Mad Yoga Network
Mad Yoga Network
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There Are Others: Normalizing Mental Health Challenges - Click here for a personal note from Brooke, creator of The Mad Yoga Network 💙
There Are Others: Normalizing Mental Health Challenges - Click here for a personal note from Brooke, creator of The Mad Yoga Network 💙
Brooke West (they/she) is the creator of The Mad Yoga Network. Brooke is a certified yoga therapist and peer support facilitator, a multidisciplinary artist and writer from California.
Brooke is currently in a Master's program in Depth Psychology and Creativity. Plastic arts, floristry and writing are longtime passions. Brooke owned a flower business for twelve years, designing for weddings using wildcrafted materials from the Central Coast of California. Brooke is an herbalist and medicine-maker, a gardener and painter, a feral-animal tamer and has been described as a mystic, a shaman and a magic-maker.
Brooke developed a dynamic and diversified yoga therapy business over almost twenty years before the pandemic evaporated the entity. Classes, workshops, trainings, retreats, fundraising, cooking ayurvedically, herb-tending, and writing and more were part of this organism that was Brooke West Yoga. More art opportunities were always requested.
Between 2002 and 2011, the peak of popular yoga in the U.S., I was practicing and teaching yoga in the town where I had been hospitalized and medicated without my consent in 1995. I felt alone. Forever grieving the suicide of my older sister D'Arcy in 1999, I wondered why Yoga was helping me manage my moods and gently drawing me from the lighter psychoses that I struggled to manage on my own.
During the early days of the internet, using the computer my sister had left behind, I knew, I could feel that there were others "out there" who were benefiting from yoga in the same ways that I was. I needed to talk. The internet did not allow the accessibility that it does today.
Mental health was still an uncommon topic in yoga circles; rarely were people talking openly about bipolar disorder, which was my diagnosis (I am also diagnosed with PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder. I wonder if I am also AuDHD). I was uncomfortable talking about it (and still am, but less so). My internalized ableism, shame, medical trauma, and a general misunderstanding about bipolar disorder that I experienced from others crippled me socially.
I wanted - and still want - to meet other people practicing yoga with bipolar disorder. I want to talk with yoga teachers living with mental health challenges. In creating The MAD YOGA Network, I hoped to share experiences and resources and support one another.
Mad Yoga is Peer Support By and For Yoga Teachers
Mad Yoga is Peer Support By and For Yoga Teachers
The mental health crisis is extreme. The shortage of mental health practitioners is epidemic. Yoga teachers with training and experience in peer support could take pressure off of the mental health services industry, first by supporting one another and then perhaps their micro-communities. Join us in a free upcoming group!
The mental health crisis is extreme. The shortage of mental health practitioners is epidemic. Yoga teachers with training and experience in peer support could take pressure off of the mental health services industry, first by supporting one another and then perhaps their micro-communities. Join us in a free upcoming group!
Why "Mad" Yoga? What is Peer Support?
Mad Yoga launched in August 2024 through AccessibleYoga's international platform and quickly gained an international following, as peer support for neurodivergent and differently-abled yoga teachers was non-existent. We are filling a need for connection and creating radical change from within the often-toxic yoga culture. We do this creatively, in many ways.
Peer support is not therapy. Peer support is an evidence-based psychosocial intervention enhancing mental health and reducing suicide. Participants attending peer support groups and yoga report improvements in their mental health. Peer support complements professional therapy, counseling or treatment.
We simply share experiences and resources in Mad Yoga Peer Support Sessions. You are invited to join, cameras off or on. We only ask that you introduce yourself. You are welcome to somply listen. Open to yoga teachers with mental health issues or neurodivergence.
Mad Yoga Peer Support Groups for Yoga Teachers
Mad Yoga Peer Support Groups for Yoga Teachers
Introductions and meditation, comfort agreements, lead-in, timed sharing, final meditation. 90 minutes. Free.
(Usually the last Saturday of the month at 11am PST)
Narrative Medicine for Neurodivergence
Narrative Medicine for Neurodivergence
Saturday, March 15, 11am PST Zoom link here
Thursday, March 27, 5pm PST Zoom link here
https://www.holisticyogatherapy.ca
Mad Yoga Network is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Mad Yoga must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Donate here (your donations are tax-deductible. Thank you!)
"Everything impacts mental health, and mental health impacts everything." - Robyn Priest, Live Your Truth
"Everything impacts mental health, and mental health impacts everything." - Robyn Priest, Live Your Truth
✅ Past events ✅
🦚 Peer supportAugust 10, August 26, September 14, October 19, November 2, November 16, 2024; January 28, 2025, February 22,Saturdays 11amPST/2pmEST/7pmUK/8pmEU/9pmPalestine/11pm BangaloreWeekdays at 5 or 5:30pm PST/10:30am Sydney/Melbourne
💙 Closed Group Dates (for folks who attended the groups in August/September - we loved it and each other so much, we wanted to hang out and go deeper as a crew 💙 - this is the point of peer support: connection!💙)💙 Thursdays 5pm PST October 10, October 17, October 24, 2024
🌱 The Cluster B’s Surviving Borderline, Narcissism, Anti-Social Behavior and Histrionics with Yoga Therapy. Trauma-informed care and peer support for the experiencer and their loved ones.Saturday, September 7, 2024
🌱 Spiritual Awakening, Psychosis and Kundalini Naturally with Yoga Therapy Care for your own emergence/emergency process and learn ways to support others in crisis.Most mental health crises occur in fall and spring.. Protect yourself from SAD, mania and more!Saturday, September 28, 2024
🌱 Yoga Therapy and Peer Support for Bipolar DisorderLearn ways to care for yourself and others naturally. Includes a memoir exercise and deep relaxation practice.Co-led with ML Maitreyi. Discussion of Bipolar 1 and Bipolar 2.Saturday, October 12, 2024🌱 Mad Yoga x Yoga for Neurodiversity Workshop: Unmasking Neurodivergence: Disrupting Neuronormativity Through Yoga with Becky Aten @yoga_for_neurodiversityThursday, January 9 and Saturday, January 18, 2025🌱 Narrative Medicine 101 with Niya Bajaj @holisticyogatherapistSaturday, February 8, 11am PST Zoom link hereThursday, February 20, 5pm PST Zoom link here
Subscribe for updates BrookeWestYoga.Substack.com
Info and links for free and donation based events on IG @BrookeWestYoga
Please follow @MadYogaNetwork on Instagram
MORE MAD YOGA INSPIRATION
"The world needs different minds in leadership. ADHD, autistic and dyslexic patterns come with depression, anxiety and high suicide rates. Making mindfulness accessible to neurodiverse populations, a neurodiversity-informed approach, will reach some of the most vulnerable and marginalized people in our community. Accessibility differences and barriers exist when working with people with invisible "illness" - looking at themselves requires a different approach and advisory..."
-Sue Hutton MSW/RSW "Neurodiversity and Mindfulness: Making mindfulness accessible to everyone" presentation with Michael Apollo of the Mindful Society Global Institute, February 6, 2024. MindfulnessInstitute.org : Neurodiversity-Informed Mindfulness Course
Colonization of the mind and social norms abruptly change once the practice of Yoga begins.
What Is the “Mad” in Mad Yoga Referring To?
"Mad" Movement:
An umbrella term for the movement that encompasses the international mad pride movement, psychiatric survivor, psychiatric abolition/anti-psychiatry, hearing voices, service user, consumer/survivor/ex-patient (ex-inmate), mental health recovery, mental disability social justice movements.
- from MadnessNetworkNews.com
"Mad Pride" is a mass movement of current and former users of mental health services, as well as those who have never used mental health services but are aligned with the Mad Pride framework. The movement advocates that
individuals with mental illness should be proud of their 'mad' identity.
Mad Pride was formed in 1993 in response to local community prejudices towards people with a psychiatric history
living in boarding homes in the Parkdale area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada; since then, an event has been held in Toronto every year (except for 1996).
A similar movement began around the same time in the United Kingdom, and by the late 1990s, Mad Pride events
were organized around the globe, including in Australia, Brazil, France, Ireland, Portugal, Madagascar, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States. Events draw thousands of participants, according to MindFreedom International,
a United States mental health advocacy organization that promotes and tracks events spawned by the movement.
-Wikipedia
The Emergent MAD YOGA NETWORK aims include:
∞ Creating safer spaces fro yoga teachers with lived experience of neurodivergence and mental health to open up and dialogue transparently about our mental health journeys;
∞ Designing and delivering therapeutic yoga programs and experiences by people living with mental health issues;
∞ Service;
∞ Service;
∞ Recognition that Yoga teachers and meditation teachers are on the front lines of public support and need support;
∞ Bringing the yoga industry and our communites to a higher octave with peer support experience and training.
Working on these:
Mission: to create a peer-support network of spiritually conscious yoga teachers who have lived experience of madness, mental health and neurodivergence.
Vision: Transforming mental health through a network of yoga teachers and practitioners informed by life-altering mental health challenges, trained in general peer support, in service to the yoga industry, including yoga students. Develop non-hierarchical relationships and open, honest conversations about neurodivergence, mental health and mental health challenges within the Yoga industry.
Values: As set forth by the Yamas and Niyamas, Sutra 1.33, empathy, compassion, honesty, willingness, acceptance...
Join us!
To participate:
Be willing to share about your unique experience of mental health, journey of resilience and recovery.
Subscribe to BrookeWestYoga.Substack.com for event updates!
Attend a support group!
There is a Discord server - ask for the link!
Follow @madyoganetwork on Instagram
Share your story on the socials and tag #madyoga and #madyoganetwork
Talk to people, listen, lean in and create your own groups
Participate with your feedback to create a cooperative movement
Keep on growing!
Mad Yoga Peer Support groups have been attended by individuals in all geographic regions of the U.S., the east and west coasts of Canada, Mexico, The Netherlands, Australia, Argentina, Ireland, Germany and other global regions.
Peer-led education and creative arts have been popular, including spiritual emergence conversations and narrative medicine.
The creation itself of Mad Yoga Network is a tremendous feat, coming from the hearts of like-minded survivors of imperialism and perfectionism, oppression and worse who have been traditionally marginalized, ostracized and excluded from mainstream yoga spaces.
Systemic change through a creative lens is the heart, arrow and target, aiming to support personal development and creative community connections. Art is a vehicle to healing. Art and Yoga spaces are needed more than ever. Creativity has many different expressions. Life is art.
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