This week, Anahta Grace volunteer and psychotherapist Michell Stanley announces the creation of our very first wellness center, to provide healing for those inhabiting the  District Alliance for Safe Housing, Inc. (DASH).

The mission of the District Alliance for Safe Housing, Inc. (DASH) is to ensure access to safe and sustainable refuge for victims of domestic violence through the development and management of safe housing and related services, while increasing the capacity of other community-based organizations to expand housing for victims throughout the District of Columbia.  As part of fulfilling this mission, DASH has honored Anahata Grace with the responsibility of facilitating wellness programming for the organization’s newest program, Cornerstone, which is scheduled to open this fall.  The Wellness room will offer a full schedule of yoga classes including acupuncture, reiki, yoga therapy, and meditation, all geared towards providing residents with wellness services from a holistic perspective.

Anahata’s mission is to holistic practices to promote health, healing and social change.  Yogatherapy and meditation, when combined, can facilitate emotional freedom, increase the body’s ability to heal itself, while enhancing coping mechanisms.  Interventions follow psychotherapy frameworks but encourage participants to feel, experience, sense, and intuit responses rather than simply talking or thinking about them.  Meditation has multiple benefits including a way to immediately facilitate a sense of calm.  It is from this perspective that the most genuine clarity and wisdom can be gained.  Wellness sessions at DASH assist participants by allowing them to experience a felt change in how they experience themselves and their environment while reinforcing the paths that lead to positive growth.

As an Anahata wellness provider my role is to work with a Wellness Committee in developing programs, curricula, and schedules that pull together the strengths and skills of our volunteers while assuring that the full-spectrum of specialities are maximized towards addressing the changing needs of our service populations.  Following the development stage, my role will be in training, implementing, in addition to standardizing approach modules that can used for other at-risk populations in the future.

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