Expert Q&A: What posture can reveal about health and emotional patterns with Raya Friesen

The following interview is a transcript excerpt from The Heallist Podcast episode. Listen to the full audio version or watch the video below and subscribe to get notified of new episodes. 
‍

In this episode of the Heallist Podcast, we explore the relationship between posture, emotional health, and healing with Raya Friesen, an integrative practitioner with over 20 years of experience in holistic healing. Raya shares how her Lumina Method™ brings together breath work, energy medicine, and physical alignment to support people navigating chronic pain, postural imbalances, and emotional patterns held in the body. The conversation offers a grounded look at how the body may reflect lived experiences over time.

Drawing from real client stories, Raya discusses how emotional patterns can sometimes show up alongside physical conditions such as scoliosis, and how gentle, integrative approaches may support awareness and change. We explore how breath, posture, and presence work together, why pain can be viewed as information rather than something to override, and how healing remains possible across different life stages. The episode also touches on the role of practitioner community and collaboration in creating more sustainable, holistic care.

This episode is offered for educational and reflective purposes only. It does not provide medical advice or recommend specific treatments. Its goal is to add context to complex health decisions and highlight the value of informed, personalized care across medical and integrative paradigms.

‍

Assessment, Energy Work, And Activations

Raya Friesen: Your body remembers everything. When first heard, that could be looked at as a very overwhelming thing. Yet through the lens of curiosity, as we start learning about our posture: how we stand, how we move in the world, it tells a story. And that when we're able to read the story, understand how to interpret the posture, but that we can learn more about the body and what may be going on beneath the surface as well. And so I began my career as a conventional physiotherapist and worked in the area of something called Schroth for about seven years. And during that time, this modality specifically is for those who are navigating scoliosis and other spine conditions. And during that time, I realized that I could put people in different positions for the exercises. And they would do spinal traction and they would breathe. And then all of a sudden, they'd have an emotional release. They'd cry. And at that time, I didn't know how to hold that. I wasn't taught how to hold space for emotions as a physio, but also I was learning that within my own life at the time. And I realized to really treat the whole person, mind, body, spirit, mind, body, emotions, that I had to go deeper than just what I was seeing in the posture. And so the posture, the spine specifically, was my gateway into, oh, maybe there's something more when someone's feeling something in the body, when we see a certain condition arise, like scoliosis or some sort of postural imbalance, that there might be a root deeper than simply what you're born with, a genetic component or an injury from your past. So that got me curious. And then when I started asking questions, I ended up finding breath work. And breath work was my way into learning like, wow, the breath tells a story. Emotions are a part of this bigger picture. And that launched me into where I am now almost six years later with the Lumina Method and my current practice here in North Vancouver.

Skepticism, Emotions, And TCM Meridians

Raya Friesen: This work is full of miracles, and I'm blessed every day for that. Oftentimes, the conventional medical system will say to a person who's done growing, in the case I work with a lot of older people, and they'll say, Well, there's nothing you can do. And if you believe that, that may become your truth. Yet if you are open to the thought that things can change, then they can. 

One of my lovely clients, she came to me, and the common story I hear from clients is, “I've tried everything”, “nothing works”, or “I got this far and I plateaued.” And I received this referral for this person from the physio we share. When she came in, she was having very extreme lower back discomfort on the left side, right into her SI joint, and she was getting nerve-related symptoms that travel down into her hip, past her knee. She'd tried everything for about six months, and she was getting to that point. She was 69 at the time. And she was getting to the point where she said to me, If this continues, I'm not sure I want to. And this woman is very active. She does tracking with her dog, snowboarding still, she landscapes, keeps two houses. So not being able to do the thing she loved really decreased the quality of her life. So I started just with that: I taught her about how this works as not a one and done necessarily. Yet when we can accept our current reality, then we set the stage, the foundation for change. So through the process of education, understanding what was going on in her body. And so when she understood how her body existed in space, and when we dove deeper into her childhood and some of the lack of stability she felt in her maternal line and being an only child, etc., her story. 

Then within two sessions, actually, she got off the table in our first session. She said, Wow, I feel different. Within three months, she came back in and said, Raya, I was just reflecting on how this work is like a miracle. I can do everything that I want to do now. So her pain fully resolved itself. And even though that's not necessarily something that I can guarantee, I have no guarantees in this work. But what I can say is that if you believe you can make change and you sit and you learn the language of your body and you're consistent with your practices, that's what I see leads to change most often. 

And for her, it's not about holding this pain-free place all the time because we're human. Things are going to come up, we're going to get triggered. And that's a big part for me in this work and what lights me up and what I'm passionate about is showing people the potential of how amazing life can be. How your body is here to be this guide for you.

When you learn the language of your body and you let your heart lead versus your mind. “What do I need today? What would feel nourishing to me?” It's amazing how you can really decrease your risk of injury and you can really increase your capacity for joy, for ease in your body. And that directly gets reflected in your outer world because I believe the outer world is a direct reflection of what's going on in the inner world. So it's all connected. 

Training Practitioners And Building Community

Raya Friesen: That's correct, yes. So I have created the Lumina Method certification program where I take other practitioners who are curious to expand into the integrative space of health and wellness. And I also in this program have created a lot of business fundamentals. So I believe that,when we're trying to offer our service to the world, it's nice to have that stable foundation where we can ground it into reality. And then also teaching how do you set up and hold a space? How do you honor your own energetic boundaries? How do you clear your field so that you don't take on everything that your clients are navigating? 

Some of my students teach body talk or womb workers and how these modalities fit together. Like you were doing with Heallist, like building out this beautiful community of like-minded practitioners who can support each other, become this little family of, how are we called to serve at this time? So it's it's my heart’s work, this program too.

Breathwork Meets Alignment

Raya Friesen: I think there'll be more and more of this type of approach where we're really looking at the whole person and pulling from our toolkits whether that was rooted initially in the conventional way and then expanded out into the more integrative way to best support the person. Because ultimately, that's my intention is really that I offer this loving space for someone to reflect and do their own inner work and really feel empowered and grateful for the body they have and the path that they're on, which is the same for the path that I walk to get here. It's that reflection back.

Pain As Messenger, Not Enemy

Raya Friesen: I want to offer a reframe. Because when I was a very competitive Irish dancer growing up, got into distance running, so pain was very familiar. And anytime I had pain, I'd want to book the appointment and get rid of the pain as fast as possible, get back to what I loved. But now there's been this reframe within my own world and what I teach to others is that pain is there to alert you that there's a lesson that you haven't learned yet. And it's the way that the body communicates. Often it'll whisper and then it will get louder. And even if you've had that loud stimulus of pain for quite some time, if you believe that you can make change, you can. And there is something there for you. Pain is there to be your teacher, not your enemy. And that reframe really has helped me along my path and many others.

‍

Want to work with a practitioner like the one featured in this episode?

‍Search the Heallist directory by modality, location, or virtual availability — and explore support that aligns with your needs.

‍

→ Find a Practitioner on Heallist

‍