Welcome home. I'm Dr. Tama, a minister, licensed psychologist, and sacred

artist. And this is Homecoming, a podcast to facilitate your journey home to

yourself. While I will provide weekly inspiration and mental health tips, this

podcast is not the same as personalized therapy. I'm so excited you're on the

journey. If you want to request specific topics or to submit a poem for me to

read on the podcast, email me at homecomingpodcasts at gmail.com. Also to build

our community, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. Let's begin.

Welcome home co-journers. I'm glad you're here for another episode. And I'm

excited we have a poem submission for this week. It is entitled 1000 Elephants

and written by Monetta Wilson. And Monetta is the owner of our own yoga studio.

My brother shot dead in the street. No one could help him. 1000 Elephants

trample my chest. My heart is broken. I can't breathe. Three months later, my

tilly gone. Cancer, my friend, my great aunt. The elephants try to kill me. I

walk, I smile. The pain is unbearable. Six doctors, three days in patient,

fibromyalgia. The pain of grief was too much. I can barely move. It's all too

much. I step on my mat. I move. I cry. I crumble. I get up. I get stronger. I

learn to carry a thousand elephants. I open my heart. Even though it hurts, I

learn again to surrender and just be. Yes, Monetta, thank you so much for this

powerful poem and for sharing the ways in which our trauma and grief and stress

can show up in the body. And your submission is so timely because today we're

talking about body-based healing, body-based healing, which we also know as

somatic healing, soma, SOMA, meaning the body. And it is really important that we

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