Align Wellness

We asked our therapists to share some unpopular opinions, or "hot takes" - though we don't think there's anything all that hot about them.

Align owner, Melanie Storrusten, LCSW says:

Maybe Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (which he “borrowed” and misapplied from indigenous wisdom) should have been more like an Order of Operations. If we met people’s basic needs, and had an equitable and non-oppressive society, how many “mental health symptoms” would go away?

"Without reference from another, we cannot truly realize who we are." --Matthew Sanford, Mind Body Solutions ()

When I was first starting Align Wellness, one of my first investments was a week long training for yoga teachers to learn to teach yoga to folks with severe physical disabilities, taught by Matthew Sanford, a man who has been paralyzed from the chest down since he was thirteen years old. It was amazing, and mind-blowing, and way too much to write here, but if you ever want me to start talking and never shut up, you should ask me about it sometime. In addition to learning about how to help disabled folks move their bodies to experience the core sensations of yoga, like grounding and expansion, I also learned so much about the many ways of sensing my own body, of being in my body, outside of the ways we typically conceptualize our sense of touch.

One of my favorite exercises was to have a partner place a hand on our back, and to notice the ways that this helped us to better know where we were in space, to have a felt sense of where the boundaries of our bodies - I could know where I ended because I could feel where another began - and how this in some way "closed the circuit" between me and the earth and I could feel more grounded and connected to it all.

I think often about how much healing is just two human nervous systems and bodies interacting honestly. And how Matthew learned so much about these other ways of knowing our bodies because he had to, and what a gift it was that he chose to then share it to help others. And isn't that what all healing is after all? All of us finding the ways to heal our own wounds, and then deciding to make a life's work out of passing it along to others? And all relationships - helping each other figure out where and who we are in the world?

"When one is pretending, the whole body revolts." -- Anais Nin

Sometimes when we come to therapy with unmanageable anxiety, intrusive or racing thoughts, depression, or even unexplained physical conditions, we want the therapist to just give us a tool that will make it manageable. We come in with our overflowing plates of responsibilities and ask the therapist to help us grow our plates bigger. It's true, there are cognitive techniques and stoic philosophies that can harness the resilience and longsuffering power of the human spirit to help us keep on keeping on. In truly unavoidable circumstances, sometimes these things are demanded of us for our literal survival. But in most circumstances, I believe it is harmful for me to help you continue to pile more and more stressors on your plate. Our exploitive, capitalist systems certainly have done their job well in convincing us that this kind of sacrifice is required, moral, or a determinate of our worth.

The word "pretending" in this quote carries a bit more sting than I like - it has a bit of a dishonest vibe. But I think if we try to set aside that sting, it can be an accurate word for the denial we are sometimes in about the truth of our capacity as human beings, the truth about how much work and emotional load we are able to bear and continue to live meaningful lives, and even how the heavy loads we are carrying may be preventing us from achieving baseline physical and mental wellness.

What if instead of growing your plate, we start to get curious about what's on it and why, and whether the things we think we must carry are actually ours?

This is actually harder work than growing your plate. Healing is hard in a different way.

What makes a space feel sacred for you?

Sacred really just means "set apart from the ordinary" - we can make any space sacred just by intending it to be so, by taking a moment to shift into a frame of mind and way of being that feels ✨️different✨️ from the rest of our day. Whether that's by invoking a Higher Power or just taking a breath and moving forward into the space with intention and purpose, have you ever noticed how intending a space to be filled with meaning makes it feel more... holy? What's a place that you've spent time in that feels like this? What do you think makes it feel different?

I once read online about a woman who went to an empty church while traveling and asked its caretaker if she could just scream for a while, and the caretaker responded: I can think of no more sacred use for a church.

In that way, I want our office to feel sacred. I want it to feel comfortable and accessible and not at all intimidating, but I do want it to feel set apart. I think that's one thing I love about in-person therapy - it feels like I'm coming to a special place for a particular purpose, and that the work I'm doing here is important and deserves its own container. I want it to feel like the space was specifically designed to support that work. If there's anything I'm not laid back about as a boss - it's our space.

Some of the notable sacred places I've loved: The Hanuman temple at Kashi in Sebastian, FL, the meditation room at the Spa at The Grand Hotel in Fairhope, AL, Benton Falls in Benton, TN, Lula Falls in the Lula Lake Land Trust in Lookout Mountain, GA, The Grief House at Legacy Park in Decatur (pictured here is Legacy Park's Moore Chapel, where we have hosted several Grief Rituals), Oakland Cemetery, the dry sauna huts at Je Ju Spa, a church in Taxco, Mexico, my land when I lived in Tucker, GA, the trails at Stone Mountain. I would love to hear some of yours.