Feel to heal

I suggest, you take some time, to quieten down and sit with it all. Stop rushing around, trying to fill every moment. Can you just be still and be with your inner world?

This can be a terrifying concept, especially for the ambitious and the wounded.

Yet taking this step, will open up a new world for you, where you explore and come to know yourself, truly feel what lies within and observe it moving and transforming.

Difficult feelings will dissolve or change, pleasant feelings will merge and permeate.

A connection with your innermost Self and with reality will occur.

I have practiced and studied yoga for 24 years and in the last 5 years I have trained in somatic psychotherapy techniques. The most effective of which has been Embodied Processing.

Developed by 2 Australian therapists, themselves recovering from trauma, the techniques help us explore our inner world and uncover the roots of trauma, anxiety, depression, overwhelm, addiction and other stress related issues. See The Centre for Healing to learn more.

A session might include, meditation, movement, vocalisation, visualisation, muscle tightening & relaxing, grounding exercises and breathwork. It will always be practiced with sensitivity to your needs, led by you and supported by a relationship of safety, curiosity and compassion with your counsellor.

The work happens from the inside and allows the body to guide the inquiry into feelings, memories and deeper understanding. This then promotes healing and a new sense of hope and possibilities.

During the session, deep consciousness can occur and often at the end deep bliss, joy or gratitude are felt towards Self and life.

It asks for radical honesty. You become comfortable with uncertainty, which is a very real way to then live in the world.

It is not always pleasant and seeing old patterns and the shame that might accompany that, takes courage, but you will also find understanding and gratefulness for those strategies which played an important role at some stage in your development and you will see that the patterns no longer serve you and are no longer needed.

If we can play the role of adventurer, exploring our inner landscapes, with a lightness and yet a steadiness, then we can stay with whatever we discover. Your counsellor will be as curious and present as you are in the journey.

The processing isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about shedding what limits you. It’s about finding increasing levels of freedom. It's about becoming the authentic you.

Processing can be uncomfortable and confronting, but it is essential to growth and thriving. I learnt in my early years the fragility of life and this has inspired me to move fully into whatever comes, as we do not know how long we have in this body and with the people we connect with. Life is a precious gift with as much potential as you are willing to allow.

I have also found that not only our body can lead us, but nature too can be our teacher.

Nature shows us that growth takes patience, everything changes, darkness reveals the brightness of stars and moon, and the moon reflects the light of the sun.

No matter how long you've been in darkness, you can shine again.

The hardest thing about our feelings, is that modern society tells us to run from them.

We numb our pain, force cheerfulness on our sadness, tell the anxious to stop worrying and to be positive and we shame the anger.

If we can learn to welcome the feelings, just as the sky allows the clouds to appear, then we are on our way to becoming our true, unrepressed selves.

We have lost touch with our ancient and indigenous practices, tied to the rhythms of nature. We no longer sit around a fire and sing sadness together, we no longer dance under the stars and release our tensions. In Embodied Processing, we start to tap into that visceral and natural movement of feelings again. After a few sessions you will feel a sense of familiarity, like a deep remembering of what it is to be fully human… an aliveness.

After some time, you will find the ups and downs of life have less impact, you can allow the feelings to rise and fall, whilst not losing sight of your steady centre, your inner consciousness.

So how do we allow the feelings in an EP session?

First we find it in the body, emotions aren’t in your head. Where is the strongest sensation or the body sensation you are most drawn to? Your chest? Your throat? Your stomach? You might put your hand there or breathe into it.

We name it, discerning what exactly the feeling is, in emotional language and we might describe it… for example a “hot, red, spinning ball”.
Already the nervous system will be regulating, just through seeing and connecting with a feeling that the body wants us to feel.We don’t fight the feeling, we observe our relationship to it. We let it be. We don’t try to change it.  We see it, listen to it, come to know it and understand it.

We start to see we are not broken, but instead we are a beautiful complexity of patterns, rhythms and movement. It can become an awesome experience to observe the inner workings.

And we don ‘t need to rush any of it. We sit. We stay. We breathe.
Our emotions aren’t there to hurt us. They’re there to be felt, heard or seen. Not feeling them hurts, feeling them brings freedom.
If you stop running from them or repressing them, they will stop chasing you and making so much disturbance.

Trust me, you can find inner peace, you can repair damage, wounds will heal given the right conditions and nourishment.

Make contact with me if you’re curious. I have new spaces available in April and May, for online or in-person session. I offer a sliding scale of fees and am happy to discuss how we can find a way together, to support your needs.