Joy Faith Wellness

10/17/2026

Expressive arts psychotherapy is wonderfully diverse and integrative! I hope these slides give you a little glimpse of what we do over here.

And if you’d like to nerd out even further, here are two organizations connected to my work:

https://www.ieata.org/

https://www.adta.org/

Nerdmaste 🙏🏼

10/14/2026

She didn’t set out to become a psychotherapist.

She was teaching yoga to packed rooms. Giving sermons at a temple and officiating weddings as an interfaith minister. Leading groups of people through cozy Yoga Nidra meditations, breathwork, and chanting workshops, and offering Reiki sessions.

This woman was absolutely hungry to learn more about how people transform through a synergy of creativity, embodiment, and spirituality.

Because of that desire to learn, she began a 15-year expedition into the mainstream clinical realm.

Alongside the mala beads and the Nag Champa came the biopsychosocial assessments and treatment plans.

She became an expressive arts psychotherapist, a board-certified dance/movement therapist, and got a PhD in Human Development.

She worked in psychiatric hospitals, community mental health, and residential treatment.

She was relentless.

But now it’s time to return to base camp—because that expedition was only one leg of the whole journey.

I’ve thanked her for her service and her tenacity and her drive and told her:

You can stop pushing now and… would you like to come out and play?

I have a family member who says to me, “I don’t really know what you do because it’s always changing.”

But the thread has always been the same.

I help people heal and grow.
I do it through creativity, embodiment, and spirituality.

Now I’m bringing the whole journey into the work.

In this next chapter, mainstream clinical perspectives and ancient esoteric practices inform each other.

We’re not splitting body and mind.
We’re not splitting intuition and logic.
We get to have it all.

You might’ve met me as your yoga teacher or your therapist. I might have been your birth doula or officiated your wedding. Maybe I’ve been your client, your student, your colleague, your family, or your friend.

No matter how our paths have crossed, I’m delighted to welcome you into this next chapter of my work.

10/12/2026

Come play with me. Embodied Dance registration closes today!

Mondays, 7:15–8:15 PM
Oct. 26–Dec. 14 • Dalton, MA
$240 for the eight-week series

Register: https://venmo.com/u/Joy-Ruben
Questions: [email protected]

10/07/2026

Embodied Dance might be for you if…

You want to dance but feel shy or self-conscious about moving in front of other people.

You’re highly self-critical and worry about doing it “wrong.”

You want to move but feel awkward in your body.

You want to dance but you have an injury or a changing body and you feel uncertain.

You want more freedom, play, pleasure, and self-expression in your body.

You don’t want choreography, performance, or another way to push your body.

You want somewhere to loosen up and feel a little more like yourself.

You do not have to arrive feeling free in your body. The group is a place to practice freedom.

Embodied Dance 🪩
Mondays, 7:15–8:15 PM
Oct. 26–Dec. 14 • Dalton, MA
$240 • Limited to 5 participants
Registration closes Oct. 12

Register: https://venmo.com/u/Joy-Ruben

Questions: [email protected]

10/05/2026

10/04/2026

This week in the studio, we explored collage and wildness—leaning into the most alive parts of ourselves we were told we should put away.

There’s a ritual to it. We opened Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés and put a finger down on a passage without looking. We read it as a message from our own unconscious.

Then we pulled images we were drawn to and played with placing them down without gluing—entering the movement of our hands with the paper, guided by imagery and intuition.

My collage is deep and dark. At first I judged it for being “too depressing.” But is it depressing?

We’re sold a few images of being human that we’re told are acceptable. I’m wild and messy—and I don’t need to be cleaned up.

I value ethics, upholding agreements, transparency, and accountability. But the idea that something is better or safer or smarter because it’s more sterile will never sit right with me.

Nature is wild, and in that wildness there is wisdom.

I’m an animal. I pay taxes. I send letters. I have some stocks. But I will never forget that I am an animal.

My wildness is the best part of me.
It’s my aliveness.

10/02/2026

Why do I call it Embodied Dance? Isn’t all dance embodied?

All dance uses the body, yes. But not all dancing is done with a sense of what is being felt as the body moves.

I love choreography and dance focused on skill, too. Don’t get me wrong. But what made me fall in love with dance even more—after taking classes since I was two—was discovering movement based in experiencing the body, feeling the sensations that are there.

I would describe embodiment as having your conscious presence rooted in your sensory experience.

In this class, we’re not moving to control our bodies or nail choreo. We’re moving to feel. 😊

09/30/2026

Can I get a witness?

I’ve been primarily a witness for about the last year or more in my Authentic Movement practice.

I need to MOVE. I want to move right in my pajamas, right at home. And I need a witness.

So I’ll be live-streaming my practice as a mover every Wednesday in October at 9 AM Eastern on YouTube. The camera will be my witness, and then any humans who come through.

I’ll close my eyes and move, listening for impulses from my body, making choices, and practicing staying present to my experience.

After moving, I’ll speak in the present tense, naming some of my experience—bringing what emerges through my body into conscious, verbal expression.

In the Discipline of Authentic Movement, there is a commitment to becoming aware of our own experience and to understanding that what we think and feel are our own.

Now—this is NOT the traditional structure. I’m off script, like goat yoga or the Savannah Bananas.

For original and formal sourcing, check out:

The Discipline of Authentic Movement:
https://disciplineofauthenticmovement.com/public-pages/welcome-discipline-of-authentic-movement/a-brief-description/

Authentic Movement: Essays by Mary Starks Whitehouse, Janet Adler and Joan Chodorow:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1853026530

Authentic Movement for Practitioners by Helen Payne:
https://www.routledge.com/Authentic-Movement-for-Practitioners-A-Culmination-of-Theory-Research-and-Practice/Payne/p/book/9781032766430

And here’s where you’ll find me on Wednesday mornings:
https://youtube.com/

Lovingly, I am not holding space or facilitating for others in this process. If you want to work with me professionally using Authentic Movement, please reach out.

I am a mover.

09/28/2026

I really didn’t feel like dancing. But in less than a minute, I was smiling. This is the same spirit I’m bringing to Embodied Dance.

We’re not performing, not learning choreography, not punishing our bodies. We’re making space for them to express, play, and receive pleasure. We’re just moving, dancing, exploring.

This group is for you if you want a place to feel like yourself again, loosen up, and laugh.

This group is for you if you want an intimate space to connect with other women and maybe make some new friends. We’ll be the same people each week.

This group is for you if you want to attend a movement class that is clinically-informed and guided by a board-certified dance/movement therapist who understands movement as it relates to psychology and the nervous system.

This group is for you if you want to give more space to express yourself creatively, develop a better relationship with your body or your sexuality, have an outlet for the stuff that’s weighing you down, or just forget about your responsibilities for an hour.

I hope you’ll come play with me.

Embodied Dance
Mondays, October 26–December 14
7:15–8:15 PM · Flow on Main, Dalton, MA
Closed eight-week women’s group · Limited to five · $240 for the series

To ask about joining, message me or email [email protected].

09/27/2026

This week in the studio, I’ve been exploring flow in my own art-making and with clients.

We began by writing down a few things from the last season that we had already let ourselves flow through. Things we were scared of or unsure about, but trusted ourselves enough to move through anyway.

I wrote:

my body
looking into renting space
posting on social media
feeling my feelings

Things I wish were simpler, finalized, or perfect—but they aren’t.

For me, flow doesn’t mean passively accepting whatever happens. It means staying in relationship with what I want and feel while life is also moving around me—making choices, responding, and co-creating with life.

Then I put on a playlist I made - songs about flow that sounded like water.

We started with chalk pastels, using fluid gestures and listening for the fluidity in the music—making a mark not just from the wrist down, but as the result of a gentle, full-body wave.

Then another layer with oil pastels.

Then watercolor—with even more encouragement to use the water, feel the water, and let it move.

We ended by dancing a little, moving fluidly, and naming what we are letting ourselves flow through now.

It wasn’t about making a beautiful picture.

It was about giving the body an experience of that kind of flow: staying present enough to feel, choose, respond, and keep moving while we are scared, unsure, or still finding our way.

All of my work comes back to this place: self-trust.

Trusting ourselves to stay with our experience, participate in what happens next, and move toward fuller self-expression—even when we don’t know all the details.