Conversations with the Inspiring Linda Baird

Today we’d like to introduce you to Linda Baird.

Linda, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In my early 20’s, I fell into a sudden, dark depression, seemingly out of nowhere, as life was a bowl of cherries. I had graduated from the University of Colorado and was living my dream of skiing every day in Steamboat Springs, I also began having panic attacks, I couldn’t sleep, and I became suicidal. Not knowing what to do, I went to a family practice M.D., who put me on tricyclic antidepressants and sent me out the door without any follow-up support. These drugs only made me feel different like I was in a fishbowl, and not better. Although I felt emotionally unstable and could not find another human being who understood what was happening to me (I knew nothing of therapy, at the time), I took myself off the drugs and vowed to find answers.

I began reading everything I could get my hands on about depression. I went back to school to study biochemistry, pharmacology, and neurochemistry—a path that led to my first career as a biochemist in the biotechnology industry for fifteen years. To get healthier, I changed my lifestyle and eating habits. Although the panic attacks subsided and I was no longer suicidal, I was still deeply depressed.

After trying a few methods of a psychotherapy that didn’t resonate for me, it was in my late 20’s that I found my first Hakomi therapist through a year-long spiritual practice group we were both part of. I worked with her for nearly 30 years, both as therapist and mentor. This approach to therapy completely changed my life and has become the foundation of my own practice, although I also incorporate several additional modalities into my work.

What I discovered as my therapist and I worked together were deeply rooted belief patterns that were unconsciously running my life. Had someone simply asked me what was wrong, I would never have known the answer. In working experientially and developing mindful awareness, however, I discovered and healed the unconscious root of my depression and panic, which has led to freedom.

Years later, in the early 1990s, I faced another profoundly life-challenging situation. At the time, the current awareness and research on trauma and PTSD was in its early stages, although the symptoms had been recognized in Freud’s work with hysteria and also in soldiers during WWI. Not by conscious choice, as I was searching for a somatic therapist in the Boston area where I was living at the time, I serendipitously ended up in a therapy training program where the emphasis was on trauma resolution toward the end of the third year. This work was exceptional and, as a result, I made the decision to change careers.

Since completing my initial three-year therapy program in Boston in 1998 and the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute (SPI) Professional Training in Boulder in 2000 (previously known as Hakomi Integrated Somatics), I have assisted training with both SPI and the Hakomi Institute. I have also been a teaching assistant in the Somatic Psychology graduate program at Naropa University in Boulder. I have studied a number of different modalities, most notably EMDR and Internal Family Systems, the work of Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. I continued to study trauma, went to graduate school, and completely left my career as a research scientist to go into private therapy practice in 2001. I am a Certified Hakomi Therapist, Certified EMDR therapist, Certified ParaYoga Instructor, Certified Four Desires trainer and Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of Colorado.

I am also proudly a member of the Hakomi International Ethics Committee, which consists of four members. We are responsible for facilitating the repair and resolution of ethical grievances between clients, students, Hakomi therapists, and Hakomi trainers worldwide.

In addition to my path with experiential therapies, I began to study yoga at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in 1995. I have been a committed student of yoga, as a science and life practice, ever since.

I was introduced to the practices of ParaYoga and Yogarupa Rod Stryker in 2011 through a process called The Four Desires. Once I began studying with Yogarupa, as his students refer to him, I knew he would become my primary teacher.

Through ParaYoga and The Four Desires, I found my spiritual home and practices that have taken psychotherapy beyond resolving emotional disturbances and diseases to facilitating connection to deeper levels of awareness and joy.

Has it been a smooth road?
It has certainly not been a smooth road, and if it had been a smooth road, I don’t think I’d be where I am, today. What I mean is that the obstacles have been my primary teachers.

My biggest struggles, externally, have been with finances and relationships. The struggles were internally sourced, however, in my perception of myself based on the “soup” I grew up in. The deepest core belief was that I was not enough—a state of internal poverty that manifest in the outer world as there not being enough love, money or support, along with deep depressive states. Based on this core belief that ran me for many years, I attracted people who could not offer me love and support. There is also a family legacy of poverty and homelessness, that I “inherited.”

My advice to other women, particularly younger women: get to know yourself and learn how to be alone. It’s empowering to enjoy your own company. Don’t compromise because you are afraid of being alone. Discover what brings you joy and follow your heart. Have your own source of income.

To younger women, especially: recognize the power in your beauty and use it wisely. Speaking from my own experience, coming from the place of inner poverty, I used my external appearance in the form of how I dressed, wore my hair, etc. to attract what I thought was love. Most of the time, it wasn’t love. I wasn’t in touch with my own inner radiance and how to discern love from sexual attraction.

Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
When people ask me what I do professionally, I always struggle with the simple answer, “I’m a psychotherapist.” I usually add that I specialize in PTSD and trauma resolution, but that doesn’t accurately answer the question.

What I specialize in is transformation. I tell my clients that my job is to facilitate the clearing of the clouds, in the form of past traumas and belief systems formed in childhood, that block the light of the soul, Self, authentic essence—whatever you want to refer to it—from fully shining through. I call my work “Psychotherapy as Spiritual Practice,” as I weave together the therapeutic methods of Hakomi, EMDR therapy, Gestalt and Internal Family Systems, with practices from the tantric hatha yoga tradition which are focused on transformation, primarily mindfulness, meditation and pranayama (breathing practices), and some asana (physical practices).

I have been blessed to have had wonderful, skilled teachers and mentors in Hakomi and EMDR, and most recently my primary teacher Yogarupa Rod Stryker and the path of ParaYoga. The practices from this lineage and tradition have accelerated my personal growth tremendously.

Do you have any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general? What has worked well for you?
I have been led to my teachers and mentors when I didn’t know I was even looking. I call this grace, following the adage that “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.” I never thought I would take on a formal teacher, as I have seen so many egregious misuses of power in the therapy and spiritual worlds. And then my current teacher appeared and intuitively I knew he was to be my teacher. The same happened with my first Hakomi therapist, several decades ago, now. She appeared and I followed. It was the beginning of my life path that led me to the present moment.

Contact Info:

• Address: Primary office: Capitol Hill Healing Center, 750 E 9th Ave. #201, Denver, COAdditional offices in Boulder and Frisco, CO
• Website: www.bodymindintegrativetherapy.com
• Phone: 303 507-6310
• Email: Linda@bodymindintegrativetherapy.com

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