Albert Flynn DeSilver

ALBERT FLYNN DESILVER is an internationally published poet, memoirist, novelist, speaker, and workshop leader. He has published several books of poetry and Beamish Boy (Owl Press, 2012), which Kirkus Reviews calls, “A beautifully written memoir of awakening and self-acceptance.” He teaches at the Omega Institute, Esalen, Spirit Rock, and writing conferences nationally. He lives in northern California. For more, visit albertflynndesilver.com.

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4 Ways to Cultivate Creativity This Holiday Season

Albert Flynn DeSilver — December 17, 2019

4 ways to cultivate creativity this holiday season

In the craziness of the holiday season, it can be challenging to cultivate personal creativity—but when we think of creativity in terms of a gift, our hearts open to great and beautiful possibilities. Here are four ways you can cultivate creativity this holiday season.

Write a series of haiku you can print on paper, ceramics, cloth or food

Spend some time reading and reminding yourself of the art of haiku. Practice writing a few of your own on paper first. Make it a ritual; bring presence and mindfulness and reflect on the immediacy of your experience here and now—and maybe touch of some sentiments around the holidays.

Transfer your haiku to a holiday ornament you can hang from a tree or. . .

Have fun with this practice! Invite your friends and family members to engage in this practice and have fun exploring different ways you can share your haiku on an ornament.

Write a haiku you can eat

Haiku holiday cookies anyone? Use icing as your ink. Explore different ways you might “write” your haiku using food.

Haiku writing with objects and documented in photographs

You can create your haiku with sticks, string, stones, sand, any material you want, and then document your poem by photographing it. Your last step is to create it so that you can give it away as a gift!

Happy holidays!

Albert Flynn DeSilver is an internationally published poet, memoirist, novelist, speaker, and workshop leader. He served as Marin County’s first Poet Laureate from 2008–2010, and his work has appeared in more than 100 literary journals worldwide, including ZYZZYVA, New American Writing, and Exquisite Corpse. Albert is the author of Writing as a Path to Awakening, Beamish Boy: A Memoir, Letters to Early Street, and Walking Tooth & Cloud. He has taught workshops at The Esalen Institute, The Omega Institute, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and literary conferences nationally. visit albertflynndesilver.com.

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A Meditation + Writing Exercise to Conquer Your Fear

Albert Flynn DeSilver — July 23, 2018

To prepare for the dog days of summer, we move from amusement to audacity. Being a dog owner and lover, I particularly enjoy the expression “dog days.” I always picture a pile of lazy dogs panting away in the shade of a chestnut tree, waiting out the heat of the day to go for an evening walk. Venturing into the heat of creative and spiritual practice takes courage; it is an audacious undertaking.

This July, I invite you to take on a “BHAG”—a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. Write forth your truth and wake up to expanded awareness in the process. Whether that means starting a journal or writing a poem, novel, memoir, or letter to your grandmother, audacity will drive you forward. I want you to commit here and now to do your best in any given moment. Move forward with your best intentions of creativity and spiritual awakening at heart. This combined meditation and writing practice will help you get there.

A Meditation on Audacity

Let’s begin with where we are—in a grounded and courageous place, fully embodied. Find your comfortable place to sit. Rest your hands easily in your lap and your feet flat on the ground or cushion. Gently close your eyes. Take a few breaths inward and release. Find that natural rhythm of your breathing, connecting with your breathing body. Tune into your immediate sensory experience, just noticing what your experience is right in this moment. Let your breath be your anchor and ground.

See if you can bring to mind a particularly scary or vulnerable situation. Think of one in which you recently felt exposed, sensitive, even fearful; not one in which you were in a dangerous situation, but a memory of you putting yourself out there in some way—confronting someone, speaking to a group, asking someone new out on a date. As memories of the situation come to you, breathe deeply into your belly and know that you are safe now, breathing here in this moment in this body. If you need to, you can open your eyes, but try to remain grounded in your breathing body. Notice the rush of sensations and allow whatever arises to arise with love, patience, and compassion. Be gentle with yourself and remember that you are safe. See if you can stay with the feelings and simply explore how your fear or discomfort exists as a bodily sensation.

Notice where in your body you feel them. Breathe nurturing air into those places. Allow yourself to become familiar with the sensations of fear and vulnerability without the need to disconnect, distract, or avoid altogether. Be patient and kind with yourself as the emotions and feelings stream through. Gently note any physical changes: increased body heat, increased heart rate, tingling in your arms, increased sweating, and so on. Notice how the sensations linger, change, and dissipate. Become curious and open while kindly grounding yourself in the breath.

Put both hands on your heart, left on top of right, and take a deep breath. Say to yourself, “May I be well, may I be at peace, may I be bathed in the light of lovingkindness and compassion right now.” Take another deep breath, exhale, and release your hands. Bring them back together, palm to palm, at your heart and bow to yourself in gratitude for your courage and love. Open your eyes to complete the meditation.

You might try this meditation for five minutes at first and then extend it as you feel more audacious and courageous. The more you allow the feelings to arise and exist, the more familiar you will become with them. In turn, you will be better able to let them go and dissipate and see them for what they are—waves of energy and information arising and passing away.

Now for the writing . . . Write down three things you can do in the next month that scare you. They don’t have to be drastic acts such as speaking in front of 400 people. How about just sitting down to write that first scene of your novel? Typing up your first few poems? That can be scary enough. And these frightening endeavors don’t have to be related to writing. Maybe it’s a little terrifying to sit in meditation with your eyes closed for more than five minutes. Check in with yourself and see what’s a little scary for you—where can you push yourself a little further? Book a trip overseas, sign up for a rock-climbing adventure, agree to read at your local open mic. Keep in mind that you don’t have to actually do these things right now. Simply start by writing them down and sitting in their presence for a bit. Then you can take action to feel your fear and do it anyway!

This excerpt has been shortened and adapted from Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life.

A Meditation + Writing Exercise to Conquer Your Fear, Albert Flynn DeSilver

ALBERT FLYNN DESILVER is an internationally published poet, memoirist, novelist, speaker, and workshop leader. He has published several books of poetry, Beamish Boy, and his newest book, Writing as a Path to Awakening. He teaches at the Omega Institute, Esalen, Spirit Rock, and writing conferences nationally. He lives in Northern California. For more, visit albertflynndesilver.com.

A Meditation + Writing Exercise to Conquer Your Fear, Writing as a Path to Awakening, Albert Flynn DeSilver

Buy your copy of Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life at your favorite bookseller!

Sounds True | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound

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A Guided Standing Meditation to Activate Your Creative...

Albert Flynn DeSilver — May 1, 2018

Albert Flynn Desilver - A Guided Standing Meditation to Activate Your Creative Imagination Blog Banner

Springtime in the heart of May is a time of renewal and discovery, a time of reminding, reconnecting, and remembering our true imaginative potential. Mother may I? Yes, you May. Express your full imaginative self, just as the flowers, fourth graders, and fully feathered birds do.

You are your imagination. It’s not something outside of you that you read in the pages of some book, or something you overhear in the next booth over at Bubba’s Drive-In, or even the memory of your adventures trekking across Nepal (although these are all terrific things to write about). It’s found within you — your imaginative heart and soul, looking like a nebula of stars throbbing in your bloodstream a thousand times a second, at this very moment. Here’s a way to practice conjuring up (imagining) and letting go: the standing “skeleton scan” meditation.

Skeleton Scan Meditation

Find a quiet place in your house with a soft and comfortable surface to stand on. Close your eyes and take a deep breath inward.
Ground yourself in this moment, in your body. After the first deep breath, let your breathing become natural.
Now lightly bring a thread of your awareness to your feet and breathe into your feet. Feel the stability and grounding of your breath at your feet. Now, with your mind’s eye, see the little toe bones of your feet, then follow your imagining to the main parts of your feet and to where they meet your ankle bones.
Continue up your legs to view the bones joining to your knees then up to your hip bones.
See your hip bones where they connect to your sacrum and your spine. Now visualize your vertebrae climbing and then branching out into your rib cage. See the ribs of your body wrapping around you and joining at your sternum, protecting your heart.
Notice now the bones of your shoulders holding your arms, and see those bones of your upper arms, into your elbows, and down to your hands and finger bones.
Now bring your visualization back up your arms, past your elbows, back up to your shoulders, and see now your neck and where your spine connects to your skull.
See your skull, the round smoothness of the bone with hollow sockets for your eyes and nose, and see the bones of your jaw and teeth.
Breathe into this visualized experience of your skeleton. Breathe in and feel your body
swaying gently, knowing right now that this skeleton is your stability and ground—these mineral bones are your conduit to earth and sky.
Take a deep breath inward, exhale, and open your eyes.

ALBERT FLYNN DESILVER is an internationally published poet, memoirist, novelist, speaker, and workshop leader. He has published several books of poetry, his memoir Beamish Boy (Owl Press, 2012), and his new book Writing as a Path to Awakening (Sounds True, 2017). He teaches at the Omega Institute, Esalen, Spirit Rock, and writing conferences nationally. He lives in Northern California. For more, visit albertflynndesilver.com.

Buy your copy of Writing as a Path to Awakening: A Year to Becoming an Excellent Writer and Living an Awakened Life at Sounds True or your favorite bookseller.

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Healing From The Inside Out: How Yoga Cultivates Emoti...

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Michelle Cassandra Johnson — November 27, 2025

Finding mental peace can feel difficult when life keeps pulling your attention in a dozen directions. Your emotions may swing between high and low, and clarity can feel out of reach. Yoga offers more than physical postures, it offers a practice of slowing down, tuning in, and tending to what’s within. Whether you’re struggling with stress, feeling emotionally off balance, or simply needing space to breathe, yoga can support a deeper kind of healing that unfolds from the inside out.

For over 40 years, Sounds True has served as a trusted source for spiritual education and personal growth. We share practices that are rooted in authentic wisdom and designed for real, everyday lives. Our collection of digital courses, audio programs, and teachings from renowned guides such as Tara Brach, Eckhart Tolle, and Pema Chödrön reflect a living library of transformation, created to support your journey back to wholeness.

Key Takeaways:

Practice & Presence: Yoga offers tools to process emotions and calm the mind through movement, breath, and awareness.
Science & Soul: Evidence supports yoga’s ability to reduce stress while honoring its deeper spiritual roots in healing.
Sustainable Healing: Ongoing, compassionate practice encourages emotional resilience and lasting mental clarity.

How Yoga Supports Mental And Emotional Well-Being

Yoga’s influence goes far beyond the physical body. For many, it serves as an anchor through emotional storms and mental overwhelm. To understand how yoga for mental health can become part of your healing journey, let’s explore its core contributions:

A Holistic Practice That Meets You Where You Are

Yoga isn’t just movement, it’s a conversation with your inner world. It brings together the breath, body, and mind to create space for awareness, without pressure to perform or change. In that space, emotional patterns can soften, revealing clarity beneath the noise.

Scientific Support For Emotional And Mental Relief

Research continues to affirm what many practitioners intuitively feel. Regular yoga practice has been shown to reduce stress hormones, increase calming brain chemicals like GABA, and regulate the nervous system. This makes it a gentle, sustainable approach to both yoga and mental health.

Emotional Balance Begins With Compassionate Awareness

One of the most powerful aspects of yoga for emotional balance is its ability to foster self-compassion. When we step onto the mat with whatever emotions are present: anxiety, grief, joy, or numbness, yoga teaches us how to stay connected without judgment. Over time, this builds emotional resilience rooted in presence rather than resistance.

From Temporary Relief To Lasting Inner Stability

The effects of yoga can feel subtle at first, but they ripple outward. A consistent practice doesn’t just offer short-term calm; it strengthens your ability to self-regulate and respond, not react. This is how inner healing yoga supports transformation from within, one breath at a time.

The Science And Spirit Of Yoga For Mental Health

Yoga’s unique power lies in its ability to bridge ancient wisdom with modern understanding. While it has spiritual roots that invite deep introspection, it also holds measurable benefits for mental health. To fully appreciate the role of yoga in emotional and psychological well-being, it helps to look at both perspectives side by side:

What Modern Research Reveals

Scientific studies continue to explore the mental health benefits of yoga. Results point to improved mood, reduced anxiety and depression, and enhanced emotional regulation. These outcomes support the growing use of yoga for mental health in therapeutic settings, including trauma recovery and stress management.

Why The Subtle Body Matters

In yogic philosophy, healing isn’t limited to the physical or even the psychological. The concept of prana, or life force, helps explain why movement and breath can shift emotional states. Practices that work with subtle energy including inner healing yoga, help release stored tension and clear emotional blockages.

Balancing Effort And Surrender

Yoga invites a delicate interplay between strength and softness. In doing so, it mirrors the healing process itself: part discipline, part letting go. This balance nurtures the experience of mental clarity through yoga, creating the conditions for stillness to arise naturally.

Explore Further With Embodied Resources

If you’re curious to deepen your connection to body and breath in a supported way, Sounds True offers a wide range of practices through yoga and movement. These digital programs are led by teachers who blend somatic wisdom with grounded guidance, meeting you right where you are.

Cultivating Emotional Balance Through Movement And Breath

Our emotions live in the body. They’re not just mental states but physical experiences, tightness in the chest, heaviness in the limbs, or fluttering in the gut. Yoga helps us move these feelings through instead of holding them in:

The Body As A Gateway To Emotional Awareness

Movement can unlock what words cannot. Through intentional poses, especially those that open the hips, heart, and spine, yoga supports the release of stored emotions. This is why yoga for emotional balance feels less like escape and more like a homecoming.

The Breath As Regulator And Messenger

Breathwork, or pranayama, is a powerful tool for emotional regulation. By consciously slowing the breath, we calm the nervous system and shift our state of mind. Over time, this supports both yoga and mental health by creating internal space for reflection rather than reaction.

Rhythmic Practice Builds Emotional Resilience

Consistency is key. Even short, daily practices help build the emotional strength needed to navigate life’s ups and downs. This steady rhythm reinforces the benefits of inner healing yoga, creating a supportive foundation for deeper personal work.

Supportive Tools For Emotional Healing

For those looking for gentle guidance, the yoga for your mood deck offers intuitive prompts and accessible poses to meet you where you are emotionally. It’s a helpful companion for days when you’re not sure how to begin but know you need something.

Accessing Mental Clarity Through Yogic Presence

Mental clarity often feels just out of reach in a noisy world. Yoga creates the internal conditions that allow clarity to surface, not by forcing it, but by slowing things down. When the body is calm and the breath is steady, the mind can begin to clear:

Slowing Down To See Clearly

Yoga encourages us to pause and notice. Whether you’re holding a posture or sitting in stillness, these moments of mindful presence quiet the mental chatter. This process is central to experiencing mental clarity through yoga, where insights arise not from thinking harder but from thinking less.

Meditation And Stillness As Deep Practices

While movement helps discharge tension, meditation helps us see beneath it. Even a few minutes of seated awareness can reveal thought patterns and emotional loops we didn’t realize were there. These practices are integral to both yoga for mental health and long-term emotional wellness.

The Restorative Power Of Rest

Rest is not a luxury, it’s essential for mental clarity and nervous system repair. Deep rest practices like Yoga Nidra offer profound restoration. For an accessible entry point, explore yoga nidra—the sleep yoga, which gently guides you into deep states of awareness without effort.

Clarity As A Byproduct, Not A Goal

Yoga doesn’t chase clarity. It invites you to create the right internal environment and let clarity arise in its own time. Over time, this approach nurtures both inner healing yoga and sustainable mental clarity rooted in presence.

Inner Healing Yoga As A Path To Wholeness

Healing is not always about fixing what’s broken. Often, it’s about remembering what has always been whole beneath the layers of stress, pain, and disconnection. Inner healing yoga invites this remembering through intentional practice and self-inquiry:

Creating A Safe Space Within

The mat becomes a mirror. Each posture, breath, and moment of stillness offers a chance to meet yourself with honesty and care. This safe internal space nurtures the emotional awareness essential for lasting transformation.

The Power Of Self-Compassion

Yoga teaches us that healing is not linear. There will be days when the mind is foggy, the body is tense, or emotions feel overwhelming. Returning to your practice anyway builds trust, in yourself, and in the process of yoga for emotional balance.

Integration Beyond The Mat

The most meaningful shifts often happen after practice, in how we speak to ourselves, how we move through relationships, and how we respond to life. This is the deeper work of yoga and mental health, where practice becomes a lived experience of wholeness.

An Ongoing Invitation To Go Deeper

Inner healing is not a destination. It’s a continuous invitation to be in relationship with yourself as you are right now. As your awareness grows, so does your capacity for mental clarity through yoga, clarity rooted in self-understanding, not perfection.

Final Thoughts

Yoga invites a return to ourselves. It doesn’t demand that we change who we are, but gently guides us to remember what already lives within us, clarity, calm, and connection. Whether you’re seeking stillness, release, or simply a moment to breathe, yoga offers the tools to support your healing from the inside out.

As you continue exploring the path of yoga for mental health, you may find that what once felt like emotional chaos begins to soften into something more spacious. With consistent practice, both yoga for emotional balance and inner healing yoga can become steady companions in your life. The clarity that arises is not forced but welcomed, cultivated through each breath, each pause, each mindful moment.

To deepen your experience, you might consider joining the global celebration of yoga through the international day of yoga offerings by Sounds True. These resources, created by trusted teachers and rooted in heart-centered wisdom, are here to support your personal journey, one that honors where you are and gently points toward where you’re going.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Yoga For Mental Health

What type of yoga is best for mental health?

Gentle, breath-focused styles like Hatha, Yin, and Restorative Yoga are especially beneficial for mental health, as they calm the nervous system and promote inner stillness.

Can yoga replace therapy or medication for mental health conditions?

Yoga can be a powerful complement to therapy or medication, but it is not a substitute. Always consult a healthcare provider for individualized treatment plans.

How often should I practice yoga for mental health benefits?

Even 10 to 20 minutes daily can support mental and emotional wellness. Consistency matters more than intensity when it comes to cultivating inner balance.

Is it normal to feel emotional during or after yoga practice?

Yes, emotions can rise during yoga as physical movement and breathwork unlock stored tension. This is part of the body’s natural release and healing process.

Can beginners benefit from yoga for mental clarity and emotional healing?

Absolutely. No advanced skill is needed to start. Breath awareness, simple movements, and mindful rest can offer noticeable benefits, even for beginners.

What role does community play in yoga for mental health?

Practicing in community, whether in-person or online, can enhance feelings of support and connection. Shared practice helps reduce isolation and deepens healing.

How does yoga support nervous system regulation?

Yoga helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system through slow breathing and mindful movement, promoting a state of rest, recovery, and emotional stability.