The Embodied way

Somatic parts work and embodiment processing

‘Where you ache to be recognised, allow yourself to be seen’. Toko-pa Turner

A disconnection from our bodies can happen for many reasons, perhaps you strongly identify with your mind/thinking parts of you or maybe your body holds memories that make it feel unsafe.

A separation between body, mind and heart can create internal conflict, leaving parts of our inner world feeling unheard. Making contact with our inner worlds and the multitude of parts that live inside of us all, can support greater understanding, release and a sense of coming home.

We are living in a time where slowing down and listening to our bodies and inner worlds is rarely encouraged. In contrast, I often see people feeling the pressure of meeting the demands of the world around them, pushing through and overriding an already exhausted system.

There can be so many ways in which our body becomes exiled and we are left living inside our minds. There are also so many ways in which our bodymind can become whole and empowered again. Embodied therapy sessions and Somatic parts work creates space for this process to begin or for some; for this process to continue and deepen.

I feel driven and passionate about holding a therapeutic space for people to reconnect with their bodies and the stories that live there.

My approach is simple; return to listening and attuning to our inner world, hear the depth of intelligence that speaks from heart and body. Experience and integrate the union with the incredible, instinctive, wild animal within.

I am a great supporter of rest, slowing down and tending to the parts of us that hurt. A supporter of rest as rebellion against a system that moves so fast.

I also hold a candle for the energetic, the need to move, to release, to speed up. The energy of catharsis. Yes, all can be possible.

At the beginning of each session, I will support you in finding your ‘way in’ and beginning to arrive. This might be with words, through a guided meditation, with music, through movement, stillness, silence or tuning into awareness.

I encourage at least a few minutes to greet your body, mind and heart. This comes with an invitation to slow down and notice your experience and what is asking for your attention. This comes with no expectation only curiosity to how your process will begin and where it might take you. 

During a session, we will welcome words whilst engaging with, listening to, acknowledging and expressing with the body. Emotions are both experienced and processed in the body and mind, sessions will create room for your emotions to be felt, held, moved, heard and witnessed. All parts welcome.

Sessions provide a healing space for you to move into, move with and move through what has been and continues to be held in body, mind and heart. This space will create a chance for you to enter into your inner world, a world where our bodies and sensations offer doorways into meeting with our parts. Parts of us that may have been previously unknown, misunderstood, pathologized, criticised or exiled. Parts can show up in many ways, through body responses, posture, breath, behaviours and held unconscious beliefs, to name just a few.

I hold a space for you to explore the map of who you are, giving voice, movement and sound to your emotional, physical and energetic body. Allowing a process between what was, what is and what will be. I pay deep respect to finding safety and stabilisation throughout the process, honouring co-regulation and resourcing in sessions.

An important element to how I work is dual awareness; the process of being able to hold awareness and attention to more than one experience at the same time.

Developing a sense of self that can be alongside our parts as a compassionate inquirer helps support this process. Instead of being consumed by a part of you; you can begin to witness, notice and stay curious to any message or need that the part is trying to signal to you. This process allows you to be and journey into both the present and past at the same time. This echoes the journey of many healers and medicine people throughout time; the ability to walk and journey between worlds.

In trauma work the observer self; the one who sees, can offer a grounding experience rather than a re-traumatising one. I will often invite you to come back to the here and now and notice what is present within your awareness.

The beliefs that we have about ourselves and the stories that we have invested in can be felt in muscle tone, posture, breath, contraction and expansion. By engaging in dialogue and moving into a body process we can explore and where needed, lovingly challenge any held beliefs, creating more space and possibility for you to move into.

There will be an invitation to track sensations, listen to body parts communicate and give space for them to express and release. Be in stillness and movement, finding resources in your body that can help form and reform a sense of coming home to yourself.

By paying attention to the shapes that your body takes as you are speaking, you can somatically bridge back, tracking back to earlier memories that may have become frozen in time and now felt in your somatic emotional shape. We then listen to the deep wisdom in your body and heart and allow a process to begin.

I will be with you to witness, support, guide and offer my curiosity and openness to your process. I work in a collaborative intuitive way, with wholehearted belief in your power and wisdom. I may use a frame drum or music in session should it feel supportive for you in your process.

I draw upon practices from internal family systems/parts work, somatic experiencing, body mapping, dance movement psychotherapy and core Shamanism.

Mindful movement and visualisations are at the heart of what I offer in a session. 

If EMDR is appropriate to your process, this is something that can be woven into our embodied work together, this will involve taking a trauma history, resourcing, finding the connection between present day triggers and past experiences and accessing these past target memories to reprocess them. Bilateral stimulation may be part of an integrated process rather than a specific EMDR structure.