YSM8 is a beating heart that is open to embracing the journey and embodies whole-being healing.
A love of gathering people around the table, hosting supper clubs and sharing stories as a form of healing and self-love ignited Poonam to develop YSM8 as a platform for community care. YSM8 (pronounced yes mate!) is the mantra that became Poonam’s beads of courage to shed old ways of being, align to her authentic self and re-root in the Divine.
Poonam is an accredited Somatic coach, artist, creative facilitator, and speaker. She is celebrated for the wholesome, calming, compassionate and healing spaces she holds.
Her work dances between Somatics, human centred therapy, systems thinking, emergent strategy, texture constellations and Ancient Wisdom rooted in the Dharmic traditions.
Poonam weaves threads of craft, movement, sound, ritual, reflection and prayer through her workshops, talks and coaching sessions for whole-being healing, nourishment and growth.
She is devoted to creating sacred, healing spaces for humanity. Her prayer is to gather and guide people to feel into the wisdom of their body and cultivate practices that deepen their connection to the Divine Force.
What has guided me here
My family & faith
I grew up in a Sikh-Kenyan-Punjabi family of five, surrounded by an intergenerational community in the South-East London.
My family and faith instilled values in me that have shaped my perspective and my life. I have been anchored in, surrounded and enriched by abundance of love, support, food and care my whole life.
The loving presence, openness, non-judgemental nurturing from my parents has given me a solid foundation. Their unwavering faith, trust, respect and resilience inspires me on a daily basis.
Trusting the process
If I wasn’t recording my radio show, or busting moves like Madhuri Dixit, then I was making magazines - and doing my Dad’s nut in. My family always gave me space to express my whole self without feeling shame or guilt.
While my mates were living their best lives, I was fraying apart. Torn between making a decision to study drama or textiles, and wading through panic attacks I felt like I was losing myself.
Attuning to my body and paying closer attention to the whispers of intuition. Drawn to the loom. I fell in love with the process unfolding.
My twenties were the making of me.
Shakti
Intrigued by colour, communities and culture led me to working in cultural insights and strategy. After a decade of shrinking, code-switching and being in toxic environments.
I took courageous action to quit my job without a five year plan, boarded a flight to Peru and changed the direction of my life.
The more I aligned with my full body “yes mate”, the more synergy I experienced, the more clarity, confidence and congruence I live.
That pause allowed everything false to crumble. I opened my arms and welcomed myself back home.
“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does.”
— James Baldwin
My artistic practice, explores threads of
textures of home/constellations of time and connections/ roots of belonging / discovery of sacred dimensions / slow sanctuary / collective consciousness/ layers of longing
“The craft of questions, the craft of stories, the craft of the hands - all these are the making of something, and that something is soul. Anytime we feed soul, it guarantees increase.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estes PhD