Knowing What You Know

We often used words to distance ourselves from intense or uncomfortable feelings. That's okay! But what power there is in feeling those feelings! Many times the way to do that by tuning into our bodies. Our stomachs might tell us that we're anxious about a deadline. Our hearts might hold grief. Our throats may constrict to repress rage. Fatigue or even physical pain may be eclipsed by words about the pain or fatigue. When we feel our feelings directly and don't "talk over them," we have real control, not the illusion of control. We're fully informed. 

I can help you know the freedom and power of knowing what we know!

That's healing.

Finding and Unwinding

“Barn’s burnt down — Now I can see the moon.” ~ Mizuta Masahide, Art by Alfred Stieglitz

Barns can be beautiful. You've probably seen paintings and photographs of weathered, rustic barns....barns have charm. And I learned, in a visceral way, that yes, my barn was protective, but it also has/had charm. We all are inhabitants of barns. We all are both magnificent and mad...we're human. 

My barn burned down a few weeks ago. I was in a five-day CranioSacral workshop in which twelve advanced CranioSacral therapists treated each other. My barn is my adaptive self; the self/selves that had protected me, like a barn protects its inhabitants. My barn was my self-effacement, my self-consiousness, my self-censoring.

I can see the moon now.  It feels as if the moon itself burnt down the barn with its light. The moon, in this case, is my True Self, Spirit, my Spirit. My CranioSacral colleagues allowed Spirit (SpiritMoon?) to work through them and "saw" my True Self," and that honoring and channeling healed me. I feel reborn. 

As an anonymous Craniosacral therapy client stated ...it is still beyond me how something so gentle can have such powerful results."

Come try it. 

Your Inner Historian

We mostly want to clear out, avoid, or ignore our own pain. We want, and are often told, to “get over it.” “That happened so long ago, can’t you let it go?” or “Think positive. But what if that pain is a valuable messenger? 

I’ve found that the only way to move forward is to first learn the lesson, feel the pain. To Know, viscerally (and usually painfully), what happened. Did your father beat you? Did your mother ignore you? Were you called stupid or worthless? When these things happen, our psyches create Inner critics who repeat those words messages that were either covert or overt; verbalized or unspoken. Our Inner Critics, or Inner Shame-ers ineptly try to help us the only way they know how; they mimic.

AND, our psyches many times will create an Inner Historian. The Inner Historian does its best to teach us our own history. It advocates for our wounded self by designing lesson plans, scenarios, “plays” to show us what we need to know; to connect us with ourselves. You might call this “repetition compulsion.” The Inner Historian is persistent! It may nudge us towards toxic situations that repeat old dynamics. It doesn’t stop until we listen, until we feel, with self-compassion, the old pain. It doesn’t stop teaching until we learn what happened and learn that it doesn’t define us. It doesn’t stop until we feel compassion towards our wounded selves.

When we acknowledge, feel the pain, and learn the lesson, the Inner Historian is satisfied. The wounded one feels heard and loved. The Inner Critic can ease up or change roles. We don’t have to repeat our childhoods. 

Let me help you find that new, freer way of being, with the help of your loving Inner Historian.

Your Light

..what I hope you take from this is that you are already Whole, Powerful, and of the Light. 

The Body Speaks; Let's Listen

"There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Photograph by Edward Weston

The body speaks. Let's listen. 

One way that the body speaks is in metaphors.

One client's stomach says "I'm fed up!" Another client "can't swallow" her current situation. Repeated emotional trauma can manifest as an armored solar plexus; as the gut bracing for more "punches." A tiring living situation can show up as a pain in the butt. (The body sometimes has a sense of humor.)

How is this wisdom? The body is wise in localizing the pain, and creating a metaphor that can instruct, a message that can be de-coded. Your body can speak in symbols like a dream. 

I can be your body-whisperer, your somatic psychic. I can help you interpret your body's "dreams," and wise-up to yourself ;-)

You're an Animal!

"You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." ~ Mary Oliver

Photograph by Edward Weston

..."let the soft animal of your body love what it loves"... and it loves you! Why else would it fight infection, circulate blood, process nutrients, hold you up, and help you move. I wish that you could sense what I sense; maybe you can -- that our bodies love us like our animal friends do. Some of us are more able to feel love from and towards our pets than from our people! What if our bodies were loving us the same way our pets are? We ARE animals after all. We are made of the same stuff as our pets.

I See You

"The history of each person is contained within and expressed by their tissue, fluids, energetic qualities, and motion." ~ Dr. John Upledger, Art by Kathe Kollwitz

Dr. Upledger is my hero. He was an osteopathic physician with his feet grounded in science and his mind in the stars. He was smart enough to be a physician, open-minded enough to explore phenomenon not explored in medical school, and wise enough to know his limits. He was a visionary who understood that the mind and the body are indistinguishable, and that he was not the healer of this body/mind. It's our "Inner Physician," as he called it, or a higher power that heals. CranioSacral therapists just facilitate.

Like Dr. Upledger, I read your "history" in your tissues, fluids, and heart, gut, and mind! I listen deeply to your words and to your body and to your Inner Physician, AKA You! I hope you sense, and benefit from, the respect and caring that that deep listening entails.

Be a Tree

Trees do not preach learning and precepts. They preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. ~ Herman Hesse, Photograph by Eliot Porter

I aim to be like a tree. I don't preach; I stand-in as a rooted, Spirit-channeling accept-er and present presence. It's a kind of loving, calming neutrality that heals.

May your life be free from suffering

May your heart be open

May you know ease and joy in your body

May you share your gifts with the world

May you know your true self in this lifetime

Thai Buddhist blessing

Art by Henri Matisse

The Couch in Psychotherapy

Since Freud’s time, couches have been a kind of icon associated with psychotherapy.  How did that happen? Why did Freud’s clients lay on a couch and why are therapeutic couches rare these days?

Why a Couch?

From what I understand, Freud encouraged his clients to lie on a couch for two reasons 1) so that they would not look at him, and 2) so that they would relax and more easily free-associate. Was Freud self-conscious?  Have practices changed because contemporary therapists want their clients to look at them and not relax?  I wonder….

I doubt that Freud was self-conscious about his looks. Rather, I believe he felt that if clients looked at him during a session, they might detect body language or facial expressions that would influence their thoughts and feelings.  The clients might tune in to the therapist and attend to his/her needs instead of looking within. They might aim to please the therapist rather than explore their own psyche.

Relaxation and the Subconscious

Couches also facilitate relaxation.  When a client relaxes, free-association comes more easily. Free association is one of the key therapeutic psychoanalytic devices.  The idea is that the client, by not censoring her own flow of thoughts and words, accesses her subconscious.  The subconscious, according to Freudians, is a place of repressed drives, threatening impulses, prohibited desires.  Why access this scary place?  Because “what you don’t remember you act out.” An abused child may grow into an adult who subconsciously seeks an abusive mate so that she can work out what she couldn’t as a child.  Acquainting one’s self with subconscious desires brings understanding, a chance to process, and subsequent freedom from destructive desires. In the words of Dr. C. George Boeree, "When the client can be made aware of the meanings of his or her symptoms (through hypnosis, for example) then the unexpressed emotions are released and so no longer need to express themselves as symptoms.”* Freud wanted clients to relax to more easily access their subconscious and ultimately find relief and release.

Psychotherapy on a Massage Table

As a psychotherapist and integrative healer at the Lotus Center, I have similar goals.  Unlike Freud, however, I give clients the option of lying on a massage table. The results are basically the same. The client relaxes and looks inward and I am more able to focus on the client.   I can also focus more deeply on the client’s process and not on my own facial expressions or what the client thinks of my shoes.  (Seems that I’m the self-conscious one!...) It also allows me (with the client’s permission), access to feet, hands, elbows.  I’m thus able, through touch, to channel Reiki energy and sense the client’s energy.  I tune in to different parts of the body -- and sometimes bring the client’s attention to certain parts of his or her body. It allows me to use touch as a vehicle of healing. Most importantly, having the client on a massage table gives her/him a chance to tune into his/her body, notice sensations, and relax.  Relaxing the body facilitates inward reflection (accessing the subconscious), and mindfulness (awareness of present feelings and sensations). These are key goals of most psychotherapy approaches; self-awareness as a path towards understanding, freedom, and ease. And these are my goals also. I encourage clients to relax, look within, and love what they find.

So, to summarize, you could say that I’m a Freudian in the sense that I encourage bodily relaxation as an aid to psychotherapy. Whatever you call me, I would like to invite you to relax on my couch.

*http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/psychoanalysis.html