Si­mone Da Cos­ta is a yo­ga teacher and mind-body ther­a­pist. A mind-body ther­a­pist is any trained pro­fes­sion­al who us­es var­i­ous tools to ac­cess both the mind and the body to move to­wards heal­ing. Such tools that are in­cor­po­rated with the con­sent of the in­di­vid­ual are: guid­ed med­i­ta­tions, im­agery, mind­ful­ness and tra­di­tion­al talk ther­a­py or coun­selling.

How did you get start­ed in your pro­fes­sion?

I got start­ed in this pro­fes­sion due to an ear­ly in­cli­na­tion to do what I could, to re­duce the suf­fer­ing of oth­ers. My heart opened to the world and was of­ten bro­ken by the sheer pain of see­ing the bur­dens that some peo­ple bear. From a young age, I en­coun­tered my own share of in­ner tur­moil and pain so I spent many years pur­su­ing dif­fer­ent ways of find­ing more in­ner har­mo­ny, self aware­ness and per­son­al growth. The more I learn, the more I want to share what I know with oth­ers. My mo­ti­va­tion with­in this field is to help guide in­di­vid­u­als to­wards the steps they can take to re­duce their pain, suf­fer­ing, con­fu­sion, anx­i­ety or de­pres­sion.

What is your phi­los­o­phy on health?

My phi­los­o­phy on health is that it’s best ap­proached in a holis­tic man­ner; mind, body and spir­it. If we make steps to im­prove our phys­i­cal health, we shouldn’t ne­glect our men­tal health. There is even our emo­tion­al well-be­ing to con­sid­er and each one im­pacts the oth­er. Our men­tal and emo­tion­al states are of­ten the more dif­fi­cult or un­com­fort­able is­sues for us to ac­knowl­edge and ad­dress but they are equal­ly as im­por­tant for our over­all health and well-be­ing.

Could you tell us a bit about mind-body ther­a­py?

Mind-body ther­a­py is my in­te­gra­tion of all that I’ve learnt over the years in the fields of yo­ga, mind­ful­ness and psy­chol­o­gy. I’m cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing my Mas­ters de­gree in Mind­ful­ness Based Psy­chother­a­py which adds to my mind-body prac­tice. Mind­ful­ness based Psy­chother­a­py is an in­te­gra­tive ther­a­py with an em­pha­sis on self aware­ness, of course, mind­ful­ness and the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the ther­a­pist and the client. This mode of ther­a­py en­cour­ages ap­proach­ing life’s dif­fi­cul­ties with com­pas­sion; be­ing gen­tle with your process and em­brac­ing ac­cep­tance of what is, en route to your so­lu­tions.

My favourite as­pect of Mind­ful­ness Based Psy­chother­a­py is the lev­el of aware­ness that the ther­a­pist is taught to greet the client with due to ex­ten­sive, per­son­al prac­tice in mind­ful­ness tech­niques. The ther­a­pist isn’t there to greet a client as a bro­ken per­son in need of “fix­ing”, it’s more about the client un­der­go­ing a jour­ney to­wards heal­ing, growth, hap­pi­ness and ful­fil­ment and the ther­a­pist be­ing there to guide, sup­port and walk along­side him or her on the jour­ney.

How would some­one be able to im­prove their men­tal and emo­tion­al health and where should they start?

A good start­ing place for im­prov­ing men­tal and emo­tion­al health is to de­vel­op a per­son­al prac­tice of some sort where you can check in with your­self in a very fo­cused, yet gen­tle way. It’s im­por­tant to sit in si­lence from time to time and take a break from the noise and busy­ness of the world.

We are on the go 24/7 and we bare­ly take enough rest and re­lax­ation time. Anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion are be­com­ing ever more preva­lent and many peo­ple suf­fer from burnout and from be­ing over­whelmed.

What gives you the most ful­fil­ment from this pro­fes­sion?

The most ful­fil­ment I get from this pro­fes­sion is when I get feed­back from my stu­dents or clients. When they re­port back to me say­ing that they feel more peace­ful, clear, calm or have found some res­o­lu­tion or even just their next step for­ward due to the work we’ve done, it tru­ly fills my heart. If I’m do­ing work that helps some­one in any small way, I’m ful­filled know­ing that I could help them to make that dif­fer­ence in their lives.