BodyMind for you too

Constantly pushes and pulls life, in private or at work. You may be working on your personal development. Or recovering from just too much of everything at once. And sometimes, sometimes there is still something from your past that wants to be processed.

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Sessions may run overtime at no cost to you. Please leave ample time after the session so you can integrate and land on planet earth.

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Breath is life

Conscious breathing is living from your source

Breath is all-important in balancing Body and Mind. Your breath connects your body with your (sub)consciousness, regulating the autonomic nervous system. The breath is closely connected to all bodily functions and to my survival mechanism.

Inhalation activates, exhalation calms. Inadequate breathing, also called sub-ventilation, limits my life experience. Often this is due to (chronic) anxiety.

My body is “on,” danger is sensed, real or from a trauma reaction, my breath quickens, my heart rate speeds up, ready to flee or fight. And if there is nothing to flee or fight in the here and now, then I hold my breath, in fear or sometimes full-blown panic. My arms start tingling, there is too much cortisol in my blood that has no way to go. I’m stuck.

Consciously breathing out longer can then bring my system back to more peace.

Feeling lifeless, wanting to isolate myself and see no one, with dark thoughts and shame about who I am. My brain and gut are working at a low ebb. Then my body is stilled and wants to conserve energy. Until another signal comes that it is safer.

Consciously breathing in longer can then add energy to my system for more movement.

Your breathing has a lot of influence on your emotional experience. Each emotion has its own way of breathing. Understanding this can help you better follow your body’s signals.

By actively working with the breath in a BodyMind session, we can deepen the body experience and experience emotions that otherwise remain under the surface.

Touch can be done in many ways

You decide

Depending on your intention for the session and how you want to be dressed, touch can vary. That touch will be largely in the rhythm of your breathing. That’s how we keep in touch.

Each touch is meant to awaken your body and reactivate its connection to your brain. Releasing memories. Reduce tension. There are many roads to Rome.

The determining factor is what you are used to, what you experience as comfortable and safe, and what your intention is for the session.

Sometimes the unconditional presence of another human being is enough and sometimes it is important to be touched or held to deepen the inner experience or to get to parts of yourself that were previously unreachable.

There was once attention … unconditional …

Hope is stronger than fear

Above all, Bodymind offers perspective. No one is “broken,” irreparably damaged. At most, your security system will have to be readjusted. That takes love and attention and time. And an instantly experienced re-imagining of how safe once felt. And can still be felt. Together, if you like, we’ll look at these psychodynamics and where it affects you. In preparation for the core of our BodyMind session.

Trauma means ‘wound’

Small and large Trauma results from an event that was so overwhelming that it felt like a threat. An event we could not give meaning to from our experience up to that point. While no relevant caregiver was available to lovingly protect and give us meaning. We were on our own. Powerless.

The BodyMind has only 1 function: survival, by any means necessary. Anything to reconnect with the human herd. Just to avoid experiencing the abandonment despair of trauma. Never again!

Help! Save me!

So we look in our surroundings to see what alternative connection options are available. How do I reconnect with relevant elders? What appropriate behavior will keep me from being alone again? We mainly look at our parents, our teachers, spiritual guides and their behavior. From the unconscious thought, “If I do this, will you love me? Behold the birth of our conditioning. Everyone has to deal with it and everyone suffers from it later in life. Psychological and/or in physical form.

All conditioning has an end date. When is does not work anymore.

The way forward begins with understanding how this above works and then lovingly and mindfully feeling what wants to be felt. That everything is allowed to be there. This is not always easy or pleasant. Feeling old feelings in the present moment. Tolle talks about the Power of Now. The parrots in Aldous Huxley’s book Island are even trained to call out “Here and Now” all day as a reminder.

Here and Now

Why is living in the Now so difficult or even incomprehensible? Mostly because various, sometimes accumulated, traumas just feel too painful. Therefore, many people escape, dissociate, through social media, stories and gossip and all types of substance and behavioral addictions including brooding and compulsive thinking. Yes, thinking is also an addiction. Most psychological disturbances are dissociative in nature. Away from the here and now. Because the experience in the Now is perceived by the body as unsafe. Therefore, the movement is away from feeling.

Recovery by experiencing more consciously what wants to be felt

Others have gone before you