Dance Therapy and the Journey of Mental Wellness 🍁 #Talkto Dr. Manasi Iyer
Hello and good evening everyone. I am Inika and I welcome you all to this very insightful interview TalkTo. Dr. Manasi Iyer the founder of Rejoice in Motion, a health and wellness initiative. She is a certified dance movement therapy practitioner and a qualified physiotherapist with experience in both clinical settings as well as conducting corporate workshops on women's health and Ergonomics. Dr
Welcome dr mansi. We're all super excited to have you here. But that's enough from me for now. Let us hear of your journey from you. Why did you decide to venture out on this lesser known path of dance therapy? What impact has it had on
Manasi Iyer
@Manasi23 · 2:08
And there was a dance movement therapy session being conducted for them at Adapt in Bombay and I was invited to witness it. And I saw the impact of that session and I saw the impact of dance on the faces of these participants or these people. And that's how I bumped into the entire concept of dance movement therapy. And then I decided, oh hey, that looks interesting
Thank you for sharing your journey with us, Dr. Mansi. I really like how dance therapy is also your profession. But dance as a hobby is also something that you like very much. And that's again, something that all of us strive to achieve someday in our life. And I think you won at that part. Coming on to your entrepreneurial abilities, can you please shed light on your organization rejoice in motion? When and why did you decide to start it?
Manasi Iyer
@Manasi23 · 1:09
Thank you. I consider myself very blessed in that aspect, coming to Rejoice In Motion. Rejoice In Motion is I would not say it's an organization per se, but it's more of a health and wellness initiative taken by me. And I began this work in 2019. Initially, there was no name to what I was doing, and I wanted to give a name to the entire initiative that I was doing on my own. And then I realized that, what did I stand for?
Thank you for sharing that with us, Dr. Manasi. The name is indeed very fitting considering it is about rejoicing in motion. That is with dance therapy since we've begun to talk about that. Now, please tell us a bit about your specialization. That is the dance movement therapy. How does it benefit people?
Manasi Iyer
@Manasi23 · 2:13
So it's essentially about connecting with yourself and healing your emotions through dance or through movement. We all go through emotional upheavals in lives, ups and downs, stress, anxiety, depression. And what Dance Movement Therapy does, it provides a safe outlet or a safe space to let these emotions out through dance. So it helps to connect with yourself through movement or dance. So that's what it does. And it is about essentially connecting your mind and body
Thank you for that informative and simple explanation, dr. Mansi. The way you explained this concept in such simple and lucid prose is very beneficial for all of the listeners here. And since we're talking about creative arts and related hobbies, how do you think they overall help in improving our mental wellness? How do they differ from traditional forms of therapies and counseling, take sessions and say physiotherapy, for that matter?
Manasi Iyer
@Manasi23 · 4:04
Although Dance therapy also helps in the physiotherapeutically settings, in cases of Parkinson's Disease, it is being used and the two are being combined these days. I know of a place in Pune, a hospital in Pune where they use dance therapy for people who have Parkinson's disease and there are physiotherapists conducting that. So there is a lot of overlapping elements in Physiotherapy and Dance Movement Therapy
I am indeed loving the course of this conversation and I hope so are the listeners. I am an ardent lover of psychology and learning about more therapies and more techniques of maintaining our wellness from experts like you is like cherry on the cake coming to you as a person. You're an entrepreneur and a therapist as well. Both of these individually are taxing, but together they are indeed burdensome to many. How do you manage it all?
Manasi Iyer
@Manasi23 · 2:47
I think the key is acceptance. Accept it all and then learn to manage whatever comes your way and go with the flow of things and that's how you deal with the stress that comes. And of course know certain tools or techniques or have certain things in your toolbox or wellness toolbox which can help you manage that stress or that anxiety when it comes up. So that's how I personally do it and that's how I keep going
Thank you for sharing such a genuine answer, Dr. Manasi. I'm sure all of the advices and the techniques that you listed out will be beneficial to a lot of the listeners and will help in improving our lives in some way or the other. I'm moving on to the last question, but before we end, I would definitely like to ask you what is your motto in life? How do you stay motivated every day and maintain balance in life?
Manasi Iyer
@Manasi23 · 2:21
Whether it is meditation, whether it is yoga, whether it is dance movement therapy, whether it is journaling, one needs to have tools within themselves or with themselves which can help them connect better with themselves so that sense of inner balance or sense of calm is maintained. And that's what I do and that's how I maintain my sense of balance. And of course, there are hobbies which one can pursue and just keep that overall balance in life going
Mansi's conversation, please do not forget to follow her on her social media handles which have been linked to this webcast and also here on Swell. Also, if you like this conversation, be sure to follow me here on Swell because I will be posting such content regularly. Thank you and have a great night