Hi. I’m Nathan Schechter, the Founder of Mind Body Literacy.
I’ve worked in the creative, health, fitness, movement and healing arts industries for close to 20 years. Some of my experiences include:
- Acting with well known celebrities as a youth
- Helping to build a start-up healthcare company
- Working in the ER of a hospital as a psychiatric counselor
- Growing up in a family where Dad was a psychiatrist and Mom was a social worker
- Working for large law firms & multinational companies
To me the two most valuable tools I’ve encountered in navigating through life and developing as a person have been
1) The use of exercise & movement as a form of training
2) Good quality relationships
You can read more about my movement background HERE.
Over the years I’ve come to see that sensation-based learning is extremely effective in building skills and untangling tricky problems. I first encountered it in the practices of professional acting and yoga (you can read more about that HERE) but came to experience it again-and-again as a tool used in a very wide range of practices in the healing and movement arts.
The ability to significantly change the body and states of mind and emotion, seems deeply tied to the ability to identify, clarify, feel, organize, coordinate, and re-create sensations in the body. But I recognize that working with the body and sensation to develop skills can often seem like a foreign language - kind of confusing, and hard to understand.
Unlike discreet procedures movement and working with sensation is a process-based approach. That means it happens over time through practice and experiences. And it’s the process that helps you make real sustainable progress. No magic pills. No instant answers. But definite, observable progress over time. So that you go from where you are to being closer to where you want to be. And so you have experiences that help you come to believe you can change your mind, body and life, and the lives of those around you.
It’s more like learning a skill (playing an instrument, singing at a semi-pro level, a sport) than it is like having a cavity filled.
Whether you want to learn to build strength, or become a movement ninja. Find a way to get unstuck and establish a regular training schedule, or surf the feelings, thoughts and changing energy states that get in your way of performing in a certain area.
If you’re looking to build your skill, change and grow. Or you’re a mind body professional who wants to deepen your understanding or build your skills to help your clients change and grow, I’m here to help you with that process.
But Don’t Take My Word For It …
Solving mind body problems is often a journey of asking questions. Even the most talented performers and skilled professionals are continually learning.
The challenges and problems we face in our bodies and minds throughout life continue to change. The woman who wants to do a cool yoga trick, has a different challenge mastering arm balances than when she’s adjusting her practice to pregnancy. It’s a different issue when she’s carrying a large toddler on a regular basis and her hip hurts. And still a different one when she’s older and wants to retain her balance and strength into old age. As we grow and change, so do the problems we encounter, and the skills and habits we want to build.
Although it’s a simple example, it shows that there is no one training that can prepare us for every possible contingency in the unforeseeable future. Even as a professional working in a mind body field, every week you run into issues that were never covered in your training. And there’s an infinite amount to know.
That’s why, as with other types of literacy (i.e. reading, writing and arithmetic) it’s helpful to have a set of core skills which allow you to figure out and solve novel problems. And it helps to be a lifelong learner.
There’s a danger of assuming only special people have the answers or ability.
In olden times people believed you needed to be a special kind of person to read: royalty, clergy or a well-to-do merchant. The secret was, of course, anyone can learn to read. Society at the time did not have the view that reading was a valuable skill for everyone, despite the fact that the skill of reading can be applied to many different types of situations, and having the skill solves many problems and makes life better.
You don’t have to obtain any particular expert or certified status to access the power of your mind and body. And no one can ever know your inner experience, sensations, and knowledge of your body through time as well as you can. Good collaborations bring together your personal experience with a customized learning experience with someone who has skill, understanding and knowledge of how to travel through the terrain.
Despite the fact that humans have been engaged with it since the times of the Greeks and Romans (and even before), the art and science of using the body as a form of training to create skills and solve problems is not always intuitive, simple to understand, nor easy to implement, so folks who take the time to study it deeply, practice it regularly, mentor others in it, and make it a profession and lifestyle, often wind up accruing many different pieces of paper in their own journey, and efforts to learn more about this fascinating and infinitely complex thing called the human mind and body. At least in the USA we often approach it like that. And, hey, those pieces of paper make grandma happy. Here are just a few of mine:
American College of Sports Medicine, Personal Trainer, 2014
Certified Yoga Teacher, 2005 & 2013
Former Yoga Alliance, Experienced Registerd Yoga Teacher (ERYT-200) 2005 -2018
Former Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider (YACEP, 2 years)
Upledger Institute International, Craniosacral Therapy, 2014
Shiatsu Massage, 2017
Certified Nutrition Coach, PN1-NC, Precision Nutrition, 2023