Bodywork Explained
Why do you need bodywork for emotions?
Let's start at the beginning. What are emotions? Everyone has them, but few know how they work or why.
Emotions are energy in motion. E-motion. They're first created by your nervous system as a physical sensation in response to an outside event. For instance: if someone yells at you, your stomach might get tight, or maybe your throat. Then, your brain assigns meaning to the event and sensation. "I'm not safe, I did something wrong," etc. Even if the yelling wasn't about you, your body and nervous system responded before you had time to think. Your brain fills in blanks with the stories it's learned over time.
Emotions need an action in order to complete the cycle. If you felt fear in response to the yelling, you may have wanted to run away to seek safety. If it made you angry, you might have wanted to shout back or defend.
If you weren't able to do anything, that movement pattern (shout or flee) gets stored as energy in your body.
"Trauma" is trapped energy. Something happened to you and you weren't able to fully process it (complete the movement cycle) and it got stuck in your body.
Over time, if enough energy gets trapped, it starts to cause dysfunction in the body. This may show up as pain or tightness. It can even show up as autoimmune disease.
"Disconnection" is when awareness gets pulled out of the body. It's
the mind's way of protecting itself from a body that no longer feels safe.
Our brain is left to solve problems the only way it knows how- by thinking about it.
"Anxiety" happens because your body is trying to tell you that it's not safe, but you forgot how to listen. You're no longer connected to the body's signals. Your jaw is tight, but you didn't notice. Your back hurts, but you didn't ask why. Your stomach hurts, and you went to the Doctor. They gave you a diagnosis and a medication. That may have solved the symptom but not the problem.
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Your mind and your nervous system are designed to keep you safe, not happy. And that's exactly what they did. Seamlessly, in a way that you probably weren't even aware of. And, to quote John Barnes: "without awareness, there is no choice."
You didn't actively choose to leave your body, and that's ok. Now you know. Now you have the awareness to make a different choice. What happened to you wasn't your fault, but healing is your responsibility.
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That's where I come in.
​Gentle Bodywork and intentional movement with an experienced therapist allow the body to feel safe enough to move through the motions that were trapped, releasing the energy and the dysfunction. It helps restore the connection between mind and body, so you can feel your feelings instead of just thinking about them.
Coaching Explained
There's a story that lives in your body, and a story that lives in your mind. The story you tell yourself about yourself and what you believe is possible for you is what shapes your identity.
You are not your story.
You are not what happened to you.
Most of us don't realize how deeply we've identified with our struggles, not realizing those are stories and not truths.
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Your body doesn't know the difference between what's "real" and what's vividly imagined. It believes what you tell it. If your mind thinks "I'm not safe", your body prepares for danger. If it thinks "I don't belong", your muscles tense to protect you from rejection.
When you think the same thing over and over again, it becomes your truth, and your body reacts accordingly. Your body was conditioned to brace for danger because of a story that was unconsciously repeated.
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"Without awareness there is no choice."- JFB
You didn't actively choose to condition your body to prepare for a battle that may never come. That's ok. Now you have the awareness to make a different choice.
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Coaching helps identify what part of the story is no longer serving you so that you can let it go and write a new one.
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