To be ourselves fully – we must feel.
To feel – we must feel safe, so we can heal.
To feel safe – we must feel supported.
The body bears the burden – there’s an important link between our emotional concerns and our physical body-based symptoms and feelings.
Allow yourself to feel supported and held. Allow your energy to flow freely and feel safe and grounded in your body.
Everyone manages stressful and traumatic events differently.
Acknowledging that something terrible has happened to you in the past, is healing. It’s so important for us to create the space to feel. To pay attention to pain, traumatic events, heartbreak, addictive behaviours, eating disorders or grief – and to stop pretending that something terrible didn’t happen to us or that our pain isn’t important enough to pay attention to.
It’s so healing to be listened to – to feel in to and speak about your experience of the heartbreak, the trauma, the terrible thing. This is the first step towards healing and letting go of trauma.
Many of us don’t want to acknowledge pain or stress. We may self-medicate or numb out or feel disconnected from it. We can learn to stay with our discomfort and process painful emotions and feelings, so we don’t keep being pulled down by them. We can renegotiate of our nervous system response to pain and difficult emotions.
When you allow yourself to FEEL deeply into your body; and speak the pain (whatever it is) you will be able to slowly begin let go of trauma. When we are supported to do this — it’s amazing what opens up for us in our lives.
The foundation of a joyful life is the pleasure we feel in our bodies. Unconscious restraints block the flow of feelings in our body – and we can learn to be with our feelings as they are in this moment.
Feeling joy or pleasure in our bodies is impossible to feel when we are in survival mode.
Your body and heart are sacred; honour them.
Cultivate a practice of listening to your body:
1. Create space and time to be with yourself – close your eyes, notice your breath and feel the sensations in your body.
2. Ground in your seat. Allow yourself to feel supported by the earth beneath you.
3. Be with pain and difficult emotions – don’t turn away.
4. Cultivate a practice of gratitude and self-compassion for yourself.
5. Trust what arises in the space and silence.
With all the expectations on us as women, we can lose touch with our true selves.
We may feel driven by the should’s and expectations that prevent us from really knowing who we are and what it means to be a woman. We get so busy living or supporting other people’s lives that we often forget to live our own. And while we work hard to get everything done, we often forget this simple truth: that all we truly have is right now.
Somatic Experiencing and Somatic Practice give us permission to embrace the pause. The pause allows us to get to know ourselves deeply and take ownership of who we really are. When we truly live in the now, we open our hearts to a new way of being.
For generations, women have carried negativity and shame in the most vulnerable parts of their bodies—and it impacts not only how you feel about yourself, but also your health and vitality.
This can change. Tuning in to the feelings in your body is the beginning of a new journey – you can experience your body in a whole new light.
I work with a Relational, Attachment, Trauma-Informed and Somatic (body-focused) Therapeutic approach. One of the modalities that I use is Somatic Experiencing (SE).
What is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing is a modality aimed at being with symptoms that stem from mental and physical trauma. This form of therapy focuses on perceived body sensations in order to address the physiology of trauma and stress. The awareness developed in somatic experiencing sessions helps to release physical tension that may remain after trauma or a traumatic event.
When we experience emotional or physical pain, we can stimulate our natural healing mechanisms as a means of helping not only our nervous and muscular systems, but the organs of our bodies to continue to recover. It’s not just about “facing” the pain, or “curing” it by developing high tolerance and/or using medication.
The SE approach facilitates the completion of natural healing motor responses and the release of suppressed survival energy in the body. It accesses the origin of trauma symptoms through sensing, awareness, and mindfulness-based strategies. It uses gentle guiding strategies to help people develop better tolerance of unwanted bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.
SE combines the latest cutting edge-scientific research in fields such as traumatology, biology, neurology, psychology, attachment theory, and physiology. Somatic Experiencing also incorporates the research of Steven Porges’ (The PolyVagal theory) and Alan Schore’s research on trauma and attachment issues.
Who would benefit from SE?
Anyone who has experienced a threat, trauma, event, or circumstances where there was little or no support, the duration was intolerable or which made them feel stuck, or the event made them feel frightened, very angry, or overwhelmed may benefit from SE therapy. The remaining symptoms of such experiences may be that you are overreacting to the slightest sound or movement, that you are anxious, or in a state of shutdown, hypervigilant or feeling depressed.
You want to feel enlivened rather than depleted.
You want to trust yourself – to find the answers inside, rather than outside.
You’re busy and you have a full life.
You sometimes get overwhelmed by your obligations and the endless stream of messages from a culture that urges you to do more, faster, better.
To relax into receiving rather than burning the candle at both ends achieving.
Your body is the compass you can use to navigate the journey to trusting yourself.
It may feel impossible to carve out time and space to hear that voice, but the truth is… it is available to you now.
I truly believe in the power of this deep work to bring us home to ourselves, to ground us in the beauty our own bodies, and allow us to process pain and difficult emotions.
Strip away the layers of pain, shame, anxiety, addictive behaviours or disordered eating, so that you are able to feel deeply in to your body with more ease.
Find power and joy in your body again – or for the first time.
Somatic practice empowers us to inhabit our bodies as living, moving temples of natural intelligence and explore what it means to live in connection rather than in isolation.
We all need support to be with and transform pain and trauma.
Everything is waiting for you.
Somatic Body Learning & Practice and Somatic Experiencing sessions are available for you now. Waking you up to the innate wisdom of your body, to feel yourself below the level of thought, and to access your full beingness in flowing, fluid motion.
When we can feel ourselves, we are able to detect and understand the sensations and emotions our bodies signal to us – and we can connect with ourselves and others from a place of felt honesty and sensitivity, set better boundaries, and make clearer decisions about our interactions.
Creating Well-Being Through Nervous System Regulation.
Nurturing Connection, Restoration & Building Resilience.
Easing the Body ~ Calming the Mind ~ Opening the Heart.
Somatic Experiencing ~ Somatic Practices ~ Breathwork ~ Movement.
