Could you make yourself 10% more comfortable right now?
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. – Mary Oliver What would the soft animal of your body love right in this moment? A sip of water? A stretch? A deep breath? To stand up and walk out into the beautiful world and unplug for awhile?
Meet Erin
Hi! My name is Erin Elizabeth Geesaman Rabke.
A few perspectives on who I am and what I’m about:
By training and profession, I am a somatic educator. Over the past 25+ years I have trained in and taught modern dance, tai chi, Indian and Tibetan yoga, yoga therapy (specializing in back pain). I completed a 4-year professional Feldenkrais training in 2007 and a 3-year Embodied Life training in 2014. I also study and work with somatic meditation and the profound practice of embodied inner listening known as Focusing.
My work is about sharing potent practices to not only heal and befriend the body, but to enter into a radically new, non-dual, and liberating relationship with embodiment. My work is about listening to life through the ever more finely tuned instrument of the living body, and supporting my clients and students to do the same. My work is to support people in learning to move with greater awareness, pleasure, ease, and clarity – a surprisingly powerful and unending education that effects everything else in life in potent ways. I believe embodied learning, decolonizing our bodies, and returning to our intelligent, organic wholeness is intimately connected with the healing of our world. I believe mindfulness and lovingkindness must be embodied practices rather than mental concepts to be of genuine benefit.
By lineage and inclination, I am a meditator and spiritual practitioner, blessed by many years of study in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Dzogchen, Lojong, and Somatic Meditation.
My work is to grow my capacity for grounded, centered, embodied presence and vast, spacious awareness. Both of these together offer generous room for the broken-open heart that allows me to fully welcome the beauty and heartbreak of this precious life, and to support my clients and students to do the same. I also consider it my work to grow maitri – what Chogyam Trungpa translates as brave, unconditional friendliness toward what is – and to support my clients and students to do the same. This kind of brave lovingkindness is an embodied wisdom that can transform all that it touches – body, mind, soul and world. Additionally, I’ve been powerfully called to Tend the River of Grief, alone and in community. My work is about waking up more and more fully so I can live a life of benefit to the whole web of life. I commit to using all that arises in my life in support of this intention. By lineage, I am a white woman of Bohemian Czech, Scottish, German and English descent and am fortunate to live in gorgeous Salt Lake City, Utah, on historically native Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute and Ute land.
By choice and good fortune, I am honored to be mother to an impossibly beautiful and bright 7-year old boy. I am wife and consort to my beloved partner in all things, Carl Rabke. I am a daughter, a sister, an auntie, and a friend. I am a writer, an amateur photographer, a passionate learner and a convener of inspired communities. I am fortunate a student of many powerful and profound teachers.
My work is to honor my good fortune with gratitude of equal measure, and by using my great good fortune in working toward the healing of our world. I’m deeply inspired and humbled by Nelson Mandela’s phrase: “Free yourself. Free others. Serve everyday.” This is my work.
I am devoted to growing:
- embodied presence,
- awakened heart-mind,
- and freedom in myself and in the world.
I am called to help my clients and students develop:
- maitri (unconditional, brave friendliness)
- courage and wholehearted participation with life,
- grounded sensitivity,
- somatic intelligence and physical autonomy,
- and trust in the indigenous, embodied perspective.
I am inspired to help my clients and students uncover:
- a sense of self as vast and open as space,
- a heart as naturally warm as the sun,
- and trust in uncontrived naturalness of body and mind.
I am motivated to help my clients and students develop:
- skills of deep listening,
- unprecedented creativity in many aspects of life,
- and in finding and living from their unique genius (which is often hidden behind a wound.)
I am honored to help my clients and students to develop:
- a sense of play mind,
- possibilitarianism,
- authentic, unforced gratefulness,
- less effort and more pleasure, (even in the most challenging situations)
- and potent practices of positive neuroplasticity.
A few more things:
I love poetry. I adore good questions, especially the unanswerable ones. I’m a voracious reader and a lover of books. I believe in going barefoot as often as possible. I love to cook. I love to learn. I love to wander in wilderness.
Some of my heroes are Maya Angelou, Mary Oliver, Georgia O’Keefe, Pina Bausch, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Brother David Steindl-Rast, Rigoberta Menchu, Ruthy Alon, Mr. Rogers, Wangari Mathai, Vandana Shiva, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Kathleen Dean Moore, Deena Metzger, Shabkar, and Pema Chodron.
I love travel, and have a special resonance with the high desert beauty in southern Utah and New Mexico. I am in love with my morning coffee and am an unapologetic coffee snob. I also love good whiskey and big red wine, and sharing those with people I love. I am seeking a sane and humane relationship with digital technology. I adore silent retreats and time in wilderness. They fund my life.
I’m an INFJ Scorpio Ox, and my top 3 strengths are Connectedness, Empathy, and Positivity.
Thanks to the amazing writer, Kathleen Dean Moore, for the framing (training and profession, lineage and inclination, choice and good fortune.) Her self-reflections inspired mine. If you haven’t read her book Great Tide Rising, may I highly recommend it?
For years before I found The Feldenkrais Method® (we call it "Feldy" for short) I studied yoga and tai chi with great passion, from the time I was a young dancer in my teens. For awhile yoga truly made my body feel great. I loved it and dove in deeply But over years of intensive study and practice, I began having terrible back pain. In my enthusiasm to “give it my all," I created even more lax ligaments in my already very flexible body. It led to unstable sacroiliac joints and serious pain.
In spring of 2003, during a 2-month solo silent meditation retreat at a cabin in the mountains of Crestone, Colorado, I realized that — even after several solitary weeks with no phone, no electricity and no access to the outside world — the one activity where I was most “in my head” was on my yoga mat. WTF? I was shocked. It sounded something like this: “Ground the outer edge of your back heel ... Rotate your thigh ...Draw your shoulder blades down ... Blah ... blah ... blah.”
Even though the voice was quite eloquent and "knowledgeable" and was certainly intending to be helpful, there was no denying I was in my head bossing my body around. Yikes! What the hell?!
This was not yoga as union. This was a bossy, thinking-mind directing a body like a workhorse. Or a race horse. Or a yoga horse. Body-mind split. Mind bossing body. Not how I wanted to live. Or teach. I'm grateful for the sacred silent retreat environment as I think I may never have noticed this in my everyday urban life.
I spent a lot of time in deep confusion about how to process this realization — not only for myself but with great concern for what I was teaching my students as a full-time yoga teacher.
I soon discovered an incredible book titled Mindful Spontaneity: A Return to Natural Movement. It profoundly helped me to understand how to work with my body and movement without my thinking-mind acting as boss.
I began doing movements "as myself" instead of "to myself."
Big difference.
Through lots of practice and experimentation, I confirmed this organic, internally-informed, brilliant way of being embodied. I realized that there is indeed a deep body wisdom that I could access and unfold without being in my head. Moving and inhabiting my body in this respectful, non-dual, listening way also healed my back pain. It was profound not only in how much it helped my back, but in how deeply it helped me integrate my meditation and awareness practice into my everyday life.
I was so hugely inspired that I signed up for a 4-year professional Feldenkrais training in 2004. That education changed my life, my practice and my teaching. Integrating this way of being not only healed my back and SI joints, it led to a deeper experience of wholeness and integration than I'd ever experienced. It also led to a much freer life. Hooray!
Today one of my passions is helping others discover their own embodied wisdom. Doing so can not only heal aches and pains but can restore a deep sense of inner trust and integration which many of my clients haven’t experienced since childhood. It seems simple, but it goes very deep. I also love the way embodied practice helps to integrate mindfulness into everyday life so much more intimately and easily than mostly mental practice.
Can you imagine discovering a deep source of inner wisdom that is not in your head?! It’s there. Fully intact. Often ignored for a looooong time.
I love helping adults who are on a path of awakening to recover and integrate their embodied wisdom.
- My clients feel so much better in their bodies and heal long-standing aches and pains.
- They learn to move with ease and gracefulness, eliminating the causes of wear and tear on their joints.
- They find unconditional support in their relationship with the earth externally and within their own bones internally. Living with unconditional support is profound.
- They rediscover wholeness in an undeniable way.
- They become empowered learners who know how to work with themselves on their own. (I LOVE THIS!!! I believe in teaching people how to fish rather than giving them a fish.)
I believe my work is most valuable when it empowers people to learn and continuously grow and improve for the rest of their lives.
- They reconnect with a sense of trust in themselves and their inner wisdom, which is much deeper and wiser than the wisdom that lives only“in their heads.”
- They soon discover that they’re much much freer than they formerly believed, not only in their movements but in all areas of their lives.
- They discover that their limits (you name it) are usually self-imposed and can be gently dissolved, without turning themselves into a "self-improvement project." (Thank goodness.)
- They recover their own inner authority and embody a sense of playful dignity - no longer always turning outside themselves for advice or expertise, but learning how to access the knowing within.
- They unwind the infrastructure of their “historical selves” as body tensions, old beliefs, and life-depleting-behaviors.
- They begin to courageously give their unique gifts to the world.
- They find increasing freedom, joy, fulfillment and delight in their lives.
- They blossom!
- How could I not adore my work?!?
I began studying yoga in 1989 and was first asked to teach in 1995 at Red Lotus School of Movement I helped found one of Salt Lake's early yoga studios, Soma Yoga Studio, in 1999. I’ve studied with incredibly skilled, traditionally trained innovators in the Yoga tradition, including my faves: Donna Farhi and Gary Kraftsow.
I began my studies in Tai Chi in 1992. I'm grateful to have studied Tai Chi and been certified to teach with Stephen Paul and Sifu Jerry Gardner.
I've had the delight and privilege of teaching students and teachers in both of these beautiful traditions.
I’ve practiced Feldenkrais professionally since 2005.
Some of my favorite teachers have been Yvan Joly, Diana Razumny, Alan Questel, Elizabeth Beringer, Dennis Leri, Russell Delman, Ruthy Alon, Mia Segal, Carl Ginsburg, and many more.
In 2014, I completed a 3-year Embodied Life Mentorship Program with Russell Delman. It’s been the most amazing training I’ve ever done, integrating Feldenkrais-based movement lessons, embodied listening and inner inquiry, Zen-based sitting meditation, and neurologically-based attentional practices that work like magic to rewire your brain for the better. It rocks.

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions. – Hafiz
MEET CARL
I believe our bodies are a source of intelligence, satisfaction, guidance, insight and many other nameable and unnamable qualities.
I believe that we can easily become disconnected from our embodiment much of the time. When we are disconnected from our embodiment, we seriously limit our experience of life.
If you compare the amount of time you spend in front of your computer today to 10 years ago or 20 years ago — It’s scary.
How many times a day is your attention magnetized to your phone?
Again, this is very different from 10 or 20 years ago, let alone how humans were 1000 years ago.
The speed of life, the technology, and the amount of sensory information we ingest on a daily basis draw us up and out of our bodies. One computer programmer client described his experience of his body as being “an elaborate platform” to carry his brain, thoughts and ideas around in the world.
Embodiment is not a gift that only some of us have — It is a birthright.
Most of us have embodiment “trained” out of us from a very early age when we go to school. Well meaning teachers force us to squeeze our energy, movement and vitality behind small desks, where we are expected to sit still and narrowly focus on subjects outside of ourselves.
Then, through the years, we master the art of ignoring what is happening in our bodies in favor of our ideas, preferences, thoughts, jobs, schedules, our families, and our iPhones.
When we are not in our bodies, we limit ourselves on a number of levels. On an outer level, we do not move well.
When we use more effort than is needed in standing, walking, sitting, etc., these activities become a source of strain and tension.
We believe the grunts and aches that come with activities are just “how it is.” We don’t notice the minor imbalances or tensions that can lead to greater injures and chronic tension. Or, perhaps, we think we constantly need to offer a correction to ourselves, — e.g., pull the shoulders back, or suck in the belly, which can be an exhausting and futile way to be with ourselves.
On an inner level, we miss out on huge amounts of information and intelligence. Life always affects us on a bodily level: Conversations we have, news stories we read, and our successes or failures all create a bodily manifestation. It’s what happens in our breath, our chests, and bellies. We often pay little attention to the changes, and focus, rather, on our ideas or thoughts about a situation.
The good news is, no matter how long or how out of touch we are with our bodies, they are always waiting for us when we return.
Pain was one of my entry points for exploration of embodiment. In college, I was very athletic, but disconnected from my body. Of course, at the time, I would not have believed that. I did lots of things with my body: I played lacrosse and basketball; I swam, ran, and hiked. How could I be disconnected from my body?
My body was an object that I gave demands to. After 2 years of chronic pain, where I couldn’t sit, drive, or sleep without intense discomfort, at the age of 21 I had back surgery. That was the only choice offered to me at the time. I remember the moment I awoke from anesthesia I thought, “The pain is gone!”
Fortunately, I appreciated the pain-free clean slate enough to recognize that if I didn’t have a major lifestyle change, I would be back in the same place again in two or three years.
When I moved to Utah in 1994, I started to explore yoga and tai chi (the woman who is now my beloved wife was one of my first yoga teachers), and began studying with a meditation teacher who had a strong emphasis on working with embodiment. The more I learned about embodiment, the more I realized how rarely I was fully in my body. I realized how rarely I received sensory information of my contact with the ground, or where I was uncomfortable, or what was happening in my belly or my breath. I was in my head with my thoughts, ideas, and commentaries. I occasionally checked in with my body, if there was something particularly pleasing or painful. It was humbling. It continues to be delightfully humbling.
My interest in deepening my experience of embodiment lead me to enroll in massage school in 1999. Then, I studied the Structural Integration work of Dr. Ida Rolf in 2002. I took a 4-year Feldenkrais professional training in 2004, and completed a mentorship with Russell Delman in the Embodied Life work in 2014.
With each level of training, education and continued practice, I feel more enthused, more grateful, more in alignment with my values in life, and more delighted to share what is so helpful for me with others.
I’ve never come across something more effective for helping people get out of pain than The Feldenkrais Method and Structural Integration. While Western medicine has amazing benefits — and there is no place I would rather be in an emergency — in terms of working with physical pain, the strong emphasis on surgical and pharmaceutical treatments can have serious limitations.
Why do Feldenkrais and Structural Integration work when so many others modalities have failed to bring relief?
One central reason is that both modalities support a return to wholeness. I engage you as a whole living being, not as a collection of parts. Rather than isolating and focusing on what is not working — the frozen shoulder, the tweaked back, the sore neck - we are looking to bring those areas back into right relationship with the whole. This is integration.
The incredible results of pain reduction that can come are really just a side effect of reawakening our capacity to learn.
Our friend and mentor Russell Delman once said,
“Feldenkrais is not only for working with pain; it’s about increasing the wonderfulness of life!”
Part of that wonderfulness is that when we bring attention to our embodiment, and sensing how we do what we do, we begin to get in touch with our innate intelligence and an ability to learn that we might not have thought possible.
As one of our teachers, Ruthy Alon wrote in Mindful Spontaneity:
“Can you imagine your feelings when you discover that you are an ever-changing live organism, capable of self-correction and advancement for as long as you live? The optimism which accompanies the learning process, people’s enthusiasm when they discover it, as well as their appreciation, are what make this method so attractive, and inspire commitment in both students and teachers.”
- Can I move with a sense of lightness and length in my spine?
- How can awareness of the ground can affect the way I move in the world?
- How do I inhabit, and move from a dynamic, vital center ? (Which can often be very different from what we have been taught about “core strength” by the way...)
- How can I discover where I am holding tension that I am not aware of?
- How can I breathe in a way that is easy, responsive, and uncontrived?
- Can find a way to sit, run, or stand with less effort and greater efficiency?
I teach people to develop their own wisdom and their own inner-authority around embodiment, rather than trying to follow all of the often conflicting advice of doctors, gym teachers, parents, and yoga teachers.
I teach people to pause and listen to their bodies.
They discover how less effort and more sensitivity can lead to greater efficacy, and they also learn how to be kinder and gentler with themselves.
I help clients discover how any activity can get easier as you age, if you are willing to pay attention.
I remind students of movements that may have been forgotten, like crawling, squatting, jumping or judo rolling, and how enlivening and functional these movements can be into their 50′s, 60′s, 70′s and beyond.
I help students discover that updating old habits it one of the most enlivening experiences we can have.
I love experiences that make me feel more alive.
I love exploring of embodiment and awareness; hiking in the mountains and deserts of Utah; doing Awareness Through Movement lessons; dancing; martial arts; yoga; sitting; lying on my back.
I love my morning espresso as I sit down on my meditation cushion (and I have no small amount of attachment around that.)
I am grateful that I came across wonderful, wise teachers at an early age, so my adult life could unfold around what I value.
I love playing basketball and appreciate that it gives me lots of advanced training in working with my own injuries and tweaks.
I love making good music mixes for road trips.
I love language — poetry, writing, and speaking — that illuminates the subtleties and nuances of life.
I appreciate the changes of light with seasons and weather.
I love to sit on my front porch with a good IPA and noodle around on my lap-slide guitar.
I love to share this journey with my amazing wife Erin and our sweet son.
Would you like to work with me?
Email me at Carl@bodyhappy.com
or call me at 801-671-4533.
Wondering where the name Body Happy came from?
In 1995 I, Erin, spent 3 months in Nepal studying with 2 amazing Buddhist teachers, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche.
While I was staying at Naygi Gompa, the mountain hermitage of Tulku Urgyen and also the home of a nunnery he headed, I made many dear friends, including a young Tibetan nun named Yeshe Wongmo.
Every morning she'd come out in front of the little building where I was staying and she'd follow along as I did my yoga or tai chi practice. We had a lot of laughs, though shared very little language in common as my Tibetan was minimal (or mostly related to words about meditation and prayers) and her English was minimal too.
One morning after a few weeks of her showing up to join me in my morning routine, I did my best to ask, "Yeshe Wongmo, why do you come do this with me in the mornings?"
And she thought silently for a moment about how to say what she felt.
Then her eyes lit up and she said simply, "Body Happy!"
It was so pure, so enthusiastic and so heartfelt, it brought tears to my eyes.
When my tech-savvy mom encouraged me to start a website way back in the 90s, it was the name we chose. And it stuck.
May you be BodyHappy. :)
Whether you are young, old or somewhere in between, you can become body happy and keep deepening it through your whole life.
But, don’t simply take our word for it. Read what others have said about working with us here.