In this brief hour-and-a-half discussion, Linda and Priscilla cover the topics of race, childhood trauma (Linda being a two-year-old refugee from Vietnam to Australia), internalized whiteness, addiction, finding mindfulness, and self-healing.
Linda shares her personal experiences with all of these topics that naturally led to intergenerational healing.
From the connection with mindfulness and meditation, there comes the space for self-healing which in turns opens up space for compassionate curiosity. With that comes compassion for parents who were under-resourced and more softness for the generations that came before. Healing one’s self heals one’s ancestors. “The secret of life is that it’s a lifelong thing.”
Linda Thai, LMSW ERYT-200 is a trauma therapist and educator who specializes in brain and body-based modalities for addressing complex developmental trauma. Linda has worked with thousands of people from all over the world to promote mindfulness, recover from trauma, and tend to grief as a means of self care. Linda’s work centers on healing with a special focus on the experiences of adult children of refugees and immigrants. Her teaching is infused with empathy, storytelling, humor, research, practical tools, applied knowledge, and experiential wisdom.
She assists internationally renowned psychiatrist and trauma expert, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, with his private small group psychotherapy workshops aimed at healing attachment trauma. She has a Master of Social Work with an emphasis on the neurobiology of attachment and trauma.
Linda has studied Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems, Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment, Havening Touch, Flash Technique, and structural dissociation of the personality, and offers the Safe and Sound Protocol, yoga, and meditation within her practice. Linda works on the traditional lands of the Tanana Athabascan people (Fairbanks, Alaska) with those recovering from addiction, trauma, and mental illness. She is passionate about breaking the cycle of historical and intergenerational trauma at the individual and community levels.
Your host for this episode is Priscilla Castro
Priscilla Castro, RYT 200, comes from an office administration background and has a passion for social justice. She also has a love for yoga, which she started practicing in 2007 in personal spaces and various yoga studios in southern California, on the East Coast, and in Mexico. Priscilla came to the Prison Yoga Project in 2020 while researching how to get involved in social justice work that helps and supports marginalized people. During that time she had been doing mutual aid work that brought food, clothing, and supplies to unhoused people and the underserved communities in Los Angeles.
