As a therapist combining cultural healing from my First Nations' Ancestors with 'formal' qualifications in biodynamic craniosacral therapy my role is to facilitate a safe, supportive space of connection and deep listening. To be present with you as you journey into the felt experience of your body. To support you to safely be with the experience that is happening now, and assist the transmutation of the spaces that have long been held because they were too overwhelming at the time.  

Country is the primary holding space, the womb, offering the knowledge that we are whole, we are connected.  

If we are not feeling aware of our body, we might be struggling to also be aware of our connection with Country, with nature, with mother earth and with others. When we are experiencing disembodiment and dissociation, we need to feel safe enough, on a primal/subconscious level, to be able to become aware of the sensations of our body, to the felt experience of the moment. This awareness can initiate the journey of healing.

As we delve into our sensations, we notice all sorts of things, for example our heads might feel fuzzy, our body parts feel discombobulated. For example, we may feel like our head is floating like a talking bubble and is separate from the rest of our body.  We may feel that parts of us are missing, that our chest feels hard and cold like armour. We might talk about parts of our body like they are objects and not part of us. We might feel light, buzzy, absent, be aware of a fuzzy or nebulous outline, and not have a sense of particular parts of the body. 

When we are feeling safe and embodied, we may more readily access the feel, weight and shape of our feet as they connect to the earth, we might notice our body's texture, temperature and outline, our internal experience of our body. Our heads may feel clear and spacious.  We experience ourselves as whole – not parts that are separate and objectified, we are unified.  

Some of us need to practice being connected. By doing this, we are not trying achieve something, but to allow ourselves the time and space to pay attention to what we are actually sensing and feeling in the moment. This sounds simple, and it may be a 'simple' thing, but it is not easy to do especially as we are so often practicing objectifying rather than being. 

Part of the essence of trauma (originating from the Greek word for 'wound') is dissociation. Trauma, could also be called unconscious tension. Literally the brain has disconnected from the cognitive, felt awareness of parts of the body in order to escape from overwhelming sensory experiences that were unable to be fully processed at the time of traumatic experiences. In our cognitive view, which is often our 'reality', parts of our body are compartmentalised and hidden in an attic of sorts, locked away in boxes that have no labels and buried under layers and layers of traumatic experiences.

 When we are able to feel safe enough and supported to start to notice all these compartmentalised and hidden parts, as we become aware of the sensory feeling of our feet on the ground, the sensations of our body (literally the tissues, fluids, nerves, muscles, bones, spaces, energy) - we discover so many things we didn't realise we could know. For example, we realise hang on, that leg feels like it's missing and that arm is there, it feels soft, my chest feels hard like armour, my shoulder feels like it is not part of the rest of my body.

In this process of feeling, sensing, being, we walk towards the attic and we begin to discover these hidden parts ourselves, we look inside the boxes, and we are able to let go of the things that are no longer necessary for us to be carrying around unconsciously. This frees up space and energy that can be directed towards things we do need and do choose.

We need a guide here, some sunlight, some support to walk with us as we unpack these boxes.  Those boxes are heavy, they manifest as discomfort in being in the present moment, we feel things rising and pulsing and sparking and we find ourselves exhausted or hyped up or continually in tears.  It’s heavy.  But with someone to walk with us, to support us to hold those feelings in the moment and recognise that the experience that overwhelmed us has now past and we are safe, we have the strength to live through the experience, to thrive in it's release, that is healing.  

 If you are looking for a guide and support on your healing journey, book a healing session here.