m curious as to how that that works and looks.

Marlysa Sullivan: As far as the purpose are, is that so?

Kaitlin Harkess: So maybe if someone you know, is is new to yoga and they’re thinking okay you know this sounds interesting. There’s these three types of energies and if I focus on my breath I might notice if I’m a bit more more heightened or more energetic, kind of more in that rajas state, or maybe if I’ve got that slightly longer, exhale, I might, I might be finding my way to calm. Is that, is that just yoga? Or is there an intentionality that comes with with these practices of maybe breath and movement? Or how do we, how do we link in the philosophy?

Marlysa Sullivan: So they’re, you know, going actually in a way going back to what we said at the beginning, as far as like, what I think yoga is, well, you know, I think part of it is, you know, this development of discernment is a huge part of the philosophy of yoga. The ability to sit back, and watch and notice emotions, behavior, physiological reactions, to notice their relationships with one another. So I think one yoga practice is simply that noticing and then, another yoga practice is, how do I alter that? How do I shift that into positive healthy states? And so that, you’re like, what we were just talking about with breath or with movement, we can do that. But then I think a bigger overarching philosophy in yoga is this idea of purpose and meaning. There’s another paper that I wrote that is called Towards an Explanatory Framework of Yoga Therapy based on theoretical and philosophical foundations. Because every title I have is way too long, I can’t. Everything I write has a semi-colon and it’s half of the title.

Kaitlin Harkess: I love that because we know exactly what it’s about, it’s clearly defined.

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah we know exactly what it’s about. So what that paper talks about is that and this is what goes to what you were saying, part of the difference between yoga therapy and physical therapy to me, it talks about how in the experience of illness, pain, or disability -that someone has a changed relationship to their body, their mind, and their life, everything around them that can help perpetuate suffering. Likewise suffering can change the relationship I have to my body, my mind, and my life in a way that worsens illness, pain, or disability. Through yoga, this teaching of discernment is really key again to like notice but then yoga teaches practices of ethical inquiry and practices of purpose and meaning to help really reorient the person to a new relationship with their body, mind, and their life that creates eudenomic wellbeing. Eudemonic wellbeing, I was trying to find, but it’s the best word to use.

Kaitlin Harkess: Well define it.

Marlysa Sullivan: So eudemonic wellbeing comes from Aristotle and Aristotle’s idea of eudaimonia, which is to reach our highest fulfillment, our highest purpose, and eudemonic wellbeing in research is defined as a steadfast type of contentment. So, it’s differentiated from happiness or hedonic happiness that comes and goes to be more like this steadfast contentment. When they have broken apart that constructs of that, it’s things like it’s made up of purpose and meaning, alignment with values, connection to one’s own inner authenticity and quality social relationships. So that’s why it’s just such a good word because it just encapsulates all of that. Otherwise. So, so when when we think about yoga practices, they have these, it’s teaching us discernment for sure but it’s also teaching us a different way to orient to life, to orient to an essential nature and essential part of us that is always whole, that is always complete, that is how that experience, this steadfast contentments. One of the my favorite teachings and yoga is this idea of Dharma which some people define as purpose and meaning. But it’s really this inner and outer harmony that arises when we’re in alignment with our values and what the word also entails, is this idea that when I’m living in this inner and outer harmony and nourishes, not just myself, it’s not this personal purpose, but when I’m in that purpose and meaning that is dharmic, it also sustains and nourishes those around me. So the way that I can know that I’m in my purpose and meaning is if those around me are also experiencing and reflecting that as well. So it’s just a really beautiful philosophy of understanding like what we were talking about before. There’s that strength and that kindness that ethical inquiry and right action is this really beautiful experience of harmonizing with my most inner truth but my most inner truth is connected to what is best for the world around me.

Kaitlin Harkess: That’s so beautiful. What like what an aspirational place to guide us towards, to move us towards this idea of, you know, eudemic wellbeing and Dharma in the sense of aligning in such a way that it’s not just for our sense of, you know, self or wellbeing that it’s about how we affect everyone around us, these ripples in the community that that really brings the sweet spot.

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah, and when we are aligned with that, what we find is even if you know if we have a chronic condition, our whole relationship with that condition changes. So people that you know, experienced this transformation, notice that like they say things like you know, I still have multiple sclerosis but it doesn’t have me. That like you know my body is experiencing this chronic pain but I’m still whole and complete so you know they really get to touch on this aspect of themselves that is not their identification with their body or their mind or their life circumstance.

Kaitlin Harkess: Then that’s really important because one of the things that perhaps comes up too as, you know, yoga therapy, I think, you know, particularly that opportunity to work one-on-one or in a small group with someone is really healing and perhaps breaks down some of the walls of attending a yoga class. But, you know, there is this depiction of yoga in a specific light that can, you know, draw draw bounds and perhaps exclude people from exploring it as a practice because if you think that you have to wear a crop top or stand on your head or, you know, I guess fit a specific model that really, really cuts people out of this practice where you describe it as so much more. You know, you described at the beginning of this interview, you know you’re writing as yoga. So you know if there’s another way to kind of show up in our lives, I think it provides an entry point. And then, maybe the sense that if we go to a yoga practice and we’re not in the front row, doing the splits that that’s okay, we can still be working and living in alignment with our practice. And, you know, whether we have a disability, a chronic condition that that, that doesn’t need to preclude us from engaging in a beautiful practice to, to find our way to, you know, you eudemic wellbeing, like to find our way to our Dharma. Do you have any guidance to support people and kind of navigating that because it is, it is an area that I do, you know, personally, when I work with people one-on-one here, a bit of struggle around if someone doesn’t feel safe to attend a yoga class for whatever reason, how do you guide people?

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah, I think that’s probably one of the most detrimental things that have happened to yoga. That, it became so linked to exercise and fitness and, you know, these like gymnasticy things. And, you know, I do see in the yoga world, movement away from that, which is great. You know, there’s people doing really great work, like, Accessible Yoga is doing some great work in that and so I think it’s helping people find the yoga that is this. And it is out there. I am hopefully it’s becoming more understood and a bigger part of the yoga community that that does pardon me because I do see that, maybe it’s because I’m in my own bubble but. So I think you know, finding, there are great resources like there is accessible, but like I said, Accessible Yoga is a really nice website. Well they’re more than website, they’re a group. But they have a website that that would be a good place for people to go and see what else. YogaUOnline, is another place that has a lot of therapeutic. And of course, IYAT, the International Association of Yoga Therapists is also another group that. And so like they have different and actually the International Association Yoga Therapists also has a another website, I think it’s going to yogatherapy.health.

Kaitlin Harkess: I’ll find it and put it in the show notes, listeners.

Marlysa Sullivan: And it has some really great tips as well as far as finding classes, finding teachers across the world.

Kaitlin Harkess: Brilliant.

Marlysa Sullivan: So my answer is we have a little global consortium of yoga therapy. So like it is definitely, and then Ann Marie in Australia has Yoga for Better Health. And so she, it’s an app and that company that’s doing a lot with therapeutic yoga. She has a big Global Yoga Therapy Day so you know, it is trying to find the resources. So we’ll make sure we have a list.

Kaitlin Harkess: Yes they’ll be a list, so just head to the show notes listeners and and kind of follow up there and and I guess kind of knowing that this stuff is out there. Keep exploring. Because if there have been, you know, adverse experiences that you might have had or just concerns. Know that one practice, one studio isn’t the be-all-end-all. It isn’t the only yoga that’s out there. There’s there’s different teachers, different forms, different styles and it is this exploring. And if this conversation has resonated with you, then certainly a great place to start, you know, particularly, you know, chronic pain is something that alot unfortunately, a lot of individuals are suffering from, you know, even grabbing a copy of your book might be a nice, a nice place to start.

Marlysa Sullivan: We have some nice practices in there too so yeah.

Kaitlin Harkess: Oh Brilliant, okay. So where can listeners connect with you? Where are the best places to kind of keep up to date with the work that you’ve done and are doing?

Marlysa Sullivan: Yeah. Well, I think like the like you said two books, The Understanding Yoga Therapy book and the Yoga in Science in Pain Care book both have practices and then my website is marlysasolvent.com and so I have some different recordings on there and then I do, I do have a Facebook page, I’ve been a little absent but I’ll try to be more active.

Kaitlin Harkess: I’ll put the links to all of this in the show notes listeners, as well. And then you can always at least send some messages and kind of check in on on, what’s going on in and connect with Marlysa and the amazing work that you’re doing because this, this is incredible. This bridging of the philosophy and the science and you know the the shared languaging that’s cultivated in these conversations I think is so powerful. So thank you so much for making the space today to share with the Wisdom for Wellbeing listeners on yoga therapy and you know, this link between Polyvagal Theory and you know the philosophical framework of yoga and particularly around the energies that we talked about.

Marlysa Sullivan: Thank you.

Kaitlin Harkess: Well, I am so very curious about how you found that interview. I find this idea of overlap between Eastern and Western philosophy and science so interesting. You know that the gunas, these emotional states from yogic philosophy pair really well with Polyvagal Theory, this Western framework. This Western theory of neuroception and theory, ultimately, of emotional experience, once again, right down to that neurological level. No doubt you may be listening to these episodes because you enjoyed nerding out around yoga and psychology as much as I do. And please reach out with any questions, comments, ideas that you might have along the way. Again head on over to drkaitlin.com and sign up for the Yoga Nerds mailing list or just flick me an email at hello@drkaitlin.com if you do want me to let you know when the pre-sale for the yoga and psychology course is out or if you’d like more details that will of course be coming soon. I’ll announce when everything’s crossed t’s, dot i’s and ready to go. But for now I will let you get back to a very hopefully a wonderful week ahead and I’ll drop back into your ear buds in a couple of weeks time. All right. Bye for now.

Outro: Thanks for joining us this week on the Wisdom for Wellbeing podcast. Please visit drkaitlin.com to connect, find show notes, other episodes, and to subscribe. While you’re at it, if you find value in the show, we’d appreciate a rating or perhaps simply tell a friend about the show. Wisdom for Wellbeing is not a substitute for professional, individualized mental health treatment. If you are in crisis, please contact 000, your local emergency number if you are outside of Australia, or attend your local hospital ED.