Body Aware: Rediscover Your Mind-Body Connection, Stop Feeling Stuck, and Improve Your Mental Health with Simple Movement Practices

by Erica Hornthal, Nicole Lepera PhD (Foreword by)

Overview

An at-home mindful movement practice—cultivate resilience, dispel emotional blockages, and live your best life with the power of movement.

When we talk about movement, most of us think “exercise.” But the way we move our bodies—how we walk, roll, dance, stretch, connect, and take up space—is about so much more than physical fitness. Our movements impact our mental and emotional health...and when we change the way we move, we can change the way we live.

Licensed clinical professional counselor and board-certified dance and movement therapist Erica Hornthal—aka “The Therapist Who Moves You”—takes readers on a step-by-step journey, showing how a mindful movement practice can:

• Help ease symptoms of depression

• Build a greater sense of connection and intimacy with loved ones

• Slow down thoughts to lessen anxiety and panic

• Impact how—and what—we feel

Readers will learn to identify where they physically hold their emotions; understand and interpret their body’s unique language; explore bodily sensations; identify emotional blockages; and upgrade harmful thought cycles to patterns that instead foster resilience, emotional regulation, and productivity. With a chapter on disability and movement diversity, Hornthal’s guide begins to move dance therapy to a more inclusive, non-prescriptive space, helping each of us discover the kind of movement that works best for us.

Broken into three sections, “How You Move,” “How Movement is a Catalyst for Change,” and “Transforming Your Life Through Movement,” Body Aware is a revelatory transformational practice and an easy-to-use introduction to the mind-body power of intentional movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623176891
Publisher:	North Atlantic Books
Publication date:	08/09/2022
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	340,428
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

ERICA HORNTHAL is a licensed clinical professional counselor, board-certified dance/movement therapist, and the CEO and founder of Chicago Dance Therapy. Since graduating with her MA in Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling from Columbia College Chicago, Erica has worked with thousands of patients aged 3-107. Known as “The Therapist Who Moves You,” Hornthal is changing the way people see movement with regard to mental health.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Foreword Dr. Nicole LePera xvii

Part 1 Exploring How You Move

Introduction: Your Movement Matters 3

Chapter 1 Becoming Body Aware 15

Chapter 2 Redefining Movement 29

Chapter 3 Your Body Talks 43

Part 2 Movement Is a Catalyst for Change

Chapter 4 Move Your Body, Move Your Mind 63

Chapter 5 Planes Are Not Just for Flying 97

Chapter 6 Unlocking Cognitive Potential 115

Part 3 Transformation through Movement

Chapter 7 Perspection 135

Chapter 8 The Dance of Resilience 149

Chapter 9 Disability and Diversity 165

Chapter 10 Putting It into Practice 173

Conclusion 189

Acknowledgments 193

Notes 197

Additional Resources and Further Suggested Reading 207

Index 211

About the Author 219

Editorial Reviews

05/16/2022

This enjoyable guide by dance therapist Hornthal (My Body Talks) explores the healing powers of movement. Drawing on personal anecdotes and client stories from her practice, the author examines the mind-body connection and provides exercises to foster it and improve mental health. Hornthal recounts how she started dancing at a young age and used it to cope with such major life changes as moving across the country while in high school and later when entering college. She also tells how movement therapy has helped her clients—including a woman with Parkinson’s disease who showed significant improvement in dexterity after attending the author’s dance therapy—positing that “working on connectivities in the body fosters connection in the brain.” Hornthal provides exercises to strengthen the mind-body connection, suggesting, for instance, that readers stand in a doorway with their feet against the sides of the frame and then “play with the space” to foster self-awareness. She also addresses movement in neurodiverse people and those with disabilities, urging readers to “try movement from a different perspective,” whatever that may mean for their bodies. Her compassionate tone and inclusive approach make for a rewarding manual. Insightful and sensitive, this will delight the mindfulness crowd. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Insightful and sensitive, this will delight the mindfulness crowd."
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"If you have a body, I highly recommend you read this book."
—REBECCA PACHECO, author of Still Life

"If you are looking to heal, this is the book for you."
—DR. NICOLE LEPERA, PhD, author of How to Do the Work

"Hornthal ... helps us appreciate the intersection of these insights: that changing the activity of the body facilitates larger personal changes.... For practicing mental health practitioners and their clients, this is a game-changer."
—BRETT N. STEENBARGER, PhD, teaching professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, SUNY Upstate Medical University

"Erica brings a deep knowledge of how we can better listen to what our own bodies—and how movement can change how we feel and experience the world."
—JENNIFER STAHL, content director for DanceMedia and editor in chief of Dance magazine

"Written in accessible and friendly language, [this book] will help you to see that dance is about much more than dance, and the healing journey involves much more than working with our rational minds." 
—JAMIEMARICH, PhD, LPCC-S, LICDC-CS, REAT, RYT-500, author of Trauma and the 12 Steps

"Erica’s dance therapy brings peace and joy to your heart."
—MARC WEISSBLUTH, MD, Professor Emeritus of Clinical Pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine

"Erica Hornthal brilliantly illustrates that showing up in this life begins by Simply Be-ing in our bodies."
—JESSICA ZWEIG, CEO of SimplyBe agency and best-selling author

"Full of action-based exercises and scientifically informed strategies for healing both the most subtle and most prominent emotional scars.... A must-read."
—HELAINA HOVITZ REGAL, journalist and author of After 9/11

"The prescription you need to reset your body’s state of alarm, resolve emotional and physical 'dis-ease,' and maintain the healthy synergy between your body and mind."
—DR. RUSSELL KENNEDY, THE ANXIETY MD, author of The Anxiety Rx

"Pick up Body Aware and ... you’ll feel enriched, encouraged, and gently challenged to expand your vitality and creativity with powerfully simple practices that bridge mind and body with new moves." 
—KATHLYN HENDRICKS, PhD, BC-DMT, best-selling author of Conscious Loving

"This book does not proscribe certain movements—it assists us in finding movements within us and leveraging them for our and the world’s transformation. Well done!" 
—CHRISTINE CALDWELL, PhD, LPC, BC-DMT, Professor Emeritus of Somatic Counseling Psychology, Naropa University, and coauthor of Oppression and the Body

"This [book's] call inward provides a timely remedy for the soul."
—SUSAN BAUER, RSME/T, RSDE, MFA, founder of Embodiment in Education™ and author of The Embodied Teen

"For anyone who feels their body has been relegated to the shadows ... this book is a must-read."
—RACHEL COSSAR, CEO at Virtual Sapiens

"A treasure of knowledge and exploration."
—AZIZI MARSHALL, founder and CEO of the Center for Creative Arts Therapy

From the Publisher