About Tanya:
In 1991, at the age of 19, I began my path of service. Since that time, I have worked with 5 to 105 year olds in hospitals, schools and universities, non-profits, retirement communities, research institutes, retreat centers, spas, dance and yoga studios. Traversing the landscape of the Southwest, New England and the Midwest, my practice has led me on an epic journey into the heart of community and the healing that is possible when love is the mobilizing force of connection and creativity. The people I have met along the way and places where I have practiced have been my greatest teachers.
I draw together the art and science of psychotherapy, yoga, contemplative dance, sound healing and adventure education, warmly inviting clients and students to open their hearts to happiness, freedom and the fullest expression of inspired authenticity. What I offer is a culmination of what I have received from all my teachers to whom I am deeply grateful as well as humbled by their generosity.
I began my training in psychology at New Mexico State University and completed my bachelor's degree in psychology and anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1995. After a year of service - teaching, working with elders with early stage Alzheimer's and completing my first and only ethnographic field research for a Native American tribe in New Jersey - I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1996 and discovered my true home. I earned my Master's in Social Work at the University of Michigan in 1998. While in graduate school, I was an intern at the Assault Crisis Center and the Women's Center of Southeast Michigan, worked for the VA's Serious Mental Illness Treatment and Research Center and University of Michigan's Violence Against Women Task Force.
During this time, I also discovered the power of experiential and adventure based education through facilitating and leading trips for the University of Michigan's Challenge and Outdoor Adventure Programs. This led to the discovery of the International Association for Experiential Education, a dynamic community of practitioners from around the globe who are dedicated to an action/reflection and community building based model of learning, healing and growing.
"Your body is precious.
It is your vehicle for awakening." ~Buddha
Spirit Moves
Tanya Thunberg, LMSW, ACSW, RYT
Psychotherapy & Yoga
in Ann Arbor, Michigan
"We heal in loving relationships that reflect our worth, freedom
and dignity."
Contact Tanya Thunberg @ SpiritMovesYoga@gmail.com or 734-904-3035
Tanya's credentials:
Education:
MSW, 1996-98
BA, Psycholgy & Anthropology, 1992-95
Psychology & Anthropology - 1989-91
200 hour yoga teacher certification, 2006
Level 1 & 2 Teacher Training, 2007
500 hour yoga therapist program, 2009 - 12
Thai therapist diploma program, 2011- 12
Licensure & Certifications:
Licensed Master of Social Work, 2003 - 12
Academy of Certified Social Workers, 2003 - 12
Registered Yoga Teacher, 2006 - 12
Registered Thai Therapist, 2012
Ethical Practice Codes:
The demands of daily living, growing into my adulthood and the rigors of my profession led me to my first yoga class and my first yoga teacher, Leigh Ann Phillips-Knope, founder and co-director of Roots of Change, in 1999. By that time, I had been studying and performing dance and gymnastics since I was a child. On my yoga mat, I was relieved to experience a movement practice that was non-competitive and non-performative. My nervous system settled, my heart softened, my sense of possibility expanded and my capacity to move with grace opened more deeply. I had found another true home and began seeking out classes, workshops and retreats locally and nationally.
My yoga practice became the steady foundation for my early career as a psychotherapist. I took refuge in the practice, the teachings and the community of practitioners as I gained life changing experiences working in substance abuse treatment and prevention programs in Jackson County and Western Wayne County. My primary passion was creating and facilitating experiential group therapy programs, bringing adults and youth together to reveal the truth of their suffering held too tightly in the heart and through revelation and surrender, ending isolation and the false refuge of addiction.
In 2004, I was invited into the heart of one public school district in Western Wayne County where I worked as a non-traditional school social worker with At-Risk youth, their families, administrators and teachers. I was able to offer to full range of clinical services including psychotherapy, sexual health education, crisis intervention, interdisciplinary teaming, supervision and school improvement projects directly related to student and staff wellness. The sheer intensity of this position required a deepening in my practice. After studying yoga for many years with numerous beloved teachers, including Gail Rucker of Om Moves studio, I spent a month training with Acharya PremShakti at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lennox, Massachusetts, and earned my 200 hour yoga teacher certification in July, 2006. I began teaching classes at two yoga studios and created and led an after school yoga program for At-Risk youth in the school where worked as a clinician.
I continued to be called to study and teach what I discovered from the inside out. In July, 2007, I expanded my experience of the therapeutic applications of yoga by training with Amy Weintraub, the author of Yoga for Depression and founder and director of the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute. In her LifeForce trainings, I learned yoga practices specifically designed to alleviate mood disorders. Encouraged, I opened my private practice shortly after I completed her Level 2 training. In 2008, I discovered Thai Yoga Massage through a weekend intensive training with Minga Lilly at Sun Moon Yoga studio. She had been a faculty member for IYT, the Integrative Yoga Therapy program with Joseph and Lilian LePage. I began the program in 2009 and am eager to complete it in August 2012. In late 2011, the Chicago School of Thai Massage diploma program with Paul Fowler and Michelle Tupko arrived on my doorstep. Once again hosted by Sun Moon Yoga studio, I was elated to continue my exploration of this healing practice which brings together the benefits of yoga with the potency of healing touch in a way that has a profound psychological and energetic impact on the body/mind.
Through out these fifteen years of study and practice, I have embraced an eclectic range of therapeutic approaches to working with the disturbances and difficulties inherent to human suffering, but the most important and potent element is the power of the relationship. We heal in loving relationships that reflect our worth, freedom and dignity. Right action evolves from this soothing bond - this is both intuitively and scientifically true. A sophisticated understanding of technique grounded in an expansive theoretical orientation are both beholden to this truth. I am currently studying sensorimotor psychotherapy with Janina Fisher, who is a master at teaching these subtleties and a student of the methods and practitioners I am most moved by in my work.
Part of the healing work I have been called to address in this lifetime is the wounded fracture between the masculine and feminine. I was blessed to be called into women's community through my work as an intern in graduate school. In 1998, I awakened to the power of the sacred feminine through my studies with ShuNahSii Rose, founder of In Sacred Balance, and Peggy Nash Rubin, founder of Sacred Theater. I began to gather circles of women and girls together, and later boys, to heal this fracture by honoring the sacred feminine within ourselves, each other and the planet that nurtures and sustains us. This continues to be an important element of my personal and professional practice.
I am still a passionate dancer and study contemplative and improvisational dance locally and regionally. I am also a devotional singer and am deeply nourished by singing Kirtan, Gospel and acappella music from around the world. Sound healing has recently opened my heart and captured my imagination. Through my studies I have begun incorporating Tibetan singing bowls, quartz bowls and sounding into sessions, classes and retreats. I am deeply moved by the immediate impact and continuing to explore the power of sound to heal.
"My nervous system
settled, my heart softened...
...my sense of possibility expanded and my capacity to move with grace opened more deeply."
Mirabai:
"O friend, understand.
The body is like the ocean,
rich with hidden treasures.
Open your innermost chamber and light its lamp,
Within the body are gardens,
Rare flowers, peacocks;
the inner music;
Within the body a lake of bliss,
On it, the white soul-swans
take their joy."
