About Shankari

 

I’m a trauma informed IFS Practitioner offering a body-centered approach to your spiritual and self development. With more than two decades in holistic spiritual practices, I welcome the privilege of holding space for you to move from your thinking self to your feeling self as you explore, discover, and connect with the wisdom of your true wild nature.

 

More of my story

I have been a lifelong student and teacher of the transformational arts.

For 15 years I lived and taught at the Esalen Institute on the magical coast of Big Sur, California. My years at Esalen afforded me a rare opportunity to abide in intimate community and engagement with an astonishing variety of teachers and leaders across every imaginable realm of emotional, spiritual, and physical healing. That immersion has shaped my unique perspective — one in which I am literate and comfortable within a multiplicity of modalities and belief systems.

There are many pathways to wellness, and very few with which I am unfamiliar. I make use of all these tools in my work. I also draw perpetual inspiration from the wisdom of nature, as well as my long paternal ancestral line of Mexican Michoacan Curanderas (traditional healers).

After all these years of study and observation, I have come to believe that we each carry within ourselves everything we will ever need in order to heal and transform our own lives. None of us are born inherently broken, bad, or wrong. But sometimes we need a little guidance and support, to find our way back home.

I would be honored to walk this path with you.

I have a deep commitment to empowering you in your awakening process.

Spiritual freedom is available within you at this present moment.

Let us find it together.

 Certifications & Trainings:

Professional Certifications

  • IFS Level 3 200 hour with Level 2 focus on clients’ Shame, Anxiety & Depression IFS Institute

  • Somatic IFS 30 hour Experiential and 54 hour Clinical Applications residential Susan McConnell

  • Somatic EMDR Therapy 60 hour The Embody Lab

  • Gestalt Process Facilitation 100 hour residential Esalen Institute

  • Trauma Informed Applied Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy 80 hour Adler Graduate Professional School

  • Body-oriented Coaching, ICF Level 2 Accredited, 96 hour The Somatic School

  • Process Acupressure 50 hour residential Soul Lightening Acupressure

  • Community Herbalist 2 week residential on Martha’s Vineyard The Bellebuono School of Herbal Medicine

  • California Certified Massage Therapist specializing in Acupressure & Esalen Massage

  • Stepping Stone: 16 week Comprehensive IFS 48 hour IFSCA

    Highlighted Trainings

  • IFS and Polyvagal Theory: Healing through Compassion and Connection Life Architect

  • The Others Within Us: Unattached Burdens and Guides in IFS Therapy, and currently in Bob’s Supervision & Consultation Group Robert Falconer

  • Neurobiology with Heart: Partnering with Your Client's Brain Academy of Therapy Wisdom

  • Shamanic Journeywork & Soul Retrievals with Hank Wesselman & Jill Kuykendall

  • Foundations of Ketamine Assisted Therapy PESI

  • Memory Reconsolidation: Translating Neuroscience into Art Academy of Therapy Wisdom

  • Dr. Frank Anderson - Transcending Trauma: Treating Complex PTSD with Internal Family Systems (IFS) PESI

  • Ancestral Healing, Folk and Herbal Medicine 4 month residential in Taos, New Mexico Native Roots School

  • Dr. Arielle Schwartz - EMDR, CBT and Somatic-Based Interventions to Move Clients from Surviving to Thriving PESI

  • Coaching for Self Leadership IFS Institute

  • Trauma and Dissociation Informed IFS: How to Successfully Treat C-PTSD and Dissociative Disorders with Joanne Twombly

  • EMDR & Parts Work for Treating Complex Trauma: Somatic Techniques to Decrease Defensiveness and Facilitate Trauma Processing PESI

  • Michael Harner’s Core Shamanism with Nan Moss & David Corbin

  • Janina Fisher's Trauma Treatment Certification Training (CCTP): The Latest Advances and Proven Techniques to Resolve Deeply Held Trauma PESI

  • Embodied Relational Gestalt with Michael Clemmens of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland

  • IFS Intuitive Drawing with Ruth Culver

  • Gestalt Awareness Practice with Chris Price

  • Relational Gestalt Practice with Dorothy Charles

Elizabeth Gilbert

“I have been a client of Shankari’s for nearly twenty years. Over the course of our work together, she has helped me to release physical and emotional ailments that I thought would plague me forever — as well as constantly delighting my imagination and opening my life to ever broader expressions of personal liberation. In doing so, she has changed the shape of my destiny. I have the highest regard for Shankari as a practitioner and spiritual guide. It has been said that nobody can lead you up a mountain that they themselves have not climbed; Shankari knows the mountain by heart, because she has been climbing it her whole life. And nothing brings her more joy than to help someone else in their ascent.

She is the guide who will teach you how to find your own guidance. She is the pathfinder who will help you to discover (through the exploration of your own body, imagination, and spirit) that your path has been clear all along.”

-Elizabeth Gilbert, Author of EAT PRAY LOVE, and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World

Mind-body-spirit classes I’ve taught
at the Esalen Institute

  • Plant Spirit Meditations

  • Qi Gong

  • Yoga Nidra

  • Redwood Forest Bathing

  • Kundalini Yoga

  • Herbalism

  • Edible Flower & Garden Plant Walks