Faculty
Meet advaya’s teachers

Advaya’s global faculty blends science, practice, and story bringing localised, multidimensional wisdom to a shared learning space.

Bayo Akomolafe picture

Bayo Akomolafe

5 courses
Sophie Strand picture

Sophie Strand

3 courses
Satish Kumar picture

Satish Kumar

1 courses
Vandana Shiva picture

Vandana Shiva

6 courses
Veronica Strang picture

Veronica Strang

1 courses
Manda Scott picture

Manda Scott

2 courses
Beloved Sara Zaltash picture

Beloved Sara Zaltash

1 courses
David Abram picture

David Abram

2 courses
Dr Andreas Weber picture

Dr Andreas Weber

5 courses
David Whyte picture

David Whyte

1 courses
Helena Norberg-Hodge picture

Helena Norberg-Hodge

2 courses
Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic picture

Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic

1 courses
Charles Eisenstein picture

Charles Eisenstein

3 courses
Aisha Paris Smith picture

Aisha Paris Smith

2 courses
Brontë Velez picture

Brontë Velez

3 courses

Aisha Paris Smith

Somatic sexologist, bodyworker and life coach. Aisha blends her conscious approach to life with the profound experience of being in a body. She embraces all that it means to be a human with flesh, blood, bones, ego and eros. She experiences every day the wisdom of her body and has seen clients transform through the power of somatic methods.

Somatic sexologist, bodyworker and life coach. Aisha blends her conscious approach to life with the profound experience of being in a body. She embraces all that it means to be a human with flesh, blood, bones, ego and eros. She experiences every day the wisdom of her body and has seen clients transform through the power of somatic methods.

Aisha specialises in hands-on sex coaching, offering her clients a direct and practical approach to reconnecting with and reclaiming all aspects of their bodies. For Aisha, this work is about more than pleasure - it’s also about finding safety, freeing self-expression and integrating shadow.

She works with the principle that when we can be with and integrate all parts of ourselves, we will each have a greater sense of who we are, where our individual purpose and pleasure lie and how to create a life we love.

She came into this work inspired to support couples create a relationship that works on all levels. Today, her clientele ranges from couples to teenagers and the elderly - people of all ages, descriptions and identities.

Aisha is fully accredited by the ACSB and a professional member of the Association of Somatic & Integrative Sexologists.

Pleasure is a necessity: resourcing our bodies with joy Picture

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Pleasure is a necessity: resourcing our bodies with joy

In this free webinar, somatic sexologist, bodyworker and life coach Aisha Paris Smith joins advaya to talk about the necessity of pleasure in our daily lives.

Somatic tools for a joyful reality Picture

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Somatic tools for a joyful reality

In the upcoming six-week online course with Aisha Paris Smith, Joy and the Body, we will step into somatic awareness, exploring body-based practices, and observing the openings, shifts, and releases they facilitate. Ahead of the course, advaya converses with Aisha about what somatic tools are and how they can be so powerful in creating a joyful reality.

Joy and the Body: an introduction Picture

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Joy and the Body: an introduction

Welcome to Joy and the Body, a six-week online course, a journey into relating to your body afresh: truly, joyfully, and safely.

Processing an experience changes how it shapes us Picture

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Processing an experience changes how it shapes us

In the first week of Joy and the Body, Aisha Paris Smith reminds us to keep things simple: pay attention to what our body is saying. Honouring pain and suffering is the only way to let it move through us and hence leave. Consciously engaging with it changes how it shapes us somatically. Identifying so we can respond effectively helps support our bodies to regulate out of unpleasant and difficult experiences. Aisha offers some questions for us to process our experiences and feelings.

What is blocking your wants and desires? Picture

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What is blocking your wants and desires?

adrienne maree brown says: "Desire is a map that we have to follow, if we want to get to the end of the journey, the journey of becoming who we are." In the second week of Joy and the Body, Aisha Paris Smith unpacks wants and desires, and what they reveal about our bodies and selves. What do wants support? What happens when we voice them? What happens when they are blocked? From fear of our own power, to doubting our self-knowledge, Aisha offers some reasons why our wants and desires may be blocked, and what repressing and blocking may look like.

How to build new and positive meanings about our bodies Picture

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How to build new and positive meanings about our bodies

Audre Lorde once wrote: "If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive." In the third week of Joy and the Body, Aisha Paris Smith talks about the importance of reclaiming the meaning we make about our bodies. How does meaning impact our access to all the goodness available inside our bodies? Other people and our environments and culture, the systems we live inside of, influnce our projections onto our bodies. Where does the meaning you attribute to your body stem from?

My biggest discovery was that you can literally recreate your life Picture

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My biggest discovery was that you can literally recreate your life

In the fourth week of Joy and the Body, Aisha Paris Smith talks about pleasure as a resource. When we know what feels good, we become more aware of what feels not good. Once we've experienced pleasure, we know we can aspire to more. In this clip, she talks about pleasure that is cost-free, within the body, and individual pleasure that weaves into a political act of reclaiming pleasure in under-resourced communities. She also shares a practice of mindful pleasure that you can do any time, any day, any where, for yourself.

Finding freedom from body shame Picture

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Finding freedom from body shame

In the fifth week of Joy and the Body, Aisha Paris Smith talks all about body shame. If you've been struggling with body shame, this might help to illuminate: why feeling shame may actually be important; what shame does in our bodies and how it blocks us from experiencing joy; how shame digs deep and impacts our sense of identity; what we do when unconscious and conscious shame comes out; and how we can find freedom from it, after accepting and sitting with it.

The body as a place of joyful expression Picture

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The body as a place of joyful expression

In the sixth and final week of Joy and the Body, Aisha Paris Smith invites us all to build our capacity to receive joy. How can the body be a place of magic when it comes to receiving and creating joy? As the course comes to a close, Aisha also shares an affirmation she holds close to her heart, to continue your journey in building a lifelong relationship with your first companion—your body.