Hello everyone. Welcome to the Sex, Love and Superpowers Podcast Show. I’m your host Tatiana Berindei. And today I’m really excited to have with me someone who I’m honored to call a dear friend, a beautiful soul, an amazingly powerful woman, Dev Bry.
And we’re going to be talking about a spiritual journey into the body, which is the topic that I think both of us could discuss at length, multiple different ways, and we’ll see the twists and turns that we choose to go on today in this conversation. May I first tell you a little bit about Dev. Dev has been working therapeutically and facilitating rights of passages for girls, women, men, and couples for over a decade.
She received an ordination from the IM School of Healing Arts in 2004, and she received her Master’s degree in somatic psychology in 2007. She’s a certified Hakomi therapist and has extensive training in a variety of body orientated healing including somatic experiencing, a trauma resolution therapy and biodynamic cranial sacral therapy, a gentle hand on an alignment of the body’s subtle inner rhythms.
At Essence, Dev is a dancer and a beautiful one at that, I will attest to. She is a certified soul motion teacher and offers movement ministry throughout the world. She’s the founder and co-creator of HoneyRoot Women’s Embodiment Community, an organization devoted to somatics, sisterhood, social justice, and intergenerational collaboration. In addition to supporting the real awakening of the body wisdom, assisting couples in the spiritual advance of relationship is one of Dev’s greatest gifts and deepest passions.
And I’m just … love you, and I’m so glad that you’re here today. And I wanna say also, I just wanna let everyone know that Dev is really one of my teachers as well. I consider her a friend and a teacher. I learned so much just from your beingness and from the way that you show up, and so I’m really excited that you said yes to be on the show so that you could share some of your soft with more of us.
I can really feel how your resonance touches my heart.
Thank you so much, Tatiana. It’s not only moving to be able to reflect on what I’ve done with my life, in terms of a bio but also to hear it through your voice. I can really feel how your resonance touches my heart, and to be here with you in this way … it lights me up. I feel tender and exuberant as I hear you. Thanks so much for inviting me.
Absolutely, absolutely. You are … when I was first given this show; you were one of the first people I wanted to have on it, so I’m proud that we’re finally here together. And of course, I’m going to ask you, because I ask everybody, what your superpowers are. I’m excited to hear your answer to this one.
Me too! I mean, part of the … is that I love being asked the question and just listening. So, I think one of my superpowers is really allowing the moment to guide me. I don’t do a lot of planning ahead these days. I’m madly in love with the version of listening I do, and I consider that one of my superpowers.
Listening to the moment. And I’d say the other superpower is … that I have built the capacity and we’ll talk more about this. But, I built the capacity in my body to be very welcoming and friendly to a wide range of emotional expression. I hear a lot, but people feel really welcomed in my presence, and I just delight in that, ’cause that’s what I want people to feel. I think a big part of that is that it’s not just an idea that I want to welcome people as they are. I think I actually have the capacity to do so. I will call that a superpower.
Absolutely. I would agree with that. I think that why I say, and I really mean, that you are one of my teachers is because is just a way that you carry yourself and the beingness that you carry. I was telling a friend of mine actually about you the other day. I was saying, “you have to slow down to catch up with her.” And there’s something to that. We live so fast in our culture these days, that they’ve done so much work cultivating care of your nervous system and care of that emotional expression through the body, that it’s … and you are truly one of the most embodied that I know in that regard.
It’s a real gift that you carry, and that you teach just by living, by being who you are. I just want you to know that and want anyone listening to know that. Spending time with Dev is really an education in of itself if you choose to show up for it, ’cause she really holds herself in such a beautiful way. I can’ think of a better person to talk on this topic of a spiritual journey into the body, ’cause I think she lives it more than most anyone else that I’ve ever met.
Thank you. Oh, my gosh Tatiana. I’m totally going to borrow that, “you need to slow down in order to catch up with her.” I just love it. Thank you.
Yeah, it’s true, and it’s been my experience. I just … I love you for that. So, let’s talk about this a little bit. We don’t have … we actually have two minutes or something before we need to go into the break, and then we’ll dive into this topic, for as long as the time allows
There are so many things I wanna ask you, and there are so many places. I guess maybe just starting with what we touched on before we started the recording, about really this tantric journey of going into the dark spaces, going into the depths, so that we could receive more of the light, more of the seeing from the higher places.
You have to drop your roots in order to extend your branches.
Yeah. One of my favorite things to do is to take these spiritual teachings, these things that we read in almost every tradition, whatever book we open or whatever teacher we listen to, and actually find a way to have a personal felt experience of it. Things like you have to drop your roots in order to extend your branches, is a beautiful way to think about things. And it’s a much more difficult thing to actually build the capacity to do in your body.
Things like where we’re experiencing tension. And tension can be in a relationship. Tension can be something that we’re feeling in the field between us. Tension can be something that we’re feeling in our muscles or in the way our bones are interacting with each other, in our energy field. Tension is something that many of us steer away from. We’ve developed in our adults lives many strategies and many different parts of our personality to wiggle through or to work around these places of tension. It’s a whole other path to actually slow down enough to notice that it’s occurring, and then to embrace it … like a friend, like an area of life that you just want to get to know better.
A teacher.
Like a teacher, exactly, exactly. And, the good news is that the more we build a capacity for that relationship for feeling those darker, deeper places or the places of tension, and give them breath, and give them attention, the two key medicines. What gets to open is so much possibility. All the things that many of us reach for and strive for in our life, are just waiting for our breath and our attention in those places of tension. It’s true. It really works, that if we can slow down enough to be with those areas that we’re often skirting away from, what opens up is a vast possibility, and new experience.
Yes, and this is a place where you and I find deep and agreements and are both on that path, and on that journey in our own lives and our own ways. But, I couldn’t agree with you more that it’s the attention and the breath. I mean those … I love how you said those two medicines. Because they really are the foundational medicines that I work with. Then there’s all the plants and the sound, and all those other juicy things that we can build on top of it that really when you break it down, if you’re gonna come to the core of what we need to administer in terms of the medicine, it’s breath, and it’s attention.
What’s so cool is that we have access to those.
Right.
I might be in the wrong town for that particular plant or I might not have the right tone of sound bul, but there’s something about breath and attention actually being birthrights, something that I commend with that it makes it really handy.
Right, yeah.
The first medicines you have, you carry within you.
Isn’t that lovely, the first medicines you have, you carry within you. It’s why i turn to breathe all the time for that reason, because as long as we are alive in these bodies, we have access to breath, and it’s been one of my greatest teachers. I really wanna dive more and pick your brain a little bit more about journeying into the darker spaces, and the gifts that are found inherent within that process, ’cause I think that that’s … you know, there’s some shadow work that we don’t necessarily … you don’t see enough of, especially in personal development arena and all of that kind of world. It’s all about light, it’s all about up and out and growth, and go, go, go and sort of this more … what I generally relate to as the more masculine forward moving lineage erect energy and … but there’s a beauty and a gift in the darkness.
It really does strengthen and grow one’s capacity to be able to hold that light when we journey into those spaces. I really want to dive into that a little bit more with you, after the break. We are gonna go to a quick break, but before we do, can you tell everybody where they can find out more about you and your work?
Oh sure. I guess the easiest is through the websites. One of my personal work is movingfromthecenter.com, and then the organization that you and I have played into together, honeyroot.org. So, movingfromthecenter.com and honeyroot.org are good places to access me.
And HoneyRoot, if you are a woman on this journey of empowerment and embodiment, and you happen to find yourself in California, please find yourself, find your way over to HoneyRoot, because it’s just such a magical co-creative experience that happens in that community. So again, we are talking with Dev Bry about a spiritual journey into the body. And we’re gonna really dive deep into this when we return, so stay tuned. There’s some really good stuff coming up.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
Music Credit: All instruments played by Amanda Turk. Engineered and produced by Tatiana Berindei and Daniel Plane reelcello.com
Podcast: Play in new window
