Structural Integration Practitioner
RYT 200 Yoga Teacher
Relaxation Coach
More About Christine
As a Structural Integration Practitioner, I am interested in the subtle art of repatterning your discomfort into "Ahhhh".
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My gentle approach to meeting you & your discomfort where you are allows our work to explore the depths of what deep tissue means to you.
​I teach you how to use your nervous system as a kaleidoscope to shift your body into a state of relaxation. You, in turn, learn to meet tension differently. As a team, we untangle the knots of stress in your muscles which unravel the knots of stress in your mind— cultivating opportunities for creating a little more embodied ease in your everyday life.
Credentials & Influences
North Carolina Board of Massage & Bodywork Therapy – License # 16132
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Dr. Ida Rolf Institute
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Colorado Institute of Massage Therapy
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iRest Institute
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RYT200 Yoga Teacher Certification from the American Healing Arts Center
People who influenced me:
Til Luchau with the Advanced-Trainings, and his crew of inspirational mentors of Body Workers, your inquisitive nature inspired my journey into The Dr. Ida Rolf Institue.
Dr. Richard Miller, Ph.D. & Molly Birkholm, thank you for the hundreds of hours of being the voice inside my head, leading me into experiencing the gifts of integrating my sleep into a deep restorative place of relaxation for my body, mind & soul.
To Amanda Neufeld (with Yoga Studio Satya) for your sassy open heart of pure bliss and Mike Kerek for twisting the Grateful Dead into all your yoga playlists. Ren Fields, my guru, and her guru Swami Satchinada, for opening the doors to my journey of connecting my soul with itself. You are yoked in my practice of teaching.
Charles & Frances DeBray, Thank You for teaching me meditation is "easy."
To My Friends. My Battle Buddies. And the Military Community that has walked with me along this gnarly road of life. It is my honor to walk this life with you. You will always have a seat around our table, and my heartfelt gratitude for You is my inspiration.
And lastly,
To my Family. My Husband. Our Boys. The Woman they Love. And the Babies they create.
You are my Why...
You are my Why...
You. Are. My. Why...
In all I do.
“STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION VIEWS SYMPTOMS AS PORTALS OF OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH PAIN"
– Christine Bogdan
My Roots + My Journey
​My life has been a twisting journey of a Healer. An unconscious yet mindful journey—a tangled-up mess of a soul who had to untangle and learn how to move, nourish, and better support herself.
I knew early on that my purpose was to serve others ...
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At eleven, every cell in my being wanted to be a hairstylist. At eighteen, I reached this goal. Little did I know that my meandering journey as a healer had begun. With every client I was blessed to have in my chair my heart was equally and deeply touched by the "soul stories" each individual so graciously shared. Time and time again I was in awe of the magic of the mirror–when a person can connect eye to eye with their reflection and feel good, no mountain is too high.
I fell in love with a Soldier at an equally early age ...
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Our life together has defied the odds. Our partnership has always been a foundation for fostering & uplifting one another which is a gift that has rippled into a beautiful life.
Military Life and the Marathon of Parenthood ...
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Parenthood is magical and magically exhausting all at the same time. A large portion of my days, honestly, a chunk of my life, seemed like a never-ending Tough Mudder Race. Military life provided us with the be-all-you-can-be obstacles of moving every 1-3 years, constant heart-wrenching wartime deployment cycles, and everyday challenges that go with "people-ing."
My family and our military community were covered in mud and our stress levels were off the charts. Our attitude was great, we high-fived one another and celebrated overcoming obstacles together before taking on the next obstacle. Life was good. But it was off-balance. I was exhausted. I was giving to everyone else but myself. Lord knows I was choosing the easy ways to de-stress and feeling worse in the process.
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Seeking Balance ...
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A significant inner motivator has always been our two boys. I have always said "They are my teachers on how to walk in heaven," and my husband & I are their teachers on how to walk on earth." My life felt so unbalanced that I felt like I was becoming a poor example of "how to walk on earth."
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Being a military family during wartime affects every aspect of your life. Life & death was part of our daily reality. It was extreme living. In order to survive, I consciously began to seek out things that I would call 'tools of balance' to help me thrive in the glorious mayhem.
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Pushing boulders up mountains ...
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I found myself craving the mental release of a challenging physical workout. No, I have never pushed boulders up a mountain, but some days the pressure of life felt like I did. The stress relief after physically challenging myself was so profound that it fueled my exploration into the muscle-mind connection and its link with post-traumatic stress. Twenty-plus years later, science has connected the muscle-mind to our nervous system. This empowering concept of Post-Traumatic Growth is the essence of my heart's passion.
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Learning how to cultivate ease within the mayhem ...
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The fine art of embodiment, aka learning how to feel at home within one's body, can be an 'entertaining' experience. Who really gets excited about 'connecting' and being 'entertained' by the discomfort of your stressors?
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Talk therapy is excellent and has a solid place in feeling at home in your body. But sometimes, it helps to de-stress the body for the words to form in the mind. At least, that's how it worked for me. I began seeking out how to push my boulders up the mountain while cultivating ease in my body. I was the guinea pig. My life led the experiment, and the inspiration was about opening new doors of opportunity for my Military community.
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The gritty healer within me ...
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God bless her twisted soul. Teaching ME the fine art of embodiment has to be a mind-boggling experience. She is undoubtedly the tenacious beast behind my unconscious soul, a true alchemist. Turning lemons into lemonade is her specialty drink. She has always thrived by creating connections and taking on challenges as opportunities while striving to create balance in an insane world. Her fiery grace allowed her the strength to keep pushing boulders up mountains. And her inner chutzpah could stop the human locomotion long enough for her to experience the essence of a "pause." Connecting her with her breath for 3 seconds at a time, just long enough to feel her strength and re-member she was me.
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Inspired by our Military community, my work is innately trauma-informed ...
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My life as a Military Spouse gifted me with the value of different perspectives and an understanding of the importance of the bigger picture. It taught me to seek out-of-the-box approaches while being grounded in the science that was being created. Most of all, it taught me how to honor balance by embracing the suck.
The best gift is that science has finally proven that our nervous system's reaction to stress can be repatterned. When we are pointed along the path suited for you. Healing feels more like ease than mayhem.
Cultivating change is an easy task when you are using the language of the nervous system to speak to your body & mind.
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Each modality I offer has a personal journey ...
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All have been gifts in my life. They have taught me how to Move, Nourish, & Support myself differently.
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My heartfelt intention is the same for you.
"When the body gets working appropriately, the forces of gravity can flow through. Then, spontaneously, the body heals itself."
Ida P. Rolf, Ph.D.
Founder of Structural Integration
What inspires you to...
MOVE
NOURISH
SUPPORT
How you Move or don't Move in your body creates patterns.
I am curious about the patterns that bring you comfort and the ones that create discomfort.
I seek to understand the knots of tension that inspire you to seek relief and explore
"where you think it is, it ain't,"
and begin there.
Is it in, Your Feet? Your Neck? Your Hips?
(or maybe your Big Toe?)
NOURISH
"When you feel good in your body…you nourish yourself differently." – Christine Bogdan
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To Nourish oneself is simply an invitation, a kind gift to self.
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An Invitation ...to move in a way that inspires you to do the things in life that make you smile & experience a genuine sense of astonishment of feeling good again in your body.
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An Invitation ... to cultivate relaxation by transforming how your nervous system perceives pain.
SUPPORT
Our work together explores how to better support yourself through the muscle-mind connection.
From the depth of soft tissue work that allows tension to fall away from your body & mind, to your nervous system, your greatest supporter, the connector, the peacemaker, between your body & brain.
Using the language of the nervous system ... sensations, perceptions, feelings, thoughts, actions, and breath ... while exploring the depth of the soft tissue work help integrate a new sense of support into how you experience the world.
Your body is the scorekeeper of your lifetime of experiences. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all tangled up, waiting on you to let them go.
I am here to show you how.
"Support is knowing how to experience being back home in the comfort of your own body."