Meet Gris Alves | Earth Based Healing Arts and ‘Compassionate Inquiry’ Somatic Therapy Practitioner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Gris Alves and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Gris, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
After many years working as an investigator in the Federal Public Defenders office and the high stress level of intensity in the criminal justice field, I began to meditate and practice yoga in order to help my nervous system calm down and to be able to in peace regardless of my work situation.

As time went by, I realized that regardless of all my new found practices, I did not enjoy this public defender work at all, and that I had fallen into the matrix message of just hustle and work regardless until you drop and be a slave to capitalism.
My body was not responding well to this, it would shut down even after all the yoga, breath-work, nutritious meals etc. It was time to LISTEN to my body and get out of a situation that was neither life giving or life fulfilling for me.
I trained in many modalities including meditation, trauma informed yoga, addictions, thanatology (grief work) and somatics.

I began to teach mindfulness and create wellness and rest retreats.

I moved deeper into the healing arts as a somatic (body based) trauma therapist and earth based practitioner.
I really was (and still am) teaching and creating everything that I needed for myself.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The reason I work with what we call “Earth Based” healing arts, is that they are the most ancient and natural ways of moving energy through the body. Grounding, Dance, Yoga and Singing (even breath work) are all modalities that happen in movement and inside the body.

As a creative, singer and song-writer (yes… pre-justice work I was creating music as well) I have not only experienced a shift in my body and emotions during and after singing or dancing- but all of the retreats and healing rituals I host include these modalities and I have seen how my clients respond to movement as a release and enjoyment of their body.

I used to think that only mental information was important to make sense of unhealthy habits, grief, anxiety, depression etc or why we make decisions as humans that are not good for us. In the past 25 years of practicing healing modalities, I have figured out and learned that it is actually IN and THROUGH the body that we heal. Not that the mind is not in the body, but we have as a culture separated it completely and the real work is in re-connecting it and allow for feelings to flow.

So yes, it has been a process of letting go of much conditioning, trauma and body shaming. I know I am not alone in this, and the beautiful thing is noticing how there is an opening now a days to consciousness that is offering hope to anyone that is open to healing through ancient and earth based ways vs the use of pharmaceuticals that are no longer working for them for example.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Let’s go to Wind and Sea beach to start of course! A day in the sand in between the beautiful rocks of Northern San Diego, ending the day at Riff’s Yoga studio for a restorative session. Sushi at Adzuki Sushi located near Downtown/Hillcrest area would be one of our destination dinners, as well as Buonna Forchetta in South Park.

Sunset Cliffs, Encinitas, Carlsbad and of course, since we are at the border, we’d have to take a quick ride down to Valle de Guadalupe for an amazing farm to table dinners as well as head to the BReathe Inn Baja to join one of my wellness and healing retreats 🙂

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Brené Brown’s books The gifts of Imperfection and Braving the Wilderness, among other courses she had online back in the early 2010’s were KEY in realizing that I was not at all living the life I wanted nor was created for. I had pretty much fallen into the ‘be a good girl’ syndrome even after years of glorious teenage and early twenties rebellion.
The way out of this intense ‘good girl’ do what you are supposed to trap was carried by several amazing beings including my amazing friend and nutrition coach Michelle Meeks, and Spiritual Director Phileena Nikole. Both of these friends not only had my back during intense life transitions, but they both helped me to look inwards and develop a self love that would be the fuel necessary to step out of toxic relationships and into a life of freedom and liberation.

Website: www.grisalves.com

Instagram: @grisalves

Linkedin: Gris Alves

Twitter: @grisalves

Facebook: Gris Alves

Other: podcast @TalesofRecovery https://open.spotify.com/show/2KJo9gI9XnEodvKxpowrfW?si=356bb11994264d57

Image Credits
Paula Alves @twisteddrotten