Find YES from your NO
This article relates to a very significant part of therapeutic work, whether its with a more traditional "talk therapy" program, Structural Integration, Osteopathy, prayer and meditation, or any other path of realizing and helping the self grow, improve health and balance, and deal with the basic struggles implicit to life. This article begins to touch the subject of how to turn your life around and begin to create what you want to create. We all tackle this subject many times in our lives, however, I have found that there are certain phases of life when one is more capable and ready to turn inward and actually face the voices and patterns which sabotage your own life.
Most people find their way to healing work when things in your life aren't going so well. It might be a break-up which etched a canyon of hurt in your heart or a divorce leaving questions beyond your ability to answer or even ask. It might be an issue with chronic pain, a question regarding necessary surgery, or another physical problem which must be resolved. You might finally resolve to get help because you have noticed that your depression is real, that you can't deal with alcoholism or your parents', your life is mirroring the abuse you received or your parents inflicted or some other pattern learned during childhood. Whatever you have taken on and must deal with, we all have a time in life -- and often more than once -- when we know we need to seek help outside of our family and friends to begin the journey from a NO to life and find a new YES, a new way to engage with life and find pleasure and meaning again.
My work is successful because I help you look at the patterns and understand them first in a traditional "talk therapy" sort of way. I have much training, especially through the professional 4-year program at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing (BBSH), in therapeutic skills of listening, witnessing, and analyzing patterns. I also have studied and been trained in understanding basic relationship patterns and sexuality, including all of our phases of success and failure. My own life struggle also took me deep into years of my own therapy and workshops in which I worked with therapists and healers of many paradigms including BBSH, Hikomi, Core Energetics, Pathwork, Meditation, Depth Psychology, and Jungian Analysis and dreamwork. I also have gone to healing sessions from Rolfers or Structural Integrationists, Osteopaths, Shamans, Medicine Men and Women, Homeopaths, Accupuncturists, Jungian analysts, sweatlodges and de-armoring and dance and art therapists as well. So from the beginning, I listen to you with a well-trained heart and help you understand that the issues you face which were implicit from the moment you were conceived and which mirror lessons of the soul at a very deep level.
The next phase of work, however, is more significant because it goes beyond your mind and what you think. I begin to work with the patterns and energy of the body itself. While understanding and analyzing yourself is good and a necessary step for change and personal growth, unless your body actually releases stored energetic patterns, you will not be able to make the changes you wish. In Jungian or Depth Psychology, we talk about the "Shadow Self" and literally this refers to the body, the deep body, or what is often called "Somatic Consciousness". It can also relate to what others might term the "lower self" or "instinctual self". It can relate to the conversation of Evil but it is not Evil. It is part of our body-psychology and life which is "in the dark" from our own outer consciousness. It's the part of us that reveals itself in the "slip of the tongue" or our miscommunications that might be harmful. It appears in dreams quite often as the child or as an animal. Often the body "says thing" that our minds have learned to disregard, or which are too threatening for the "ego self" to accept or control. It's this disconnect which is at the root of our problems and it is this disconnect which I wish to help you discover, release and bring to greater wholeness and consciousness so its not ruining your own life!
In one way of thinking, every disease, chronic pain issue, breakup or failed relationship or some other dysfunction of self relates to a split between what the mind thinks it should be doing or who it is AND what the body itself is feeling, perceiving and living.
Hence there is always a SPLIT between Body, Heart and Mind which is at the ROOT of dysfunction and unrest. So when you come to see me for sessions, I LISTEN TO YOUR EGO VERBAL SELF TALK ABOUT LIFE (this includes what others are thinking and so you are thinking as well but it might not really be what you think or feel) . . . AND I WATCH YOUR BODY MOVE AND TELL ITS STORY OF PATTERNS, PAIN, COMPENSATION, SURVIVAL AND JOY and its own honest childlike God Self .. . AND I FEEL YOUR HEART, ITS QUALITY, IT'S DESIRES, ITS IMPULSE. NOW I begin to help YOU INTEGRATE THESE THREE QUALITIES together in ONE Person, YOU.
One of the things we will talk about during your sessions is the way in which you are expressing a NO about life. When you begin to notice YOUR NO, you will be surprised to find how other people are also living and expressing NO in life. We can see the NO in each other in the way one might move one's hips or the way shoulders are hunched and arms tight. We notice the stiff upper lip or tightened chin. You might notice failure and loss of hope in the collapse of the chest. In how we relate, you might notice that others or you judge another or put down someone or use sarcasm in hurtful ways. One might turn away from supportive friendships, hide in aloneness beyond basic self nurturance, or choose drugs or even tv as a repeated attempt to escape real living and pursuing real interests and dreams. WE ALL have ways in which we say NO to life, living together constructively and consciously, and moving toward greater authenticity. Figuring out what your particular NO is will become part of the work we do together.
The YES to life is not as easy as it sounds. It takes practice, constructive work with yourself to turn your life around. You will need to discover the ways in which you sabotage your life or your thinking patterns which spiral downward into abuse, loneliness, fear or something else . .. and you begin to find a way to change that pattern into a positive one. It actually takes work . . . and that's important to know. If you want to create the life you would like to live, you have to work at it. That might mean getting up and doing yoga each morning or not eating the potatoe chips or finding a safer way to relate to your parents, ex, or colleagues. It often means change . . . but safe small changes that help you manage your life. Bottom line though . . . it is work. However with these sessions, it will make the work easier and faster as I help you understand with your mind and then clear and change negative strain patterns at bodylevel.
This is a process of Life itself, just like the trees outside which rest in winter and begin a new cycle of flowering in the spring, leafing out in summer, and fruiting in the fall. As we are part of Nature, we also have cycles and with each cycle, we work with a deeper layer of our Split and NO and resolve to bring more of our energy and heart into a YES.
The next article discusses the two practices which can help change your life.